How does High Definition work?

So you went out and bought a high definition TV or mayber you want to buy a high definition TV, now what? Here’s how it works and here is why a lot of cable and satellite companies either don’t want you to know, or try to confuse you, about HDTV so you will give them more money thinking you are getting something that you are not.

First, a television program must be taped/recorded or broadcast live IN HIGH DEFINITION USING HIGH DEFINITION EQUIPMENT. We’ll call this Step 1. If this happens, then that program gets beamed via satellite to a cable provider’s satellite dish, your own satellite dish (like Dish Network or Direct-TV), or to your local television stations’ satellite dish. We’ll call this Step 2. If Step One and 1 and step 2 are true, then the purveyors of Step 2 must turn around and send it out to your television IN HIGH DEFINITION FORMAT. This is Step 3. If Step 3 is true and you have a high definition TV or a high definition ENABLED TV with a CONVERTER, then you will be able to see a program in High Definition.

Lots of things can go wrong to disrupt this fragile process. For example, Jeopardy is now recorded in High Definition by the producers of that show, it is beamed to satellites in High Definition format, but my local station who owns the rights to broadcast it locally does not broadcast it in High Definition. So in this case I don’t receive it in high definition. When I called my local TV station about this issue, they told me that it was too expensive to broadcast this particular program in this time slot in high definition, so they don’t..

Another example is that most cable stations like Comedy Central, HGTV, History Channel, Food Network, etc, etc, don’t even record or broadcast their programming in High Definition, so until they do, you will never receive these programs in High Definition even though you spent thousand of dollars on a high definition TV set and pay the cable company hundreds of extra dollars each month to receive their “high definition” package.

It could be years before all programming on all stations, cable or local, ever show up in High Definition on your High Definition television set.
Believe me, I LOVE HDTV and would rather watch a program that I “sort of” like in High Def, than watch a program I like better, in regular analog or digital standard definition. That is why I got rid of cable TV and bought a UHF/VHF Antenna. I receive all major network broadcasts that are available in High Definition and I know that so few “cable” stations are broadcasting in High Def, that it is not worth the money right now.

I do believe that in the next few years more cable stations and more network programs (remember right now only highly rated morning and prime time network shows are broadcast in high definition) will convert to High Definition but until I see that happen, you won’t see me writing one more check to my cable or satellite provider for High Definition that just isn’t there. I encourage you to do the same. Some day even your local news will be broadcast in High Def, however, by the time that happens, it will be time for a new TV.