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How Radio Works

"Radio waves" transmit music, conversations, pictures and data invisibly through
the air, often over millions of miles -- it happens every day in thousands of different
ways! Even though radio waves are invisible and completely undetectable to
humans, they have totally changed society. Whether we are talking about a cell
phone, a baby monitor, a cordless phone or any one of the thousands of other
wireless technologies, all of them use radio waves to communicate.
The list goes on and on... Even things like radar and microwave ovens depend on
radio waves. Things like communication and navigation satellites would be
impossible without radio waves, as would modern aviation -- an airplane depends on
a dozen different radio systems. The current trend toward wireless Internet
access uses radio as well, and that means a lot more convenience in the future!
The funny thing is that, at its core, radio is an incredibly simple technology. With just
a couple of electronic components that cost at most a dollar or two, you can build
simple radio transmitters and receivers. The story of how something so simple has
become a bedrock technology of the modern world is fascinating!
In this article, we will explore the technology of radio so that you can completely
understand how invisible radio waves make so many things possible!
The Simplest Radio
Radio can be incredibly simple, and around the turn of the century this simplicity
made early experimentation possible for just about anyone. How simple can it get?
Here's an example:

Take a fresh 9-volt battery and a coin.

Find an AM radio and tune it to an area of the dial where you hear static.

Now hold the battery near the antenna and quickly tap the two terminals of
the battery with the coin (so that you connect them together for an instant).

You will hear a crackle in the radio that is caused by the connection and
disconnection of the coin.

Your battery/coin combination is a radio transmitter! It's not transmitting anything

useful (just static), and it will not transmit very far (just a few inches, because it's
not optimized for distance). But if you use the static to tap out Morse code, you can
actually communicate over several inches with this crude device!
A (Slightly) More Elaborate Radio
If you want to get a little more elaborate, use a metal file and two pieces of wire.
Connect the handle of the file to one terminal of your 9-volt battery. Connect the

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other piece of wire to the other terminal, and run the free end of the wire up and
down the file. If you do this in the dark, you will be able to see very small 9-volt
sparks running along the file as the tip of the wire connects and disconnects with
the file's ridges. Hold the file near an AM radio and you will hear a lot of static.
In the early days of radio, the transmitters were called spark coils, and they created
a continuous stream of sparks at much higher voltages (e.g. 20,000 volts). The high
voltage created big fat sparks like you see in a spark plug, and they could transmit
farther. Today, a transmitter like that is illegal because it spams the entire radio
spectrum, but in the early days it worked fine and was very common because there
were not many people using radio waves.
Radio Basics: The Parts
As seen in the previous section, it is incredibly easy to transmit with static. All radios
today, however, use continuous sine waves to transmit information (audio, video,
data). The reason that we use continuous sine waves today is because there are so
many different people and devices that want to use radio waves at the same time. If
you had some way to see them, you would find that there are literally thousands of
different radio waves (in the form of sine waves) around you right now -- TV
broadcasts, AM and FM radio broadcasts, police and fire radios, satellite
TV transmissions, cell phone conversations, GPS signals, and so on. It is amazing
how many uses there are for radio waves today (see How the Radio Spectrum Works
to get an idea). Each different radio signal uses a different sine wave frequency, and
that is how they are all separated.
Any radio setup has two parts:

The transmitter

The receiver

The transmitter takes some sort of message (it could be the sound of someone's
voice, pictures for a TV set, data for a radio modem or whatever), encodes it onto a
sine wave and transmits it with radio waves. The receiver receives the radio waves
and decodes the message from the sine wave it receives. Both the transmitter and
receiver use antennas to radiate and capture the radio signal.
Radio Basics: Real-life Examples
A baby monitor is about as simple as radio technology gets. There is a transmitter
that sits in the baby's room and a receiver that the parents use to listen to the baby.
Here are some of the important characteristics of a typical baby monitor:

Modulation: Amplitude Modulation (AM)

Frequency range: 49 MHz

Number of frequencies: 1 or 2

Transmitter power: 0.25 watts

(Don't worry if terms like "modulation" and "frequency" don't make sense right now
-- we will get to them in a moment.)
A cell phone is also a radio and is a much more sophisticated device. A cell phone
contains both a transmitter and a receiver, can use both of them simultaneously,
can understand hundreds of different frequencies, and can automatically switch
between frequencies. Here are some of the important characteristics of a typical
analog cell phone:

Modulation: Frequency Modulation (FM)

Frequency range: 800 MHz

Number of frequencies: 1,664 (832 per provider, two providers per area)

Transmitter power: 3 watts

Simple Transmitters

You can get an idea for how a radio transmitter works by starting with a battery and
a piece of wire. In How Electromagnets Work, you can see that a battery sends
electricity (a stream of electrons) through a wire if you connect the wire between
the two terminals of the battery. The moving electrons create a magnetic field
surrounding the wire, and that field is strong enough to affect a compass.
Let's say that you take another wire and place it parallel to the battery's wire but
several inches (5 cm) away from it. If you connect a very sensitive voltmeter to the
wire, then the following will happen: Every time you connect or disconnect the first
wire from the battery, you will sense a very small voltage and current in the second
wire; any changing magnetic field can induce an electric field in a conductor -- this
is the basic principle behind any electrical generator. So:

The battery creates electron flow in the first wire.

The moving electrons create a magnetic field around the wire.

The magnetic field stretches out to the second wire.

Electrons begin to flow in the second wire whenever the magnetic field in the
first wire changes.

One important thing to notice is that electrons flow in the second wire only when
you connect or disconnect the battery. A magnetic field does not cause electrons to
flow in a wire unless the magnetic field is changing. Connecting and disconnecting
the battery changes the magnetic field (connecting the battery to the wire creates
the magnetic field, while disconnecting collapses the field), so electrons flow in the
second wire at those two moments.

When you connect the battery, the voltage in the wire is 1.5 volts, and when you
disconnect it, the voltage is zero volts. By connecting and disconnecting a battery
quickly, you create a square wave that fluctuates between 0 and 1.5 volts.
Simple Transmitters: Make Your Own
To create a simple radio transmitter, what you want to do is create a rapidly
changing electric current in a wire. You can do that by rapidly connecting and
disconnecting a battery, like this:
A better way is to create a continuously varying electric current in a wire. The
simplest (and smoothest) form of a continuously varying wave is a sine wave like
the one shown below:

A sine wave fluctuates smoothly between, for example, 10 volts and -10 volts.
By creating a sine wave and running it through a wire, you create a simple radio
transmitter. It is extremely easy to create a sine wave with just a few electronic
components -- a capacitor and an inductor can create the sine wave, and a couple
of transistors can amplify the wave into a powerful signal (see How Oscillators
Work for details, and here is a simple transmitter schematic). By sending that signal
to an antenna, you can transmit the sine wave into space.

Transmitting Information
If you have a sine wave and a transmitter that is transmitting the sine wave into
space with an antenna, you have a radio station. The only problem is that the sine
wave doesn't contain any information. You need to modulate the wave in some way
to encode information on it. There are three common ways to modulate a sine
wave:
Pulse Modulation - In PM, you simply turn the sine wave on and off. This is an easy
way to send Morse code. PM is not that common, but one good example of it is the
radio system that sends signals to radio-controlled clocks in the United States. One
PM transmitter is able to cover the entire United States!
Amplitude Modulation - Both AM radio stations and the picture part of a TV
signal use amplitude modulation to encode information. In amplitude modulation,
the amplitude of the sine wave (its peak-to-peak voltage) changes. So, for example,
the sine wave produced by a person's voice is overlaid onto the transmitter's sine
wave to vary its amplitude.

Frequency Modulation - FM radio stations and hundreds of other wireless

technologies (including the sound portion of a TV signal, cordless phones, cell

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phones, etc.) use frequency modulation. The advantage to FM is that it is largely
immune to static. In FM, the transmitter's sine wave frequency changes very slightly
based on the information signal.

Once you modulate a sine wave with information, you can transmit the information!
FREQUENCY
One characteristic of a sine wave is its frequency. The frequency of a sine wave is
the number of times it oscillates up and down per second. When you listen to an AM
radio broadcast, your radio is tuning in to a sine wave with a frequency of around
1,000,000 cycles per second (cycles per second is also known as hertz). For
example, 680 on the AM dial is 680,000 cycles per second. FM radio signals are
operating in the range of 100,000,000 hertz, so 101.5 on the FM dial is a transmitter
generating a sine wave at 101,500,000 cycles per second. See How the Radio
Spectrum Works for details.

Receiving an AM Signal
Here's a real world example. When you tune your car's AM radio to a station -- for
example, 680 on the AM dial -- the transmitter's sine wave is transmitting at
680,000 hertz (the sine wave repeats 680,000 times per second). The DJ's voice is
modulated onto that carrier wave by varying the amplitude of the transmitter's sine
wave. An amplifier amplifies the signal to something like 50,000 watts for a large
AM station. Then the antenna sends the radio waves out into space.
So how does your car's AM radio -- a receiver -- receive the 680,000-hertz signal
that the transmitter sent and extract the information (the DJ's voice) from it? Here
are the steps:

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Unless you are sitting right beside the transmitter, your radio receiver needs
an antenna to help it pick the transmitter's radio waves out of the air. An AM
antenna is simply a wire or a metal stick that increases the amount of metal the
transmitter's waves can interact with.
Your radio receiver needs a tuner. The antenna will receive thousands of sine waves.
The job of a tuner is to separate one sine wave from the thousands of radio signals
that the antenna receives. In this case, the tuner is tuned to receive the 680,000hertz signal. Tuners work using a principle called resonance. That is,
tuners resonate at, and amplify, one particular frequency and ignore all the other
frequencies in the air. It is easy to create a resonator with a capacitor and
an inductor (check out How Oscillators Work to see how inductors and capacitors
work together to create a tuner).
The tuner causes the radio to receive just one sine wave frequency (in this case,
680,000 hertz). Now the radio has to extract the DJ's voice out of that sine wave.
This is done with a part of the radio called a detector or demodulator. In the case of
an AM radio, the detector is made with an electronic component called a diode.
A diode allows current to flow through in one direction but not the other, so it clips
off one side of the wave, like this:
The radio next amplifies the clipped signal and sends it to the speakers (or a
headphone). The amplifier is made of one or more transistors (more transistors
means more amplification and therefore more power to the speakers).
What you hear coming out the speakers is the DJ's voice!
In an FM radio, the detector is different, but everything else is the same. In FM, the
detector turns the changes in frequency into sound, but the antenna, tuner and
amplifier are largely the same.

The Simplest AM Receiver

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In the case of a strong AM signal, it turns out that you can create a simple radio
receiver with just two parts and some wire! The process is extremely simple -here's what you need:

A diode - You can get a diode for about $1 at Radio Shack. Part number 2761123 will do.

Two pieces of wire - You'll need about 20 to 30 feet (15 to 20 meters) of wire.
Radio Shack part number 278-1224 is great, but any wire will do.

A small metal stake that you can drive into the ground (or, if the transmitter
has a guard rail or metal fence nearby, you can use that)

A crystal earphone - Unfortunately, Radio Shack does not sell one. However,
Radio Shack does sell a Crystal Radio Kit (part number 28-178) that contains
the earphone, diode, wire and a tuner (which means that you don't need to
stand right next to the transmitter for this to work), all for $10.

You now need to find and be near an AM radio station's transmitting tower (within a
mile/1.6 km or so) for this to work. Here's what you do:

Drive the stake into the ground, or find a convenient metal fence post. Strip
the insulation off the end of a 10-foot (3-meter) piece of wire and wrap it
around the stake/post five or 10 times to get a good solid connection. This is
the ground wire.

Attach the diode to the other end of the ground wire.

Take another piece of wire, 10 to 20 feet long (3 to 6 meters), and connect

one end of it to the other end of the diode. This wire is your antenna. Lay it
out on the ground, or hang it in a tree, but make sure the bare end does not
touch the ground.

Connect the two leads from the earplug to either end of the diode, like this:

Now if you put the earplug in your ear, you will hear the radio station -- that is the
simplest possible radio receiver! This super-simple project will not work if you are
very far from the station, but it does demonstrate how simple a radio receiver can
be.
Here's how it works. Your wire antenna is receiving all sorts of radio signals, but
because you are so close to a particular transmitter it doesn't really matter. The
nearby signal overwhelms everything else by a factor of millions. Because you are
so close to the transmitter, the antenna is also receiving lots of energy -- enough to
drive an earphone! Therefore, you don't need a tuner or batteries or anything else.
The diode acts as a detector for the AM signal as described in the previous section.
So you can hear the station despite the lack of a tuner and an amplifier!

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The Crystal Radio Kit that Radio Shack sells (28-178) contains two extra parts:
an inductor and a capacitor. These two parts create a tuner that gives the radio
extra range. See How Oscillators Work for details.
Antenna Basics
You have probably noticed that almost every radio you see (like your cell phone, the
radio in your car, etc.) has an antenna. Antennas come in all shapes and sizes,
depending on the frequency the antenna is trying to receive. The antenna can be
anything from a long, stiff wire (as in the AM/FM radio antennas on most cars) to
something as bizarre as a satellite dish. Radio transmitters also use extremely tall
antenna towers to transmit their signals.
The idea behind an antenna in a radio transmitter is to launch the radio waves into
space. In a receiver, the idea is to pick up as much of the transmitter's power as
possible and supply it to the tuner. For satellites that are millions of miles
away, NASA uses huge dish antennas up to 200 feet (60 meters ) in diameter!
The size of an optimum radio antenna is related to the frequency of the signal that
the antenna is trying to transmit or receive. The reason for this relationship has to
do with the speed of light, and the distance electrons can travel as a result. The
speed of light is 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second). On the
next page, we'll use this number to calculate a real-life antenna size.
Antenna: Real-life Examples
Let's say that you are trying to build a radio tower for radio station 680 AM. It is
transmitting a sine wave with a frequency of 680,000 hertz. In one cycle of the sine
wave, the transmitter is going to move electrons in the antenna in one direction,
switch and pull them back, switch and push them out and switch and move them
back again. In other words, the electrons will change direction four times during one
cycle of the sine wave. If the transmitter is running at 680,000 hertz, that means
that every cycle completes in (1/680,000) 0.00000147 seconds. One quarter of that
is 0.0000003675 seconds. At the speed of light, electrons can travel 0.0684 miles
(0.11 km) in 0.0000003675 seconds. That means the optimal antenna size for the
transmitter at 680,000 hertz is about 361 feet (110 meters). So AM radio stations
need very tall towers. For a cell phone working at 900,000,000 (900 MHz), on the
other hand, the optimum antenna size is about 8.3 cm or 3 inches. This is why cell
phones can have such short antennas.
You might have noticed that the AM radio antenna in your car is not 300 feet long
-- it is only a couple of feet long. If you made the antenna longer it would receive
better, but AM stations are so strong in cities that it doesn't really matter if your
antenna is the optimal length.

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You might wonder why, when a radio transmitter transmits something, radio waves
want to propagate through space away from the antenna at the speed of light. Why
can radio waves travel millions of miles? Why doesn't the antenna just have a
magnetic field around it, close to the antenna, as you see with a wire attached to a
battery? One simple way to think about it is this: When current enters the antenna,
it does create a magnetic field around the antenna. We have also seen that the
magnetic field will create an electric field (voltage and current) in another wire
placed close to the transmitter. It turns out that, in space, the magnetic field
created by the antenna induces an electric field in space. This electric field in turn
induces another magnetic field in space, which induces another electric field, which
induces another magnetic field, and so on. These electric and magnetic fields
(electromagnetic fields) induce each other in space at the speed of light, traveling
outward away from the antenna.
How the Radio Spectrum Works

You've probably heard about "AM radio" and "FM radio," "VHF" and "UHF" television,
"citizens band radio," "short wave radio" and so on. Have you ever wondered what
all of those different names really mean? What's the difference between them?
A radio wave is an electromagnetic wave propagated by an antenna. Radio waves
have different frequencies, and by tuning a radio receiver to a specific frequency
you can pick up a specific signal.
In the United States, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) decides who is
able to use which frequencies for which purposes, and it issues licenses to stations
for specific frequencies. See How Radio Works for more details on radio waves.
When you listen to a radio station and the announcer says, "You are listening to 91.5
FM WRKX The Rock!," what the announcer means is that you are listening to a radio
station broadcasting an FM radio signal at a frequency of 91.5 megahertz, with FCCassigned call letters of WRKX. Megahertz means "millions of cycles per second," so
"91.5 megahertz" means that the transmitter at the radio station is oscillating at a

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frequency of 91,500,000 cycles per second. Your FM (frequency modulated) radio
can tune in to that specific frequency and give you clear reception of that station.
All FM radio stations transmit in a band of frequencies between 88 megahertz and
108 megahertz. This band of the radio spectrum is used for no other purpose but FM
radio broadcasts.
In the same way, AM radio is confined to a band from 535 kilohertz to 1,700
kilohertz (kilo meaning "thousands," so 535,000 to 1,700,000 cycles per second). So
an AM (amplitude modulated) radio station that says, "This is AM 680 WPTF" means
that the radio station is broadcasting an AM radio signal at 680 kilohertz and its
FCC-assigned call letters are WPTF.
Radio Frequency List
Common radio frequency bands include the following:

AM radio - 535 kilohertz to 1.7 megahertz

Short wave radio - bands from 5.9 megahertz to 26.1 megahertz

Citizens band (CB) radio - 26.96 megahertz to 27.41 megahertz

Television stations - 54 to 88 megahertz for channels 2 through 6

FM radio - 88 megahertz to 108 megahertz

Television stations - 174 to 220 megahertz for channels 7 through 13

What is funny is that every wireless technology you can imagine has its own little
band. There are hundreds of them! For example:

Garage door openers, alarm systems, etc. - Around 40 megahertz

Standard cordless phones: Bands from 40 to 50 megahertz

Baby monitors: 49 megahertz

Radio controlled airplanes: Around 72 megahertz, which is different from...

Radio controlled cars: Around 75 megahertz

Wildlife tracking collars: 215 to 220 megahertz

MIR space station: 145 megahertz and 437 megahertz

Cell phones: 824 to 849 megahertz

New 900-MHz cordless phones: Obviously around 900 megahertz!

Air traffic control radar: 960 to 1,215 megahertz

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Global Positioning System: 1,227 and 1,575 megahertz

Deep space radio communications: 2290 megahertz to 2300 megahertz

Why is AM radio in a band at 550 kilohertz to 1,700 kilohertz, while FM radio is in a

band at 88 to 108 megahertz? It is all completely arbitrary, and a lot of it has to do
with history.
AM radio has been around a lot longer than FM radio. The first radio broadcasts
occurred in 1906 or so, and frequency allocation for AM radio occurred during the
1920s (The predecessor to the FCC was established by Congress in 1927.). In the
1920s, radio and electronic capabilities were fairly limited, hence the relatively low
frequencies for AM radio.
Television stations were pretty much non-existent until 1946 or so, which is when
the FCC allocated commercial broadcast bands for TV. By 1949, a million people
owned TV sets, and by 1951 there were 10 million TVs in America.
FM radio was invented by a man named Edwin Armstrong in order to make highfidelity (and static-free) music broadcasting possible. He built the first station in
1939, but FM did not become really popular until the 1960s. Hence the higher
frequencies for FM radio.
Radio Frequency Scanners
Most radios that you see in your everyday life are single-purpose radios. For
example, an AM radio can listen to any AM radio station in the frequency band from
535 kilohertz to 1.7 megahertz, but nothing else. An FM radio can listen to any FM
radio station in the band from 88 to 108 megahertz and nothing else. ACB radio can
listen to the 40 channels devoted to citizens band radio and nothing
else. Scanners are different.
Scanners are radio receivers that have extremely wide frequency ranges so you can
listen to all kinds of radio signals. Typically, scanners are used to tune in to police,
fire and emergency radio in the local area (so scanners are often called "police
scanners"), but you can use a scanner to listen to all kinds of conversations.
Generally, you will either:

Set a scanner up to scan (switch between) a whole range of frequencies and

then stop scanning when it detects a signal on any of the frequencies it is
scanning - If you're interested in learning what the police are doing, you can
scan the police radio frequencies in your local area. When a patrol car calls in
to report a problem, the scanner will stop on that frequency and let you hear
the conversation.

Set a scanner to a specific frequency and listen to that channel - For example,
say you want to listen to the transmissions between the control

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tower and airplanes at the local airport -- you can do this by listening to the
specific frequency used at the airport. Because a scanner can receive a huge
range of frequencies, you can set it to receive nearly anything on the air.

How Satellite Radio Works

We all have our favorite radio stations that we preset into our car radios, flipping
between them as we drive to and from work, on errands and around town. But when
you travel too far away from the station, the signal breaks up and fades into static.
Most radio signals can only travel about 30 or 40 miles (48 to 64 kilometers) from
their source. On long trips, you might have to change radio stations every hour or
so as the signals fade in and out. And it's not much fun scanning through static
trying to find something -- anything -- to listen to.
Now, imagine a radio station that can broadcast its signal from more than 22,000
miles (35,000 kilometers) away and then come through on your car radio with
complete clarity. You could drive from Tacoma, Wash., to Washington, D.C., without
ever having to change the radio station! Not only would you never hear static
interfering with your favorite tunes, but the music would be interrupted by few or no
commercials.
XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio each launched such a service at the
beginning of the 21st century. Satellite radio, also called digital radio, offers
uninterrupted, near CD-quality music beamed to your radio from space.
In February 2007, XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio announced their
plans to merge into a single company. XM and Sirius were both in debt, and believed
a merger would quickly solve that problem. They thought that the merger would
also lead to lower prices and more programming choices for consumers. Some
people were skeptical about the two companies joining, though, fearing a monopoly
would only reduce competition, raise prices and affect consumers poorly. Sirius and
XM received approval from the U.S. Department of Justice, but the companies
couldn't move until the FCC begrudgingly allowed the merger to go forward in July
2008. The new company goes by the name Sirius XM Radio.
Even though XM and Sirius had financial trouble, satellite radio still has a fairly
strong fan base. The new Sirius XM company has more than 18 million subscribers
[source: Sirius XM]. Car manufacturers have been installing satellite radio receivers
in some models for a few years now, and several portable satellite radio receivers
are available from a variety of electronics companies. In this article, you'll learn
what separates satellite radio from conventional radio and about the equipment
you'll need to pick up satellite radio signals.
Satellite Radio Systems

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Satellite radio is an idea over a decade in the making. In 1992, the U.S. Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) allocated a spectrum in the "S" band (2.3 GHz)
for nationwide broadcasting of satellite-based Digital Audio Radio Service (DARS).
Only four companies applied for a license to broadcast over that band. The FCC
gave licenses to two of these companies in 1997. CD Radio (later Sirius Satellite
Radio) and American Mobile Radio (later XM Satellite Radio) paid more than $80
million each to use space in the S-band for digital satellite transmission.
At this time, there are two space-based radio broadcasters:

Sirius XM Radio

1worldspace

Satellite radio companies are comparing the significance of their service to the
impact that cable TV had on television 30 years ago. Listeners aren't able to pick up
local stations using satellite radio services, but they have access to hundreds of
stations offering a variety of music genres. Each company has a different plan for its
broadcasting system, but the systems do share similarities. Here are the key
components of the two satellite radio systems:

Satellites

Ground repeaters

Radio receivers

Satellite radio works a lot like satellite TV -- you purchase a receiver and pay a
monthly subscription fee for a certain number of channels. For the moment, there
are slight variances in the three satellite radio companies' systems. In the next
three sections, we will profile each of the companies and their current satellite radio
services.

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This graphic illustrates how the XM Radio system works.

