On June 12, 2009 the broadcast television industry switched over to a completely digital signal. For most people this change occurred fairly seamlessly and without a lot of fanfare. Why? Because their television sets were already equipped to accept a totally digital signal. Set top receivers like the ones used with satellite television service from ATTSavings.com ensured uninterrupted service when the switchover happened because they were already receiving, and subsequently delivering, a one-hundred percent digital signal.
For many, however, the conversion to the new digital broadcast standard required the purchase of a separate digital converter, primarily because their televisions were made prior to the advent of the ATSC digital standard in the mid-1990s.
With progress always comes some trying times, and viewers who had to make the purchase of a separate converter box - or even a new television if they wanted - certainly felt the brunt of those growing pains. Was the new television broadcast standard really going to be worth all the hoopla?
The conversion to an all digital signal was a long time in the making, and companies like ATTSavings.com were helping to set that early standard. Many companies were involved, and as you can imagine each wanted to do things a certain way.
The Grand Alliance, formed in 1987, wound up with four competing standards in 1990 for digital HDTV signal transmissions. Over the next four years, these various systems underwent many refinements and configurations along the way, as well as a host of rigorous tests, with planned improvements announced after each testing phase.
In 1994 the collaborative phase began, and the Grand Alliance was set to perform the final set of verification testing of what it hoped would be the new standard for digital HDTV. Some of the standards they were solidifying at that time were wide-screen 16:9 images, and 5.1 channels of surround sound known as the AC-3 format.
In 1995 the Grand Alliance published the completed ATSC standard, and in 1996 the ATSC standard that came to be known as A/53 was adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as the sole standard for digital broadcast of HDTV. It has been in use throughout North America, Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras ever since.
In 1997 the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences presented a Primetime Engineering Emmy Award to Grand Alliance companies for developing and standardizing the transmission and technology for digital television.
ATTSavings.com delivers you the very best in digital HDTV, and is continuing to help set the standard for digital broadcast television.