AC-3: The 5.1-channel sound system specified in the Standard for Digital-HDTV. Also known as "Dolby Digital," AC-3 delivers CD-quality digital audio and provides five full-bandwidth channels for front left, front right, center, surround left and surround right speakers, plus an LFE (low-frequency effect) subwoofer, for a total of 5.1 channels.
ALiS: ALiS (Alternate Lighting of Surfaces) is a relatively new type of high-definition plasma panel design. On a conventional plasma TV, all pixels are illuminated at all times. With an ALiS plasma panel, alternate rows of pixels are illuminated so that half the panel's pixels are illuminated at any moment (somewhat similar to interlaced-scanning on a CRT-type TV). ALiS panels offer bright, clear picture quality, reduced power consumption, and extended panel life.
Analog TV: Analog technology has been in use for the past 50 years to transmit conventional TV signals to consumers. "Standard" television broadcasts in analog TV. Analog signals vary continuously, creating fluctuations in color and brightness.
Anamorphic video: Video images that have been "squeezed" to fit a video frame when stored on DVD. These images must be expanded (un-squeezed) by the display device. An increasing number of TVs employ either a screen with 16:9 aspect ratio, or some type of "enhanced-for-widescreen" viewing mode, so that anamorphic and other widescreen material can be viewed in its proper proportions. When anamorphic video is displayed on a typical TV with 4:3 screen size, the images will appear unnaturally tall and narrow.
Artifacts: Unwanted visible effects in the picture created by disturbances in the video transmission or processing. Examples include "dot crawl" or "hanging dots" in analog pictures, or "pixelation" in digital pictures.
Aspect ratio: The ratio of the width to the height of a direct-view picture or projected image. The standard aspect ratio for HDTV is currently 16:9 (rectangular, wide screen image). Standard Definition television broadcasts are 4:3 (traditional square format).
ATSC: Advanced Television Standards Committee. Formed to establish technical standards for the U.S. digital television system.
Audio/video inputs: Using a TV's direct A/V inputs to connect a DVD player, VCR, camcorder or other video component provides improved picture and sound quality compared to using the everything-on-one-wire RF antenna-style input. (If a TV is old enough that it only has RF-type inputs, that's reason enough to consider replacing it - DVD players don't normally have an RF output!)
Rear A/V inputs are used for components that normally are connected to the TV. Front A/V inputs allow to quickly and easily connect/disconnect a camcorder, second VCR, or video game console.
Audio outputs: Stereo audio jacks that connect a TV to a stereo or home theater system. There are two types - fixed, and variable. If a TV's fixed output is connected to A/V receiver, the TV volume can be control via the receiver's volume control. If the TV's variable output is connected to the receiver, the TV volume can only be control using the TV's remote.
Bandwidth: A range of frequencies used to transmit such information as picture and sound. For TV broadcasters, the FCC has allocated 6Mhz for each channel. For DTV, the maximum bit rate possible within the bandwidth is 19.4 Mbps, which is one HDTV channel. SDTV has a lower bit rate, therefore the bandwidth can accommodate more than one channel.
Bitrate: Measured as "bits per second," and used to express the rate at which data is transmitted or processed. The higher the bitrate, the more data that is processed and, typically, the higher the picture resolution. Digital video formats typically have bitrates measured in megabits-per-second (Mbps). (One megabit equals one million bits.) The maximum bitrate for DVD playback is 10 Mbps; for HDTV it's 19.4 Mbps.
Chrominance: The color component of a video signal that includes information about hue (shade) and saturation (intensity).
Color wheel: Central to DLPT technology's unique color filtration process, the color wheel is a small spinning disk composed of red, green, and blue filters which rotates at speeds exceeding 120 revolutions per second. The DMD (Digital Micromirror Device) briefly creates an image for each color. The viewer's eye combines these images to form a complete picture.
Comb filter: A comb filter's task is to remove residual chrominance (color) information from the luminance (brightness) signal. Comb filtering enhances fine detail, cleans up image outlines, and eliminates most extraneous colors. Comb filters are not required and not used with S-video or component video connections since those connections carry the chrominance and luminance information separately. There are 4 types of comb filters found in today's TVs:
- Glass - may also be referred to as an "analog" comb filter.
- 2-Line Digital - compares consecutive scanning lines within one field of video and makes adjustments to reduce cross-color interference.