XM Radio
While XM Radio and Sirius have merged into a single company, the two services
aren't fully integrated yet. Part of the reason for this is due to differences in
hardware and software.
XM Radio uses two Boeing HS 702 satellites, appropriately nicknamed "Rock" and
"Roll," and two BSS 702 satellites it calls "Rhythm" and "Blues," placed in parallel
geostationary orbit, two at 85 degrees west longitude and the other two at 115
degrees west longitude. Geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) is about 22,223 miles
(35,764 km) above Earth, and is the type of orbit most commonly used for
communications satellites. The first XM satellite, "Rock," was launched on March 18,
2001, with "Roll" following on May 8 of the same year. A design flaw in the HS 702
satellite caused its solar panels to function inefficiently. XM launched "Rhythm" on
February 28, 2005, and "Blues" on October 30, 2006, to replace the older satellites.

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Then XM Radio powered down "Rock" and "Roll." The older satellites remain in orbit
and can serve as backups, if necessary.
XM Radio's ground station transmits a signal to its two active GEO satellites, which
bounce the signals back down to radio receivers on the ground. The radio receivers
are programmed to receive and unscramble the digital data signal, which contains
more than 170 channels of digital audio. In addition to the encoded sound, the
signal contains information about the broadcast. The song title, artist and genre of
music are all displayed on the radio. In urban areas, where buildings can block out
the satellite signal, XM's broadcasting system is supplemented by ground
transmitters.

An XM Satellite Radio receiver

Each receiver contains a proprietary chipset. XM began delivering chipsets to its XM
radio manufacturing partners in October 2000. The chipset consists of two custom
integrated circuits designed by STMicroelectronics. XM has partnered with Pioneer,
Alpine, Clarion, Delphi Delco, Sony and Motorola to manufacture XM car radios. Each
satellite radio receiver uses a small, car-phone-sized antenna to receive the XM
signal. General Motors has invested about $100 million in XM, and Honda has also
signed an agreement to use XM radios in its vehicles. GM began installing XM
satellite radio receivers in selected models in early 2001.
Currently, subscribers can receive the regular XM channel lineup for $12.95 per
month. For that price, listeners get more than 170 channels of music, talk and news.
They also get access to XM Radio online, a streaming audio service with more than
80 channels. Many of the channels have no commercials, and none of the channels
have more than seven minutes of ads per hour. XM's content providers include USA
Today, BBC, CNN, Sports Illustrated and The Weather Channel. The service bolsters
that lineup with its own music channels.
Sirius Radio
Sirius originally used three SS/L-1300 satellites, instead of GEO satellites, to form an
inclined elliptical satellite constellation. Sirius said the elliptical path of its satellite
constellation ensures that each satellite spends about 16 hours a day over the
continental United States, with at least one satellite over the country at all times.
Sirius completed its three-satellite constellation on Nov. 30, 2000. A fourth satellite
will remain on the ground, ready to be launched if any of the three active satellites
encounters transmission problems. In 2006, Sirius purchased a GEO satellite
because of its superior signal delivery. The GEO satellite will supplement the
elliptical satellites, not replace them. It is currently under construction.

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The Sirius system is similar to that of XM. Programs are beamed to one of the three
Sirius satellites -- the satellites then transmit the signal to the ground, where
your radio receiver picks up one of the channels within the signal. Signals are also
be beamed to ground repeaters for listeners in urban areas where the satellite
signal can be interrupted.
Just like XM Radio, Sirius currently offers its regular subscription for $12.95 per
month. Sirius produces car radios and home entertainment systems, as well as car
and home kits for portable use. The Sirius receiver includes two parts: the antenna
module and the receiver module. The antenna module picks up signals from the
ground repeaters or the satellite, amplifies the signal and filters out any
interference. The signal is then passed on to the receiver module. Inside the
receiver module is a chipset consisting of eight chips. The chipset converts the
signals from 2.3 gigahertz (GHz) to a lower intermediate frequency. Sirius also offers
an adapter that allows conventional car radios to receive satellite signals
1worldspace will be able to broadcast to the majority of the world's population when
its AmeriStar satellite is launched.
World Space
So far, 1worldspace has been the farthest-reaching company in the satellite radio
industry. It put two of its three satellites, Afri Star and AsiaStar, in geostationary
orbit before either of the other two companies launched one. AfriStar and AsiaStar
were launched in October 1998 and March 2000, respectively. AmeriStar, which will
offer service to South America and parts of Mexico, has not yet been launched. Each
satellite transmits three signal beams, carrying more than 60 channels of
programming, to three overlapping coverage areas of about 5.4 million square miles
(14 million square kilometers) each. Each of the 1worldspace satellites' three beams
can deliver more than 50 channels of crystal-clear audio and multimedia
programming via the 1,467- to 1,492-megahertz (MHz) segment of the LBand spectrum, which is allocated for digital audio broadcasting.
The United States is not currently part of 1worldspace's coverage area, although the
company has invested in Sirius XM Radio and has an agreement with the company
to share any technological developments. 1worldspace is going beyond one nation
and eyeing world domination of the radio market. That might be overstating the
company's intent a bit, but 1worldspace does plan to reach the corners of our world
that most radio stations can't. There are millions of people living in 1worldspace's
projected listening area who can't pick up a signal from a conventional radio station.
1worldspace says it has a potential audience of about 4.6 billion listeners spanning
five continents.
1worldspace broadcasters uplink their signal to one of the two operational satellites
through a centralized hub site or an individual feeder link station located within the
global uplink beam. The satellite then transmits the signal in one, two or all three

18
beams on each satellite. Receivers on the ground then pick up the signal and
provide CD-quality sound through a detachable antenna.
1worldspace satellite receivers are capable of receiving data at a rate of 128 kilobits
per second (Kbps). The receivers use the proprietary Star Man chipset,
manufactured by STMicroelectronics, to receive digital signals from the satellites.

How Cell Phones Work

From Tibet to Tanzania to Toronto, no matter where you go you'll see someone
talking on his or her cell phone. These days, cell phones provide an incredible array
of functions, and new ones are being added at a breakneck pace. Depending on the
cell phone model, you can:

Store contact information

Make task or to-do lists

Keep track of appointments and set reminders

Use the built-in calculator for simple math

Send or receive e-mail

Get information (news, entertainment, stock quotes) from the Internet

Play games

Watch TV

Send text messages

Take photos and videos

Integrate other devices such as PDAs, MP3 players and GPS receivers

You might hear terms like 4G, LTE, GSM and CDMA thrown around and wonder what
they refer to. At its most basic, a cell phone is a radio -- an extremely sophisticated
radio, but a radio nonetheless. We'll show you what we mean.

19

In half-duplex radio, both transmitters use the same frequency. Only one party can
talk at a time.
Cell-phone Frequencies
In the dark ages before cell phones, people who really needed mobilecommunications ability installed radio telephones in theircars. In the radiotelephone system, there was one central antenna tower per city, and perhaps 25
channels available on that tower. This central antenna meant that the phone in your
car needed a powerful transmitter -- big enough to transmit 40 or 50 miles (about
70 kilometers). It also meant that not many people could use radio telephones -there just were not enough channels.
The genius of the cellular system is the division of a city into small cells. This allows
extensive frequency reuse across a city, so that millions of people can use cell
phones simultaneously.
A good way to understand the sophistication of a cell phone is to compare it to a CB
radio or a walkie-talkie.

20

In full-duplex radio, the two transmitters use different frequencies, so both parties
can talk at the same time. Cell phones are full-duplex.

Full-duplex vs. half-duplex - Both walkie-talkies and CB radios are halfduplex devices. That is, two people communicating on a CB radio use the
same frequency, so only one person can talk at a time. A cell phone is a fullduplex device. That means that you use one frequency for talking and a
second, separate frequency for listening. Both people on the call can talk at
once.

Channels - A walkie-talkie typically has one channel, and a CB radio has 40

channels. A typical cell phone can communicate on 1,664 channels or more.

Range - A walkie-talkie can transmit about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) using a

0.25-watt transmitter. A CB radio, because it has much higher power, can
transmit about 5 miles (8 kilometers) using a 5-watt transmitter. Cell phones
operate within cells, and they can switch cells as they move around. Cells
give mobile phones incredible range. Someone using a cell phone can drive
hundreds of miles and maintain a conversation the entire time because of the
cellular approach.

In a typical analog cell phone system in the United States, the cell phone carrier
receives about 800 frequencies to use across the city. The carrier chops up the city
into cells. Each cell is typically sized at about 10 square miles (26 square
kilometers). Cells are normally thought of as hexagons on a big hexagonal grid, like
this:
Because cell phones and base stations use low-power transmitters, the same
frequencies can be reused in nonadjacent cells. The two purple cells can reuse the
same frequencies.

21
Each cell has a base station that consists of a tower and a small building containing
the radio equipment. We'll get into base stations later. First, let's examine the "cells"
that make up a cellular system.
Cell-phone Channels
A single cell in an analog mobile phone system uses one-seventh of the
available duplex voice channels. That is, each cell (of the seven on a hexagonal
grid) is using one-seventh of the available channels so it has a unique set of
frequencies and there are no collisions:

A cell phone carrier typically gets 832 radio frequencies to use in a city.

Each cell phone uses two frequencies per call -- a duplex channel -- so there
are typically 395 voice channels per carrier. (The other 42 frequencies are
used for control channels -- more on this later.)

Therefore, each cell has about 56 voice channels available. In other words, in any
cell, 56 people can be talking on their cell phone at one time. Analog cellular
systems are considered first-generation mobile technology, or 1G. With digital
transmission methods (2G), the number of available channels increases. For
example, a TDMA-based digital system (more on TDMA later) can carry three times
as many calls as an analog system, so each cell has about 168 channels available.
Cell phones have low-power transmitters in them. Many cell phones have two signal
strengths: 0.6 watts and 3 watts (for comparison, most CB radios transmit at 4
watts). The base station is also transmitting at low power. Low-power transmitters
have two advantages:

The transmissions of a base station and the phones within its cell do not
make it very far outside that cell. Therefore, in the figure on the previous
page, both of the purple cells can reuse the same 56 frequencies. The same
frequencies can be reused extensively across the city.

The power consumption of the cell phone, which is normally batteryoperated, is relatively low. Low power means small batteries, and this is what
has made handheld cellular phones possible.

The cellular approach requires a large number of base stations in a city of any size.
A typical large city can have hundreds of towers. But because so many people are
using cell phones, costs remain low per user. Each carrier in each city also runs one
central office called the Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO). This office
handles all of the phone connections to the normal land-based phone system and
controls all of the base stations in the region.
Cell-phone Codes

22
All cell phones have special codes associated with them. These codes are used to
identify the phone, the phone's owner and the service provider.
Let's say you have a cell phone, you turn it on and someone tries to call you. Here's
what happens to the call:

When you first power up the phone, it listens for an SID (see sidebar) on the
control channel. The control channel is a special frequency that the phone
and base station use to talk to one another about things like call set-up and
channel changing. If the phone cannot find any control channels to listen to,
it knows it is out of range and displays a "no service" message.

When it receives the SID, the phone compares it to the SID programmed into
the phone. If the SIDs match, the phone knows that the cell it is
communicating with is part of its home system.

Along with the SID, the phone also transmits a registration request, and the
MTSO keeps track of the phone's location in a database -- this way, the MTSO
knows which cell you are in when it wants to ring your phone.

The MTSO gets the call, and tries to find you. It looks in its database to see
which cell you are in.

The MTSO picks a frequency pair that your phone will use in that cell to take
the call.

The MTSO communicates with your phone over the control channel to tell it
which frequencies to use, and once your phone and the tower switch on those
frequencies, the call is connected. Now, you are talking by two-way radio to a
friend.

As you move toward the edge of your cell, your cell's base station notes that
your signal strength is diminishing. Meanwhile, the base station in the cell
you are moving toward (which is listening and measuring signal strength on
all frequencies, not just its own one-seventh) sees your phone's signal
strength increasing. The two base stations coordinate with each other
through the MTSO, and at some point, your phone gets a signal on a control
channel telling it to change frequencies. This handoff switches your phone to
the new cell.

As you travel, the signal is passed from cell to cell. Let's say you're on the phone
and you move from one cell to another -- but the cell you move into is covered by
another service provider, not yours. Instead of dropping the call, it'll actually be
handed off to the other service provider. If the SID on the control channel does not
match the SID programmed into your phone, then the phone knows it is roaming.
The MTSO of the cell that you are roaming in contacts the MTSO of your home

23
system, which then checks its database to confirm that the SID of the phone you are
using, is valid. Your home system verifies your phone to the local MTSO, which then
tracks your phone as you move through its cells. And the amazing thing is that all of
this happens within seconds.
The less amazing thing is that you may be charged insane rates for your roaming
call. On most phones, the word "roam" will come up on your phone's screen when
you leave your provider's coverage area and enter another's. If not, you'd better
study your coverage maps carefully -- more than one person has been unpleasantly
surprised by the cost of roaming. Check your service contract carefully to find out
whether you're paying when you roam. Most of the larger phone companies do not
charge for roaming within the U.S., but some of the discount companies do.
Internationally is another story. The roaming rates can be very high, assuming you
have a phone that can work in multiple countries. Different countries use different
cellular access technologies. More on those technologies later. First, let's get some
background on analog cell phone technology so we can understand how the
industry has developed.
Analog Cell Phones
In 1983, the analog cell phone standard called AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone
System) was approved by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and
first used in Chicago. AMPS uses a range of frequencies between 824 megahertz
(MHz) and 894 MHz for analog cell phones. In order to encourage competition and
keep prices low, the U. S. government required the presence of two carriers in every
market, known as A and B carriers. One of the carriers was normally the localexchange carrier (LEC), a fancy way of saying the local phone company.
Carriers A and B are each assigned 832 frequencies: 790 for voice and 42 for data.
A pair of frequencies (one to transmit and one to receive) is used to create one
channel. The frequencies used in analog voice channels are typically 30 kilohertz
(kHz) wide -- 30 kHz was chosen as the standard size because it gives you voice
quality comparable to a wired telephone.
The transmit and receive frequencies of each voice channel are separated by 45
MHz to keep them from interfering with each other. Each carrier has 395 voice
channels, as well as 21 data channels to use for housekeeping activities like
registration and paging.
A version of AMPS known as Narrowband Advanced Mobile Phone Service (NAMPS)
incorporates some digital technology to allow the system to carry about three times
as many calls as the original version. Even though it uses digital technology, it is
still considered analog. AMPS and NAMPS only operate in the 800-MHz band and
don't offer many of the features common in digital cellular service, such as e-mail
and Web browsing.

24
Along Comes Digital
The first digital cell phones were the second generation (2G) of cellular technology.
Digital phones use the same radio technology as analog phones, but they use it
differently. Analog systems don't fully use the signal between the phone and the
cellular network -- analog signals can't be compressed and manipulated as easily as
true digital signals. This is why cable companies switched to digital -- to fit more
channels within a given bandwidth.
Digital phones convert your voice into binary information (1s and 0s) and then
compress it (see How Analog-Digital Recording Works for details on the conversion
process). This compression allows between three and 10 digital cell phone calls to
occupy the space of a single analog call.
Many digital cellular systems rely on frequency-shift keying (FSK) to send data back
and forth over AMPS. FSK uses two frequencies, one for 1s and the other for 0s,
alternating rapidly between the two to send digital information between the cell
tower and the phone. Clever modulation and encoding schemes are required to
convert the analog information to digital, compress it and convert it back again
while maintaining an acceptable level of voice quality. All of this means that digital
cell phones have to contain a lot of processing power.
Inside a Digital Cell Phone
On a "complexity per cubic inch" scale, cell phones are some of the most intricate
devices people use on a daily basis. Modern digital cell phones can process millions
of calculations per second in order to compress and decompress the voice stream.
If you take a basic digital cell phone apart, you find that it contains just a few
individual parts:

A circuit board containing the brains of the phone

An antenna

A liquid crystal display (LCD)

A keyboard (not unlike the one you find in a TV remote control)

A microphone

A speaker

A battery

25

The circuit board is the heart of the system. The analog-to-digital and digital-toanalog conversion chips translate the outgoing audio signal from analog to digital
and the incoming signal from digital back to analog. You can learn more about A-toD and D-to-A conversion and its importance to digital audio in How Compact Discs
Work. The digital signal processor (DSP) is a highly customized processor designed
to perform signal-manipulation calculations at high speed.
The microprocessor handles all of the housekeeping chores for the keyboard and
display, deals with command and control signaling with the base station and also
coordinates the rest of the functions on the board.
The ROM and flash memory chips provide storage for the phone's operating
system and customizable features, such as the phone directory. The radio
frequency (RF) and power section handles power management and recharging, and
also deals with the hundreds of FM channels. Finally, the RF amplifiers handle
signals traveling to and from the antenna.
The display has grown considerably in size as the number of features in cell phones
has increased. Most current phones offer built-in phone directories, calculators,
games, calendars, notes, Web browsers, and cameras, as well as countless other
applications, or apps, to serve practically any need or want.

26

The SIM card on the circuit board

Some phones store certain information, such as the SID and MIN codes, in internal
Flash memory, while others use external cards that are similar to Smart
Media cards.
Cell phones have such tiny speakers and microphones that it is incredible how well
most of them reproduce sound. As you can see in the picture above, the speaker is
about the size of a dime and the microphone is no larger than the watch battery
beside it. Speaking of the watch battery, this is used by the cell phone's internal
clock chip.
What is amazing is that all of that functionality -- which only 30 years ago would
have filled an entire floor of an office building -- now fits into a package that sits
comfortably in the palm of your hand!

27

In FDMA, each phone uses a different frequency.

Cell Phone Network Technologies: 2G
Cell phone networks fall into three categories: 2G, 3G and 4G. In 2G networks, there
are three common technologies used for transmitting information:

Frequency division multiple access (FDMA)

Time division multiple access(TDMA)

Code division multiple access(CDMA)

Although these technologies sound very intimidating, you can get a good sense of
how they work just by breaking down the title of each one.
The first word tells you what the access method is. The second word, "division," lets
you know that it splits calls based on that access method.

FDMA puts each call on a separate frequency.

TDMA assigns each call a certain portion of time on a designated frequency.

CDMA gives a unique code to each call and spreads it over the available
frequencies.

28
The last part of each name is "multiple access." This simply means that more than
one user can use each cell.
FDMA separates the spectrum into distinct voice channels by splitting it into uniform
chunks of bandwidth. To better understand FDMA, think of radio stations: Each
station sends its signal at a different frequency within the available band. FDMA is
used mainly for analog transmission. While it is certainly capable of carrying digital
information, FDMA is not considered to be an efficient method for digital
transmission.
TDMA is the access method used by the Electronics Industry Alliance and
the Telecommunications Industry Association for Interim Standard 54 (IS-54) and
Interim Standard 136 (IS-136). Using TDMA, a narrow band that is 30 kHz wide and
6.7 milliseconds long is split time-wise into three time slots.
Narrow band means "channels" in the traditional sense. Each conversation gets the
radio for one-third of the time. This is possible because voice data that has been
converted to digital information is compressed so that it takes up significantly less
transmission space. Therefore, TDMA has three times the capacity of an analog
system using the same number of channels. TDMA systems operate in either the
800-MHz (IS-54) or 1900-MHz (IS-136) frequency bands.

29

GSM and CDMA

TDMA is also used as the access technology for Global System for Mobile
Communications (GSM). However, GSM implements TDMA in a somewhat different
and incompatible way from IS-136. Think of GSM and IS-136 as two
different operating systems that work on the same processor, like Windows and
Linux both working on an Intel Pentium III. GSM systems use encryption to make
phone calls more secure. GSM operates in the 900-MHz and 1800-MHz bands in
Europe and Asia and in the 850-MHz and 1900-MHz (sometimes referred to as 1.9GHz) band in the United States. It is used in digital cellular and PCS-based systems.
GSM is also the basis for Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (IDEN), a popular
system introduced by Motorola and used by Nextel. AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM.
CDMA takes an entirely different approach from TDMA. CDMA, after digitizing data,
spreads it out over the entire available bandwidth. Multiple calls are overlaid on
each other on the channel, with each assigned a unique sequence code. CDMA is a
form of spread spectrum, which simply means that data is sent in small pieces over
a number of the discrete frequencies available for use at any time in the specified
range. Verizon, Sprint and most other U.S. carriers use CDMA, which means no SIM
card.
All of the users transmit in the same wide-band chunk of spectrum. Each user's
signal is spread over the entire bandwidth by a unique spreading code. At the

30
receiver, that same unique code is used to recover the signal. Because CDMA
systems need to put an accurate time-stamp on each piece of a signal, it references
the GPS system for this information. Between eight and 10 separate calls can be
carried in the same channel space as one analog AMPS call. CDMA technology is the
basis for Interim Standard 95 (IS-95) and operates in both the 800-MHz and 1900MHz frequency bands.
Ideally, TDMA and CDMA are transparent to each other. In practice, high-power
CDMA signals raise the noise floor for TDMA receivers, and high-power TDMA signals
can cause overloading and jamming of CDMA receivers.
2G is a cell phone network protocol. Click here to learn about network protocols for
smart phones.
Next, we'll look at 3G.
Cell-phone Network Technologies: 3G
3G technology came along to support increased data needs. 3G stands for "third
generation" -- this makes analog cellular technology generation one and digital/PCS
generation two. 3G technology is intended for the true multimedia cell phone -typically called smart phones -- and features increased bandwidth and transfer rates
to accommodate Web-based applications and phone-based audio and video files.
3G comprises several cellular access technologies. Common ones include:

CDMA2000 - based on 2G Code Division Multiple Access

WCDMA (UMTS) - Wideband Code Division Multiple Access

TD-SCDMA - Time-division Synchronous Code-division Multiple Access

3G networks have potential transfer speeds of up to 3 Mbps (about 15 seconds to

download a 3-minuteMP3 song). For comparison, the fastest 2G phones can achieve
up to 144Kbps (about 8 minutes to download a 3-minute song). 3G's high data rates
are ideal for downloading information from the Internet and sending and receiving
large, multimedia files. 3G phones are like mini-laptops and can accommodate
broadband applications like video conferencing, receiving streaming video from the
Web, sending and receiving faxes and instantly downloading e-mail messages with
attachments.
3G is a cell phone network protocol. Click here to learn about network protocols for
smart phones.
Next we look at the latest network technology: 4G.

