How to Watch Digital TV

( Get your money's worth out of your new TV )

Our transition to Digital TV has brought with it a lot of baggage. What used to be simple has become quite complicated.

I would guess that at least half of the flat screen 16:9 digital TV's in operation are not set up correctly. Some folks are not watching High Definition but believe that they are.

If you have cable TV you should be subscribing to your cable services digital package. Many “basic” cable services do not deliver HDTV to your home. If you are going to invest in a new, “Wide-Screen” TV you might as well give it the signal it needs to produce the best picture it can.

Most Cable TV companies will supply you with a box. From this box to your TV you should be using a HDMI cable. That is the best way to feed your TV digital video and sound.

If you have a DVD player, you should at minimum have one with HDMI output. Or even better, a Blue Ray DVD player will provide the best video.

If your set has only one HDMI input and you have more than one HDMI source, you will need an HDMI switch box to switch between the two sources.

There is a lot of programming out there that is not HD.

The old TV Standard known as NTSC produced video in an aspect ratio of 4:3. Many TV programs are still delivered to your set in the 4:3 package. For instance, most local news is still produced in NTSC and only up converted to digital as a last step before being transmitted to the public. And is transmitted in a 4:3 package.

Smaller market stations have been investing all the capital in getting their new DTV Transmitters on line to satisfy the FCC's transition requirements. At the studio, things are pretty much same as always. Slowly, these stations will eventually convert to DTV at the studio level.

All of the programs produced over the years were produced in NTSC and still are running in syndication. Smaller cable channels are not required to switch to DTV under the FCC's transition so many of them still operate NTSC.

Do not let your TV stretch the picture to fill the screen.

Most newer TV's will have a button on the remote that lets the user change the way the TV deals with programming that does not fit the 16:9 aspect ration. You want to set this so a 4:3 program is displayed as a 4:3 box on your screen and a 16:9 program is displayed full screen.

Otherwise, your TV is stretching the 4:3 image to fill the screen and degrading the quality of the image. It is the first instinct of most to have everything displayed at full screen. However, doing this is sort of like covering 10sq feet of wall with 7sq feet of paint, something has to give.

Many folks look at these stretched images and believe they are watching HD. Nope. Technically, they are watching video that is degraded from what they saw on there old 4:3 set because the new HDTV is distorting the image. It is a case of bigger is not always better.

If you understand this and still insist on filling your screen no matter what you are watching, that is your choice. It is your TV and do with it what you want. We just want to educate you as to what is going on.

Case in point, my siblings and I, for Christmas two years ago, bought a new TV for Dad. The Cable Company he subscribes to sends him many stations in both standard definition and HD. His favorite channel is 11 and can be viewed by tuning the cable box to 11. They send the DTV feed on cable channel 611. He still watches 11 and his TV stretches the video to fit the screen…

He just doesn't care. Been watching 11 for too many years… And of course, If I adjust the TV so that 11 has black side bars he complains…

I suppose eventually cable companies will do away with the standard definition feeds but for now they remain so that you can still use your 4:3 TV in the bedroom or kitchen.

A friend of mine purchased a new 40inch LCD the other day and asked me to show him how to run it. He had the HDMI and a coax going from the cable box to the TV and was watching ESPN with the TV tuned to channel 3 and the cable box tuned to ESPN's Standard Definition channel… He was adamant that he was watching the US Open in High Def… I disconnected the coax, used the “input” button on his TV remote to find the HDMI input he was plugged into; found ESPDHD on the cable box; his jaw hit the floor when he saw the difference.

How many are watching substandard images and believing they are watching the best their TV can do..?

I am a member of our local VFW, they spent $1K on a new plasma and will not upgrade the cable service to the HD package. It's $10 more per month. When I told them that they could have got an LCD of the same size for $650 and used the savings to pay for the HD package for the next 35 months they argued, “Well, sure but we got a plasma, that' better right?”. Arghhh….

June has passed and with the migration to DTV is over right? Not hardly. I'm guessing it will be at least a decade before things become simple again.

Terms:

DTV, Digital Television : A standard for broadcasting television signals through the air, Analogous to FM or AM. Is not the same as HD or HDTV.

HDTV, aka HD . High Definition Television: A video format for display on wide screen 16:9 televisions.