- 3-Line Digital - compares 3 scanning lines within a field of video. By comparing more picture information, a 3-line filter further reduces color bleeding and dot crawl.
- 3D Digital - not only analyzes consecutive scanning lines within a field, but also analyzes the preceding and following fields. Results in improved color purity and a more stable video image, and nearly eliminates dot crawl and color bleeding. Also called 3D Y/C.
Component video: The three-jack component video connection splits the video signal into three parts (one brightness and two color signals). Component video has increased bandwidth for color information, resulting in a more accurate picture with clearer color reproduction and less bleeding. A growing number of TVs include component video jacks to provide the best possible picture quality (better than S-video or composite video) when connected to a compatible DVD player.
Special wide-bandwidth component video connections are capable of carrying wider bandwidth video signals, like progressive-scan DVD and digital television. All HDTV-ready TVs include at least one set of wide-bandwidth connections for connecting a separate HDTV tuner (or progressive-scan DVD player).
Composite video: A single video signal that contains luminance (brightness) and chrominance (color) information. A composite signal is better than an RF signal, but not as good as S-video or component video. A composite video jack is usually a single RCA-type.
Contrast ratio: Measures the difference between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks a display can show. The higher the contrast ratio, the greater the ability of a display to show subtle color details and tolerate ambient room light. Contrast ratio is important for front projectors, as well as flat-panel plasma and LCD TVs.
Compression: Compression refers to the reduction of the size of digital data files by removing redundant and/or non-critical information ("data" being the elements of video, audio and other "information"). Digital TV in the U.S. would not be possible without compression.
CRT (Cathode-Ray Tube) : A CRT ("picture tube") is a specialized vacuum tube in which images are created when an electron beam scans back and forth across the back side of a phosphor-coated screen. Each time the beam makes a pass across the screen, it lights up a horizontal line of phosphor dots on the inside of the glass tube. By rapidly drawing hundreds of these lines from the top to the bottom of the screen, images are created.
The regular "direct-view" TVs that most people watch have a single large picture tube, while CRT-based rear-projection and front-projection TVs use three CRTs: one each for red, green, and blue.
De-interlacing (also called line-doubling) : The process of converting an interlaced-scan video signal (where each frame is split into two sequential fields) to a progressive-scan signal (where each frame remains whole). De-interlacers are found in digital TVs and progressive-scan DVD players. More advanced de-interlacers include a feature called 3-2 pulldown processing. For TVs, de-interlacing is often referred to as "line-doubling" or "upconversion."
Digital: Digital refers to the circuitry in which data-carrying signals are restricted to one of two voltage levels, corresponding to logic 1 or 0.
Digital audio output: A connection found on HDTVs and HDTV tuners for sending the Dolby Digital audio of HDTV broadcasts to an A/V receiver with Dolby Digital decoding. The two most common types of digital output are coaxial and Toslink optical.
Digital Cable: A service provided by many cable providers, digital cable offers viewers more channels. Contrary to many consumers' beliefs, digital cable is not the same as High-Definition Television or digital television; rather digital cable simply offers cable subscribers the options of paying for more services. Digital Monitor: DTV monitors are televisions that can display a digital signal but lack an integrated tuner (unlike an integrated digital set), and thus cannot receive a digital broadcast signal without an additional set-top box.
Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) : The Digital Micromirror Device is an optical semiconductor chip populated with up to a million or more hinged, microscopic mirrors; in a DLPT projection system, these mirrors operate as optical switches to create a high resolution, full-color image.
Digital Television (DTV): Digital TV is the umbrella term encompassing High-definition Television and several other applications, including Standard Definition Television, datacasting, multicasting and interactivity.
Digital Tuner: A digital tuner serves as the decoder required to receive and display digital broadcasts. It can be included inside TV sets or via a set-top box.
Direct-view TV: The conventional and most common type of TV, which uses a single large (up to 40") CRT to display images. Other TV types include rear-projection and front-projection.
DLP (Digital Light ProcessingT) TV: At the core of every DLPT system is an optical Micro-chip called the Digital Micromirror Device, or DMD, which functions as an extremely precise light switch. The DMD chip contains an array of up to 1.3 million hinged, microscopic mirrors, each of which corresponds to one pixel of light in a projected image. By switching these mirrors on and off up to several thousand times per second, a DLPT system can translate a digital video or graphic source into a projected image with maximum fidelity.
