Despite all of the ways in which HDTV has been promoted, there's still a fair degree of confusion about what HDTV is and how to best take advantage of it. Fortunately, Dish Network's HDTV service -Turbo HD, specifically- can take a lot of the guesswork out of HDTV so that you can enjoy this new technology without having to worry about the details. After all, when you sign up for a programming package that includes HDTV channels, Dish Network will make sure that you have the right receiver to process the HDTV signals and set up everything else for you. All you need to do is provide an HDTV set.
Of course, just because Dish Network takes care of all the details, that doesn't mean you necessarily have any idea what HDTV is or how it can improve your experience of watching TV. In fact, you might not have even known that you need an HDTV set before having read the above paragraph! All of that is okay because HDTV is pretty simple to understand when you know a few basic facts and are familiar with a few basic concepts.
First of all, you need to know that HDTV is a TV format and the HDTV set itself is the device that you need in order to watch TV of this format. Contrary to popular misconception, there's nothing magical about an HDTV set that somehow makes anything that you watch on it High Def. While it is possible to “up convert” normal standard definition programming to resolutions that are close to high definition, that's not the same as watching HDTV and most models don't even do that!
It's also important to know the differences between normal TV (standard definition) and HDTV (high definition). There is actually considerable overlap between the two formats. Both can have the 16:9 aspect ratio that we typically call “wide screen,” both can come in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, but the difference is that HDTV has to have those two features in order to be considered High Definition Television. Another difference, the one that HDTV cannot share with SDTV, is that HDTV can have significantly higher resolution in its picture. You see, standard definition TV pictures have four hundred and eighty horizontal lines of resolution. This is the maximum number of horizontal lines of resolution that a standard definition TV set can handle.
On the other hand, the minimum resolution that HDTV can have and still be considered high definition is seven hundred and twenty horizontal lines. Ideally, a HDTV picture should have one thousand and eighty horizontal lines of resolution. In case it's not obvious, a greater number of lines of resolution translates into a more detailed picture.
In summary, Dish Network's HDTV service supplies all of those things on all of its HDTV channels. In addition, Turbo HD provides the option of getting a programming package that doesn't have any standard def channels. This goes a long way toward eliminating redundancy in your programming package and maximizing your enjoyment of this great format. Hopefully this clears up some of the confusion about HDTV.