31

A woman displays a fourth-generation WiMAX device during a exhibition at a

convention centrer in Taipei in 2010.
Cell-phone Network Technologies: 4G
The "4G" cell phone has been around for years at least since 2006, if you go by
Sprint's definition of 4G [source: Segan]. That original 4G network used a
technology called WiMAX, one of several approaches to 4G implementation. Like
previous generations, 4G is not a standardized designation. It's simply the next step
up in speed.
All the top service providers have some type of 4G network now, in various stages
of development and coverage, built on one of three main cellular-access
technologies: LTE, HSPA+, and WiMAX [source: Gaylord].
WiMAX is somewhat unique among cell phone access methods in that it's based on
802.16 wireless standards aka wireless broadband Internet which is used for
homes and offices. The WiMAX approach takes the second iteration of those
standards, 802.16e, which supports mobile access, and applies it to the cell phone
realm [source: Phone Scoop]. Transmissions use orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing, or OFDM, a method of dividing signal data into multiple channels to
speed up delivery and then combining all the bits back into a single unit at the
destination [source: 4G Americas]. WiMAX transmission can theoretically top out
around 40 Mbps, but in reality it is much less [source: Segan].
HSPA+, on the other hand, is an upgrade to a long-existing approach to cellular:
HSPA, or High-Speed Packet Access. HSPA builds on the 3G WCDMA infrastructure,
which carries signals in either one or two frequency bands depending on mode
[source: Tech FAQ]. In 3G form, HSPA networks have peak data-transfer speeds of
14.4 Mbps [source: 4G Americas]. By using higher-order QAM (quadrature amplitude
modulation, which encodes multiple data streams into a single transmission,
mimicking increased bandwidth), carriers can achieve HSPA+ speeds of up to 21

32
Mbps [sources: Tech Target, 4G Americas, Ruddock]. Antenna improvements may
further increase HSPA+ transmission rates [source: 4G Americas].
Despite the obvious gains in speed, many in the cell phone world consider both
WiMAX and HSPA+ to be transitional technologies [source: Gaylord]. The 4G most
people are waiting for is LTE.
4G LTE
For decades, the mobile world has pushed for industry-wide standards to sync up
the technology and allow for definable advances. Many see LTE, or Long Term
Evolution, as the first real chance at standardization, as many top carriers have
signed on to adopt the technology [source: 4G Americas].
LTE is being developed as the 4G standard, which is why you sometimes see "4G
LTE" as opposed to simply "4G." 4G could mean support for any speed above 3G; 4G
LTE means support for up to 86 Mbps based on specific technology and software
infrastructures [source: 4G Americas].
The LTE network is based on Internet Protocol (IP) standards, the kind that delivers
Web pages to your computer, and adds voice data to the transmission streams
[source: 4G Americas]. It uses a schematic called OFDMA, or Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiple Access, which is similar to the OFDM approach in WiMAX. OFDMA
also separates the bits in a single data transmission into multiple subcarriers to
increase speed, reassembling it at the destination. The LTE protocol, though, has the
added ability to assign particular data paths to particular users on the fly,
optimizing the bandwidth available at any given time [source: 4G Americas].
LTE can operate on a wide range of radio frequency bands, which will allow many
mobile carriers to switch over to LTE without starting from scratch [source: 4G
Americas]. The migration has already begun: 4G LTE is operating in many U.S. and
European cities in 2013 [source: Osborne]. It doesn't require a new phone. LTE can
operate alongside 2G and 3G networks, and multi-mode phones can access any of
them, using LTE where it's available and, say, HSPA where it's not [source: 4G
Americas].
Having a multi-mode phone, then, is a huge benefit as LTE towers start popping up
around the country and around the world.
Multi-band vs. Multi-mode Cell Phones
If you travel a lot, you will probably want to look for phones that offer multiple
bands, multiple modes or both. Let's take a look at each of these options:

Multiple band: A phone that has multiple-band capability can switch

frequencies. For example, a dual-band TDMA phone could use TDMA services

33
in either an 800-MHz or a 1900-MHz system. A quad-band GSM phone could
use GSM service in the 850-MHz, 900-MHz, 1800-MHz or 1900-MHz band.

Multiple mode: In cell phones, "mode" refers to the type of transmission

technology used. So, a phone that supported AMPS and TDMA could switch
back and forth as needed. It's important that one of the modes is AMPS -- this
gives you analog service if you are in an area that doesn't have digital
support.

Multiple band/Multiple modes: This best of both worlds allows you to switch
between frequency bands and transmission modes as needed.

Changing bands or modes is done automatically by phones that support these

options. Usually the phone will have a default option set, such as 1900-MHz TDMA,
and will try to connect at that frequency with that technology first. If it supports
dual bands, it will switch to 800 MHz if it cannot connect at 1900 MHz. And if the
phone supports more than one mode, it will try the digital mode(s) first, then switch
to analog.
You can find both dual-mode and tri-mode phones. The term "tri-mode" can be
deceptive. It may mean that the phone supports two digital technologies, such as
CDMA and TDMA, as well as analog. In that case, it is a true tri-mode phone. But it
can also mean that it supports one digital technology in two bands and also offers
analog support. A popular version of the tri-mode type of phone for people who do a
lot of international traveling has GSM service in the 900-MHz band for Europe and
Asia and the 1900-MHz band for the United States, in addition to the analog service.
Technically, this is a dual-mode phone, and one of those modes (GSM) supports two
bands.
Of course, none of this would be possible without those soaring towers that carry
cell phone signals from phone to phone.
Problems with Cell Phones
A cell phone tower is typically a steel pole or lattice structure that rises hundreds of
feet into the air.
Pictured here is a tower with three different cell phone providers riding on the same
structure. If you look at the base of a tower, you can see provider equipment.
The box houses the radio transmitters and receivers that let the tower communicate
with the phones. The radios connect with the antennae on the tower through a set
of thick cables.
If you look closely, you will see that the tower and all of the cables and equipment
at the base of the tower are heavily grounded.

34
One sure sign that multiple providers share a tower is a five-way latch on the gate.
Any one of five people can unlock this gate to get in.
Like all consumer electronics, cell phones come with their share of problems. Next,
we'll take a look at some of them.
Cell-phone Towers
A cell phone, like any other electronic device, has its problems:
Generally, non-repairable internal corrosion of parts results if you get the phone wet
or use wet hands to push the buttons. Consider a protective case. If the phone does
get wet, be sure it is totally dry before you switch it on so you can try to avoid
damaging internal parts.
Extreme heat in a car can damage the battery or the cell phone electronics.
Extreme cold may cause a momentary loss of the screen display.
Analog cell phones suffer from a problem known as "cloning." A phone is "cloned"
when someone steals its ID numbers and is able to make fraudulent calls on the
owner's account.
Here is how cloning occurs: When your phone makes a call, it transmits the ESN
(electronic serial number) and MIN (mobile identification number or phone number)
to the network at the beginning of the call. The MIN/ESN pair is a unique tag for
your phone -- this is how the phone company knows who to bill for the call. When
your phone transmits its MIN/ESN pair, it is possible for nefarious sorts to listen
(with a scanner) and capture the pair. With the right equipment, it is fairly easy to
modify another phone so that it contains your MIN/ESN pair, which allows the crook
to make calls on your account.
For more information about cell phones and related topics, check out the links on
the next page and be sure to read How Buying a Cell phone Works for loads of
helpful consumer tips.

How Wi-Fi Works

35

If you've been in an airport, coffee shop, library or hotel recently, chances are
you've been right in the middle of a wireless network. Many people also use wireless
networking, also called Wi-Fi or 802.11 networking, to connect their computers at
home, and some cities are trying to use the technology to provide free or low-cost
Internet access to residents. In the near future, wireless networking may become so
widespread that you can access the Internet just about anywhere at any time,
without using wires.
Wi-Fi has a lot of advantages. Wireless networks are easy to set up and inexpensive.
They're also unobtrusive -- unless you're on the lookout for a place to watch
streaming movies on your tablet, you may not even notice when you're in a hotspot.
In this article, we'll look at the technology that allows information to travel over the
air. We'll also review what it takes to create a wireless network in your home.
First, let's go over a few Wi-Fi basics.
What Is Wi-Fi?
A wireless network uses radio waves, just like cell phones, televisions and radios do.
In fact, communication across a wireless network is a lot like two-way radio
communication. Here's what happens:
1. A computer's wireless adapter translates data into a radio signal and
transmits it using an antenna.
2. A wireless router receives the signal and decodes it. The router sends the
information to the Internet using a physical, wired Ethernet connection.
The process also works in reverse, with the router receiving information from the
Internet, translating it into a radio signal and sending it to the computer's wireless
adapter.

36
The radios used for Wi-Fi communication are very similar to the radios used for
walkie-talkies, cell phones and other devices. They can transmit and receive radio
waves, and they can convert 1s and 0s into radio waves and convert the radio
waves back into 1s and 0s. But Wi-Fi radios have a few notable differences from
other radios:

They transmit at frequencies of 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz. This frequency is

considerably higher than the frequencies used for cell phones, walkie-talkies
and televisions. The higher frequency allows the signal to carry more data.

They use 802.11 networking standards, which come in several flavors:

802.11a transmits at 5 GHz and can move up to 54 megabits of data per

second. It also uses orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), a
more efficient coding technique that splits that radio signal into several subsignals before they reach a receiver. This greatly reduces interference.

802.11b is the slowest and least expensive standard. For a while, its cost
made it popular, but now it's becoming less common as faster standards
become less expensive. 802.11b transmits in the 2.4 GHz frequency band of
the radio spectrum. It can handle up to 11 megabits of data per second, and
it uses complementary code keying (CCK) modulation to improve speeds.

802.11g transmits at 2.4 GHz like 802.11b, but it's a lot faster -- it can handle
up to 54 megabits of data per second. 802.11g is faster because it uses the
same OFDM coding as 802.11a.

802.11n is the most widely available of the standards and is backward

compatible with a, b and g. It significantly improved speed and range over its
predecessors. For instance, although 802.11g theoretically moves 54
megabits of data per second, it only achieves real-world speeds of about 24
megabits of data per second because of network congestion. 802.11n,
however, reportedly can achieve speeds as high as 140 megabits per second.
802.11n can transmit up to four streams of data, each at a maximum of 150
megabits per second, but most routers only allow for two or three streams.

802.11ac is the newest standard as of early 2013. It has yet to be widely

adopted, and is still in draft form at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE), but devices that support it are already on the market.
802.11ac is backward compatible with 802.11n (and therefore the others,
too), with n on the 2.4 GHz band and ac on the 5 GHz band. It is less prone to
interference and far faster than its predecessors, pushing a maximum of 450
megabits per second on a single stream, although real-world speeds may be
lower. Like 802.11n, it allows for transmission on multiple spatial streams -up to eight, optionally. It is sometimes called 5G Wi-Fi because of its
frequency band, sometimes Gigabit Wi-Fi because of its potential to exceed a

37
gigabit per second on multiple streams and sometimes Very High Throughput
(VHT) for the same reason.

Other 802.11 standards focus on specific applications of wireless networks,

like wide area networks (WANs) inside vehicles or technology that lets you
move from one wireless network to another seamlessly.

Wi-Fi radios can transmit on any of three frequency bands. Or, they can
"frequency hop" rapidly between the different bands. Frequency hopping
helps reduce interference and lets multiple devices use the same wireless
connection simultaneously.

As long as they all have wireless adapters, several devices can use one router to
connect to the Internet. This connection is convenient, virtually invisible and fairly
reliable; however, if the router fails or if too many people try to use high-bandwidth
applications at the same time, users can experience interference or lose their
connections. Although newer, faster standards like 802.11ac could help with that.
Next, we'll look at how to connect to the Internet from a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Wi-Fi Hotspots
A Wi-Fi hotspot is simply an area with an accessible wireless network. The term is
most often used to refer to wireless networks in public areas like airports and coffee
shops. Some are free and some require fees for use, but in either case they can be
handy when you are on the go. You can even create your own mobile hotspot using
a cell phone or an external device that can connect to a cellular network. And you
can always set up a Wi-Fi network at home.
If you want to take advantage of public Wi-Fi hotspots or your own home-based
network, the first thing you'll need to do is make sure your computer has the right
gear. Most new laptops and many new desktop computers come with built-in
wireless transmitters, and just about all mobile devices are Wi-Fi enabled. If your
computer isn't already equipped, you can buy a wireless adapter that plugs into the
PC card slot or USB port. Desktop computers can use USB adapters, or you can buy
an adapter that plugs into the PCI slot inside the computer's case. Many of these
adapters can use more than one 802.11 standard.
Once you've installed a wireless adapter and the drivers that allow it to operate,
your computer should be able to automatically discover existing networks. This
means that when you turn your computer on in a Wi-Fi hotspot, the computer will
inform you that the network exists and ask whether you want to connect to it. If you
have an older computer, you may need to use a software program to detect and
connect to a wireless network.
Being able to connect to the Internet in public hotspots is extremely convenient.
Wireless home networks are convenient as well. They allow you to easily connect

38
multiple computers and to move them from place to place without disconnecting
and reconnecting wires. In the next section, we'll look at how

A wireless router uses an antenna to send signals to wireless devices and a wire to
send signals to the Internet.
Photo courtesy Consumer Guide Products
Building a Wireless Network
If you already have several computers networked in your home, you can create a
wireless network with a wireless access point. If you have several computers that
are not networked, or if you want to replace your Ethernet network, you'll need a
wireless router. This is a single unit that contains:
1. A port to connect to your cable or DSL modem
2. A router
3. An Ethernet hub
4. A firewall
5. A wireless access point
A wireless router allows you to use wireless signals or Ethernet cables to connect
your computers and mobile devices to one another, to a printer and to the Internet.
Most routers provide coverage for about 100 feet (30.5 meters) in all directions,
although walls and doors can block the signal. If your home is very large, you can
buy inexpensive range extenders or repeaters to increase your router's range.

39
As with wireless adapters, many routers can use more than one 802.11 standard.
Normally, 802.11b routers are slightly less expensive than others, but because the
standard is older, they're also slower than 802.11a, 802.11g, 802.11n and 802.11ac
routers. 802.11n routers are the most common.
Once you plug in your router, it should start working at its default settings. Most
routers let you use a Web interface to change your settings. You can select:

The name of the network, known as its service set identifier (SSID) -- The
default setting is usually the manufacturer's name.

The channel that the router uses -- Most routers use channel 6 by default. If
you live in an apartment and your neighbors are also using channel 6, you
may experience interference. Switching to a different channel should
eliminate the problem.

Your router's security options -- Many routers use a standard, publicly

available sign-on, so it's a good idea to set your own username and
password.

Security is an important part of a home wireless network, as well as public WiFi

hotspots. If you set your router to create an open hotspot, anyone who has a
wireless card will be able to use your signal. Most people would rather keep
strangers out of their network, though. Doing so requires you to take a few security
precautions.
It's also important to make sure your security precautions are current. The Wired
Equivalency Privacy (WEP) security measure was once the standard for WAN
security. The idea behind WEP was to create a wireless security platform that would
make any wireless network as secure as a traditional wired network. But hackers
discovered vulnerabilities in the WEP approach, and today it's easy to find
applications and programs that can compromise a WAN running WEP security. It was
succeeded by the first version of Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), which uses Temporal
Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) encryption and is a step up from WEP, but is also no
longer considered secure.
To keep your network private, you can use one or both of the following methods:

Wi-Fi Protected Access version 2 (WPA2) is the successor to WEP and WPA,
and is now the recommended security standard for Wi-Fi networks. It uses
either TKIP or Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption, depending
upon what you choose at setup. AES is considered the most secure. As with
WEP and the initial WPA, WPA2 security involves signing on with a password.
Public hotspots are either open or use any of the available security protocols,
including WEP, so use caution when connecting away from home. Wi-Fi
Protected Setup (WPS), a feature that ties a hard-coded PIN to the router and

40
makes setup easier, apparently creates a vulnerability that can be exploited
by hackers, so you may want to turn off WPS if possible, or look into routers
that do not have the feature.

Media Access Control (MAC) address filtering is a little different from WEP,
WPA or WPA2. It doesn't use a password to authenticate users -- it uses a
computer's physical hardware. Each computer has its own unique MAC
address. MAC address filtering allows only machines with specific MAC
addresses to access the network. You must specify which addresses are
allowed when you set up your router. If you buy a new computer or if visitors
to your home want to use your network, you'll need to add the new machines'
MAC addresses to the list of approved addresses. The system isn't foolproof. A
clever hacker can spoof a MAC address -- that is, copy a known MAC address
to fool the network that the computer he or she is using belongs on the
network.

You can also change other router settings to improve security. For instance, you can
set it to block WAN requests to keep the router from responding to IP requests from
remote users, set a limit to the number of devices that can connect to your router
and even disable remote administration so that only computers plugged directly
into your router can change your network settings. You should also change the
Service Set Identifier (SSID), which is your network name, to something other than
the default so that hackers can't immediately tell what router you are using. And
selecting a strong password never hurts.
Wireless networks are easy and inexpensive to set up, and most routers' Web
interfaces are virtually self-explanatory. For more information on setting up and
using a wireless network, check out the links on the next page.
Author's Note: How Wi-Fi Works -- Bernadette Johnson
I worked on an update to the content of this article, and I think it's amazing that in a
few scant years we've gone from mostly wired to mostly wireless data transfer, via
Wi-Fi in our homes and public places, as well as cell phones. Of course, a lot of the
infrastructure still uses wires, but the fact that we can communicate via both radio
waves and electricity traveling through wires is pretty incredible. Big thanks to the
inventors of the telegraph and every communication innovation that came after.
I remember the days when most mere mortals didn't have modems and couldn't get
on the net, even if they had computers. Perhaps I'm projecting my experiences onto
everyone else, but when I was a kid, our computer was this tool we used in
isolation, save for the times friends would come over to play video games. My
computer programmer aunt was the only person I knew who had a modem. It was
the type where you put your phone directly onto a cradle and some crazy analog
communication went on.

41
When modems became widespread, they were still these clunky external things that
we hooked up to our computers to noisily and slowly dial up to a larval Internet.
They tied up the phone line, so you couldn't keep them connected indefinitely, and
if you didn't want to run up an astronomical phone bill you had to make sure you
were using a phone number for a local access point. Modems went internal and got
a bit faster, but now dial-up is going the way of the dodo bird due to the ubiquity of
affordable broadband services in the home like DSL and cable.
With an astounding jump in bandwidth, and the ability of our computers to connect
wirelessly, many of us are online all the time, and free to compute all over the
house or even away from home. I've surfed the net, streamed shows and
downloaded books while on vacation via hotel, airport and other hotspots. And I fall
asleep nightly streaming Netflix on my Wi-Fi-only tablet at home. Which is great,
aside from the fact that I really should be resting. But insomnia and information
overload are topics for another time.
How Bluetooth Works

When you use computers, entertainment systems or telephones, the various pieces
and parts of the systems make up a community of electronic devices. These devices
communicate with each other using a variety of wires, cables, radio signals and
infrared light beams, and an even greater variety of connectors, plugs and
protocols.
There are lots of different ways that electronic devices can connect to one another.
For example:

Component cables

Electrical wires

Ethernet cables

Wi-Fi

42

Infrared signals

The art of connecting things is becoming more and more complex every day. In this
article, we will look at a method of connecting devices, called Bluetooth that can
streamline the process. A Bluetooth connection is wireless and automatic, and it has
a number of interesting features that can simplify our daily lives.
The Problem
When any two devices need to talk to each other, they have to agree on a number
of points before the conversation can begin. The first point of agreement is physical:
Will they talk over wires, or through some form of wireless signals? If they use wires,
how many are required -- one, two, eight, 25? Once the physical attributes are
decided, several more questions arise:

How much data will be sent at a time? For instance, serial ports send data
1 bit at a time, while parallel ports send several bits at once.

How will they speak to each other? All of the parties in an electronic
discussion need to know what the bits mean and whether the message they
receive is the same message that was sent. This means developing a set of
commands and responses known as a protocol.

Bluetooth wireless PC card

How Bluetooth Creates a Connection
Bluetooth takes small-area networking to the next level by removing the need for
user intervention and keeping transmission power extremely low to
save battery power. Picture this: You're on your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone,
standing outside the door to your house. You tell the person on the other end of the

43
line to call you back in five minutes so you can get in the house and put your stuff
away. As soon as you walk in the house, the map you received on your cell phone
from your car's Bluetooth-enabled GPS system is automatically sent to your
Bluetooth-enabled computer, because your cell phone picked up a Bluetooth signal
from your PC and automatically sent the data you designated for transfer. Five
minutes later, when your friend calls you back, your Bluetooth-enabled home phone
rings instead of your cell phone. The person called the same number, but your
home phone picked up the Bluetooth signal from your cell phone and automatically
re-routed the call because it realized you were home. And each transmission signal
to and from your cell phone consumes just 1 mill watt of power, so your cell phone
charge is virtually unaffected by all of this activity.
Bluetooth is essentially a networking standard that works at two levels:

It provides agreement at the physical level -- Bluetooth is a radiofrequency standard.

It provides agreement at the protocol level, where products have to agree on

when bits are sent, how many will be sent at a time, and how the parties in a
conversation can be sure that the message received is the same as the
message sent.

The big draws of Bluetooth are that it is wireless, inexpensive and automatic. There
are other ways to get around using wires, including infrared
communication. Infrared (IR) refers to light waves of a lower frequency than human
eyes can receive and interpret. Infrared is used in most television remote control
systems. Infrared communications are fairly reliable and don't cost very much to
build into a device, but there are a couple of drawbacks. First, infrared is a "line of
sight" technology. For example, you have to point the remote control at
the television or DVD player to make things happen. The second drawback is that
infrared is almost always a "one to one" technology. You can send data between
your desktop computer and your laptop computer, but not your laptop computer
and your PDA at the same time. to learn more about infrared communication.)
These two qualities of infrared are actually advantageous in some regards. Because
infrared transmitters and receivers have to be lined up with each other, interference
between devices is uncommon. The one-to-one nature of infrared communications
is useful in that you can make sure a message goes only to the intended recipient,
even in a room full of infrared receivers.
Bluetooth is intended to get around the problems that come with infrared systems.
The older Bluetooth 1.0 standard has a maximum transfer speed of 1 megabit per
second (Mbps), while Bluetooth 2.0 can manage up to 3 Mbps. Bluetooth 2.0 is
backward-compatible with 1.0 devices.
Let's find out how Bluetooth networking works.

44
WHY IS IT CALLED BLUETOOTH?
Harald Bluetooth was king of Denmark in the late 900s. He managed to unite
Denmark and part of Norway into a single kingdom then introduced Christianity into
Denmark. He left a large monument, the Jelling rune stone, in memory of his
parents. He was killed in 986 during a battle with his son, Svend Fork beard.
Choosing this name for the standard indicates how important companies from the
Nordic region (nations including Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland) are to the
communications industry, even if it says little about the way the technology works
How Bluetooth Operates
Bluetooth networking transmits data via low-power radio waves. It communicates
on a frequency of 2.45 gigahertz (actually between 2.402 GHz and 2.480 GHz, to be
exact). This frequency band has been set aside by international agreement for the
use of industrial, scientific and medical devices (ISM).
A number of devices that you may already use take advantage of this same radiofrequency band. Baby monitors, garage-door openers and the newest generation
of cordless phones all make use of frequencies in the ISM band. Making sure that
Bluetooth and these other devices don't interfere with one another has been a
crucial part of the design process.
One of the ways Bluetooth devices avoid interfering with other systems is by
sending out very weak signals of about 1 mill watt. By comparison, the most
powerful cell phones can transmit a signal of 3 watts. The low power limits the
range of a Bluetooth device to about 10 meters (32 feet), cutting the chances of
interference between your computer system and your portable telephone or
television. Even with the low power, Bluetooth doesn't require line of sight between
communicating devices. The walls in your house won't stop a Bluetooth signal,
making the standard useful for controlling several devices in different rooms.
Bluetooth can connect up to eight devices simultaneously. With all of those devices
in the same 10-meter (32-foot) radius, you might think they'd interfere with one
another, but it's unlikely. Bluetooth uses a technique called spread-spectrum
frequency hopping that makes it rare for more than one device to be transmitting
on the same frequency at the same time. In this technique, a device will use 79
individual, randomly chosen frequencies within a designated range, changing from
one to another on a regular basis. In the case of Bluetooth, the transmitters change
frequencies 1,600 times every second, meaning that more devices can make full
use of a limited slice of the radio spectrum. Since every Bluetooth transmitter uses
spread-spectrum transmitting automatically, its unlikely that two transmitters will
be on the same frequency at the same time. This same technique minimizes the risk
that portable phones or baby monitors will disrupt Bluetooth devices, since any
interference on a particular frequency will last only a tiny fraction of a second.