There are two basic types of DLP projector: "single-chip" projectors use a single DMD chip along with a spinning color wheel, while much more expensive "3-chip" projectors dedicate a chip to each basic color: red, green, and blue.
Dolby® Digital: A discrete multichannel digital audio format that is the official audio standard for HDTV (and DVD). Dolby Digital is normally associated with 5.1-channel surround sound. Though this channel configuration is common, it is only one of several possible variations - a "Dolby Digital" soundtrack can mean anything from 1 to 7.1 channels.
Downconvert: A term used to describe the format conversion from a higher resolution input signal number to a lower display number, such as 1080i input to 480i display. Some HDTV tuners are able to downconvert digital HDTV signals for display on a regular analog TV.
DTS: Digital Theater Systems sound. Discrete 5.1 channel surround system similar but not the same as Dolby Digital. Dolby Digital is the DTV standard, but DTS competes with it on DVD and in the movie theaters.
DTV (Digital Television) : The new American digital broadcast TV standard, which began operation in late 1998, and will eventually replace the 60-year-old analog NTSC system. DTV comes in two basic flavors: widescreen, near-film-quality HDTV (High-Definition Television) with Dolby Digital audio, and medium-quality SDTV (Standard-Definition TV).
DVI (Digital Visual Interface) : A multi-pin computer-style connection intended to carry high-resolution video signals from digital set-top boxes (HDTV-capable DIRECTV, DISHNetwork, and cable boxes, plus a few DVD players) to HDTV monitors with a compatible connector. The signals are encrypted with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) to prevent recording.
EDTV (Enhanced-Definition Television) : A designation applied to televisions that can not only display signals in 480-line progressive (480p) mode, but which can also accept 480p signals from video sources such as progressive-scan DVD players. 480p picture quality is superior to standard analog TV (480i), but not as sharp as true HDTV (1080i or 720p).
Electronic program guide (EPG) : Provides an on-screen listing of available channels and program data for an extended time period (typically 36 hours or more).
Field: In interlaced-scan video, each complete frame is split into 2 sequential fields, each of which contains half the scanning lines of the frame. One field contains the odd scanning lines, and the other field the even lines.
Flat-panel or Flat-screen TV: Any ultra-thin, relatively lightweight TV - especially those which can be wall-mounted. Current flat-panel TVs use either plasma or LCD technology.
Frame: A complete, individual picture in a movie film. In a video signal, a frame contains all of the picture's scanning lines. The frame rate of a progressive-scan format is twice that of an interlaced-scan format.
Frame rate: The rate at which frames are displayed. The frame rate for movies is 24 frames per second (24 fps). In regular NTSC video, the frame rate is 30 fps. The frame rate of a progressive-scan format is twice that of an interlaced-scan format - example: the frame rate for 480i DVD is 30 fps (or 60 interlaced fields per second); for progressive-scan DVD at 480p, it's 60 fps.
Front projection TV: Front projection is a method of viewing that utilizes a video projector. The image is projected onto a separate unit, typically a retractable movie screen. The front projection method allows for projection onto screen sizes that exceed 25 feet. Front projection technologies include DLPT technology, CRT, and LCD.
Frequency: The number of times per second that a signal fluctuates. The international unit for frequency is the hertz (Hz). One thousand hertz equals 1 KHz (kilohertz). One million hertz equals 1 MHz (megahertz). One billion hertz equals 1 GHz (gigahertz). Television is broadcast in frequencies ranging from 54 MHz to 216 MHz (VHF) and 470 MHz to 806 MHz (UHF).
Full HD: Viewing a program at the maximum HD resolution; 1080p. Also see True HD.
Gain: Measures the light-reflecting ability of a projection screen. The higher the number, the greater the amount of light reflected back to the viewer(s).
HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) : HDCP encryption is used with high-resolution signals over DVI and HDMI connections and on D-Theater D-VHS recordings to prevent unauthorized duplication of copyrighted material.
HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) : Similar to DVI (but using much smaller connectors), the multi-pin HDMI interface transfers uncompressed digital video with HDCP copy protection and multichannel audio. Using an adapter, HDMI is backward-compatible with most current DVI connections.
