February 17, 2009 marks the coming of a revolution. On this date all full power TV stations in the United States will switch to digital broadcasting. This will change the daily lives of millions of people and will also influence the US culture. The importance of TV in contemporary US will mark this simple “switch into digital broadcasting” as a revolution.
The transition into DTV (Digital TV) will enhance the picture quality, the sound quality and most importantly it will make TV interactive. Analog signal (similar to radio waves) will be substituted by digital signals (similar to binary computer language 0’s and 1’s). Digital signals take up less space on the broadcast spectrum, which allows broadcasters to transmit more data. The result will be HDTV imaging and 5.1 channel surround sound. More significantly, DTV will make TV more informative and interactive. Multicasting will allow one channel to be split into 5 section. (Children’s channel 5 will have extensions 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 and so forth) These extensions may be multiple viewing of different children reciting poetry, and one may even be interactive sing a long karaoke songs for children.
Finally, interactive TV will feature multimedia games and enable viewers to customize their TV experience. The morning news could be customized to check for relevant weather conditions, to follow the sports and the teams of a viewer’s interests, and to attain information on specific news stories. A viewer could locate a program, or related programs, by performing a key word search similar to those on ‘Google.’ For example, inputting ‘cardiology’ into an interactive EPG search would list multiple medical science programs.
The face of TV will change. In the 1950’s the introduction of TV helped shaped American Culture, with the introduction of TV dinners. Since then, TV has influenced our daily lives and is a key tool to the enormous consumer based “advertising industry.” The introduction of interactive TV, will definitely shape the future generations and their cultures. The revolution, that is a few months away, will change “the American culture.”
(For further information, and the principal article please visit: http://mason.gmu.edu/~ybhavnan/examplefinal.htm)