45
When Bluetooth-capable devices come within range of one another, an electronic
conversation takes place to determine whether they have data to share or whether
one needs to control the other. The user doesn't have to press a button or give a
command -- the electronic conversation happens automatically. Once the
conversation has occurred, the devices -- whether they're part of a computer
system or a stereo -- form a network. Bluetooth systems create a personal-area
network (PAN), or piconet, that may fill a room or may encompass no more distance
than that between the cell phone on a belt-clip and the headset on your head. Once
a piconet is established, the members randomly hop frequencies in unison so they
stay in touch with one another and avoid other piconets that may be operating in
the same room. Let's check out an example of a Bluetooth-connected system.
Bluetooth Piconets
Let's say you have a typical modern living room with typical modern stuff inside.
There's an entertainment system with a stereo, a DVD player, a satellite TV receiver
and a television; there's also a cordless telephone and a personal computer. Each of
these systems uses Bluetooth, and each forms its own piconet to talk between the
main unit and peripheral.
The cordless telephone has one Bluetooth transmitter in the base and another in
the handset. The manufacturer has programmed each unit with an address that falls
into a range of addresses it has established for a particular type of device. When the
base is first turned on, it sends radio signals asking for a response from any units
with an address in a particular range. Since the handset has an address in the
range, it responds, and a tiny network is formed. Now, even if one of these devices
should receive a signal from another system, it will ignore it since it's not from
within the network. The computer and entertainment system go through similar
routines, establishing networks among addresses in ranges established by
manufacturers. Once the networks are established, the systems begin talking
among themselves. Each piconet hops randomly through the available frequencies,
so all of the piconets are completely separated from one another.
Now the living room has three separate networks established, each one made up of
devices that know the address of transmitters it should listen to and the address of
receivers it should talk to. Since each network is changing the frequency of its
operation thousands of times a second, it's unlikely that any two networks will be on
the same frequency at the same time. If it turns out that they are, then the resulting
confusion will only cover a tiny fraction of a second, and software designed to
correct for such errors weeds out the confusing information and gets on with the
network's business.
Bluetooth Security
In any wireless networking setup, security is a concern. Devices can easily grab
radio waves out of the air, so people who send sensitive information over a wireless

46
connection need to take precautions to make sure those signals aren't intercepted.
Bluetooth technology is no different -- it's wireless and therefore susceptible to
spying and remote access, just like Wi-Fi is susceptible if the network isn't secure.
With Bluetooth, though, the automatic nature of the connection, which is a huge
benefit in terms of time and effort, is also a benefit to people looking to send you
data without your permission.
Bluetooth offers several security modes, and device manufacturers determine which
mode to include in a Bluetooth-enabled gadget. In almost all cases, Bluetooth users
can establish "trusted devices" that can exchange data without asking permission.
When any other device tries to establish a connection to the user's gadget, the user
has to decide to allow it. Service-level security and device-level security work
together to protect Bluetooth devices from unauthorized data transmission. Security
methods include authorization and identification procedures that limit the use of
Bluetooth services to the registered user and require that users make a conscious
decision to open a file or accept a data transfer. As long as these measures are
enabled on the user's phone or other device, unauthorized access is unlikely. A user
can also simply switch his Bluetooth mode to "non-discoverable" and avoid
connecting with other Bluetooth devices entirely. If a user makes use of the
Bluetooth network primarily for synching devices at home, this might be a good way
to avoid any chance of a security breach while in public.
Still, early cell-phone virus writers have taken advantage of Bluetooth's automated
connection process to send out infected files. However, since most cell phones use
a secure Bluetooth connection that requires authorization and authentication before
accepting data from an unknown device, the infected file typically doesn't get very
far. When the virus arrives in the user's cell phone, the user has to agree to open it
and then agree to install it. This has, so far, stopped most cell-phone viruses from
doing much damage. See How Cell-phone Viruses Work to learn more.
Other problems like "blue jacking," "blue bugging" and "Car Whisperer" have turned
up as Bluetooth-specific security issues. Blue jacking involves Bluetooth users
sending a business card (just a text message, really) to other Bluetooth users within
a 10-meter (32-foot) radius. If the user doesn't realize what the message is, he
might allow the contact to be added to his address book, and the contact can send
him messages that might be automatically opened because they're coming from a
known contact .Blue bugging is more of a problem, because it allows hackers to
remotely access a user's phone and use its features, including placing calls and
sending text messages, and the user doesn't realize it's happening. The Car
Whisperer is a piece of software that allows hackers to send audio to and receive
audio from a Bluetooth-enabled car stereo. Like a computer security hole, these
vulnerabilities are an inevitable result of technological innovation, and device
manufacturers are releasing firmware upgrades that address new problems as they
arise.

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How Computer Monitors Work

Because we use them daily, many of us have a lot of questions about our monitors
and may not even realize it. What does "aspect ratio" mean? What is dot pitch? How
much power does a display use? What is the difference between CRT and LCD?
What does "refresh rate" mean?
In this article, How Stuff Works will answer all of these questions and many more. By
the end of the article, you will be able to understand your current display and also
make better decisions when purchasing your next one.
Monitor Display Technology
Often referred to as a monitor when packaged in a separate case, the display is the
most-used output device on a computer. The display provides instant feedback by
showing you text and graphic images as you work or play.
Most desktop displays use liquid crystal display (LCD) or cathode ray tube (CRT)
technology, while nearly all portable computing devices such as laptops incorporate
LCD technology. Because of their slimmer design and lower energy consumption,
monitors using LCD technology (also called flat panel or flat screen displays) are
replacing the venerable CRT on most desktops.
Resolution refers to the number of individual dots of color, known as pixels,
contained on a display. Resolution is expressed by identifying the number of pixels
on the horizontal axis (rows) and the number on the vertical axis (columns),
such as 800x600. Resolution is affected by a number of factors, including the size of
the screen.
As monitor sizes have increased over the years, display standards and resolutions
have changed.
Common Display Standards and Resolutions

48

XGA (Extended Graphics Array) = 1024x768

SXGA (Super XGA) = 1280x1024

UXGA (Ultra XGA) = 1600x1200

QXGA (Quad XGA) = 2048x1536

WXGA (Wide XGA) = 1280x800

WSXGA+ (Wide SXGA plus) = 1680x1050

WUXGA (Wide Ultra XGA) = 1920x1200

WQHD = 2560 x 1440

WQXGA = 2560 x 1600

QSXGA = 2560 x 2048

In addition to the screen size, display standards and resolutions are related to
something called the aspect ratio. Next, we'll discuss what an aspect ratio is and
how screen size is measured.

CRT screen size

Aspect Ratio and Viewable Area

49
Two measures describe the size of your display: the aspect ratio and the screen
size. Historically, computer displays, like most televisions, have had an aspect ratio
of 4:3. This means that the ratio of the width of the display screen to the height is 4
to 3.
For widescreen LCD monitors, the aspect ratio is 16:9 (or sometimes 16:10 or 15:9).
Widescreen LCD displays are useful for viewing DVD movies in widescreen format,
playing games and displaying multiple windows side by side. High (HDTV) also uses
a widescreen aspect ratio.
All types of displays include a projection surface, commonly referred to as the
screen. Screen sizes are normally measured in inches from one corner to the corner
diagonally across from it. This diagonal measuring system actually came about
because the early television manufacturers wanted to make the screen size of
their TVs sound more impressive.
Interestingly, the way in which the screen size is measured for CRT and LCD
monitors is different. For CRT monitors, screen size is measured diagonally from
outside edges of the display casing. In other words, the exterior casing is included in
the measurement as seen below.
For LCD monitors, screen size is measured diagonally from the inside of the beveled
edge. The measurement does not include the casing as indicated in the image
below.

LCD screen size

Because of the differences in how CRT and LCD monitors are measured, a 17-inch
LCD display is comparable to a 19-inch CRT display. For a more accurate

50
representation of a CRT's size, find out its viewable screen size. This is the
measurement of a CRT display without its outside casing.
Popular screen sizes are 15, 17, 19 and 21 inches. Notebook screen sizes are
smaller, typically ranging from 12 to 17 inches. As technologies improve in both
desktop and notebook displays, even larger screen sizes are becoming available.
For professional applications, such as medical imaging or public information
displays, some LCD monitors are 40 inches or larger!
Obviously, the size of the display directly affects resolution. The same pixel
resolution is sharper on a smaller monitor and fuzzier on a larger monitor because
the same number of pixels is spread out over a larger number of inches. An image
on a 21-inch monitor with an 800x600 resolution will not appear nearly as sharp as
it would on a 15-inch display at 800x600.
MULTI-SCANNING MONITORS
If you have been around computers for more than a decade, then you probably
remember when NEC announced the Multi Sync monitor. Up to that point, most
monitors only understood one frequency, which meant that the monitor operated at
a single fixed resolution and refresh rate. You had to match your monitor with a
graphics adapter that provided that exact signal or it wouldn't work.
The introduction of NEC Multi Sync technology started a trend towards multiscanning monitors. This technology allows a monitor to understand any frequency
sent to it within a certain bandwidth. The benefit of a multi-scanning monitor is that
you can change resolutions and refresh rates without having to purchase and install
a new graphics adapter or monitor each time.

An analog connector
Analog and DVI Connections
To display information on a monitor, your computer sends the monitor a signal. The
signal can be in analog or digital format.

51
Analog (VGA) Connection
Because most CRT monitors require the signal information in analog (continuous
electrical signals or waves) form and not digital (pulses equivalent to the binary
digits 0 and 1), they typically use an analog connection.
However, computers work in a digital world. The computer and video adapter
convert digital data into analog format. A video adapter is an expansion card or
component that provides the ability to convert display information into a signal that
is sent to the monitor. It can also be called a graphics adapter, video card or
graphics card.
Once the display information is in analog form, it is sent to the monitor through
a VGA cable. The cable connects at the back of the computer to an analog
connector (also known as a D-Sub connector) that has 15 pins in three rows (see the
diagram above):
1. Red out
2. Green out
3. Blue out
4. Unused
5. Ground
6. Red return (ground)
7. Green return (ground)
8. Blue return (ground)
9. Unused
10.Sync return (ground
11.Monitor ID 0 in
12.Monitor ID 1 in or data from display
13.Horizontal Sync out
14.Vertical Sync
15.Monitor ID 3 in or data clock
You can see that a VGA connector like this has three separate lines for the red,
green and blue color signals, and two lines for horizontal and vertical sync signals.
In a normal television, all of these signals are combined into a single composite

52
video signal. The separation of the signals is one reason why a computer monitor
can have so many more pixels than a TV set.
Because a VGA (analog) connector does not support the use of digital monitors,
the Digital Video Interface (DVI) standard was developed.
DVI Connection
DVI keeps data in digital form from the computer to the monitor. There's no need to
convert data from digital information to analog information. LCD monitors work in a
digital mode and support the DVI format. (Although, some also accept analog
information, which is then converted to digital format.) At one time, a digital signal
offered better image quality compared to analog technology. However, analog
signal processing technology has improved over the years and the difference in
quality is now minimal.
The DVI specification is based on Silicon Image's Transition Minimized
Differential Signaling (TMDS) and provides a high-speed digital interface. A
transmitter on the video adapter sends the digital information to a receiver in the
monitor. TMDS takes the signal from the video adapter, determines
the resolution and refresh rate that the monitor is using, and spreads the signal
out over the available bandwidth to optimize the data transfer from computer to
monitor.
DVI cables can be a single link cable that uses one TMDS transmitter or a dual
link cable with two transmitters. A single link DVI cable and connection supports a
1920x1080 image, and a dual link cable/connection supports up to a 2048x1536
image.

53
DVI-D connectors carry a digital-only signal and DVI-I add four pins for
analog capability. Both connectors can be used with a single-link or a duallink cable, depending upon the requirements of the display.
There are two main types of DVI connections:
DVI-digital (DVI-D) is a digital-only format. It requires a video adapter with a DVID connection and a monitor with a DVI-D input. The connector contains 24
pins/receptacles in 3 rows of 8 plus a grounding slot for dual-link support. For singlelink support, the connector contains 18 pins/receptacles.
DVI-integrated (DVI-I) supports both digital and analog transmissions. This gives
you the option to connect a monitor that accepts digital input or analog input. In
addition to the pins/receptacles found on the DVI-D connector for digital support, a
DVI-I connector has 4 additional pins/receptacles to carry an analog signal.
If you buy a monitor with only a DVI (digital) connection, make sure that you have a
video adapter with a DVI-D or DVI-I connection. If your video adapter has only an
analog (VGA) connection, look for a monitor that supports the analog format.
Color Depth
The combination of the display modes supported by your graphics adapter and the
color capability of your monitor determine how many colors it displays. For example,
a display that operates in Super VGA (SVGA) mode can display up to 16,777,216
(usually rounded to 16.8 million) colors because it can process a 24-bit-long
description of a pixel. The number of bits used to describe a pixel is known as its bit
depth.
With a 24-bit bit depth, eight bits are dedicated to each of the three additive
primary colors -- red, green and blue. This bit depth is also called true color because
it can produce the 10,000,000 colors discernible to the human eye, while a 16-bit
display is only capable of producing 65,536 colors. Displays jumped from 16-bit
color to 24-bit color because working in eight-bit increments makes things a whole
lot easier for developers and programmers.
Simply put, color bit depth refers to the number of bits used to describe the color
of a single pixel. The bit depth determines the number of colors that can be
displayed at one time. Here you can see the number of colors different bit depths
can produce:
Bit-Depth 1
Colors: 2 (monochrome)
Bit-Depth 2
Colors: 4 (CGA)

54
Bit-Depth 4
Colors: 16 (EGA)
Bit-Depth 8
Colors: 256 (VGA)
Bit-Depth 16
Colors: 65,536 (High Color, XGA)
Bit-Depth 24
Colors: 16,777,216 (True Color, SVGA)
Bit-Depth 32
Colors: 16,777,216 (True Color + Alpha Channel)
Notice that the last entry is for 32 bits. This is a special graphics mode used by
digital video, animation and video games to achieve certain effects. Essentially, 24
bits are used for color and the other eight bits are used as a separate layer for
representing levels of translucency in an object or image. Nearly every monitor sold
today can handle 24-bit color using a standard VGA connector.
To create a single colored pixel, an LCD display uses three sub pixels with red, green
and blue filters. Through the careful control and variation of the voltage applied, the
intensity of each sub pixel can range over 256 shades. Combining the sub pixels
produces a possible palette of 16.8 million colors (256 shades of red x 256 shades
of green x 256 shades of blue).
Now that you have a general idea of the technology behind computer monitors, let's
take a closer look at LCD monitors, CRT monitors, and the general buying
considerations for both.

LCD Monitors
Liquid crystal display technology works by blocking light. Specifically, an LCD is
made of two pieces of polarized glass (also called substrate) that contain a liquid
crystal material between them. A backlight creates light that passes through the
first substrate. At the same time, electrical currents cause the liquid crystal
molecules to align to allow varying levels of light to pass through to the second
substrate and create the colors and images that you see.
Active and Passive Matrix Displays
Most LCD displays use active matrix technology. A thin film transistor (TFT)
arranges tiny transistors and capacitors in a matrix on the glass of the display. To

55
address a particular pixel, the proper row is switched on, and then a charge is sent
down the correct column. Since all of the other rows that the column intersects are
turned off, only the capacitor at the designated pixel receives a charge. The
capacitor is able to hold the charge until the next refresh cycle.
The other type of LCD technology is passive matrix. This type of LCD display uses
a grid of conductive metal to charge each pixel. Although they are less expensive to
produce, passive matrix monitors are rarely used today due to the technology's
slow response time and imprecise voltage control compared to active matrix
technology.
Now that you have an understanding of how LCD technology works, let's look at
some specific features unique to LCD monitors.
LCD Features and Attributes
To evaluate the specifications of LCD monitors, here are a few more things you need
to know.
Native Resolution
Unlike CRT monitors, LCD monitors display information well at only the resolution
they are designed for, which is known as the native resolution. Digital displays
address each individual pixel using a fixed matrix of horizontal and vertical dots. If
you change the resolution settings, the LCD scales the image and the quality
suffers. Native resolutions are typically:

17 inch = 1024x768

19 inch = 1280x1024

20 inch = 1600x1200

Viewing Angle When you look at an LCD monitor from an angle, the image can
look dimmer or even disappear. Colors can also be misrepresented. To compensate
for this problem, LCD monitor makers have designed wider viewing angles. (Do not
confuse this with a widescreen display, which means the display is physically wider.)
Manufacturers give a measure of viewing angle in degrees (a greater number of
degrees is better). In general, look for between 120 and 170 degrees. Because
manufacturers measure viewing angles differently, the best way to evaluate it is to
test the display yourself. Check the angle from the top and bottom as well as the
sides, bearing in mind how you will typically use the display.
Brightness or Luminance This is a measurement of the amount of light the LCD
monitor produces. It is given in nits or one candelas per square meter (cd/m2). One
nit is equal to on cd/m2. Typical brightness ratings range from 250 to 350 cd/m2 for

56
monitors that perform general-purpose tasks. For displaying movies, a brighter
luminance rating such as 500 cd/m2 is desirable.
Contrast Ratio The contrast ratio rates the degree of difference of an LCD
monitor's ability to produce bright whites and the dark blacks. The figure is usually
expressed as a ratio, for example, 500:1. Typically, contrast ratios range from 450:1
to 600:1, and they can be rated as high as 1000:1. Ratios more than 600:1,
however, provide little improvement over lower ratios.
Response Rate The response rate indicates how fast the monitor's pixels can
change colors. Faster is better because it reduces the ghosting effect when an
image moves, leaving a faint trial in such applications as videos or games.
Adjustability Unlike CRT monitors, LCD monitors have much more flexibility for
positioning the screen the way you want it. LCD monitors can swivel, tilt up and
down, and even rotate from landscape (with the horizontal plane longer than the
vertical plane) to portrait mode (with the vertical plane longer than the horizontal
plane). In addition, because they are lightweight and thin, most LCD monitors have
built-in brackets for wall or arm mounting.

CRT Monitors
A CRT monitor contains millions of tiny red, green, and blue phosphor dots that glow
when struck by an electron beam that travels across the screen to create a visible
image. The illustration below shows how this works inside a CRT.

57

The terms anode and cathode are used in electronics as synonyms for positive
and negative terminals. For example, you could refer to the positive terminal of
a battery as the anode and the negative terminal as the cathode.
In a cathode ray tube, the "cathode" is a heated filament. The heated filament is in
a vacuum created inside a glass "tube." The "ray" is a stream of electrons
generated by an electron gun that naturally pour off a heated cathode into the
vacuum. Electrons are negative. The anode is positive, so it attracts the electrons
pouring off the cathode. This screen is coated with phosphor, an organic material
that glows when struck by the electron beam.
There are three ways to filter the electron beam in order to obtain the correct image
on the monitor screen: shadow mask, aperture grill and slot mask. These
technologies also impact the sharpness of the monitor's display. Let's take a closer
look at these now.
DISPLAY HISTORY 101
Displays have come a long way since the blinking green monitors in text-based
computer systems of the 1970s. Just look at the advances made by IBM over the
course of a decade:

In 1981, IBM introduced the Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), which was capable
of rendering four colors, and had a maximum resolution of 320 pixels
horizontally by 200 pixels vertically.

IBM introduced the Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) display in 1984. EGA
allowed up to 16 different colors and increased the resolution to 640x350
pixels, improving the appearance of the display and making it easier to read
text.

In 1987, IBM introduced the Video Graphics Array (VGA) display system. The
VGA standard has a resolution of 640x480 pixels and some VGA monitors are
still in use.

IBM introduced the Extended Graphics Array (XGA) display in 1990, offering
800x600 pixel resolutions in true color (16.8 million colors) and 1,024x768
resolution in 65,536 colors.

built-in Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports and anti-theft locks.

58

CRT Features and Attributes

To evaluate the specifications of CRT monitors, here are a few more things you need
to know:
Shadow-mask
A shadow mask is a thin metal screen filled with very small holes. Three electron
beams pass through the holes to focus on a single point on a CRT displays' phosphor
surface. The shadow mask helps to control the electron beams so that the beams
strike the correct phosphor at just the right intensity to create the desired colors
and image on the display. The unwanted beams are blocked or "shadowed."
Aperture-grill
Monitors based on the Trinitron technology, which was pioneered by Sony, use
an aperture-grill instead of a shadow-mask type of tube. The aperture grill
consists of tiny vertical wires. Electron beams pass through the aperture grill to
illuminate the phosphor on the faceplate. Most aperture-grill monitors have a flat
faceplate and tend to represent a less distorted image over the entire surface of the
display than the curved faceplate of a shadow-mask CRT. However, aperture-grill
displays are normally more expensive.
Slot-mask
A less-common type of CRT display, a slot-mask tube uses a combination of the
shadow-mask and aperture-grill technologies. Rather than the round perforations

59
found in shadow-mask CRT displays, a slot-mask display uses vertically aligned
slots. The design creates more brightness through increased electron transmissions
combined with the arrangement of the phosphor dots.
Dot pitch
Dot pitch is an indicator of the sharpness of the displayed image. It is measured in
millimeters (mm), and a smaller number means a sharper image. How you measure
the dot pitch depends on the technology used:

In a shadow-mask CRT monitor, you measure dot pitch as the diagonal

distance between two like-colored phosphors. Some manufacturers may also
cite a horizontal dot pitch, which is the distance between two-like colored
phosphors horizontally.

The dot pitch of an aperture-grill monitor is measured by the horizontal

distance between two like-colored phosphors. It is also sometimes are
called stripe pitch.

The smaller and closer the dots are to one another, the more realistic and detailed
the picture appears. When the dots are farther apart, they become noticeable and
make the image look grainier. Unfortunately, manufacturers are not always upfront
about dot pitch measurements, and you cannot necessarily compare shadow-mask
and aperture-grill CRT types, due to the difference in horizontal and vertical
measurements.
The dot pitch translates directly to the resolution on the screen. If you were to put a
ruler up to the glass and measure an inch, you would see a certain number of dots,
depending on the dot pitch. Here are the number of dots per square centimeter and
per square inch in each of these common dot pitches:
.25 mm
1,600 pixels/cm2 or 10,000 pixels/in2
.26mm
1,444 pixels/cm2 or 9,025 pixels/in2
.27 mm
1,369 pixels/cm2 or 8,556 pixels/in2
.28 mm
1,225 pixels/cm2 or 7,656 pixels/in2
.31 mm

60
1,024 pixels/cm2 or 6,400 pixels/in2
.51 mm
361 pixels/cm2 or 2,256 pixels/in2
1 mm
100 pixels/cm2 or 625 pixels/in2
Refresh Rate
In monitors based on CRT technology, the refresh rate is the number of times that
the image on the display is drawn each second. If your CRT monitor has a refresh
rate of 72 Hertz (Hz), then it cycles through all the pixels from top to bottom 72
times a second. Refresh rates are very important because they control flicker, and
you want the refresh rate as high as possible. Too few cycles per second and you
will notice a flickering, which can lead to headaches and eye strain.

Because your monitor's refresh rate depends on the number of rows it has to scan,
it limits the maximum possible resolution. Most monitors support multiple refresh
rates. Keep in mind that there is a tradeoff between flicker and resolution, and then
pick what works best for you. This is especially important with larger monitors
where flicker is more noticeable. Recommendations for refresh rate and resolution
include 1280x1024 at 85 Hertz or 1600x1200 at 75 Hertz.
Multiple Resolutions
Because a CRT uses electron beams to create images on a phosphor screen, it
supports the resolution that matches its physical dot (pixel) size as well as several
lesser resolutions. For example, a display with a physical grid of 1280 rows by 1024
columns can obviously support a maximum resolution of 1280x1024 pixels. It also
supports lower resolutions such as 1024x768, 800x600, and 640x480. As noted
previously, an LCD monitor works well only at its native resolution.

