NTSC, named after the National Television System Committee, is the analog television color system that was introduced in North America in 1954 and stayed in use until digital conversion. It was one of three major analog color television standards, the others being PAL and SECAM.
A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the source signal into content in a form that can then be displayed on the television screen or other display device. They are used in cable television, satellite television, and over-the-air television systems, as well as other uses.
Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a transcription of the audio portion of a program as it occurs, sometimes including descriptions of non-speech elements. Other uses have been to provide a textual alternative language translation of a presentation's primary audio language that is usually burned-in to the video and unselectable.
Composite video is an analog video transmission that carries standard definition video typically at 480i or 576i resolution as a single channel. Video information is encoded on one channel, unlike the higher-quality S-video and the even higher-quality component video. In all of these video formats, audio is carried on a separate connection.
Radio Data System (RDS) is a communications protocol standard for embedding small amounts of digital information in conventional FM radio broadcasts. RDS standardizes several types of information transmitted, including time, station identification and program information.
Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards are a set of standards for digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable, and satellite networks. It is largely a replacement for the analog NTSC standard, and like that standard, used mostly in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Other former users of NTSC, like Japan, have not used ATSC during their digital television transition because they adopted their own system called ISDB.
Multichannel television sound, better known as MTS, is the method of encoding three additional channels of audio into an analog NTSC-format audio carrier.
NOAA Weather Radio is an automated 24-hour network of VHF FM weather radio stations in the United States that broadcast weather information directly from a nearby National Weather Service office. The routine programming cycle includes local or regional weather forecasts, synopsis, climate summaries, synopsis or zone/lake/coastal waters forecasts. During severe conditions the cycle is shortened into: hazardous weather outlooks, short-term forecasts, special weather statements or tropical weather summaries. It occasionally broadcasts other non-weather related events such as national security statements, natural disaster information, environmental and public safety statements sourced from the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Emergency Alert System. NOAA Weather Radio uses automated broadcast technology that allows for the recycling of segments featured in one broadcast cycle seamlessly into another and more regular updating of segments to each of the transmitters. It also speeds up the warning transmitting process.
In a raster graphics display, the vertical blanking interval (VBI), also known as the vertical interval or VBLANK, is the time between the end of the final line of a frame or field and the beginning of the first line of the next frame. It is present in analog television, VGA, DVI and other signals. During the VBI, the incoming data stream is not displayed on the screen. In raster cathode ray tube displays, the beam is blanked to avoid displaying the retrace line; see raster scan for details. The signal source, such as a television broadcast, does not supply image information during the blanking period.
Terrestrial television systems are the encoding or formatting standards for the transmission and reception of terrestrial television signals. There were three main analog television systems in use around the world until the late 2010s (expected): NTSC, PAL, and SECAM. Now in digital terrestrial television (DTT), there are four main systems in use around the world: ATSC, DVB, ISDB and DTMB.
The All-Channel Receiver Act of 1962 (ACRA), commonly known as the All-Channels Act, was passed by the United States Congress in 1961, to allow the Federal Communications Commission to require that all television set manufacturers must include UHF tuners, so that new UHF-band TV stations could be received by the public. This was a problem at the time since most affiliated stations of the Big Three television networks were well-established on VHF, while many local-only stations on UHF were struggling for survival.
Station identification is the practice of radio or television stations or networks identifying themselves on-air, typically by means of a call sign or brand name. This may be to satisfy requirements of licensing authorities, a form of branding or a combination of both. As such, it is closely related to production logos, used in television and cinema alike.
EIA-608, also known as "line 21 captions" and "CEA-608", was once the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It also specifies an "Extended Data Service", which is a means for including a VCR control service with an electronic program guide for NTSC transmissions that operates on the even line 21 field, similar to the TeleText based VPS that operates on line 16 which is used in PAL countries.
Datacasting is the broadcasting of data over a wide area via radio waves. It most often refers to supplemental information sent by television stations along with digital terrestrial television, but may also be applied to digital signals on analog TV or radio. It generally does not apply to data which is inherent to the medium, such as PSIP data which defines virtual channels for DTT or direct broadcast satellite systems; or to things like cable modem or satellite modem, which use a completely separate channel for data.
Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a videotex standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipped television sets. Teletext sends data in the broadcast signal, hidden in the invisible vertical blank interrupt area at the top and bottom of the screen. The teletext decoder in the television buffers this information as a series of "pages", each given a number. The user can display chosen pages using their remote control.
Below is a glossary of terms used in broadcasting.
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compression techniques to reduce the size of each individual program stream, and multiplexing to combine them into a single signal. The practice is sometimes called "multicasting".
A free-to-air or FTA Receiver is a satellite television receiver designed to receive unencrypted broadcasts. Modern decoders are typically compliant with the MPEG-2/DVB-S and more recently the MPEG-4/DVB-S2 standard for digital television, while older FTA receivers relied on analog satellite transmissions which have declined rapidly in recent years.
Teletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules. Subtitle information is also transmitted in the teletext signal, typically on page 888 or 777.