Sony hdtvglossary schematic

16:9

Shorthand for the ratio of the dimensions (also known as “aspect ratio”) of a wide­screen TV. While most TVs sport square screens, newer ones look like theater
screens—they’re 16 units across and 9 units high. DVDs and HDTV broadcasts are
formatted for this 16:9 aspect ratio. In fact, the shape is part of the U.S. standard for
all HDTV broadcasts. (See WIDE-SCREEN.)

4:3

Shorthand for the ratio of the dimensions (also known as “aspect ratio”) of a
traditional TV set. This square shape works fine for broadcasts, but it’s not wide
enough to handle big-screen movies. To show these on an old-fashioned TV, the
filmmakers have to lop off 25 percent from the left or right edge, or resort to the
letterbox format, which involves blacking out a strip at the top and bottom of the TV
screen to preserve the entire movie image. (See LETTERBOX.)

5.1

The number of channels used to create one kind of surround sound—often
synonymous with Dolby ® Digital technology though, there are other formats (i.e.,
DTS®). Instead of two speakers, 5.1 uses five speakers and a subwoofer—audio
engineers insist on the “.1” because a booming subwoofer can only issue a narrow
range of bass tones. (See DOLBY® DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY and SURROUND
SOUND.)

5C

A copy protection technology for films and television content, named to designate the
five companies that founded it: Hitachi, Intel, Panasonic, Sony, and Toshiba. The
5C’s Digital Transmission Content Protection System (DTCP) scrambles the image
data so that unlicensed copies cannot be made, and uses the first all-digital
connection for video equipment, i.LINK® interface.

8-VSB

The transmission standard for digital television in the U.S., endorsed by the Federal
Communications Commission in 2001. The letters indicate that it is the number 8
mode of vestigial sideband modulation. All receivers made in the U.S. are 8-VSB
compatible.

AC-3®

The technical name for Dolby ® Digital technology. The “AC” stands for Audio Code
and the “3” means version 3. (See DOLBY® DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY.)

A/V inputs

Often used to quickly connect a DVD player, videogame console, or camcorder,
these three connectors can be seen on the back or front of almost every TV: one for
video (yellow) and two for stereo audio (either red and black or red and white). The
yellow plug is called “composite video.”

active scan lines

The tiny rows of pixels on a television screen. (Any inactive scan lines are involved
with helping the television keep its internal timing.) You can see the active scan lines
if you look closely with a magnifying glass; there are 480 lines on a typical analog
NTSC TV screen; a Hi-Scan® screen has 1,080 lines. The number of active scan
lines provides a good initial test for a screen’s clarity, called its “native resolution,”

and tells you whether the set can display high-definition broadcasts in true high­definition resolution. (See NATIVE RESOLUTION.)

analog

Today’s TV systems using radio frequency waves to transmit and display pictures
and sound. (See DIGITAL.)

anamorphic

The technology that squeezes a wide-screen image onto a DVD—sometimes used
informally to refer to wide-screen formats in general. Many DVD producers use
anamorphic technology to save disk space, and most TVs and DVD players process
the film so that it looks normal onscreen. But many DVD players allow you to
temporarily watch the squeezed version—you can make Ali look like a bantamweight.
(See WIDE-SCREEN.)

aperture grille

The system of thin metal strands just behind the glass of any Sony® Trinitron
television. The aperture grille focuses the electron rays as they scan across the
phosphors of the screen and prevents electrons bound for one phosphor dot from
zapping the dot next to it. While many manufacturers use a shadow mask—a net of
crisscrossing fibers like a screen door—for the same purpose, Sony’s aperture grille
uses strands that run up and down. The result is a brighter picture without as much
distortion from heat. (See INTRODUCTION.)

aspect ratio

The proportion of a TV screen’s width to its height. Most TVs are 4:3 or 16:9. All
movies fit comfortably on a wide-screen TV, but many are a bit wider—Ben-Hur, an
extreme example, is almost three times wider than it is tall. (See 16:9, 4:3, and
WIDE-SCREEN.)

