Digital Television

Abstract

With the introduction of digital technology in the production, distribution, and reception of the TV signals, an actual technological discontinuity occurred which—starting from the first half of the ’90s—has been putting pressure on the TV system thus originating an important transformation. The passage to digital TV is a technological phenomenon of the widest range from the standpoint of transmission capability, of efficiency of distribution networks, of image quality, and of flexibility and variety of performances which for the very first time widen the TV set’s field of use well beyond the programs’ traditional fruition. But this evolution’s value is not only technological. Indeed, it has a profound impact on the entire TV system: from the offer typologies to the consumption manners, from the technological and productive structures to business models. The market outlook, the operators’ typologies, the distribution systems are changing. The audience behavior and the TV watcher’s status are changing, as well as the nature of the medium and its function. In the previous section we described the evolution directives featured in the reference scenario. We will now analyse digital TV’s technological features with special reference to the advantages and limitations of the different manners of transmitting the digital signal.