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LCDs vs. CRTs If you are looking for a new display, you should consider the
differences between CRT and LCD monitors. Choose the type of monitor that best
serves your specific needs, the typical applications you use, and your budget.
Advantages of LCD Monitors
Require less power - Power consumption varies greatly with different
technologies. CRT displays are somewhat power-hungry, at about 100 watts for a
typical 19-inch display. The average is about 45 watts for a 19-inch LCD display.
LCDs also produce less heat.
Smaller and weigh less - An LCD monitor is significantly thinner and lighter than
a CRT monitor, typically weighing less than half as much. In addition, you can mount
an LCD on an arm or a wall, which also takes up less desktop space.
More adjustable - LCD displays are much more adjustable than CRT displays. With
LCDs, you can adjust the tilt, height, swivel, and orientation from horizontal to
vertical mode. As noted previously, you can also mount them on the wall or on an
arm.
Less eye strain - Because LCD displays turn each pixel off individually, they do not
produce a flicker like CRT displays do. In addition, LCD displays do a better job of
displaying text compared with CRT displays.
Advantages of CRT Monitors
Less expensive - Although LCD monitor prices have decreased, comparable CRT
displays still cost less.
Better color representation - CRT displays have historically represented colors
and different gradations of color more accurately than LCD displays. However, LCD
displays are gaining ground in this area, especially with higher-end models that
include color-calibration technology.
More responsive - Historically, CRT monitors have had fewer problems with
ghosting and blurring because they redrew the screen image faster than LCD
monitors. Again, LCD manufacturers are improving on this with displays that have
faster response times than they did in the past.
Multiple resolutions - If you need to change your display's resolution for different
applications, you are better off with a CRT monitor because LCD monitors don't
handle multiple resolutions as well.
More rugged - Although they are bigger and heavier than LCD displays, CRT
displays are also less fragile and harder to damage.

62
So now that you know about LCD and CRT monitors, let's talk about how you can
use two monitors at once. They say, "Two heads are better than one." Maybe the
same is true of monitors!
Dual Monitors
One way to expand your computer's display is to add a second monitor. Using dual
monitors can make you more productive and add a lot to your computing
experience.
With two monitors, you can:

View large spreadsheets

Make changes to a web page's code on one monitor and view the results on
the second

Open two different applications, such as a Word document on one monitor

and your web browser on the second

Besides two displays and two sets of the appropriate video cables, the only other
thing you need is a video adapter with two display connections. The connections
can be analog or digital; they need only to match the type of connections on the
monitors. It does not matter what type of monitor you use; two LCDs, two CRTs, or
one of each works fine as long as the video adapter has compatible connections.
If you don't have a video adapter with two connections, you can purchase one and
replace your current adapter. This generally works better than simply installing
another video card with a single connection. Combination cards also come with
more features, such as a TV-out port.
In addition to verifying your hardware, you should also double-check your
computer's operating system to be sure it supports the use of dual monitors. For
example, Windows 98 SE, Me, 2000, and XP support multiple monitors.
If you really want to increase your screen real estate, especially for applications
such as financial trading or 3-D design, you can even implement three or more
monitors.
Other Technologies
Touch-screen Monitors
Displays with touch-screen technology let you input information or navigate
applications by touching the surface of the display. The technology can be
implemented through a variety of methods, including infrared sensors, pressuresensitive resistors or electronic capacitors.

63
Wireless Monitors
Similar in looks to a tablet PC, wireless monitors use technology such as 802.11b/g
to connect to your computer without a cable. Most include buttons and controls for
musing and web surfing, and some also include keyboards. The displays are batterypowered and relatively lightweight. Most also include touch-screen capabilities.
Television and HDTV Integration
Some displays have built-in television tuners that you can use for viewing cable TV
on your computer. You can also find displays that accept S-video input directly from
a video device. Additional features include picture-in-picture or picture-on-picture
capability, a remote control and support for high- Monitor Trends
Display Port Standard
The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) is working on a new digital
display interface for LCD, plasma, CRT and projection displays. The new technology,
which is called Display Port, supports protected digital outputs for high definition
and other content along with improved display performance.
According to VESA, the Display Port standard will provide a high-quality digital
interface for video and audio content with optional secure content protection. The
goal is to enable support for a wide range of source and display devices, while
combining technologies. For example, the audio and video signals will be available
over the same cable -- a smaller video connector will allow for smaller devices such
as notebook computers, and the standard will enable streaming high definition (HD)
video and audio content.
Organic Light-Emitting Diode
Organic Light-Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) are thin-film LED (Light-Emitting Diode)
displays that don't require a backlight to function. The material emits light when
stimulated by an electrical current, which is known as electroluminescence.
OLEDs consist of red, green and blue elements, which combine to create the desired
colors. Advantages of OLEDs include lower power requirements, a less-expensive
manufacturing process, improvements in contrast and color, and the ability to bend.
Surface-Conduction Electron Emitter Displays
A Surface-Conduction Electron Emitter Display (SED) is a new technology developed
jointly by Canon and Toshiba. Similar to a CRT, an SED display utilizes electrons and
a phosphor-coated screen to create images. The difference is that instead of a deep
tube with an electron gun, an SED uses tiny electron emitters and a flat-panel
display.

64
For more information on computer monitors and related topics, check out the links
on the next page.
Definition television (HDTV).

How LCDs Work

You probably use items containing an LCD (liquid crystal display) every day. They
are all around us -- in laptop computers, digital clocks and watches, microwave
ovens, CD players and many other electronic devices. LCDs are common because
they offer some real advantages over other display technologies. They are thinner
and lighter and draw much less power than cathode ray tubes (CRTs), for example.
But just what are these things called liquid crystals? The name "liquid crystal"
sounds like a contradiction. We think of a crystal as a solid material like quartz,
usually as hard as rock, and a liquid is obviously different. How could any material
combine the two?
We learned in school that there are three common states of matter: solid, liquid or
gaseous. Solids act the way they do because their molecules always maintain their
orientation and stay in the same position with respect to one another. The
molecules in liquids are just the opposite: They can change their orientation and
move anywhere in the liquid. But there are some substances that can exist in an
odd state that is sort of like a liquid and sort of like a solid. When they are in this
state, their molecules tend to maintain their orientation, like the molecules in a
solid, but also move around to different positions, like the molecules in a liquid. This
means that liquid crystals are neither a solid nor a liquid. That's how they ended up
with their seemingly contradictory name.
So, do liquid crystals act like solids or liquids or something else? It turns out that
liquid crystals are closer to a liquid state than a solid. It takes a fair amount of heat
to change a suitable substance from a solid into a liquid crystal, and it only takes a
little more heat to turn that same liquid crystal into a real liquid. This explains why

65
liquid crystals are very sensitive to temperature and why they are used to make
thermometers and mood rings. It also explains why a laptop computer display may
act funny in cold weather or during a hot day at the beach.
Nematic Phase Liquid Crystals
Just as there are many varieties of solids and liquids, there is also a variety of liquid
crystal substances. Depending on the temperature and particular nature of a
substance, liquid crystals can be in one of several distinct phases (see below). In
this article, we will discuss liquid crystals in the nematic phase, the liquid crystals
that make LCDs possible.
One feature of liquid crystals is that they're affected by electric current. A
particular sort of nematic liquid crystal, called twisted nematics (TN), is naturally
twisted. Applying an electric current to these liquid crystals will untwist them to
varying degrees, depending on the current's voltage. LCDs use these liquid crystals
because they react predictably to electric current in such a way as to
control light passage.
Most liquid crystal molecules are rod-shaped and are broadly categorized as
either thermo tropic or lyotropic.
Thermo tropic liquid crystals will react to changes in temperature or, in some cases,
pressure. The reaction of lyotropic liquid crystals, which are used in the manufacture
of soaps and detergents, depends on the type of solvent they are mixed with.
Thermo tropic liquid crystals are either isotropic or nematic. The key difference is
that the molecules in isotropic liquid crystal substances are random in their
arrangement, while nematics have a definite order or pattern.
The orientation of the molecules in the nematic phase is based on the director. The
director can be anything from a magnetic field to a surface that has microscopic
grooves in it. In the nematic phase, liquid crystals can be further classified by the
way molecules orient themselves in respect to one another. Smectic, the most
common arrangement, creates layers of molecules. There are many variations of
the smectic phase, such as smectic C, in which the molecules in each layer tilt at an
angle from the previous layer. Another common phase is cholesteric, also known
as chiral nematic. In this phase, the molecules twist slightly from one layer to the
next, resulting in a spiral formation.
Ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) use liquid crystal substances that have chiral
molecules in a smectic C type of arrangement because the spiral nature of these
molecules allows the microsecond switching response time that make FLCs
particularly suited to advanced displays. Surface-stabilized ferroelectric liquid
crystals (SSFLCs) apply controlled pressure through the use of a glass plate,
suppressing the spiral of the molecules to make the switching even more rapid.

66

Creating an LCD
There's more to building an LCD than simply creating a sheet of liquid crystals. The
combination of four facts makes LCDs possible:

Light can be polarized. (See How Sunglasses Work for some fascinating
information on polarization!)

Liquid crystals can transmit and change polarized light.

The structure of liquid crystals can be changed by electric current.

There are transparent substances that can conduct electricity.

An LCD is a device that uses these four facts in a surprising way.

To create an LCD, you take two pieces of polarized glass. A special polymer that
creates microscopic grooves in the surface is rubbed on the side of the glass that
does not have the polarizing film on it. The grooves must be in the same direction
as the polarizing film. You then add a coating of nematic liquid crystals to one of
the filters. The grooves will cause the first layer of molecules to align with the filter's
orientation. Then add the second piece of glass with the polarizing film at a right
angle to the first piece. Each successive layer of TN molecules will gradually twist
until the uppermost layer is at a 90-degree angle to the bottom, matching the
polarized glass filters.
As light strikes the first filter, it is polarized. The molecules in each layer then guide
the light they receive to the next layer. As the light passes through the liquid crystal
layers, the molecules also change the light's plane of vibration to match their own

67
angle. When the light reaches the far side of the liquid crystal substance, it vibrates
at the same angle as the final layer of molecules. If the final layer is matched up
with the second polarized glass filter, then the light will pass through.
If we apply an electric charge to liquid crystal molecules, they untwist. When they
straighten out, they change the angle of the light passing through them so that it no
longer matches the angle of the top polarizing filter. Consequently, no light can pass
through that area of the LCD, which makes that area darker than the surrounding
areas.
Building a simple LCD is easier than you think. Your start with the sandwich of glass
and liquid crystals described above and add two transparent electrodes to it. For
example, imagine that you want to create the simplest possible LCD with just a
single rectangular electrode on it. The layers would look like this:
The LCD needed to do this job is very basic. It has a mirror (A) in back, which makes
it reflective. Then, we add a piece of glass (B) with a polarizing film on the bottom
side, and a common electrode plane (C) made of indium-tin oxide on top. A common
electrode plane covers the entire area of the LCD. Above that is the layer of liquid
crystal substance (D). Next comes another piece of glass (E) with an electrode in
the shape of the rectangle on the bottom and, on top, another polarizing film (F), at
a right angle to the first one.
The electrode is hooked up to a power source like a battery. When there is no
current, light entering through the front of the LCD will simply hit the mirror and
bounce right back out. But when the battery supplies current to the electrodes, the
liquid crystals between the common-plane electrode and the electrode shaped like a
rectangle untwist and block the light in that region from passing through. That
makes the LCD show the rectangle as a black area
Backlit vs. Reflective
Note that our simple LCD required an external light source. Liquid crystal
materials emit no light of their own. Small and inexpensive LCDs are often
reflective, which means to display anything they must reflect light from external
light sources. Look at an LCD watch: The numbers appear where small electrodes
charge the liquid crystals and make the layers untwist so that light is not
transmitting through the polarized film.
Most computer displays are lit with built-in fluorescent tubes above, beside and
sometimes behind the LCD. A white diffusion panel behind the LCD redirects and
scatters the light evenly to ensure a uniform display. On its way through filters,
liquid crystal layers and electrode layers, a lot of this light is lost -- often more than
half!

68
In our example, we had a common electrode plane and a single electrode bar that
controlled which liquid crystals responded to an electric charge. If you take the layer
that contains the single electrode and add a few more, you can begin to build more
sophisticated displays.
Common-plane-based LCDs are good for simple displays that need to show the
same information over and over again. Watches and microwave timers fall into this
category. Although the hexagonal bar shape illustrated previously is the most
common form of electrode arrangement in such devices, almost any shape is
possible. Just take a look at some inexpensive handheld games: Playing
cards, aliens, fish and slot are just some of the electrode shapes you'll see.
Passive and Active Matrix
Passive-matrix LCDs use a simple grid to supply the charge to a particular pixel on
the display. Creating the grid is quite a process! It starts with two glass layers
called substrates. One substrate is given columns and the other is given rows
made from a transparent conductive material. This is usually indium-tin oxide.
The rows or columns are connected to integrated circuits that control when a
charge is sent down a particular column or row. The liquid crystal material is
sandwiched between the two glass substrates, and a polarizing film is added to the
outer side of each substrate. To turn on a pixel, the integrated circuit sends a charge
down the correct column of one substrate and a ground activated on the correct row
of the other. The row and column intersect at the designated pixel, and that
delivers the voltage to untwist the liquid crystals at that pixel.
The simplicity of the passive-matrix system is beautiful, but it has significant
drawbacks, notably slow response time and imprecise voltage control.
Response time refers to the LCD's ability to refresh the image displayed. The easiest
way to observe slow response time in a passive-matrix LCD is to move the
mouse pointer quickly from one side of the screen to the other. You will notice a
series of "ghosts" following the pointer. Imprecise voltage control hinders the
passive matrix's ability to influence only one pixel at a time. When voltage is
applied to untwist one pixel, the pixels around it also partially untwist, which makes
images appear fuzzy and lacking in contrast.
Active-matrix LCDs depend on thin film transistors (TFT). Basically, TFTs are tiny
switching transistors and capacitors. They are arranged in a matrix on a glass
substrate. To address a particular pixel, the proper row is switched on, and then a
charge is sent down the correct column. Since all of the other rows that the column
intersects are turned off, only the capacitor at the designated pixel receives a
charge. The capacitor is able to hold the charge until the next refresh cycle. And if
we carefully control the amount of voltage supplied to a crystal, we can make it
untwist only enough to allow some light through.

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By doing this in very exact, very small increments, LCDs can create a gray scale.
Most displays today offer 256 levels of brightness per pixel.

Color LCD
An LCD that can show colors must have three sub pixels with red, green and blue
color filters to create each color pixel.
Through the careful control and variation of the voltage applied, the intensity of
each sub pixel can range over 256 shades. Combining the sub pixels produces a
possible palette of 16.8 million colors (256 shades of red x 256 shades of green x
256 shades of blue), as shown below. These color displays take an enormous
number of transistors. For example, a typical laptop computer
supports resolutions up to 1,024x768. If we multiply 1,024 columns by 768 rows by
3 sub pixels, we get 2,359,296 transistors etched onto the glass! If there is a
problem with any of these transistors, it creates a "bad pixel" on the display. Most
active matrix displays have a few bad pixels scattered across the screen.

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LCD technology is constantly evolving. LCDs today employ several variations of
liquid crystal technology, including super twisted nematics (STN), dual scan twisted
nematics (DSTN), ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) and surface stabilized ferroelectric
liquid crystal (SSFLC).
Display size is limited by the quality-control problems faced by manufacturers.
Simply put, to increase display size, manufacturers must add more pixels and
transistors. As they increase the number of pixels and transistors, they also increase
the chance of including a bad transistor in a display. Manufacturers of existing large
LCDs often reject about 40 percent of the panels that come off the assembly line.
The level of rejection directly affects LCD price since the sales of the good LCDs
must cover the cost of manufacturing both the good and bad ones. Only advances
in manufacturing can lead to affordable displays in bigger sizes.
How Television Works

Television is certainly one of the most influential forces of our time. Through the
device called a television set or TV, you are able to receive news, sports,
entertainment, information and commercials. The average American spends
between two and five hours a day glued to "the tube"!
Have you ever wondered about the technology that makes television possible? How
is it that dozens or hundreds of channels of full-motion video arrive at your house, in
many cases for free? How does your television decode the signals to produce the
picture? How will the new digital signals change things? If you have ever wondered
about your television (or, for that matter, about your computer monitor), then read
on! In this article, we'll answer all of these questions and more. See the next page
to get started

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TV Pixels and Your Brain
Let's start at the beginning with a quick note about your brain. There are two
amazing things about your brain that make television possible. By understanding
these two facts, you gain a good bit of insight into why televisions are designed the
way they are.
The first principle is this: If you divide a still image into a collection of small
colored dots, your brain will reassemble the dots into a meaningful
image. This is no small feat, as any researcher who has tried to program a
computer to understand images will tell you. The only way we can see that this is
actually happening is to blow the dots up so big that our brains can no longer
assemble them, like this:

Most people, sitting right up close to their computer screens, cannot tell what this is
a picture of -- the dots are too big for your brain to handle. If you stand 10 to 15 feet
away from your monitor, however, your brain will be able to assemble the dots in
the image and you will clearly see that it is the baby's face. By standing at a
distance, the dots become small enough for your brain to integrate them into a
recognizable image.
Televisions and computer screens (as well as newspaper and magazine photos) rely
on this fusion-of-small-colored-dots capability in the human brain to chop pictures
up into thousands of individual elements. On a TV or computer screen, the dots are
called pixels. The resolution of your computer's screen might be 800x600 pixels, or
maybe 1024x768 pixels.
TV Motion and Your Brain

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The human brain's second amazing feature relating to television is this: If you divide
a moving scene into a sequence of still pictures and show the still images
in rapid succession, the brain will reassemble the still images into a single,
moving scene. Take, for example, these four frames from the example video:

Each one of these images is slightly different from the next. If you look carefully at
the baby's left foot (the foot that is visible), you will see that it is rising in these four
frames. The toy also moves forward very slightly. By putting together 15 or more
subtly different frames per second, the brain integrates them into a moving scene.
Fifteen per second is about the minimum possible -- any fewer than that and it looks
jerky.
When you download and watch the MPEG file offered at the beginning of this
section, you see both of these processes at work simultaneously. Your brain is fusing
the dots of each image together to form still images and then fusing the separate
still images together into a moving scene. Without these two capabilities, TV as we
know it would not be possible.

The Cathode Ray Tube

A few TVs in use today rely on a device known as the cathode ray tube, or CRT, to
display their images. LCDs and plasma displays are other common technologies. It
is even possible to make a television screen out of thousands of ordinary 60wattlight bulbs! You may have seen something like this at an outdoor event like a
football game. Let's start with the CRT, however.

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The terms anode and cathode are used in electronics as synonyms for positive
and negative terminals. For example, you could refer to the positive terminal of
a battery as the anode and the negative terminal as the cathode.
In a cathode ray tube, the "cathode" is a heated filament (not unlike the filament in
a normal light bulb). The heated filament is in a vacuum created inside a glass
"tube." The "ray" is a stream of electrons that naturally pour off a heated cathode
into the vacuum.
Electrons are negative. The anode is positive, so it attracts the electrons pouring off
the cathode. In a TV's cathode ray tube, the stream of electrons is focused by a
focusing anode into a tight beam and then accelerated by an accelerating anode.
This tight, high-speed beam of electrons flies through the vacuum in the tube and
hits the flat screen at the other end of the tube. This screen is coated with
phosphor, which glows when struck by the beam.

Inside a CRT
As you can see in the drawing, there's not a whole lot to a basic cathode ray tube.

There is a cathode and a pair (or more) of anodes. There is the phosphor-coated
screen. There is a conductive coating inside the tube to soak up the electrons that
pile up at the screen-end of the tube. However, in this diagram you can see no way
to "steer" the beam -- the beam will always land in a tiny dot right in the center of
the screen.
That's why, if you look inside any TV set, you will find that the tube is wrapped in
coils of wires. On the next page, you'll get a good view of steering coils.

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TV Steering Coils
The following pictures give you three different views of a typical set of steering
coils:
The steering coils are simply copper windings (see How Electromagnets Work for
details on coils). These coils are able to create magnetic fields inside the tube,
and the electron beam responds to the fields. One set of coils creates a magnetic
field that moves the electron beam vertically, while another set moves the beam
horizontally. By controlling the voltages in the coils, you can position the electron
beam at any point on the screen.

TV Phosphors
A phosphor is any material that, when exposed to radiation, emits visible. The
radiation might be ultraviolet light or a beam of electrons. Any fluorescent color is
really a phosphor -- fluorescent colors absorb invisible ultraviolet light and emit
visible light at a characteristic color.
In a CRT, phosphor coats the inside of the screen. When the electron beam strikes
the phosphor, it makes the screen glow. In a black-and-white screen, there is one
phosphor that glows white when struck. In a color screen, there are three phosphors
arranged as dots or stripes that emit red, green and blue light. There are also three
electron beams to illuminate the three different colors together.
There are thousands of different phosphors that have been formulated. They are
characterized by their emission color and the length of time emission lasts after
they are excited.

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The Black-and-White TV Signal

In a black-and-white TV, the screen is coated with white phosphor and the electron
beam "paints" an image onto the screen by moving the electron beam across the
phosphor a line at a time. To "paint" the entire screen, electronic circuits inside the
TV use the magnetic coils to move the electron beam in a "raster scan" pattern
across and down the screen. The beam paints one line across the screen from left to
right. It then quickly flies back to the left side, moves down slightly and paints
another horizontal line, and so on down the screen.
In this figure, the blue lines represent lines that the electron beam is "painting" on
the screen from left to right, while the red dashed lines represent the beam flying
back to the left. When the beam reaches the right side of the bottom line, it has to
move back to the upper left corner of the screen, as represented by the green line
in the figure. When the beam is "painting," it is on, and when it is flying back, it is
off so that it does not leave a trail on the screen. The term horizontal retrace is
used to refer to the beam moving back to the left at the end of each line, while the
term vertical retrace refers to its movement from bottom to top.
As the beam paints each line from left to right, the intensity of the beam is changed
to create different shades of black, gray and white across the screen. Because the
lines are spaced very closely together, your brain integrates them into a single
image. A TV screen normally has about 480 lines visible from top to bottom. In the
next section, you'll find out how the TV "paints" these lines on the screen.
Painting the TV Screen

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Standard TVs use an interlacing technique when painting the screen. In this
technique, the screen is painted 60 times per second but only half of the lines are
painted per frame. The beam paints every other line as it moves down the screen -for example, every odd-numbered line. Then, the next time it moves down the
screen it paints the even-numbered lines, alternating back and forth between evennumbered and odd-numbered lines on each pass. The entire screen, in two passes,
is painted 30 times every second. The alternative to interlacing is
called progressive scanning, which paints every line on the screen 60 times per
second. Most computer monitors use progressive scanning because it significantly
reduces flicker.
Because the electron beam is painting all 525 lines 30 times per second, it paints a
total of 15,750 lines per second. (Some people can actually hear this frequency as a
very high-pitched sound emitted when the television is on.)
When a television station wants to broadcast a signal to your TV, or when
your VCR wants to display the movie on a video tape on your TV, the signal needs
to mesh with the electronics controlling the beam so that the TV can accurately
paint the picture that the TV station or VCR sends. The TV station or VCR therefore
sends a well-known signal to the TV that contains three different parts:

Intensity information for the beam as it paints each line

Horizontal-retrace signals to tell the TV when to move the beam back at

the end of each line

Vertical-retrace signals 60 times per second to move the beam from

bottom-right to top-left

So how does this information get transmitted to the TV? Read the next page to find
out.

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A typical composite video signal

Composite Video Signal
A signal that contains all three of these components -- intensity information,
horizontal-retrace signals, and vertical-retrace signals -- is called a composite
video signal. A composite-video input on a VCR is normally a yellow RCA jack. One
line of a typical composite video signal looks something like the image on this page.
The horizontal-retrace signals are 5-microsecond (abbreviated as "us" in the
figure) pulses at zero volts. Electronics inside the TV can detect these pulses and
use them to trigger the beam's horizontal retrace. The actual signal for the line is a
varying wave between 0.5 volts and 2.0 volts, with 0.5 volts representing black and
2 volts representing white. This signal drives the intensity circuit for the electron
beam. In a black-and-white TV, this signal can consume about 3.5 megahertz (MHz)
of bandwidth, while in a color set the limit is about 3.0 MHz
A vertical-retrace pulse is similar to a horizontal-retrace pulse but is 400 to 500
microseconds long. The vertical-retrace pulse is serrated with horizontal-retrace
pulses in order to keep the horizontal-retrace circuit in the TV synchronized.