High Definition Television (HDTV) : HDTV is a new television standard that uses digital signals rather than the current analog broadcast standard. HDTV signals contain 720 or 1080 horizontal lines of resolution compared to the 480 lines of resolution that analog provides. HDTV is also geared toward a rectangular wide screen format (16:9) for a true theater-like experience.
HDTV images are digitized and compressed before signal transmission to enable their tremendous quantity of information to pass through easily. The signals are then decompressed when they reach the television. From football to sitcoms, the result is a clear, crisp picture that brings every broadcast to life with more detail and truer color than any other picture format can offer.
HDTV-ready: Term used to describe TVs which can display digital high-definition TV formats when connected to a separate HDTV tuner. These TVs generally have built-in tuners for receiving regular NTSC broadcasts, but not digital. An HDTV-ready TV may also be referred to as an "HDTV monitor."
IEEE 1394 (also FireWire or i.LINK) : First conceived by Apple Computer (as FireWire®), then developed by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), this high-speed 2-way connection allows easy transfer of digital data between consumer electronics gear and computers. Found on some HDTV-capable TVs, tuners, and recorders.
Interactive Television: This is when TV programming features interactive content and enhancements, blending traditional TV viewing with the interactivity of a personal computer.
Interoperability: This refers to the ability of a system or a product to work with other systems or products without special effort on the part of the user. For example, interoperability would be required for a digital television set to be plugged into a VCR that is plugged into cable with all the components working together.
Interlaced scan: In a television display, interlaced scan refers to the process of re-assembling a picture from a series of video signals. The "standard" NTSC system uses 525 scanning lines to create a picture (frame). The frame/picture is made up of two fields: The first field has 262.5 odd lines (1,3,5...) and the second field has 262.5 even lines (2,4,6...). The odd lines are scanned (drawn on the screen) in 1/60th of a second, and the even lines follow in the next 1/60th of a second. This presents an entire frame/picture of 525 lines in 1/30th of a second.
Analog NTSC video uses interlaced scanning, as do several digital television formats. Formats that include an "i" (1080i, 480i) use interlaced scanning. See also progressive scan.
Keystone correction: "Keystoning" is a form of video image distortion that occurs with front projectors if the centerline of the projector's lens is not perpendicular to the screen. Keystoning results in an image which is shaped like a trapezoid rather than a rectangle - the top of the picture is wider than the bottom, or the left side is taller than the right, or vice versa. Most front projectors include "keystone correction" to correct this distortion. Some models have vertical keystone correction, while others include both vertical and horizontal correction. Although keystone correction allows greater mounting flexibility, it is a form of processing which usually has a slight softening and dimming effect on the picture.
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) : Liquid Crystal Display technology is one of the methods used to create flat-panel TVs. Light isn't created by the liquid crystals; a light source (bulb) behind the panel shines light through the display.
LCD or Liquid Crystal Display is widely used in portable computers, digital watches, and, more recently, in home entertainment products. An LCD display consists of a liquid crystal solution suspended between two glass plates. When an electric current is passed through the liquid crystal solution, it causes the crystals to align in a certain configuration. As a result, light can pass through certain crystals and not through others, thereby producing an image.
LCD technology is used in direct-view, rear-projection, and front-projection TVs, and is fundamentally different from the CRT technology used in conventional TVs.
LCOS (Liquid Crystal On Silicon) : The newest microdisplay technology, known as LCOS, consists of a liquid crystal layer on top of a highly reflective pixel grid which is connected to a Silicon semiconductor (Microchip). Crystals are turned charged to enable or disable varying amounts of the light source reflection to the view screen.
LCOS technology is used in rear-projection, and front-projection TVs.
Letterboxed video: A method for displaying the entire picture as seen in a movie theater. The resulting image width is much greater than its height. On a TV screen with standard aspect ratio (4:3), letterboxed videos appear with horizontal black bars above and below the image.
Light output: Measures the amount of light produced by a front projector. Expressed in "lumens" or "ANSI lumens," with a higher number indicating greater light output.
Lumen: The unit of measure for light output of a projector. Different manufacturers may rate their projectors' light output differently. "Peak lumens" is measured by illuminating an area of about 10% of the screen size in the center of the display. This measurement ignores the reduction in brightness at the sides and corners of the screen.
