Watching the Super Bowl on digital TV/HDTV

by Jeff Dorsch, January 30th, 2008, 12:00 pm

Sales of digital TV sets and HDTV equipment traditionally spike in the month before the Super Bowl, and during the year-end holidays. If you’re going to watch the big game on a big-screen TV at home, at a party, or at a sports bar, here’s a look at the markets and technology behind those big displays.

Note: Digital TV (DTV) and HDTV are not interchangeable terms. Not all digital TVs are HDTV-capable. “Digital TV“ denotes TV sets that can receive digital broadcasts and cable programming. Starting next year, American TV stations will entirely switch over to digital broadcasts, ending the analog TV broadcasts they’ve made for decades. If you have an analog TV, you’ll need to get a converter box (purchases of which are being subsidized by the federal government) or buy a digital TV. “High-definition television” is a type of digital TV defined by higher resolution than traditional analog TV sets. Most US TV sets conform to the 512-line analog NTSC standard; HDTV sets have 720 to 1,080 lines of resolution.

There are three basic types of big-screen TVs: Liquid crystal displays, plasma display panels, and rear-projection TVs. For various reasons, LCD TVs are proving the most popular type among consumers. Here’s how they work.

DisplaySearch forecasts LCD TV sales will increase 27% this year to nearly $83B. (In contrast, plasma TV sales will grow 7% to $17B.) Among the leading vendors of LCD TVs are Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Sony, LG Electronics, and Philips. The three biggest manufacturers of thin-film transistor LCD panels are Samsung, LG.Philips LCD, and AU Optronics.

The market for semiconductors going into DTVs is estimated to be worth $8B+ a year. Among the vendors in the field are Analog Devices, Broadcom, MediaTek, Microtune, NXP, Pixelworks, Samsung, STMicroelectronics (which just bought Genesis Microchip, a DTV specialist), Texas Instruments, Trident Microsystems, and Zoran. Many of the same companies also address the HDTV chip market.

No doubt you’ll be more interested in potato chips than microchips while you’re watching the game on Sunday! Still, it takes a lot of sophisticated technology to enable your big-screen TV experience.