ATSC

All U.S. digital broadcasts are ATSC signals, which are named after the Advanced
Television Systems Committee, a group that formed in 1993 and today offers
technical guidelines on how digital television should be broadcast. The ATSC
standard supports many different display formats, from standard definition to high
definition. (See HIGH DEFINITION; compare NTSC.)

CableCARD

A cable-company-supplied device that slides into a set-top box or television. The card
IDs the user account and turns off protection safeguards so HDTV channels can be
watched.

cathode ray tube

Most direct-view TVs and projection sets use cathode ray tubes, or CRTs, to show
video. (See our explanation in the INTRODUCTION.)

CineMotion® Reverse 3-2 Pull- Down Technology

Sony’s term for a TV circuit that detects a 3-2 Pull-Down sequence and performs the
reverse or inverse operation. When film studios release their work on TV, DVD, or
videotape, they have to transfer film (which runs at 24 frames per second) to video
(which runs at 30 frames per second). How do you get 24 into 30 without speeding
up the film? Well, first take note that video actually flashes 60 half frames, called
“fields,” per second because of its interlaced scan. The film studio has a machine
(telecine) that takes one film frame and transfers it to three video fields, then takes
the next film frame and transfers it to two video fields—thus 3-2. The technology
makes it possible to watch films at home, but creates imperfections and subtle speed

shifts in the movie. A Reverse 3-2 Pull-Down circuit looks at the video as it’s coming
through the television, and in a split second rearranges the fields into whole film
frames like completing a puzzle. The surprising thing is that the TV’s circuit doesn’t
have to interpolate, or guess, how the film frames actually started out; it has all the
necessary clues and can re-create the film perfectly. Sony’s CineMotion® technology
takes additional steps to make the image as close to the original film as possible.
(See INTERLACED SCAN.)

comb filter

A group of circuits inside the television that improves analog broadcasts. A comb
filter’s job is to completely separate the light and dark information (called “luminance”)
from the color information (called “chrominance”) in a video image. Otherwise, the
television produces many small errors like crawling dots of light on the screen. The
term “comb,” of course, is only figurative.

definition

The measure of how well a person can see details on a TV screen, usually
expressed in terms of horizontal resolution. (See HORIZONTAL RESOLUTION.)

deflection yoke

The electromagnets inside a television tube that guide the electrons to each
individual phosphor dot on the surface of the screen. A flying electron changes its
course in the presence of magnetic energy. Early inventors of the television set
figured out a way to change the magnetic energy inside the tube with such accuracy
that the electrons could each be aimed at one of a TV’s hundreds of thousands of
tiny phosphor dots. (See Introduction.)

digital

The latest TV broadcast technology. To send a digital stream of information to your
television set, a TV station takes tiny slices of the video image, assigns a numeric
value to describe each slice, and mathematically encodes those values into
equations. A traditional analog transmission, in contrast, has a more direct
relationship to the pictures you watch. You could look at the television signals
through an oscilloscope and see how the frequencies and voltage changes affect the
sound, light, and color on your screen. In the audio world, this distinction means that
if you hold an old vinyl record to the light, you might see small dark bands where the
music grows louder and more dynamic. But the pattern of microscopic pits on a
digital CD has only the most complex mathematical relationship to the actual music.

digital-ready

A difficult term to translate on its own. May describe a TV set that has special
features for digital television. Or, it may refer to a television that can show high­definition broadcasts in true high-definition resolution. (See HI-SCAN®
TECHNOLOGY.)

Digital Reality Creation® (DRC®)

MultiFunction circuitry. Sony’s breakthrough in television technology, DRC® uses
digital mapping to convert a conventional TV image into its high-definition equivalent.
The system creates four times as much data for a more solid, more convincing
picture. This system enables you to choose between interlaced and progressive
display modes. (See ACTIVE SCAN LINES and PROGRESSIVE SCAN.)

Dolby® Digital Technology
An audio compression technology used for most DVD movies, it’s the U.S. standard
for sending audio as part of digital TV signals. (Its technical name is “AC-3®.”)