Television Industry News & Features

Television:
As Defined in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Television (often abbreviated to TV, T.V.; sometimes called , telly or the tube, bloob tube or boob tube, or idiot box in British English) is a widely used telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term may also be used to refer specifically to a television set, programming or television transmission. The word is derived from mixed Latin and Greek roots, meaning "far sight": Greek tele, far, and Latin vision, sight (from video, vis- to see).

Since it first became commercially available from the late 1930s, the television set has become a common household communications device in homes and institutions, particularly in the first world, as a source of entertainment and news. Since the 1970s, video recordings on VCR tapes and later, digital playback systems such as DVDs, have enabled the television to be used to view recorded movies and other programs.

A television system may be made up of multiple components, so a screen which lacks an internal tuner to receive the broadcast signals is called a monitor rather than a television. A television may be built to receive different broadcast or video formats, such as high-definition television (HDTV).

NTSC:
In North America, the basic signal standards since 1941 have been compatible enough that even the oldest monochrome televisions can still receive color broadcasts in 2007. However, the United States Congress has passed a law which requires the cessation of all conventional television broadcast signals by February 2009. If the law is not changed again, then after that date all NTSC standard televisions, with analog-only tuners, will go dark unless fitted with digital ATSC tuners, and the spectrum previously occupied by those analog channels will be auctioned off by the United States' Federal Communications Commission for other uses. The analog cut-off date has been changed by Congress in the past.

PAL and SECAM:
PAL and SECAM are expected not to be broadcast in Europe and Eurasia by the mid-2020s. PAL-M may have a similar decommissioning timeline.

The European Union has recommended its members to have closed down analogue terrestrial television by 2012. Luxembourg and the Netherlands had already completed their closedowns in 2006, and Finland and Sweden will have closed down their analogue broadcasts in 2007. Meanwhile, some countries may have difficulties making the 2012 deadline.

Digital Television:
Digital television (DTV) is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound by means of digital signals, in contrast to analog signals used by analog (traditional) TV. DTV uses digital modulation data, which is digitally compressed and requires decoding by a specially designed television set, or a standard receiver with a set-top box, or a PC fitted with a television card. Introduced in the late 1990s, this technology appealed to the television broadcasting business and consumer electronics industries as offering new financial opportunities.

Digital Formats and Bandwidth:
In current practice, high-definition television (HDTV), which is usually used over DTV, uses one of two formats: 1280 × 720 pixels in progressive scan mode (abbreviated 720p) or 1920 × 1080 pixels in interlace mode (1080i). Each of these utilizes a 16:9 aspect ratio. (Some televisions are capable of receiving an HD resolution of 1920 × 1080 at a 60Hz progressive scan frame rate—known as 1080p60—but this format is not standard and no broadcaster is able to transmit these signals over the air at acceptable quality.)

Standard definition TV, by comparison, may use one of several different formats taking the form of various aspect ratios, depending on the technology used in the country of broadcast. For 4:3 aspect-ratio broadcasts, the 640 × 480 format is used in NTSC countries, while 704 × 576 (rescaled to 768 × 576) is used in PAL countries. For 16:9 broadcasts, the 704 × 480 (rescaled to 848 × 480) format is used in NTSC countries, while 704 × 576 (rescaled to 1024 × 576) is used in PAL countries. A broadcaster may opt to use a standard-definition digital signal instead of an HDTV signal, because current convention allows the bandwidth of a DTV channel (or "multiplex") to be subdivided into multiple subchannels, providing multiple feeds of entirely different programming on the same channel.

This ability to provide either a single HDTV feed or multiple lower-resolution feeds is often referred to as distributing one's "bit budget" or multicasting. This can sometimes be arranged automatically, using a statistical multiplexer (or "stat-mux"). With some implementations, image resolution may be less directly limited by bandwidth; for in DVB-T, broadcasters can choose from several different modulation schemes, giving them the option to reduce the transmission bitrate and make reception easier for more distant or mobile viewers.

