GLOSSARY

Advanced Television (ATV): The FCC's name for Digital Television (DTV).

Analog: A conventional TV signal, industry standard for more than 50 years.

Aspect Ratio: Screen width to screen height ratio. HDTV’s aspect ratio is 16:9 similar to a movie screen. Analog television aspect ratio is 4:3.

Back channel: A means of communication from users back to content providers. The back channel can be used to provide feedback from the viewer.

Bandwidth: The amount of spectrum, or space, available to each communications licensee. For digital conversion, the FCC has approved 6 MHz (megahertz) of broadcast spectrum per television broadcaster. It can be used for one analog signal, or one HDTV signal and one digital, or four multicast digital signals, and/or data transmission.

Channel: As in television channel; the television broadcast frequency. The over-the-air television channel assignments are set by the FCC (VHF or UHF) However, NJN also transmits its broadcast signal to cable which is assigned a tune-in number on your TV.

Datacasting: The broadcast of information and other services using a digital television channel. Broadcasters provide additional data or services through their DTV channels. For example, as a menu of choices on the TV or computer screen to find out more about what is being broadcast.

Digital Television (DTV): Transmitting a broadcast signal by encoding it as 0s and 1s - the digital binary code used in computers. DTV can provide high quality programming (HDTV) or provide multiple channels in the same bandwidth required for one channel of the current standard television.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC): Independent US government agency, directly responsible to Congress, and charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable.

Flat Screen: Flat screen displays use plasma display systems that do not require the use of CRTs (older, rear projection technology using tubes).

High Definition Television (HDTV): Has an aspect ratio of 16:9, with basically twice the vertical and horizontal resolution of NTSC television, 4:3.

Interlaced: A system that skips every other line of a picture on the first pass, then fills in skipped lines on the second pass. Indicated by "i" after the number of lines, as in "480i" or "1080i".

Multicasting: Broadcasting several programs at once via DTV on a single channel.

NTSC: National Television Systems Committee, the group that set the analog television standard 50 years ago, the current US standard.

Pixel: A shortened version of "picture element," or “dot”, the smallest element in a television picture. Many pixels make up the frame or picture on a TV or computer screen. Basically, the more pixels there are, the better quality the image.

Progressive Scanning: The ability of most computer monitors and high resolution sets to display all the lines (made up of pixels) of a picture at the same time. When talking about resolution, this method is indicated by indicated by "p" after the number of lines, as in "720p".

Resolution: A measure of the finest detail that can be seen, or resolved, in a reproduced image.

Set-top box (STB): VCR-sized electric converter box that plugs in to a TV set to convert analog and digital signals for viewing.

Simulcast: To broadcast the same program over two different transmission systems at the same time.

Standard definition Television (SDTV): A digital television system that is similar to current standards in picture resolution and aspect ratio.

Streaming media: Multimedia content - such as video, audio, text, or animation - that is displayed by a client as it is received from the Internet, broadcast network, or local storage.

Widescreen: Term given to picture displays that have a wider aspect ratio than normal. For example TV's normal aspect ratio is 4:3 and widescreen is 16:9.