Randy Hoffner

The broadcast station business suddenly seems to be less of a financial sure thing than it used to be.

Those who have been involved in the television industry for a while might remember that the first HDTV system to be commercialized was the Hi-Vision system.

In the 1950s, the movie studios made major efforts to lure people away from their newfangled TV sets and back into the theaters.

It is still difficult and expensive to manufacture large-screen OLED displays.

We interrupt the series that has been running in this column on "ultra resolution," to bring you a message about what's going on in television today.

As we celebrate TV Technology's 20th anniversary, it seems the perfect time to take a look back over our collective shoulders and see just how far television technology has come in the past 20 years.

Audio-video synchronization has been one of the major casualities of the DTV era. The industry has become well-aware of this problem.

Principal shortcomings, we will recall, include narrow viewing angles and slow response times. Let's look at how one shortcoming is being addressed.

"How did 48 kHz emerge as the professional digital audio sample rate?" As we will see, television had a great influence on this number.

If you have attended any recent tradeshow featuring displays or paid attention to the display press, you will have seen and heard about 1080p displays.

Today, it is apparent that the venerable CRT television set that we have been watching since the 1950s is living on borrowed time.

Previously, we have taken a look at how cesium clocks, the most-accurate time and frequency references available to us, work.