The more conservative "ANSI lumens" (American National Standards Institute) specification is made by dividing the screen into 9 blocks, taking a reading in the center of each, and averaging the readings. This number is usually 20-25% lower than the peak lumen measurement.
Luminance: The brightness or black-and-white component of a color video signal. Determines the level of picture detail.
MHz (Megahertz) : Equal to one million Hz. Video signal bandwidth is typically expressed in megahertz.
MPEG-2: The video compression standard used for digital television, DVD, and small-dish satellite TV. This adaptive, variable bitrate process is able to allocate more bits for complex scenes involving a lot of motion, while reducing the bits in static scenes. MPEG stands for Moving Picture Experts Group.
MPEG-4: A video compression standard used for digital television, DVD, and small-dish satellite TV. MPEG-4 allows higher compression that MPEG-2 which results in more bandwidth and the ability to broadcast more channels. MPEG-4 also allows for more interactive TV applications.
MTS (Multichannel Television Sound) : The method of broadcasting stereo sound over ordinary analog TV channels. MTS reception capability is built into virtually all stereo TVs and HiFi VCRs.
Multicasting: A technique of using a single Digital Off-Air channel to deliver multiple sub-channels is called multicasting. DTV broadcasters can choose to use all of there bandwidth for one high-definition program or they might subdivide the channel, giving most of the bandwidth to one high-def program (at a slightly reduced picture quality), and use the remaining bandwidth for one standard-definition program at a much lower picture quality. Alternatively, the broadcaster might deliver several standard-definition programs at the same time; all at a lower video quality.
Must-carry: This refers to the legal obligation of cable companies to carry analog or digital signals of over-the-air local broadcasters.
NTSC: Stands for National Television System Committee, which established our North American 525-line analog broadcast TV standard about 60 years ago. Although it is referred to as a "525-line" standard, we're only able to see 480 lines on a TV display. The new DTV digital broadcast standard will eventually replace NTSC.
Pan-and-scan: The process of transferring a movie or other source material to videocassette, DVD, or broadcast so that it fits the 4:3 aspect ratio of the NTSC system, as well as most current TVs. This results in a significant amount of lost picture information, particularly in the width of the image.
At the beginning of a movie on videocassette, a disclaimer about the moving is displayed "...formatted to fit the TV." That means it's been converted to pan-and-scan.
Picture-in-picture (PIP) : There are two basic types: 1-tuner picture-in-picture models require a VCR or other video component connection to provide the source for the second picture. 2-tuner picture-in-picture models have two built-in TV tuners, this enable watch two shows at once using only the TV.
Pixel: Short for "picture element." The smallest bit of data in a video image. The smaller the size of the pixels in an image, the greater the resolution.
Pixels Per Inch: Pixels per inch (PPI) is a measure of the sharpness (that is, the density of illuminated points) on a television display screen.
Plasma: This flat-panel display solution consists of millions of phosphor-coated miniature glass bubbles containing neon or xenon gas. An electric current flows through the screen causing certain gas filled cells to become plasma and emit ultraviolet light, triggering the phosphor coating to produce the proper color (red, green, or blue).
Progressive scan: Some digital television broadcast formats (1080p, 720p, 480p), and some higher-end DVD players, use a type of video signal known as progressive scan. Instead of splitting each video frame into two sequential fields like standard interlaced NTSC video, progressive-scan video displays the entire frame in a single sweep. So, where standard NTSC video displays 30 frames (60 fields) per second, progressive scan displays 60 full frames per second.
Displaying progressive-scan video requires more bandwidth (there's twice as much vertical information) and a faster horizontal scan frequency than interlaced video. Progressive-scan picture quality is more filmlike, with more fine detail and less flicker. For progressive-scan viewing, HDTV-ready TV is need.
QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) : A digital modulation format used for downstream transmission in cable TV systems - commonly used for cable HDTV.
Rear-projection TV: Typically referred to as "big-screen" TVs, these large-cabinet TVs generally have screens measuring at least 40". Until recently, all rear-projection TVs used three CRTs, which projected images against a mirror inside the cabinet, so that the images were then reflected onto the built-in screen. Newer rear-projection technologies include LCD, DLP and LCoS technologies.
Resolution: The sharpness of a video image, signal or display, generally described either in terms of "lines of resolution," or pixels. The resolution depends on two factors: the resolution of the display (Native) and the resolution of the video signal. Since video images are always rectangle-shaped, there is both horizontal resolution and vertical resolution to consider.