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Color TV Screen

A color TV screen differs from a black-and-white screen in three ways:

There are three electron beams that move simultaneously across the screen. They
are named the red, green and blue beams.
The screen is not coated with a single sheet of phosphor as in a black-and-white TV.
Instead, the screen is coated with red, green and blue phosphors arranged in dots or
stripes. If you turn on your TV or computer monitor and look closely at the screen
with a magnifying glass, you will be able to see the dots or stripes.
On the inside of the tube, very close to the phosphor coating, there is a thin metal
screen called a shadow mask. This mask is perforated with very small holes that
are aligned with the phosphor dots (or stripes) on the screen.
When a color TV needs to create a red dot, it fires the red beam at the red phosphor.
Similarly for green and blue dots. To create a white dot, red, green and blue beams
are fired simultaneously -- the three colors mix together to create white. To create a
black dot, all three beams are turned off as they scan past the dot. All other colors
on a TV screen are combinations of red, green and blue.

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Color TV Signal
A color TV signal starts off looking just like a black-and-white signal. An
extra chrominance signal is added by superimposing a 3.579545 MHz sine wave
onto the standard black-and-white signal. Right after the horizontal sync pulse,
eight cycles of a 3.579545 MHz sine wave are added as a color burst.
Following these eight cycles, a phase shift in the chrominance signal indicates the
color to display. The amplitude of the signal determines the saturation. Here is the
relationship between color and phase:

Burst = 0 degrees

Yellow = 15 degrees

Red = 75 degrees

Magenta = 135 degrees

Blue = 195 degrees

Cyan = 255 degrees

Green = 315 degrees

A black-and-white TV filters out and ignores the chrominance signal. A color TV

picks it out of the signal and decodes it, along with the normal intensity signal, to
determine how to modulate the three color beams

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The composite video signal is amplitude-modulated into the appropriate

frequency, and then the sound is frequency-modulated (+/- 25 KHz) as a
separate signal.
TV Broadcasts

Now you are familiar with a standard composite video signal. Note that we have not
mentioned sound. If your VCR has a yellow composite-video jack, you've probably
noticed that there are separate sound jacks right next to it. Sound and video are
completely separate in an analog TV.
You are probably familiar with five different ways to get a signal into your TV set:

Broadcast programming received through an antenna

VCR or DVD player that connects to the antenna terminals

Cable TV arriving in a set-top box that connects to the antenna terminals

Large (6 to 12 feet) satellite-dish antenna arriving in a set-top box that

connects to the antenna terminals

Small (1 to 2 feet) satellite-dish antenna arriving in a set-top box that

connects to the antenna terminals

The first four signals use standard NTSC analog waveforms as described in the
previous sections. As a starting point, let's look at how normal broadcast signals
arrive at your house.

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A typical TV signal as described above requires 4 MHz of bandwidth. By the time
you add in sound, something called a vestigial sideband and a little buffer space,
a TV signal requires 6 MHz of bandwidth. Therefore, the FCC allocated three bands
of frequencies in the radio spectrum, chopped into 6-MHz slices, to accommodate
TV channels:

54 to 88 MHz for channels 2 to 6

174 to 216 MHz for channels 7 through 13

470 to 890 MHz for UHF channels 14 through 83

The composite TV signal described in the previous sections can be broadcast to

your house on any available channel. The composite video signal is amplitudemodulated into the appropriate frequency, and then the sound is frequencymodulated (+/- 25 KHz) as a separate signal.
To the left of the video carrier is the vestigial lower sideband (0.75 MHz), and to the
right is the full upper sideband (4 MHz). The sound signal is centered on 5.75 MHz.
As an example, a program transmitted on channel 2 has its video carrier at 55.25
MHz and its sound carrier at 59.75 MHz. The tuner in your TV, when tuned to
channel 2, extracts the composite video signal and the sound signal from the waves
that transmitted them to the antenna.
VCR and Cable Signals
VCRs are essentially their own little TV stations. Almost all VCRs have a switch on
the back that allows you to select channel 3 or 4. The video tape contains a
composite video signal and a separate sound signal. The VCR has a circuit inside
that takes the video and sound signals off the tape and turns them into a signal
that, to the TV, looks just like the broadcast signal for channel 3 or 4.
The cable in cable TV contains a large number of channels that are transmitted on
the cable. Your cable provider could simply modulate the different cable-TV
programs onto all of the normal frequencies and transmit that to your house via the
cable; then, the tuner in your TV would accept the signal and you would not need a
cable box. Unfortunately, that approach would make theft of cable services very
easy, so the signals are encoded in funny ways. The set-top box is a decoder. You
select the channel on it, it decodes the right signal and then does the same thing a
VCR does to transmit the signal to the TV on channel 3 or 4.
Satellite TV Signals
Large-dish satellite antennas pick off UN encoded or encoded signals being
beamed to Earth by satellites. First, you point the dish to a particular satellite, and
then you select a particular channel it is transmitting. The set-top box receives the
signal, decodes it if necessary and then sends it to channel 3 or 4.

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Small-dish satellite systems are digital. The TV programs are encoded inMPEG2 format and transmitted to Earth. The set-top box does a lot of work to decode
MPEG-2, then converts it to a standard analog TV signal and sends it to your TV on
channel 3 or 4. See How Satellite TV Works to learn more
Digital TV
The latest buzz is digital TV, also known as DTV or HDTV (high-definition TV). DTV
uses MPEG-2 encoding just like the satellite systems do, but digital TV allows a
variety of new, larger screen formats.
The formats include:

480p - 640x480 pixels progressive

720p - 1280x720 pixels progressive

1080i - 1920x1080 pixels interlaced

1080p - 1920x1080 pixels progressive

A digital TV decodes the MPEG-2 signal and displays it just like a computer monitor
does, giving it incredible resolution and stability. There is also a wide range of settop boxes that can decode the digital signal and convert it to analog to display it on
a normal TV. For more information, check out How Digita
Monitors vs. TVs
Your computer probably has a "VGA monitor" that looks a lot like a TV but is
smaller, has a lot more pixels and has a much crisper display. The CRT and
electronics in a monitor are much more precise than is required in a TV; a computer
monitor needs higher resolutions. In addition, the plug on a VGA monitor is not
accepting a composite signal -- a VGA plug separates out all of the signals so they
can be interpreted by the monitor more precisely. Here's a typical VGA pin out:

pin 1 - Red video

pin 2 - Green video

pin 3 - Blue video

pin 4 - Ground

pin 5 - Self test

pin 6 - Red ground

pin 7 - Green ground

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pin 8 - Blue ground

pin 9 - No pin

pin 10 - Digital ground

pin 11 - Reserved

pin 12 - Reserved

pin 13 - Horizontal sync

pin 14 - Vertical sync

pin 15 - Reserved

This table makes the point that the signals for the three beams as well as both
horizontal and vertical sky
When satellite television first hit the market in the early 1990s, home dishes
were expensive metal units that took up a huge chunk of yard space. In these early
years, only the most die-hard TV fans would go through all the hassle and expense
of putting in their own dish. Satellite TV was a lot harder to get than broadcast
and cable TV.
Today, you see compact satellite dishes perched on rooftops all over the United
States. Drive through rural areas beyond the reach of the cable companies, and
you'll find dishes on just about every house. The major satellite TV companies are
luring in more consumers every day with movies, sporting events and news from
around the world and the promise of movie-quality picture and sound.
Satellite TV offers many solutions to broadcast and cable TV problems. Though
satellite TV technology is still evolving, it has already become a popular choice for
many TV viewers.
In this article, we'll find out how satellite TV works, from TV station to TV set. We'll
also learn about the changing landscape of TV viewing and some basic differences
that distinguish satellite TV from cable and over-the-air broadcast TV.

84

Satellites are higher in the sky than TV antennas, so they have a much
larger line of sight range.
Problems with Broadcast TV
Conceptually, satellite TV is a lot like broadcast TV. It's a wireless system for
delivering television programming directly to a viewer's house. Both broadcast
television and satellite stations transmit programming via a radio signal(see How
Radio Works for information about radio broadcasting).
Broadcast stations use a powerful antenna to transmit radio waves to the
surrounding area. Viewers can pick up the signal with a much smaller antenna. The
main limitation of broadcast TV is range. The radio signals used to broadcast
television shoot out from the broadcast antenna in a straight line. In order to receive
these signals, you have to be in the direct line of sight of the antenna. Small
obstacles like trees or small buildings aren't a problem; but a big obstacle, such as
the Earth, will reflect these radio waves.
If the Earth were perfectly flat, you could pick up broadcast TV thousands of miles
from the source. But because the planet is curved, it eventually breaks the signal's
line of sight. The other problem with broadcast TV is that the signal is
often distorted, even in the viewing area. To get a perfectly clear signal like you
find on cable, you have to be pretty close to the broadcast antenna without too
many obstacles in the way.
The Satellite TV Solution
Satellite TV solves the problems of range and distortion by transmitting broadcast
signals from satellites orbiting the Earth. Since satellites are high in the sky, there
are a lot more customers in the line of sight. Satellite TV systems transmit and
receive radio signals using specialized antennas called satellite dishes.

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Satellite TV System
Early satellite TV viewers were explorers of sorts. They used their expensive dishes
to discover unique programming that wasn't necessarily intended for mass
audiences. The dish and receiving equipment gave viewers the tools to pick up
foreign stations, live feeds between different broadcast stations, NASA activities and
a lot of other stuff transmitted using satellites.
Some satellite owners still seek out this sort of programming on their own, but
today, most satellite TV customers get their programming through a direct
broadcast satellite (DBS) provider, such as DirecTV or DISH Network. The provider
selects programs and broadcasts them to subscribers as a set package. Basically,
the provider's goal is to bring dozens or even hundreds of channels to your TV in a
form that approximates the competition, cable TV.
Unlike earlier programming, the provider's broadcast is completely digital, which
means it has much better picture and sound quality Early satellite television was
broadcast in C-band radio -- radio in the 3.7-gigahertz (GHz) to 6.4-GHz frequency
range. Digital broadcast satellite transmits programming in the Ku frequency
range (11.7 GHz to 14.5 GHz ).
The Components
There are five major components involved in a direct to home (DTH) or direct
broadcasting (DBS) satellite system: the programming source, the broadcast
center, the satellite, the satellite dish and the receiver.

Programming sources are simply the channels that provide programming

for broadcast. The provider doesn't create original programming itself; it pays

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other companies (HBO, for example, or ESPN) for the right to broadcast their
content via satellite. In this way, the provider is kind of like a broker between
you and the actual programming sources. (Cable TV companies work on the
same principle.)

The broadcast center is the central hub of the system. At the broadcast
center, the TV provider receives signals from various programming sources
and beams a broadcast signal to satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

The satellites receive the signals from the broadcast station and rebroadcast
them to Earth.

The viewer's dish picks up the signal from the satellite (or multiple satellites
in the same part of the sky) and passes it on to the receiver in the viewer's
house.

The receiver processes the signal and passes it on to a standard TV.

THE WILD SIDE

Early satellite TV viewers who used C-band radio for their broadcasts were able to
catch wild feeds of syndicated programs, sporting events and news. These
broadcasts were free, but viewers had to hunt them down -- they didn't get
previewed or listed like regular broadcast programming. These signals still exist,
and Satellite Orbit magazine publishes a list of today's wild feeds.
Satellite TV Programming
Satellite TV providers get programming from two major sources:
national turnaround channels (such as HBO, ESPN and CNN) and various local
channels (the ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and PBS affiliates in a particular area). Most of
the turnaround channels also provide programming for cable TV, and the local
channels typically broadcast their programming over the airwaves.
Turnaround channels usually have a distribution center that beams their
programming to a geosynchronous satellite. The broadcast center uses large
satellite dishes to pick up these analog and digital signals from several sources.
Most local stations don't transmit their programming to satellites, so the provider
has to get it another way. If the provider includes local programming in a particular
area, it will have a small local facility consisting of a few racks of communications
equipment. The equipment receives local signals directly from the broadcaster
through fiber-optic cable or an antenna and then transmits them to the central
broadcast center.
The broadcast center converts all of this programming into a high-quality,
uncompressed digital stream. At this point, the stream contains a vast quantity of

87
data -- about 270 megabits per second (Mbps) for each channel. In order to transmit
the signal from there, the broadcast center has to compress it. Otherwise, it would
be too big for the satellite to handle. In the next section, we'll find out how the
signal is compressed.
Satellite TV Signal
Satellite signals have a pretty long path to follow before they appear on your TV
screen in the form of your favorite TV show. Because satellite signals contain such
high-quality digital data, it would be impossible to transmit them
without compression. Compression simply means that unnecessary or repetitive
information is removed from the signal before it is transmitted. The signal is
reconstructed after transmission.
Standards of Compression
Satellite TV uses a special type of video file compression standardized by the
Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). With MPEG compression, the provider is able
to transmit significantly more channels. There are currently five of these MPEG
standards, each serving a different purpose. DirecTV and DISH Network, the two
major satellite TV providers in the United States, once used MPEG-2, which is still
used to store movies on DVDs and for digital cable television (DTV). With MPEG-2,
the TV provider can reduce the 270-Mbps stream to about 5 or 10 Mbps (depending
on the type of programming).
Now, DirecTV and DISH Network use MPEG-4 compression. Because MPEG-4 was
originally designed for streaming video in small-screen media like computers, it can
encode more efficiently and provide a greater bandwidth than MPEG-2. MPEG-2
remains the official standard for digital TV compression, but it is better equipped to
analyze static images, like those you see on a talk show or newscast, than moving,
dynamic images. MPEG-4 can produce a better picture of dynamic images through
use of spatial (space) and temporal (time) compression. This is why satellite TV
using MPEG-4 compression provides high definition of quickly-moving objects that
constantly change place and direction on the screen, like in a basketball game.
Satellite TV Encoding and Encryption
At the broadcast center, the high-quality digital stream of video goes through an
MPEG encoder, which converts the programming to MPEG-4 video of the correct size
and format for the satellite receiver in your house.
Encoding works in conjunction with compression to analyze each video frame and
eliminate redundant or irrelevant data and extrapolate information from other
frames. This process reduces the overall size of the file. Each frame can be encoded
in one of three ways:

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As an intra frame, which contains the complete image data for that frame. This
method provides the least compression.
As a predicted frame, which contains just enough information to tell the satellite
receiver how to display the frame based on the most recently displayed intra frame
or predicted frame. A predicted frame contains only data that explains how the
picture has changed from the previous frame.
As a bidirectional frame, which displays information from the surrounding intra
frame or predicted frames. Using data from the closest surrounding frames, the
receiver interpolates the position and color of each pixel.
This process occasionally produces artifacts -- glitches in the video image. One
artifact is macro blocking, in which the fluid picture temporarily dissolves into
blocks. Macro blocking is often mistakenly called pixilating, a technically incorrect
term which has been accepted as slang for this annoying artifact. Graphic artists
and video editors use "pixilating" more accurately to refer to the distortion of an
image. There really are pixels on your TV screen, but they're too small for your
human eye to perceive them individually -- they're tiny squares of video data that
make up the image you see. (For more information about pixels and perception,
see How TV Works.)
The rate of compression depends on the nature of the programming. If the encoder
is converting a newscast, it can use a lot more predicted frames because most of
the scene stays the same from one frame to the next. In more fast-paced
programming, things change very quickly from one frame to the next, so the
encoder has to create more intra frames. As a result, a newscast generally
compresses to a smaller size than something like a car race.
Encryption and Transmission
After the video is compressed, the provider encrypts it to keep people from
accessing it for free .Encryption scrambles the digital data in such a way that it can
only be decrypted (converted back into usable data) if the receiver has the correct
decryption algorithm and security keys.
Once the signal is compressed and encrypted, the broadcast center beams it
directly to one of its satellites. The satellite picks up the signal with an onboard dish,
amplifies the signal and uses another dish to beam the signal back to Earth, where
viewers can pick it up.

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The curved dish reflects energy from the feed horn, generating a narrow
beam.
Satellite Dish
When the signal reaches the viewer's house, it is captured by the satellite dish. A
satellite dish is just a special kind of antenna designed to focus on a specific
broadcast source. The standard dish consists of a parabolic (bowl-shaped) surface
and a central feed horn. To transmit a signal, a controller sends it through the horn,
and the dish focuses the signal into a relatively narrow beam.
The dish on the receiving end can't transmit information; it can only receive it. The
receiving dish works in the exact opposite way of the transmitter. When a beam hits
the curved dish, the parabola shape reflects the radio signal inward onto a
particular point, just like a concave mirror focuses light onto a particular point.

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The curved dish focuses incoming radio waves onto the feed horn.
In this case, the point is the dish's feed horn, which passes the signal on to the
receiving equipment. In an ideal setup, there aren't any major obstacles between
the satellite and the dish, so the dish receives a clear signal.
In some systems, the dish needs to pick up signals from two or more satellites at
the same time. The satellites may be close enough together that a regular dish with
a single horn can pick up signals from both. This compromises quality somewhat,
because the dish isn't aimed directly at one or more of the satellites. A new dish
design uses two or more horns to pick up different satellite signals. As the beams
from different satellites hit the curved dish, they reflect at different angles so that
one beam hits one of the horns and another beam hits a different horn.
The central element in the feed horn is the low noise block down converter,
or LNB. The LNB amplifies the radio signal bouncing off the dish and filters out
the noise (radio signals not carrying programming). The LNB passes the amplified,
filtered signal to the satellite receiver inside the viewer's house.

Satellite Receiver
The end component in the entire satellite TV system is the receiver. The receiver
has four essential jobs:
It de-scrambles the encrypted signal. In order to unlock the signal, the receiver
needs the proper decoder chip for that programming package. The provider can
communicate with the chip, via the satellite signal, to make necessary adjustments
to its decoding programs. The provider may occasionally send signals that disrupt

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illegal de-scramblers as an electronic counter measure(ECM) against illegal
users.
It takes the digital MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 signal and converts it into an analog
format that a standard television can recognize. In the United States,
receivers convert the digital signal to the analog National Television Systems
Committee (NTSC) format. Some dish and receiver setups can also output an HDTV
signal.
It extracts the individual channels from the larger satellite signal. When
you change the channel on the receiver, it sends just the signal for that channel to
your TV. Since the receiver spits out only one channel at a time, you can't tape one
program and watch another. You also can't watch two different programs on two TVs
hooked up to the same receiver. In order to do these things, which are standard on
conventional cable, you need to buy an additional receiver.
It keeps track of pay-per-view programs and periodically phones a
computer at the provider's headquarters to communicate billing
information.
Receivers have a number of other features as well. They pick up a programming
schedule signal from the provider and present this information in an onscreen
programming guide. Many receivers have parental lock-out options, and some have
built-in digital video recorders (DVRs), which let you pause live television or record it
on a hard drive.
These receiver features are just added bonuses to the technology of satellite TV.
With its movie-quality picture and sound, satellite TV is becoming a popular
investment for consumers. Digital cable, which also has improved picture quality
and extended channel selection, has proven to be the fiercest competitor to satellite
providers. The TV war is raging strong between satellite and digital cable
technologies as well as between the providers who offer these services. Once
considered luxuries in most households, satellite and digital cable are becoming
quite common as providers bundle TV with Internet and phone services to offer
competitive deals and win over customers.
How Digital Television Works

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If you've looked at television sets at any of the big electronics retailers in the United
States lately, you know that digital TV, or DTV, is a big deal right now. Most stores
have whole areas devoted to digital TV sets. You're also hearing a lot about four
other topics:

HDTV and HDTV broadcasts

Digital satellite services

Digital cable

DVDs and DVD players

Unless you are among the people in the United States who have purchased a DTV
set, what you have in your living room is a norm a analog TV that seems to be
working just fine despite all the hype. Most people, faced with this level of product
proliferation, can only ask, "What the heck is going on here?!"
On June 12, 2009, television stations in the United States completed the transition
from analog to digital broadcasting. Consumers receiving local television signals
over analog antennas now must use converter boxes to receive programming on
their TVs. This deadline was pushed back several times in the last few years
because of both broadcasters' and consumers' inability to meet the FCC's criteria
for a successful transition to digital broadcasting.
The change was last scheduled to take place on Feb. 17, 2009, but was pushed back
one final time to allow more people to purchase new TVs or converter boxes to allow
them to make the transition. Some stations, however, switched to digital
broadcasting in February 2009 anyhow because they'd already contracted time to
broadcast on digital transmitters and staying analog would require a costly
budgetary adjustment.
Understanding Analog TV

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To understand digital TV, it's helpful to understand analog TV so that you can see
the differences. (If you've read How Television Works, then you know how analog TV
works).
The analog TV standard has been in use in the United States for about 50 years. To
review quickly, here are the basics of analog television transmission:
A video camera takes a picture of a scene. It does this at a frame rate of 30 frames
per second.
The camera rasterizes the scene. That is, the camera turns the picture into rows
of individual dots called pixels. Each pixel is assigned a color and intensity.
The rows of pixels are combined with synchronization signals, called horizontal
sync and vertical sync signals, so that the electronics inside a TV set will know
how to display the rows of pixels.
This final signal, containing the color and intensity of each pixel in a set of rows,
along with horizontal and vertical sync signals, is called a composite video signal.
Sound is completely separate. When you look on the back of your VCR and you see
the yellow plug, that's the plug for composite video. Sound is either a white plug (on
VCRs that do not handle stereo sound) or a red plug and a white plug (on VCRs that
do handle stereo).
There are lots of different things you can do with a composite video signal and a
sound signal. Here are just a few:
You can broadcast them as radio waves. When you attach an antenna to your TV set
and pick up local stations for free, you're receiving broadcast television from local
TV stations.
You can record them with a VCR.
You can transmit them through a cable TV system along with hundreds of other
composite signals.
Many different kinds of equipment understand composite video signals.
When a composite video signal is broadcast over the airwaves by a TV station, it
happens on a specific frequency. In the United States, we know these frequencies
as VHF channels 2 through 13 and UHF channels 14 through 83.
The composite video signal is transmitted as an AM signal and the sound as an FM
signal on these channels. See How TV Works for details on transmission, and How
Radio Works for details on AM and FM. The FCC allocated three bands of frequencies
in the radio spectrum, chopped into 6-MHz slices, to accommodate these TV
channels:

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54 to 88 MHz for Channels 2 to 6

174 to 216 MHz for Channels 7 through 13

470 to 890 MHz for UHF Channels 14 through 83

When your VCR wants to display its signal on a normal analog TV, it takes the
composite video signal and the sound signal off the tape and then modulates those
signals onto a 60-MHz (channel 3) or 66-MHz (channel 4) carrier, just like a TV
station would. Instead of broadcasting it, however, the VCR sends it straight to the
TV. A cable box or satellite box does the same thing.
Right now you hear a lot about "digital satellite systems" and "digital cable
systems." The set-top box receives a digital signal from the satellite or cable; the
box then converts that signal to an analog signal and sends it to your analog TV.
That's why if you're a digital cable or satellite TV subscriber, your provider probably
told you that the June 2009 DTV transition wouldn't require you to buy new
equipment.
True digital TV, on the other hand, is completely digital and involves:

Digital cameras working at a much higher resolution than analog cameras

Digital transmission

Digital display at a much higher resolution

What's Wrong with Analog TV?

If you currently have an analog TV, and it works fine with broadcast TV, cable
TV,VCRs, satellite TV, camcorders and so on, an obvious question would be, "What's
wrong with analog TV?"
The main problem is resolution.
The resolution of the TV controls the crispness and detail in the picture you see.
The resolution is determined by the number of pixels on the screen.
An analog TV set can display 525 horizontal lines of resolution every 30th of a
second. In reality, however, an analog TV displays half of those lines in a 60th of a
second, and then displays the other half in the next 60th, so the whole frame is
updated every 30th of a second. This process is called interlacing.
That's been the way TV works for years. But now we've used to looking at computer
monitors and expect much better resolution. The lowest-resolution computer
monitor displays 640 x 480 pixels. Because of the interlacing, the effective
resolution of a TV screen is perhaps 512 x 400 pixels.