HDMI: High Definition Multimedia Interface . An interface for interconnection between digital media components, i.e. Cable TV converter box, Computer graphics, DVD, Blue Ray, Xbox etc… Carries both digital video and audio in standard or High Definition.

Aspect Ratio . The ratio of horizontal to vertical size; for example, 16:9. A 32” 16:9 TV would have a screen 16” tall. (32/16) X 9 = 16

NTSC: National Television System Committee , established in 1940. NTSC is an analog television transition system.

SDTV or Standard Definition Television : Television systems that have a resolution that meets standards but not considered either enhanced definition or high definition. The term is usually used in reference to digital television, in particular when broadcasting at the same (or similar) resolution as analog, (NTSC) systems.

Many people are unaware that the icons that are used in the default configuration for Windows are not fixed but can be changed to suit a PC user's preference. Why should your desktop look like everybody else's? Put your own picture on the folder My Computer. Give all those folder icons some character. In this article we will learn some of the ways to spruce up the computer's appearance.

Where to Find New Icons

Before discussing how to change your icons, we need to know how to find a supply of possible new icons. Every Windows computer already has many files containing a wide range of icons. Many of the program DLL files have icons embedded in them. Also there are some special DLL files that are icon collections. These embedded icons are not immediately visible and viewing them requires either some special software (see list of references in the sidebar) or one of the Windows procedures given below. Depending on your version of Windows, files with icon collections may include cool.dll, moricons.dll, and shell32.dll. Many other DLL files will have one or two icons embedded. The DLLs are usually in the folders Windows , Windows\System , or in XP in the folder Windows\System32.

If the supply of icons that comes with Windows is too limited for your tastes, collections of icons can be downloaded from many places, some free, some not. There is also software for creating your own icons. Some references are given in the sidebar.

Shortcut Icons

The icons for shortcuts are easy to change in all versions of Windows 9X/Me/XP. Right-click on a shortcut to open the context menu and choose "Properties". The properties sheet contains a button "Change Icon." (Figure 1) Click this button to obtain the box shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1. Properties for a shortcut

Figure 2. Change icon

The entry for "Look for icons in this file:" will show the source of the present icon and the "Browse." button will allow for the selection of a different source file. The various icons contained within a source file will be displayed and the one that you wish can be selected. The source file in Figure 2 is a type known as an icon library. These files have the extension ICL. A file can also consist of just a single icon and nothing else and these files have the extension ICO. Unless you download icon collections from one of the many Internet sources, however, your icons are likely to be in a DLL file. Use the browse function (Figure 3) to search for icon-containing files on your computer. Browsing through files while in the "Change Icon" window will display whatever icons are embedded. Note that the entry for "Files of type:" has several choices. When first looking for icons, it is best to choose "All files".

Figure 3. Browse window for changing icons

Folder Icons

The default setting for icons for folders is the same rather boring generic manila folder. If, like me, you have some folders that you would like to individualize, Windows XP makes it easy to change. Right-click on a folder and open "Properties". Click the "Customize" tab on the properties sheet (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Customize tab on folder properties sheet (Windows XP)

Click "Change icon" and proceed as for shortcuts. The procedure for changing folder icons in Windows 98/Me is more complicated and involves a file called "desktop.ini". See the Microsoft reference in the sidebar.

Making Your Own Icons

The references in the sidebar list some software designed for creating icons but if you feel artistic you can draw your own, using most graphics programs. Or if you have digital photos or other graphics that you like, you can convert them into icon files. The only trick is to remember that icon files have a format of their own and must have the extension ICO. They are typically small files sized either 32x32 or 48x48 pixels. Other sizes are possible but these two are the most common. Color depth is frequently set at 256 colors.

An easy way to make new icons without a lot of special software is to use the Windows accessory Paint that comes with all computers. Use Paint to draw whatever graphic is desired and then save the file as a 32x32 bitmap (extension BMP) with 256 colors. There is one more step and that involves changing the format to ICO. There is a very nice free graphics program called IrfanView , which makes this quite easy. Use IrfanView to open any bitmap file that you created with Paint and then save as a file of type ICO. Presto, you have an icon file. IrfanView is also good for editing, cropping, altering, and enhancing digital photo files and other graphics so it can be used to create icons from your own photos or other graphics. Use IrfanView to open a photo of your dog, crop it or edit it to your taste and then save it as an icon file with extension ICO. The file can then be utilized as an icon as described in the sections above

Courtesy: vlaurie.com