Television Programming:
Getting TV programming shown to the public can happen in many different ways. After production the next step is to market and deliver the product to whatever markets are open to using it. This typically happens on two levels:

1. Original Run or First Run – a producer creates a program of one or multiple episodes and shows it on a station or network which has either paid for the production itself or to which a license has been granted by the producers to do the same.

2. Syndication – this is the terminology rather broadly used to describe secondary programming usages (beyond original run). It includes secondary runs in the country of first issue, but also international usage which may or may not be managed by the originating producer. In many cases other companies, TV stations or individuals are engaged to do the syndication work, in other words to sell the product into the markets they are allowed to sell into by contract from the copyright holders, in most cases the producers.

In most countries, the first wave occurs primarily on free-to-air (FTA) television, while the second wave happens on subscription TV and in other countries. In the U.S., however, the first wave occurs on the FTA networks and subscription services, and the second wave travels via all means of distribution.

First run programming is increasing on subscription services outside the U.S., but few domestically produced programs are syndicated on domestic FTA elsewhere. This practice is increasing however, generally on digital-only FTA channels, or with subscriber-only first run material appearing on FTA.

Unlike the U.S., repeat FTA screenings of a FTA network program almost only occur on that network. Also, Affiliates rarely buy or produce non-network programming that isn't centred around local events.

Television Genres:
Television genres include a broad range of programming types that entertain, inform, and educate viewers. The most expensive entertainment genres to produce are usually drama and dramatic miniseries. However, other genres such as historical Western genres may also have high production costs.

Popular entertainment genres include action-oriented shows such as police, crime, detective dramas, horror or thriller shows. As well, there are also other variants of the drama genre, such as medical dramas and daytime Soap Operas. Sci-fi (Science fiction) shows can fall into either the drama category or the action category, depending on whether they emphasize philosophical questions or explosive space battles. Comedy is a popular genre which includes sitcoms (Situation Comedy) and animated shows for the adult demographic such as South Park.

The least expensive forms of entertainment programming are game shows, talk shows, variety shows, and reality TV. Game shows show contestants answering questions and solving puzzles to win prizes. Talk shows feature interviews with film, television and music celebrities and public figures. Variety shows feature a range of musical performers and other entertainers such as comedians and magicians introduced by a host or Master of Ceremonies. There is some crossover between some talk shows and variety shows, because leading talk shows often feature performances by bands, singers, comedians, and other performers in between the interview segments.

Reality TV shows show "regular" people (i.e., not actors) who are facing unusual challenges or experiences, ranging from arrest by police officers (COPS) to weight loss (The Biggest Loser). A variant version of reality shows depicts celebrities doing mundane activities such as going about their everyday life (The Osbournes) or doing manual labour jobs (Simple Life).

One of the television genres, the children's and youth genre is defined by the audience, rather than by the content of the programming. Children's programming includes animated programs aimed at the child demographic, documentaries for children, and music/variety shows targeted at kids. There is overlap between the children's/youth genre and other genres, such as the educational genre.

Television genres that aim to educate and inform viewers include educational shows, DIY programs on cooking, gardening, or home renovation, history shows, performing arts programs, and documentaries. Other genres which inform viewers include news, sports, and public affairs programming.

The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Television" and Wikipedia article "Digital Television"

Industry Watch: Television News & Features
Welcome to XTVWorld.Com's Industry Watch Section's Television News and Features Pages..

Here you will get updated news headlines, news briefs and speacial features from the world wide television industry. What's more - here you will also get to catch up with the latest video clips available on the same issue.

The topics covered in Industry Watch have been hand picked by our editors keeping XTVWorld.Com's technology savvy visitors in mind - and we hope you will find the topical news pages an useful tool for gathering regular information in the field of your industry.

The topics we have covered under "Television" are:

Features & Articles

• Business of Television  
• Global TV Scenario
• History of Television
• Music in Television

Television News Briefs & Headlines

• Analogue Broadcast
• Digital Broadcast
• Digital Editing
• Digital Recorder
• Digital TV
• DTH
• FireWire
• HD TV
• i TV
• IPTV
• Satellite TV
• Television Graphics
• Television Industry  
• Terrestrial TV
• TiVo
• Virtual Reality
• VSAT