Term Paper on "Digital Television and the Law"

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Digital Television and the Law

An Introduction to Digital Television and a comparison of Digital Television and Analogous Television:

What is Digital Television? As compared to Analogous Television that receives one electronic signal that is continuous in nature, the Digital Television uses the concept of a 'binary code' that means that the signal that it receives is composed of a series of ones and zeroes, in much the same way as that of a Computer. The encoding of zeroes and ones means that the signal that it receives is not a continuous process when compared to that of the analogous Television, but very similar to that of a computer, which receives coded signals in the form of zeroes and ones. (Glossary of Acronyms and Definitions) Digital television is capable of receiving signals that provide four to five channels in the same bandwidth that is required by the Analogous Television, and the pictures that are displayed are of better clarity and of a higher definition. Some of the other devices that use this digital technology are the Internet, a calculator, the Compact Disc, and the Computer. (Glossary of Terms)

Just as Compact disc stores music in the form of zeroes and ones, or in other words, a series of binary digits, the digital television is also represented in the same manner, just as a compact disc changed its form in order to better eliminate scratches so that the music would be clear of disturbances, so did digital television improve on the analogous television so that disturbances and interferences such as 'ghosting' could be removed. The most important improvement that happened in digital television is the fact that a computer chip can compress the entire thing in a small chip, and this means that digital television would be able to receive more channels in the same bandwidth, or, in other words, the signals can all be squeezed together into the same small space that an analogous television would occupy for one single channel.

The actual benefits of digital television are that there would be more channels and that the picture would be much clearer with lesser interferences than normal. In a comparative study of analogue television vs. digital television, the following points are very obvious: analogue television receives signals through an aerial. This means that the pictures would be affected by what is known as 'snow', and the images would be ghost like, and in addition, there would be a lot of interferences through cross channeling, because of the area of location of the aerial. In digital television, the signals receives are binary figures, and this means that the image demonstrates a good clarity. However, the digital image is liable to 'degrade' very quickly; this means that a person viewing an image on the digital television can either see a perfectly clear and beautiful picture, or he will not see any picture at all. (Digital TV, beyond the hype)

Though some providers of digital television like Sky claim that weather conditions do not affect the clarity of images on digital television, this fact has been demonstrated as not being true. Weather does affect digital images and there is a certain amount of corruption present. In fact, though the images are better than those of analogous television, the limitations of the compression technology that is used for digital television is apparent in the manner in which 'digital artifacts' or 'after images' as they are better known occur on the television when the picture changes much too fast, or even when other channels are fighting for the same bandwidth at the same time. Digital television must not be confused with 'high definition' television; in fact digital television occupies the same number of lines of 625, as the analogous television.

Though there are claims that the sound in digital television is better than that of the analogous television, it may not always be true. While analogous TV uses the 'Nicam Stereo Sound', digital television uses a newer and more developed technology for sound. However, there are still only two sound channels, and there is no obvious difference between the two sounds. Both analogous and digital television provide sound quality 'near' that of CD sound, but these are empty claims and the sound quality is nowhere as good as CD sound. However, it is a fact that some countries do use better technology for sound: while in the UK the sound is made up of two channels with MPEG audio, and because of the lack of bandwidth it is impossible to provide more, and the U.S.A. uses a system composed of five + one channels provided by the Dolby Digital Sound System. There are claims that digital television is 'interactive'. (Digital TV, beyond the hype)

The fact that digital television will offer tele text messages and a few program guides where the user can choose a particular page and it will appear automatically does not make it an actual interactive television. True interactive television is when an individual must, for example, when he wants to shop at home, by plug in his set top box into a phone line, but this is not part and parcel of digital television. Digital television providers- Sky as well as on-digital claim that they will provide interactive services such as e-mail to users; but how far this claim will be proven true remains to be seen. As regards the costs, there are some claims that digital television will cost more than the analogous television. However, this is true only to a certain extent. Some providers provide the digital boxes free of cost to all subscribers with a basic minimum rate of fee for one channel with some other free and other pay channels also forming part of the bargain.

Some providers give the set top box free when subscribers sign up for the 'Interactive Discount Contract' that would entitle them to a large number of free as well as pay channels in audio as well as in video, and the connection would be through the phone line of the user. The cable digital connection is an interesting proposition, which, at the time of the writing of this article is still in the planning phase. The Government demands that all digital television users have to pay an extra licensing fee for the television connection, annually. Though quite a few people feel that this is totally unnecessary and that it will actually have the result of slowing down takers for digital television, the extra fee will have to be paid when a person wants to change over to digital television. In addition, one particular set top box will not be bale to do the job for DTT, Digital Satellite, and Digital Cable, as all three connections are different and all of them need a different set top box. (Digital TV, beyond the hype)

However, this may change as enterprising entrepreneurs are researching newer techniques of connecting the DTT to the Digibox and so on. While in analogous television, the remote control provides the service of changing the channels, while watching digital television one can choose his favorite program from the 'Electronic Program Guide'. A single button on the remote control will provide the viewer with a list of channels and the programs that are on in each channel. For example, when a viewer is interested in sports, he has to choose it from the menu, and a list of all the sports channels comes up, from which he can choose the channel that he wants to watch. Another advantage that users of digital television enjoy is that of parental control and regulations, and yet another advantage is that the set top box can be regulated to remind the user when a favorite program is about to begin. Users can even record programs when he has to go out and will not be at home when the program is on.

It was in the year 1998 that the digital television was initially launched. BBC Choice was among the first to launch it, followed by SkyDigital. The next company to set up digital television was the FilmFour, after which DTT - Digital Terrestrial Television, also known as the Digital Network was launched and the first few Ondigital boxes were sold to the public. The DTT is actually digital television that is provided through an aerial, and a set top box that does the duty of decoding the compressed transmissions that are sent through the aerial. The analogue television system through which the majority of viewers watch television was replaced and about 30 new channels were provided. Though digital television has been launched with much fanfare, it still remains to be seen whether everyone is interested in paying more not only for the set top box, but also for quite a few channels that are now no longer free, and whether digital television will some day succeed in totally replacing analogous television is yet to be ascertained. (Digital TV, beyond the hype)

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