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So the worst computer monitors you can buy have more resolution than the best
analog TV set; and the best computer monitors are able to display up to 10 times
more pixels than that TV set. There is simply no comparison between a computer
monitor and an analog TV in terms of detail, crispness, image stability and color. If
you look at a computer monitor all day at work, and then go home and look at a TV
set, the TV set can look very fuzzy.
The drive toward digital TV is fueled by the desire to give TV the same crispness
and detail as a computer screen. If you have ever looked at a true digital TV signal
displayed on a good digital TV set, you can certainly understand why -- the digital
version of TV looks fantastic! There's no comparison. With 10 times more pixels on
the screen, all displayed with digital precision, the picture is incredibly detailed and
stable.
It's hard to convey the difference between a DTV signal and an analog signal
without an actual demonstration, but here's a static comparison that can help you
understand the idea. Below is a picture of an odometer:
This is a nice, crisp picture. Let's assume that this picture is being displayed on a
good digital TV so that this is what you actually see. The following photo shows you
what you would see on an analog TV:

You can see that the analog TV picture is much fuzzier than the digital TV image.
Look, for example, at the teeth on thegears. There's a significant difference in
picture quality that's even more obvious when the image is moving. It is that
quantitative difference that drives the interest in digital TV. And as if the incredible
picture weren't enough, digital TV also offers much better sound.

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TV Goes Digital
The term "digital TV" is used in many different ways right now, depending on whom
you're talking to. There's also the term "HDTV," which is the most advanced form of
digital TV in use in the United States. The reason it gets confusing is because digital
TV in the United States combines three different ideas.
The first idea that is new to digital TV is the digital signal.
Analog TV started as a broadcast medium. TV stations set up antennas and
broadcast radio signals to individual communities. You can attach an antenna to
your TV and pick up channels 2 through 83 for free. What you receive, as described
earlier, is a single, analog composite video signal and a separate sound signal.
Digital TV started as a free broadcast medium as well. For example, in San Jose,
Calif., you can tune in to about a dozen different commercial digital TV stations if
you have a digital TV receiver and an antenna. The FCC gave television
broadcasters a new frequency to use for their digital broadcasts, so until the digital
transition is complete, each broadcaster has an analog TV channel and a digital TV
channel. The digital channel carries a 19.39-megabit-per-second stream of digital
data that your digital TV receives and decodes.
Each broadcaster has one digital TV channel, but one channel can carry
multiple sub-channels if the broadcaster chooses that option. Here's how it works:
On its digital channel, each broadcaster sends a 19.39-megabit-per-second (Mbps)
stream of digital data. Broadcasters have the ability to use this stream in several
different ways. For example:

A broadcaster can send a single program at 19.39 Mbps.

A broadcaster can divide the channel into several different streams (perhaps
four streams of 4.85 Mbps each). These streams are called sub-channels,
and this type of broadcasting is called multicasting. For example, if the
digital TV channel is channel 53, then 53.1, 53.2 and 53.3 could be three subchannels on that channel. Each sub-channel can carry a different program.

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The reason that broadcasters can create sub-channels is because digital TV
standards allow several different formats. Broadcasters can choose between three
formats:

480i - The picture is 704x480 pixels, sent at 60 interlaced frames per second
(30 complete frames per second).

480p - The picture is 704x480 pixels, sent at 60 complete frames per second.

720p - The picture is 1280x720 pixels, sent at 60 complete frames per

second.

1080i - The picture is 1920x1080 pixels, sent at 60 interlaced frames per

second (30 complete frames per second).

1080p - The picture is 1920x1080 pixels, sent at 60 complete frames per

second.

(The "p" and "i" designations stand for "progressive" and "interlaced." In a
progressive format, the full picture updates every 60th of a second. In an interlaced
format, half of the picture updates every 60th of a second.)
The 480p and 480i formats are called the SD (standard definition) formats, and 480i
is roughly equivalent to a normal analog TV picture. When analog TV shows are up
converted and broadcast on digital TV stations, they're broadcast in 480p or 480i.
The 720p, 1080i and 1080p formats are HD (high definition) formats. When you
hear about "HDTV," this is what is being discussed -- a digital signal in the 720p,
1080i or 1080p format.
Finally, the HD formats of digital TV have a different aspect ratio than analog TVs.
An analog TV has a 4:3 aspect ratio, meaning that the screen is 4 units wide and 3
units high. For example, a "25-inch diagonal" analog TV is 15 inches high and 20
inches wide. The HD format for digital TV has a 16:9 aspect ratio, as shown below:
The types of signal, format and aspect ratio have all changed in the process of
converting from analog TV to digital TV in the United States.
Digital Compression
The idea of sending multiple programs within the 19.39-Mbps stream is unique to
digital TV and is made possible by the digital compression system being used. To
compress the image for transmission, broadcasters use MPEG-2 compression, and
MPEG-2 allows you to pick both the screen size and bit rate when encoding the
show. A broadcaster can choose a variety of bit rates within any of the three
resolutions.

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You see MPEG-2 all the time on the Web on Web sites that offer streaming video. For
example, if you go to iFilm.com, you will find that you can view streaming video at
56 kilobits per second (Kbps), 200 Kbps or 500 Kbps. MPEG-2 allows a technician to
pick any bit rate and resolution when encoding a file.
There are many variables that determine how the picture will look at a given bit
rate. For example:

If a station wants to broadcast a sporting event (where there is lots of

movement in the scene) at 1080i, the entire 19.39 megabits per second is
needed to get a high-quality image.

On the other hand, a newscast showing a newscaster's head can use a much
lower bit rate. A broadcaster might transmit the newscast at 480p resolution
and a 3-Mbps bit rate, leaving 16.39 Mbps of space for other sub-channels.

It's very likely that broadcasters will send three or four sub-channels during the day
and then switch to a single high-quality show that consumes the entire 19.39 Mbps
at night. Some broadcasters are also experimenting with 1- or 2-Mbps data channels
that send information and Web pages along with a show to provide additional
information.
Buying a Digital TV Set
If you go to an electronics store today to buy a new TV set, there are four types of
sets that you will see on the shelf:

Analog TV sets

Digital-ready sets - They should be identified as standard definition (SDTV)

sets. These TVs are normally 480p displays with a digital tuner built in. The
problem with these sets is that their maximum resolution is the low 480p SD
resolution, so if you want to watch high-definition TV, you won't be able to
use these sets.

HDTV-ready sets - These sets are essentially monitors able to display

1080i/p resolution in the 16:9 aspect ratio. They may or may not have tuners
built in.

Integrated HDTV sets - These sets have a digital tuner for broadcast DTV
signals integrated into an HDTV display. With the standards changing so
much, you may end up paying for an integrated tuner that becomes obsolete.

The preferred way to handle HDTV is to purchase the components separately:

A 16:9 HDTV display capable of 720p and 1080i/p resolution

A digital receiver

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An antenna

Since the HDTV display will be the most expensive piece and will likely last 10 years
or more, buying the components in this way allows you to change the receiver if you
need to. There are currently three types of receivers:
1. You can purchase a set-top box and a Yagi antenna to receive broadcast HDTV
signals.
2. You can purchase a set-top box and a small satellite dish to receive HDTV
signals from a satellite.
3. You can purchase a board for your computer that lets you use your hard disk
as an HDTV storage device, along with a Yagi antenna, and use it to receive
signals on both your computer monitor and your HDTV display.
4. When the first high-definition television (HDTV) sets hit the market in 1998,
movie buffs, sports fans and tech aficionados got pretty excited, and for good
reason. Ads for the sets hinted at a television paradise with superior
resolution and digital surround sound. With HDTV, you could also play movies
in their original widescreen format without the letterbox "black bars" that
some people find annoying.
5. But for a lot of people, HDTV hasn't delivered a ready-made source for
transcendent experiences in front of the tube. Instead, people have gone
shopping for a TV and found themselves surrounded by confusing
abbreviations and too many choices. Some have even hooked up their new
HDTV sets only to discover that the picture doesn't look good. Fortunately, a
few basic facts easily dispel all of this confusion.
6. In this article, we'll look at the differences between analog, digital and highdefinition, explain the acronyms and resolution levels and give you the facts
on the United States transition to all-digital television. We'll also tell you
exactly what you need to know if you're thinking about upgrading to HDTV.
Analog, Digital and HDTV
For years, watching TV has involved analog signals and cathode ray tube (CRT) sets.
The signal is made of continually varying radio waves that the TV translates into a
picture and sound. An analog signal can reach a person's TV over the air, through a
cable or via satellite. Digital signals, like the ones from DVD players, are converted
to analog when played on traditional TVs. (You can read about how the TV interprets
the signal in How Television Works.)
This system has worked pretty well for a long time, but it has some limitations:

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Conventional CRT sets display around 480 visible lines of pixels. Broadcasters
have been sending signals that work well with this resolution for years, and
they can't fit enough resolution to fill a huge television into the analog signal.

Analog pictures are interlaced -- a CRT's electron gun paints only half the
lines for each pass down the screen. On some TVs, interlacing makes the
picture flicker.

Converting video to analog format lowers its quality.

United States broadcasting is currently changing to digital television (DTV). A digital

signal transmits the information for video and sound as ones and zeros instead of as
a wave. For over-the-air broadcasting, DTV will generally use the UHF portion of
the radio spectrum with a 6 MHz bandwidth, just like analog TV signals do.
DTV has several advantages:

The picture, even when displayed on a small TV, is better quality.

A digital signal can support a higher resolution, so the picture will still look
good when shown on a larger TV screen.

The video can be progressive rather than interlaced -- the screen shows the
entire picture for every frame instead of every other line of pixels.

TV stations can broadcast several signals using the same bandwidth. This is
called multicasting.

If broadcasters choose to, they can include interactive content or additional

information with the DTV signal.

It can support high-definition (HDTV) broadcasts.

DTV also has one really big disadvantage: Analog TVs can't decode and display
digital signals. When analog broadcasting ends, you'll only be able to watch TV on
your trusty old set if you have cable or satellite service transmitting analog signals
or if you have a set-top digital converter.
This brings us to the first big misconception about HDTV. Some people believe that
the United States is switching to HDTV -- that all they'll need for HDTV is a new TV
and that they'll automatically have HDTV when analog service ends. Unfortunately,
none of this is true.
HDTV is just one part of the DTV transition. We'll look at HDTV in more detail,
including what makes it different from DTV, in the next section.
IMPORTANT DIGITAL TV DATES

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As of March 1, 2007, all new TV sets in the U.S. had to have DTV tuners or be DTV
ready. But the transition to digital TV isn't complete. Feb. 17, 2009 is the proposed
shutoff date for over-the-air analog broadcasts.

DTV vs. HDTV

The Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC) has set voluntary standards
for digital television. These standards include how sound and video are encoded and
transmitted. They also provide guidelines for different levels of quality. All of the
digital standards are better in quality than analog signals. HDTV standards are the
top tier of all the digital signals.
The ATSC has created 18 commonly used digital broadcast formats for video. The
lowest quality digital format is about the same as the highest quality an analog TV
can display. The 18 formats cover differences in:

Aspect ratio - Standard television has a 4:3 aspect ratio -- it is four units
wide by three units high. HDTV has a 16:9 aspect ratio, more like a movie
screen.

Resolution - The lowest standard resolution (SDTV) will be about the same
as analog TV and will go up to 704 x 480 pixels. The highest HDTV resolution
is 1920 x 1080 pixels. HDTV can display about ten times as many pixels as an
analog TV set.

Frame rate - A set's frame rate describes how many times it creates a
complete picture on the screen every second. DTV frame rates usually end in
"i" or "p" to denote whether they are interlaced or progressive. DTV frame
rates range from 24p (24 frames per second, progressive) to 60p (60 frames
per second, progressive).

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Many of these standards have exactly the same aspect ratio and resolution -- their
frame rates differentiate them from one another. When you hear someone mention
a "1080i" HDTV set, they're talking about one that has a native resolution of 1920 x
1080 pixels and can display 60 frames per second, interlaced.

The 18 Primary DTV Standards

Broadcasters get to decide which of these formats they will use and whether they
will broadcast in high definition -- many are already using digital and high-definition
signals. Electronics manufacturers get to decide which aspect ratios and resolutions
their TVs will use. Consumers get to decide which resolutions are most important to
them and buy their new equipment based on that.
Until the analog shutoff date, broadcasters will have two available channels to send
their signal -- a channel for analog, and a "virtual" channel for digital. Right now,
people can watch an over-the-air digital signal only if they are tuned in to the
broadcaster's virtual digital channel. After analog broadcasting ends, the only
signals people will receive over the air will be digital.
However, even though a digital signal is better quality than an analog signal, it isn't
necessarily high definition. HDTV is simply the highest of all the DTV standards. But
whether you see a high-definition picture and hear the accompanying Dolby
Digital sound depends on two things. First, the station has to be broadcasting a
high-definition signal. Second, you have to have the right equipment to receive and
view it. We'll look at how to get an HDTV set and signal next.
MPEG-2

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DTV usually uses MPEG-2 encoding, the industry standard for most DVDs, to
compress the signal to a reasonable size. MPEG-2 compression reduces the size of
the data by a factor of about 55:1, and it discards a lot of the visual information the
human eye would not notice was missing.
Buying an HDTV
The DTV transition is not the first change to the TV signal. In 1946, the National
Television System Committee (NTSC) began setting standards for American
broadcasting. In 1953, NTSC standards changed to allow color television, and in
1984, they changed to allow stereo sound.
Those changes were different from the DTV switch because they were backwards
compatible -- you could watch the new signal on your trusty old TV. With DTV,
you'll need some new gear, and the gear you choose will affect whether you can
receive and view high-definition video. You can learn about buying a DTV set in How
Digital Television Works -- here, we'll focus on HDTV.
When you start shopping, keep in mind that HDTV requires three parts:

A source, such as a local, cable or satellite HDTV station

A way to receive the signal, like an antenna, cable or satellite service

An HDTV set

Most people start with the set. You can choose:

An integrated HDTV, which has a digital tuner, also known as an ATSC

tuner, built in. If a station near you is broadcasting in HDTV, you can attach
an antenna to an integrated set and watch the station in high definition.

An HDTV-ready set, also called an HDTV monitor, which does not have an
HDTV tuner. HDTV-ready sets often have NTSC tuners, so you can still watch
analog TV with them. This is the option for you if you want to have HDTV
capabilities later on but aren't ready for the financial commitment now. Your
picture quality will still be better than on your old TV, but it won't be high
definition until you get an HDTV receiver.

Designing and building an HDTV that could display all of the ATSC formats would be
virtually impossible. For this reason, HDTVs have one or two native resolutions.
When the TV receives a signal, it will scale the signal to match its native resolution
and de-interlace the signal if necessary. A good rule of thumb is to choose a set that
has a native resolution matching the signals you plan to use most often. Film fans
will generally want displays with the highest possible resolution. Sports fans will
generally want displays with the highest possible progressive frame rate.

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If you receive a signal that has a significantly lower resolution than your screen can
display, all the extra pixels won't help it look better. This is why some people who
have bought HDTVs have been dismayed at the quality of the picture - the existing
analog signal just doesn't have enough detail to look good on a high-definition set.
As broadcasters change to a digital signal, this problem will improve substantially.
In the next section, we'll look at the options for getting a signal to your TV as well as
the compatibility of your existing home entertainment equipment.
EDTV
As you're shopping, you'll probably see some enhanced definition TV (EDTV) sets.
EDTV isn't one of the digital broadcast formats -- it's a description of the level of
picture quality the set can produce. An EDTV set can produce better quality than
SDTV, but it's not an HDTV set. Most EDTV sets are flat-panel LCD or plasma sets.

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Equipment and Signal
When you've found an HDTV with a screen size, aspect ratio and native resolution
you want, you'll need to make sure the equipment you already own will work with it.
If you already have a DVD player, a DVR, game consoles or other equipment, make
sure that they can connect to the TV directly or through an audio/visual receiver.
Many HDTVs have High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connections, which
can transmit audio/visual signals to the TV without compression. In some cases, you
can use adapters to make your equipment compatible with your set.
Once you've picked up your set and installed it in your home, you'll need to get a
signal. To get a signal, you can use:

An antenna - Depending on your location relative to the stations you want to

watch, a set of rabbit ears might do, but you might need a rooftop or attic
antenna. You can buy an antenna that's specially made for digital signals, but
any reliable VHF/UHF antenna will work.

Cable - Keep in mind that digital cable is not the same as HDTV. You'll need
to check with your provider to determine which packages include HDTV
stations. You'll also either need a set-top cable box or a Cable CARD to
allow your television to receive and decode the cable signal.

Satellite service - As with cable, check with your provider to determine

which plans and stations use HDTV signals. You may need a different satellite
dish and tuner to receive HDTV signals via satellite.

To learn more about TVs, HDTVs and digital broadcasting, check out the links on the
next page.
CABLECARD
Sets marked "digital cable ready" or "plug-and-play" are equipped to use a . A Cable
CARD is a PCMCIA type II card, or PC card, that takes the place of a set-top cable
box. It encrypts and decrypts cable signals and may reduce cable theft.
Your cable company will install the card, and you'll pay a small monthly rental fee,
which can cost less than a cable box rental. You'll also have one less remote control
to deal with. However, current Cable Cards allow one-way communication only. If
you choose to use one, you will not be able to access interactive menus or buy
video-on-demand or Pay-per-View programming. If you use any of these services,
you should wait until the next generation of Cable Cards comes out. Check out Ars
Technica for more information on Cable CARD technology.
How Cable Television Works

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In the 1950s, there were four television networks in the United States. Because of
the frequencies allotted to television, the signals could only be received in a "line of
sight" from the transmitting antenna. People living in remote areas, especially
remote mountainous areas, couldn't see the programs that were already becoming
an important part of U.S. culture.
In 1948, people living in remote valleys in Pennsylvania solved their reception
problems by putting antennas on hills and running cables to their houses. These
days, the same technology once used by remote hamlets and select cities allows
viewers all over the country to access a wide variety of programs and channels that
meet their individual needs and desires. By the early 1990s, cable television had
reached nearly half the homes in the United States.
Today, U.S. cable systems deliver hundreds of channels to some 60 million homes,
while also providing a growing number of people with high-speed Internet access.
Some cable systems even let you make telephone calls and receive new
programming technologies! In this article, we'll show you how cable television
brings you so much information and such a wide range of programs, from
educational to inspirational to just plain odd.
The earliest cable systems were, in effect, strategically placed antennas with very
long cables connecting them to subscribers' television sets. Because the signal
from the antenna became weaker as it traveled through the length of cable, cable
providers had to insert amplifiers at regular intervals to boost the strength of the
signal and make it acceptable for viewing. According to Bill Wall, technical director
for subscriber networks at Scientific-Atlanta, a leading maker of equipment for cable
television systems, limitations in these amplifiers were a significant issue for cable
system designers in the next three decades.
"In a cable system, the signal might have gone through 30 or 40 amplifiers before
reaching your house, one every 1,000 feet or so," Wall says. "With each amplifier,
you would get noise and distortion. Plus, if one of the amplifiers failed, you lost the
picture. Cable got a reputation for not having the best quality picture and for not
being reliable." In the late 1970s, cable television would find a solution to the
amplifier problem. By then, they had also developed technology that allowed them
to add more programming to cable service.

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Adding Channels
In the early 1950s, cable systems began experimenting with ways to use microwave
transmitting and receiving towers to capture the signals from distant stations. In
some cases, this made television available to people who lived outside the range of
standard broadcasts. In other cases, especially in the northeastern United States, it
meant that cable customers might have access to several broadcast stations of the
same network. For the first time, cable was used to enrich television viewing, not
just make ordinary viewing possible. This started a trend that would begin to flower
fully in the 1970s.
The addition of CATV (community antenna television) stations and the spread of
cable systems ultimately led manufacturers to add a switch to most new television
sets. People could set their televisions to tune to channels based on the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) frequency allocation plan, or they could set
them for the plan used by most cable systems. The two plans differed in important
ways.
In both tuning systems, each television station was given a 6-megahertz (MHz) slice
of the radio spectrum. The FCC had originally devoted parts of the very high
frequency (VHF) spectrum to 12 television channels. The channels weren't put into
a single block of frequencies, but were instead broken into two groups to avoid
interfering with existing radio services.
Later, when the growing popularity of television necessitated additional channels,
the FCC allocated frequencies in the ultra-high frequency (UHF) portion of the
spectrum. They established channels 14 to 69 using a block of frequencies between
470 MHz and 812 MHz

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Because they used cable instead of antennas, cable television systems didn't have
to worry about existing services. Engineers could use the so-called mid-band, those
frequencies passed over by broadcast TV due to other signals, for channels 14-22.
Channels 1 through 6 are at lower frequencies and the rest are higher. The
"CATV/Antenna" switch tells the television's tuner whether to tune around the midband or to tune straight through it.
While we're on the subject of tuning, it's worth considering why CATV systems don't
use the same frequencies for stations broadcasting on channels 1 to 6 that those
stations use to broadcast over the airwaves. Cable equipment is designed
to shield the signals carried on the cable from outside interference, and televisions
are designed to accept signals only from the point of connection to the cable or
antenna; but interference can still enter the system, especially at connectors.
When the interference comes from the same channel that's carried on the cable,
there is a problem because of the difference in broadcast speed between the two
signals.
Radio signals travel through the air at a speed very close to the speed of light. In
a coaxial cable like the one that brings CATV signals to your house, radio signals
travel at about two-thirds the speed of light. When the broadcast and cable signals
get to the television tuner a fraction of a second apart, you see a double image
called "ghosting."
In 1972, a cable system in Wilkes-Barre, PA, began offering the first "pay-per-view"
channel. The customers would pay to watch individual movies or sporting events.
They called the new service Home Box Office, or HBO. It continued as a regional
service until 1975, when HBO began transmitting a signal to
a satellite in geosynchronous orbit and then down to cable systems in Florida and
Mississippi. Scientific-Atlanta's Bill Wall says that these early satellites could receive
and retransmit up to 24 channels. The cable systems receiving the signals used dish
antennas 10 meters in diameter, with a separate dish for each channel! With the
beginning of satellite program delivery to cable systems, the basic architecture of
the modern cable system was in place.
As the number of program options grew, the bandwidth of cable systems also
increased. Early systems operated at 200 MHz, allowing 33 channels. As technology
progressed, the bandwidth increased to 300, 400, 500 and now 550 MHz, with the
number of channels increasing to 91. Two additional advances in technology -- fiber
optics and analog-to-digital conversion -- improved features and broadcast quality
while continuing to increase the number of channels available.
He Glass Cable
In 1976, a new sort of cable system debuted. This system used fiber-optic
cable for the trunk cables that carry signals from the CATV head-end to
neighborhoods. The head-end is where the cable system receives programming

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from various sources, assigns the programming to channels and retransmits it onto
cables. By the late 1970s, fiber optics had progressed considerably and so were a
cost-effective means of carrying CATV signals over long distances. The great
advantage of fiber-optic cable is that it doesn't suffer the same signal losses as
coaxial cable, which eliminated the need for so many amplifiers. In the early fiberoptic cable systems, the number of amplifiers between head-end and customer was
reduced from 30 or 40 down to around six. In systems implemented since 1988, the
number of amplifiers has been further reduced, to the point that only one or two
amplifiers are required for most customers. Decreasing the number of amplifiers
made dramatic improvements in signal quality and system reliability.
Another benefit that came from the move to fiber-optic cable was
greater customization. Since a single fiber-optic cable might serve 500
households, it became possible to target individual neighborhoods for messages
and services. In the 1990s, cable providers found this same neighborhood grouping
to be ideal for creating a local-area network and providing Internet access
through cable modems.
In 1989, General Instruments demonstrated that it was possible to convert an
analog cable signal to digital and transmit it in a standard 6-MHz television channel.
Using MPEG compression, CATV systems installed today can transmit up to 10
channels of video in the 6-MHz bandwidth of a single analog channel. When
combined with a 550-MHz overall bandwidth, this allows the possibility of
nearly 1,000 channels of video on a system. In addition, digital technology allows
for error correction to ensure the quality of the received signal.
The move to digital technology also changed the quality of one of cable television's
most visible features: the scrambled channel.
The first system to "scramble" a channel on a cable system was demonstrated in
1971. In the first scrambling system, one of the signals used to synchronize the
television picture was removed when the signal was transmitted, then reinserted by
a small device at the customer's home. Later scrambling systems inserted a signal
slightly offset from the channel's frequency to interfere with the picture, then
filtered the interfering signal out of the mix at the customer's television. In both
cases, the scrambled channel could generally be seen as a jagged, jumbled set of
video images.
In a digital system, the signal isn't scrambled, but encrypted. The encrypted signal
must be decoded with the proper key. Without the key, the digital-to-analog
converter can't turn the stream of bits into anything usable by the television's tuner.
When a "non-signal" is received, the cable system substitutes an advertisement or
the familiar blue screen.
How DVR Works

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When the VCR was first introduced to the public, the television industry reacted with
panic. Here was a device that would let people record programs, watch them when
they felt like it as opposed to when the programming staff decided they should, and
(scariest of all) skip through the commercials!
But the television industry survived despite the widespread popularity of VCRs. Now
the dreaded VCR is in its death throes and a more modern innovation has come
along that makes recording television programs even easier: the digital video
recorder, or DVR.
Several manufacturers have different DVR types on the market, including TiVo,
Motorola, RCA and Scientific Atlanta. Some companies, such as Replay TV, are
targeting PC users, offering software packages that turn your computer into a DVR.
In addition, Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba produce DVD recorders that include a hard
drive, allowing them to act as DVRs. Some cable companies like Time Warner,
Comcast and Cox offer cable television packages that include a DVR. In this article,
we'll learn all about DVRs and find out what sets them apart from other recording
technologies.

