Public television stations are excited about the digital transition and the promise it holds for the local communities they serve. In a digital transmission system, images and sounds are captured and transmitted using the digital code found in computers as zeroes and ones. A digital television signal is capable of delivering up to 19.4 megabits per second (Mbps) of data over-the-air. As a result, digital television will offer viewers movie-quality pictures and the sharp sound of compact discs.
The "Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005" creates a hard date of February 17, 2009, for the cessation of analog television broadcasts, ushering in the era when all television stations will broadcast entirely in digital. This will have a major impact on public television stations, which operate under a federal mission to provide a free, noncommercial educational television service to all Americans. Meeting our universal service obligation is central to our mission, and APTS is working to ensure that the millions of American households that rely on television broadcast reception do not suffer unnecessary hardship when analog transmissions cease. Please visit The Digital Transition to learn more.
Through multicasting, public television stations will use digital technology to broadcast not only one stream of high definition digital programming, but also multiple streams of standard definition digital television programming at a visual quality better than the current analog standard. Multicasting enables digital public television stations to expand upon the rich diversity of high-definition, educational and children’s programming they provide. Local public television stations are introducing a new generation of programming and services that meet the educational and public safety needs of the communities they serve. New public television programming services include:
Viva TV, Create, and World are the next generation of public television programming slated to be made available as part of local public television stations’ multicast offerings. Please visit Multicasting to learn more.
Datacasting is a one-way broadcast service where data is encoded and transmitted over-the-air within a public television station's digital signal. The transmission is then decoded by an inexpensive receiver. Through datacasting, digital public television stations can wirelessly distribute streamed video and data files to computers and computer networks – with a capacity equal to thirteen T-1 data lines. Please visit Datacasting to learn more.
In July 2006, APTS and the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency displayed a homeland security application of public television datacasting as the backbone of the Digital Emergency Alert System (DEAS). APTS demonstrated the capabilities of digital broadcasting through a two-year project in the National Capital Region. The initial phases of the project included PBS, WETA, twenty-five other public television stations across the country, the FCC and NOAA. APTS and FEMA were also joined by partners in the commercial television, cable, cellular, paging and radio industries. Learn more about the DEAS Press Conference.
If you would like more information on the digital transition, please visit the sites below made available by the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau.
