What is digital television?

Digital television is based on the DVB standard (within Europe). DVB stands for Digital Video Broadcasting. Digital television is the successor to analogue television. The main advantages of digital TV are better picture and sound quality and the possibility of signal compression, which allows more television channels to be broadcast within the same bandwidth.

HDTV is the latest form of digital television, with even more lines (at least 720 or 1080 lines) and therefore an even higher image quality. And an aspect ratio of 16:9.

The successor to HDTV, UHDTV, is now available. This promises a resolution of 7,680 × 4,320 pixels. This new standard is 4x as wide and high as HDTV (maximum 1920 × 1080), so the resolution is 16 times higher.

Advantages of digital television

• Better image and sound quality (comparable to DVD or CD)
• Wider range of channels
• Interactive options such as videos on demand, etc.
• Hardly any loss of quality and not radiation- and noise-sensitive (digital signals are better packaged than analogue).

Forms of digital television

Digital television is available in a number of forms: terrestrial, cable, satellite or IP protocol.

If the digital signal is received over the air, it is called DVB-T. If the signal is received via cable, it is called DVB-C and via satellite it is called DVB-S. If the signal is broadcast via the IP protocol, it is called IPTV. This has been available since 2005.

Digital receiver

All (recently sold) televisions in Europe are now digital television sets. These digital devices have a built-in DVB-T tuner as standard. Some of these devices can also receive DVB-C (cable) and/or DVB-S (satellite) signals.

Depending on the type of receiver in your television set, you will need either an additional CI module or a digital receiver ('set-top box'). If your digital TV does not have the right type of receiver, you always need a separate digital receiver. This applies to both cable and satellite reception. The digital receiver is connected to your digital television via the HDMI port.

For any form of digital television, you also need a subscription with a smart card to be able to watch digital television. With the exception of the so-called Free-to-air channels via terrestrial or satellite; no subscription and/or smart card is required for this.

For digital television reception via terrestrial or satellite, you also need a separate (dish) antenna.

Encrypted

Most digital television providers transmit their digital signal encrypted ('scrambled'). This is to prevent unauthorized viewing of pay TV as much as possible. To decode this signal, a so-called CI module with associated smart card is required. Such a CI module can be placed in both your digital television and your digital receiver. Some digital receivers are equipped with a CI module and/or (Conax) card reader as standard.