- Vertical resolution: The number of horizontal lines (or pixels) that can be resolved from the top of an image to the bottom. (Think of hundreds of horizontal lines or dots stacked on top of one another.) The vertical resolution of the analog NTSC TV standard is 525 lines. But, some lines are used to carry other data like closed-captioning text, test signals, etc., so we end up with about 480 lines in the final image, regardless of the source. So, all of the typical NTSC sources - VHS VCRs, cable and over-the-air broadcast TV (analog), non-HD digital satellite TV, DVD players, camcorders, etc. - have vertical resolution of 480 lines. DTV (Digital Television) signals have vertical resolution that ranges from 480 lines for SDTV, to 720 or 1080 lines for true HDTV.
- Horizontal resolution: The number of vertical lines (or pixels) that can be resolved from one side of an image to the other. Horizontal resolution is a trickier concept, because while the vertical resolution of all analog (NTSC) video sources is the same (480 lines), the horizontal resolution varies according to the source. Some examples for typical sources: VHS VCRs (240 lines), analog TV broadcasts (330 lines), non-HDTV digital satellite TV (up to 380 lines), and DVD players (540 lines). DTV signals have horizontal resolution that ranges from 640 lines for SDTV, to 1280 lines (for 720p HDTV) or 1920 lines (for 1080i HDTV).
Scaler: Circuitry that converts a video signal to a resolution other than its original format. Scaling can involve upconversion or downconversion, and may also include a conversion between progressive- and interlaced-scan formats. A scaler can be built into a TV, HDTV tuner, or DVD player, or may be a standalone component.
SDTV (Standard-Definition Television) : A digital television system that is similar to current standards in picture resolution and aspect ratio. The picture and sound will be clearer than NTSC, and its digital base will allow more than one program to be broadcast over the same bandwidth at the same time. Typical SDTV resolution is 480i or 480p.
Set-top box (STB) : Also called converter boxes, these receivers convert broadcasts (either analog cable, digital cable, or HDTV) for display on a television. HDTV-ready TVs (those without a built-in HDTV tuner) must be connected to a compatible HDTV tuner set-top box in order to receive digital television programs.
Standard Definition TV Format (SDTV): There are two main digital formats - HDTV and SDTV. SDTV typically does produce better quality images than that of traditional analog TV and pictures somewhat akin to digital cable. However, its images are not nearly as sharp as the images from the ultimate form of digital television ¾ High-definition TV (HDTV).
SVGA: This acronym is short for the "Super Video Graphics Array" display mode. SVGA resolution is 800 x 600 pixels.
S-video: Found on nearly all of the TVs we sell, this 4-pin connector usually provides a sharper, higher resolution picture by transmitting the chrominance and luminance portions of a video signal separately. The signals can then be processed separately, reducing interference. Direct S-video connections generally outperform composite connections when hooking up high-performance video components like DVD players, DBS receivers, and S-VHS and Hi8 recorders and camcorders.
Terrestrial Broadcasting: This is a broadcast signal transmitted "over-the-air" to an antenna.
True HD: When an HD signal maintains its true HD format from filming to viewing. This includes being filmed, broadcast in HD, as well as being viewed on an HD television with an HD receiver and HD cables. Also see Full HD.
UHF: Ultra high frequency, the range used by TV channels 14 through 69.
Upconversion: The term used to describe the conversion of a lower apparent resolution to a higher one. This process increases the number of pixels and/or frame rate and/or scanning format used to represent an image by interpolating existing pixels to create new ones at closer spacing. As an example, Sony TVs with Digital Reality CreationT can upconvert 480i video sources to 960i. Often referred to as "line-doubling."
VGA: This acronym is short for the "Video Graphics Array" display mode. VGA resolution is 640 x 480 pixels.
VHF: Very high frequency, the range used by TV channels 2 through 13.
Viewing angle: The maximum angle that an image can be viewed at from an off-center point without degrading picture quality.
Widescreen: When used to describe a TV, widescreen generally refers to an aspect ratio of 16:9, which is the optimum ratio for viewing anamorphic DVDs and HDTV broadcasts.
Friday March 02 2007 ©2006 EchoStar Satellite L.L.C. All rights reserved.