Digital Video Recorder Basics

In a nutshell, a DVR is a glorified hard inside a fancy box that looks nice in your
entertainment center. The hard drive is connected to the outside world through a
variety of jacks on the back of the box, usually the typical RCA connections that you
would use to hook up, say, a cable box or a VCR.
The television signal comes into the DVR's built-in tuner through antenna, cable or
satellite. If the signal comes from antenna or cable, it goes into an MPEG-2
encoder, which converts the data from analog to digital (MPEG-2, by the way, is the
compression standard used to fit information onto a DVD). From the encoder, the
signal is shipped off to two different places: first, to the hard drive for storage, and
second, to an MPEG-2 decoder, which converts the signal back to analog and
sends it to the television for viewing.
Some systems use dual tuners, allowing users to record different programs on
different channels at the same time. On a few systems, you can even record two
programs while watching a third pre-recorded show.
The device is driven by a customized operating system -- for instance, in the case of
TiVo, the machine runs on a highly modified Linux installation. The operating system
resides on the hard disk, along with the recording space, a buffer for live
broadcasts, and in some cases a space for future expansion.

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While the system might seem pretty ho-hum on first analysis, the digital storage of
television signals opens up a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to
playback and viewing.
First, a DVR is tapeless. With a VCR, the device itself is merely a recording tool; the
blank cassette is the media. In a DVR, the media and tool are one and the same.
This is obviously a plus if you never seem to be able to find a blank tape when it's
time to record something, but it can also be a drawback. Because the media is hardwired into the machine, adding additional storage space is not possible. There
are Web sites that offer instructions on how to open a DVR and add a new hard
drive, but beware -- this will definitely void your warranty. Getting more recording
time is easy with a VCR -- just buy another box of blank tapes. More recording time
on a DVR involves buying a new unit.
You can incorporate some DVRs into your home network, which can allow you to
access your system remotely. You could set your DVR to record a specific show from
halfway across the world with just a few clicks of your mouse.
Perhaps the most important benefit of DVRs is the unprecedented control
over playback. With a VCR, you have to wait for a program to finish recording
before you can start watching it. Since there's no tape to rewind, digital recording
doesn't have this limitation. A program that started recording 10 minutes ago can
be viewed at any time, even while it's still recording.

SATELLITE TV AND DIGITAL CABLE

In the case of satellite TV systems or digital cable, no encoders are used within the
box because the satellite or cable company has converted the signal to digital
already. This results in higher picture quality than on analog cable or antenna
systems.
DVR Tricks
Pausing Live TV
One of the main features of a DVR, and one that is hyped heavily in product
advertisements, is the ability to "pause live television." This feature has caused
more than a few people to scratch their heads, wondering exactly how this is done.
The phrase "pause live TV" is a bit misleading. DVRs are constantly recording to a
live TV buffer. When you hit the pause button on a DVR remote, it freeze-frames the
current image, giving the appearance of a paused videotape. When you hit play (unpause), the recorded program begins playing.

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DVRs generally keep the past hour or so in the buffer. This means that if you walk
into the room 10 minutes into a movie, you can rewind it and catch the beginning -provided the DVR was on the desired channel (the buffer is emptied each time you
change the channel, and the DVR starts recording again).
Search Tools
Some of the most desirable features of DVRs are the tools they offer to help you find
the programs you want to record.
All DVRs offer search tools of some sort, usually by name of program, name of
actors, and in some cases more sophisticated options such as keyword searches.
The TiVo service offers two functions aimed at people who know what they want to
watch: Wish Lists and Season Passes. Wish Lists allow you to type in (using an
on-screen keypad) names or keywords that you want to keep an eye out for. For
instance, a Wish List might look for everything starring Frank Sinatra, or any
animated program with the word "dragon" in the title.
Season Passes allow you to tell the machine to record every instance of a single
program, with the option of some advanced specifications. For instance, you can
simply tell it to always record "Law and Order," or you can tell it to only record firstrun episodes.
HD DVR
DVRs advertise anywhere from 35-hour to over 300-hour recording capabilities. It's
worth noting that these units can record programs at varying levels of quality -- and
the advertised capacity usually refers to the number of hours it can hold at the
lowest quality setting.
As an example, TiVo can record programs at four different quality levels: basic,
medium, high, or best. A 40-hour TiVo unit can hold 40 hours at the basic quality
level, but only about 11 hours at the best setting. The hard drive in a 40-hour TiVo is
approximately 40 gigabytes in size; on the basic setting, one hour translates to 1
gigabyte, while at the highest setting one hour uses 4 gigabytes.
Newer DVR systems can record HDTV signals. The Series3 HD TiVo can record up to
300 hours of standard television (on the Basic quality setting) or up to 32 hours in
HD format.
So what's the difference? If you've ever seen full-motion video on the Web, you
know how images can get blocky and distorted. This happens on DVR recordings
made at low quality levels, particularly if there is a lot of movement in the image. As
a result, different quality settings are good for different types of programs: while an
old black-and-white movie or a talk show will look just fine at the basic level, a fastmoving sports program or action movie will be almost unwatchable. So bear this in

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mind if you're thinking of buying a DVR primarily to support your sports habit -better to go for the higher capacity unit.
File Sizes
In Sony's Giga Pocket system, the files for each recorded program are stored on the
computer's normal hard disk. If you have a drive with 60 free gigabytes of space,
then Giga Pocket can use those 60 gigabytes to store TV programs. The amount of
space that a program consumes on the hard disk depends on both the length of the
program and the recording quality. Giga Pocket offers three quality modes:

LP - Stored as a highly compressed MPEG-1 file, consuming 0.6 gigabytes in a

one-hour program

SP - Stored as a moderately compressed MPEG-2 file, consuming 1.7

gigabytes in a one-hour program

HQ - Stored as a high-quality MPEG-2 file, consuming 3.35 gigabytes for a

one-hour program

In other words, you can store about 100 hours of video on 60 gigabytes of space in
LP mode. In SP mode, you can store about 36 hours. In HQ mode, you can store
about 18 hours.
In terms of quality, LP mode has a noticeable grain to it, but it's watchable. SP
mode looks good. HQ mode seems like overkill -- there's not a noticeable difference
between SP and HQ when you are watching a program recorded from cable. Perhaps
if you were recording an s-video signal coming in from a DVD player
or camcorder and you wanted to preserve all the detail, HQ mode would be useful.
Just like on a computer hard drive, deleting a program from a DVR doesn't actually
delete the program itself -- it simply erases the file system's reference to where it's
stored and how long it is, making it effectively gone. The raw program data remains
on the drive until it is overwritten by a new recording.
Ongoing Costs of a DVR
Unlike a VCR, DVRs usually have a monthly fee associated with their use. This is
because the devices dial into a server once every few days and download new
program grids (some DVRs need access to a telephone, but can be configured to
dial in the middle of the night, or at other times when the line is likely to be clear;
other DVRs can access program grids through a broadband connection in your home
network).
TiVo charges a set monthly fee, though it once offered the option of paying a larger
amount once for a "lifetime subscription" (lifetime of the unit that is). Cable
companies that offer DVR packages are usually more expensive than standard cable

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packages. Some manufacturers offer DVRs that aren't linked to a particular service
and don't require ongoing fees at all.
If you don't mind watching your shows on the small screen, an alternate solution
exists for PC owners: products like the ATI All-In-Wonder and Sony Giga Pocket cards
allow you to capture television signals digitally to your computer's hard drive, in
essence using your PC as an elaborate DVR. There is no monthly fee to pay, but you
also miss out on some of the advanced features such as constantly updated
program grids, Season Passes and the like. Giga Pocket allows you to save recorded
programs to VHS or DVD-R, and most video-capture boards have "video out" jacks,
making it possible to wire your television to the computer.
Replay TV, once a direct competitor with TiVo in the standalone DVR box market,
now produces DVR software and hardware for PCs. Users must purchase a separate
tuner card for their machine. The Replay TV software provides many of the features
found in competing DVR systems.
How Batteries Work

How do batteries power our world? See more battery pictures.

Imagine a world where everything that used electricity had to be plugged in.
Flashlights, hearing aids, cell phones and other portable devices would be tethered
to electrical outlets, rendering them awkward and cumbersome. Cars couldn't be
started with the simple turn of a key; a strenuous cranking would be required to get
the pistons moving. Wires would be strung everywhere, creating a safety hazard
and an unsightly mess. Thankfully, batteries provide us with a mobile source of
power that makes many modern conveniences possible.
While there are many different types of batteries, the basic concept by which they
function remains the same. When a device is connected to a battery, a reaction

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occurs that produces electrical energy. This is known as an electrochemical
reaction. Italian physicist Count Alessandro Volta first discovered this process in
1799 when he created a simple battery from metal plates and brine-soaked
cardboard or paper. Since then, scientists have greatly improved upon Volta's
original design to create batteries made from a variety of materials that come in a
multitude of sizes.
Today, batteries are all around us. They power our wristwatches for months at a
time. They keep our alarm clocks and telephones working, even if the electricity
goes out. They run our smoke detectors, electric razors, power drills, mp3 players,
thermostats -- and the list goes on. If you're reading this article on your laptop
or smart phone, you may even be using batteries right now! However, because
these portable power packs are so prevalent, it's very easy to take them for
granted. This article will give you a greater appreciation for batteries by exploring
their history, as well as the basic parts, reactions and processes that make them
work. So cut that cord and click through our informative guide to charge up your
knowledge of batteries.

The history of batteries can be traced back to 1800. Learn about the
history of batteries and find out how the Daniel cell battery is constructed.
Battery History
Batteries have been around longer than you may think. In 1938, archaeologist
Wilhelm Konig discovered some peculiar clay pots while digging at Khujut Rabu, just
outside of present-day Baghdad, Iraq. The jars, which measure approximately 5
inches (12.7 centimeters) long, contained an iron rod encased in copper and dated
from about 200 B.C. Tests suggested that the vessels had once been filled with an
acidic substance like vinegar or wine, leading Koenig to believe that these vessels
were ancient batteries. Since this discovery, scholars have produced replicas of the

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pots that are in fact capable of producing an electric charge. These "Baghdad
batteries" may have been used for religious rituals, medicinal purposes, or even
electroplating.
In 1799, Italian physicist Alessandro Volta created the first battery by stacking
alternating layers of zinc, brine-soaked pasteboard or cloth, and silver. This
arrangement, called a voltaic pile, was not the first device to create electricity, but
it was the first to emit a steady, lasting current. However, there were some
drawbacks to Volta's invention. The height at which the layers could be stacked was
limited because the weight of the pile would squeeze the brine out of the
pasteboard or cloth. The metal discs also tended to corrode quickly, shortening the
life of the battery. Despite these shortcomings, the SI unit of electromotive force is
now called a volt in honor of Volta's achievement.

The history of batteries can be traced back to 1800. Learn about the
history of batteries and find out how the Daniell cell battery is
constructed.
HowStuffWorks.com
The next breakthrough in battery technology came in 1836 when English chemist
John Frederick Daniell invented the Daniell cell. In this early battery, a copper plate
was placed at the bottom of a glass jar and a copper sulfate solution was poured
over the plate to half-fill the jar. Then the zinc plate was hung in the jar, and a zinc
sulfate solution was added. Because copper sulfate is denser than zinc sulfate, the
zinc solution floated to the top of the copper solution and surrounded the zinc plate.
The wire connected to the zinc plate represented the negative terminal, while the
one leading from the copper plate was the positive terminal. Obviously, this
arrangement would not have functioned well in a flashlight, but for stationary
applications it worked just fine. In fact, the Daniell cell was a common way to power
doorbells and telephones before electrical generation was perfected.

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By 1898, the Colombia Dry Cell became the first commercially available battery sold
in the United States. The manufacturer, National Carbon Company, later became
the Eveready Battery Company, which produces the Energizer brand.
Now that you know some of the history, click over to the next page to learn the
various parts of a battery.
Anatomy of a Battery
Take a look at any battery, and you'll notice that it has two terminals. One terminal
is marked (+), or positive, while the other is marked (-), or negative. In normal
flashlight batteries, like AA, C or D cell, the terminals are located on the ends. On a
9-volt or car battery, however, the terminals are situated next to each other on the
top of the unit. If you connect a wire between the two terminals, the electrons will
flow from the negative end to the positive end as fast as they can. This will quickly
wear out the battery and can also be dangerous, particularly on larger batteries. To
properly harness the electric charge produced by a battery, you must connect it to
a load. The load might be something like a light bulb, a motor or an electronic
circuit like a radio.
The internal workings of a battery are typically housed within a metal or plastic
case. Inside this case are a cathode, which connects to the positive terminal, and
an anode, which connects to the negative terminal. These components, more
generally known as electrodes, occupy most of the space in a battery and are the
place where the chemical reactions occur. A separator creates a barrier between
the cathode and anode, preventing the electrodes from touching while allowing
electrical charge to flow freely between them. The medium that allows the electric
charge to flow between the cathode and anode is known as the electrolyte. Finally,
the collector conducts the charge to the outside of the battery and through the
load.
On the next page, we'll explore how the cathode, anode, electrolyte, separator and
collector work together to produce an electrical current and keep your portable
devices going strong.
Battery Reactions and Chemistry
A lot happens inside a battery when you pop it into your flashlight, remote control or
other wire-free device. While the processes by which they produce electricity differ
slightly from battery to battery, the basic idea remains the same.
When a load completes the circuit between the two terminals, the battery produces
electricity through a series of electromagnetic reactions between the anode,
cathode and electrolyte. The anode experiences an oxidation reaction in which
two or more ions (electrically charged atoms or molecules) from the electrolyte
combine with the anode, producing a compound and releasing one or more

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electrons. At the same time, the cathode goes through a reduction reaction in
which the cathode substance, ions and free electrons also combine to form
compounds. While this action may sound complicated, it's actually very simple: The
reaction in the anode creates electrons, and the reaction in the cathode absorbs
them. The net product is electricity. The battery will continue to produce electricity
until one or both of the electrodes run out of the substance necessary for the
reactions to occur.
Modern batteries use a variety of chemicals to power their reactions. Common
battery chemistries include:

Zinc-carbon battery: The zinc-carbon chemistry is common in many

inexpensive AAA, AA, C and D dry cell batteries. The anode is zinc, the
cathode is manganese dioxide, and the electrolyte is ammonium chloride or
zinc chloride.

Alkaline battery: This chemistry is also common in AA, C and D dry cell
batteries. The cathode is composed of a manganese dioxide mixture, while
the anode is a zinc powder. It gets its name from the potassium hydroxide
electrolyte, which is an alkaline substance.

Lithium-ion battery (rechargeable): Lithium chemistry is often used in

high-performance devices, such as cell phones, digital cameras and even
electric cars. A variety of substances are used in lithium batteries, but a
common combination is a lithium cobalt oxide cathode and a carbon anode.

Lead-acid battery (rechargeable): This is the chemistry used in a typical

car battery. The electrodes are usually made of lead dioxide and metallic
lead, while the electrolyte is a sulfuric acid solution.

The best way to understand these reactions is to see them for yourself. Go to the
next page for some hands-on battery experiments.
Battery Experiments: Voltaic Pile
If you want to learn more about the electrochemical reactions that occur in
batteries, you can actually build one yourself using simple household materials. One
thing you should buy before you start is an inexpensive ($10 to $20) volt-ohm
meter at your local electronics or hardware store. Make sure that the meter can
read low voltages (in the one-volt range) and low currents (in the five-to-10 milliamp
range). With this equipment on hand, you'll be able to see exactly how well your
battery is performing.
You can create your own voltaic pile using quarters, foil, blotting paper, cider
vinegar and salt. Cut the foil and blotting paper into circles, then soak the blotting
paper in a mixture of the cider vinegar and salt. Using masking tape, attach

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a copper wire to one of the foil discs. Now stack the materials in this order: foil,
paper, quarter, foil, paper, quarter, and so on until you have repeated the pattern
10 times. Once the last coin is on the stack, attach a wire to it with masking tape.
Finally, attach the free ends of the two wires to an LED, which should light up. In this
experiment, the copper in the quarter is the cathode, the foil is the anode, the cider
vinegar-salt solution is the electrolyte, and the blotting paper is the separator.
A homemade battery can also be made from copper wire, a paper clip and a lemon.
First, cut a short piece of copper wire and straighten out the paper clip. Use
sandpaper to smooth out any rough parts on the ends of either piece of metal. Next,
gently squeeze the lemon by rolling it on a table, but be careful not to break the
skin. Push the copper wire and the paper clip into the lemon, ensuring that they are
as close together as possible without actually touching. Finally, connect your voltohm meter to the ends of the paper clip and the copper wire, and see what kind of
voltage and current your battery produces.
By now you should be well acquainted with the basic principles by which batteries
discharge electricity. Read on to discover how some batteries can be recharged.
Rechargeable Batteries
With the rise in portable devices such as laptops, cell phones, MP3 players and
cordless power tools, the need for rechargeable batteries has grown substantially in
recent years. Rechargeable batteries have been around since 1859, when French
physicist Gaston Planet invented the lead acid cell. With a lead anode, a lead
dioxide cathode and a sulfuric acid electrolyte, the Planet battery was a precursor to
the modern-day car battery.
Non-rechargeable batteries, or primary cells, and rechargeable batteries,
or secondary cells, produce current exactly the same way: through an
electrochemical reaction involving an anode, cathode and electrolyte. In a
rechargeable battery, however, the reaction is reversible. When electrical energy
from an outside source is applied to a secondary cell, the negative-to-positive
electron flow that occurs during discharge is reversed, and the cell's charge is
restored. The most common rechargeable batteries on the market today
are lithium-ion (LiOn), though nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) and nickelcadmium (NiCd) batteries were also once very prevalent.
When it comes to rechargeable batteries, not all batteries are created equal. NiCd
batteries were among the first widely available secondary cells, but they suffered
from an inconvenient problem known as the memory effect. Basically, if these
batteries weren't fully discharged every time they were used, they would quickly
lose capacity. NiCd batteries were largely phased out in favor of NiMH batteries.
These secondary cells boast a higher capacity and are only minimally affected by
the memory effect, but they don't have a very good shelf life. Like NiMH batteries,
LiOn batteries have a long life, but they hold a charge better, operate at higher

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voltages, and come in a much smaller and lighter package. Essentially all highquality portable technology manufactured these days takes advantage of this
technology. However, LiOn batteries are not currently available in standard sizes
such as AAA, AA, C or D, and they're considerably more expensive than their older
counterparts.
With NiCd and NiMH batteries, charging can be tricky. You must be careful not to
overcharge them, as this could lead to decreased capacity. To prevent this from
happening, some chargers switch to a trickle charge or simply shut off when
charging is complete. NiCd and NiMH batteries also must be reconditioned, meaning
you should completely discharge and recharge them again every once in a while to
minimize any loss in capacity. LiOn batteries, on the other hand, have sophisticated
chargers that prevent overcharging and never need to be reconditioned.
Even rechargeable batteries will eventually die, though it may take hundreds of
charges before that happens. When they finally do give out, be sure to dispose of
them at a recycling facility.

Battery arrangement determines voltage and current. Check out serial

battery arrangements, parallel arrangements and what maximum current
is about.
Battery Arrangement and Power
In many devices that use batteries -- such as portable radios and flashlights -- you
don't use just one cell at a time. You normally group them together in a serial
arrangement to increase the voltage or in a parallel arrangement to
increase current. The diagram shows these two arrangements.

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The upper diagram shows a parallel arrangement. The four batteries in parallel
will together produce the voltage of one cell, but the current they supply will be four
times that of a single cell. Current is the rate at which electric charge passes
through a circuit, and is measured in amperes. Batteries are rated in amp-hours, or,
in the case of smaller household batteries, milliamp-hours (mAH). A typical
household cell rated at 500 milliamp-hours should be able to supply 500 milliamps
of current to the load for one hour. You can slice and dice the milliamp-hour rating in
lots of different ways. A 500 milliamp-hour battery could also produce 5 milliamps
for 100 hours, 10 milliamps for 50 hours, or, theoretically, 1,000 milliamps for 30
minutes. Generally speaking, batteries with higher amp-hour ratings have greater
capacities.
The lower diagram depicts a serial arrangement. The four batteries in series will
together produce the current of one cell, but the voltage they supply will be four
times that of a single cell. Voltage is a measure of energy per unit charge and is
measured in volts. In a battery, voltage determines how strongly electrons are
pushed through a circuit; much like pressure determines how strongly water is
pushed through a hose. Most AAA, AA, C and D batteries are around 1.5 volts.
Imagine the batteries shown in the diagram are rated at 1.5 volts and 500 milliamphours. The four batteries in parallel arrangement will produce 1.5 volts at 2,000
milliamp-hours. The four batteries arranged in a series will produce 6 volts at 500
milliamp-hours.
Battery technology has advanced dramatically since the days of the Voltaic pile.
These developments are clearly reflected in our fast-paced, portable world, which is
more dependent than ever on the portable power source that batteries provide. One
can only imagine what the next generation of smaller, more powerful and longerlasting batteries will bring.
How Speakers Work

Speakers take electronic signals and turn them into sound. See more audio tech pictures.

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In any sound system, ultimate quality depends on the speakers. The best recording,
encoded on the most advanced storage device and played by a top-of-the-line deck
and amplifier, will sound awful if the system is hooked up to poor speakers.
A system's speaker is the component that takes the electronic signal stored on
things like CDs, tapes and DVDs and turns it back into actual sound that we can
hear.
In this article, we'll find out exactly how speakers do this. We'll also look at how
speaker designs differ, and see how these differences affect sound quality. Speakers
are amazing pieces of technology that have had a profound impact on our culture.
But at their heart, they are remarkably simple devices.
Sound Basics
To understand how speakers work, you first need to understand how sound works.
Inside your ear is a very thin piece of skin called the eardrum. When your eardrum
vibrates, your brain interprets the vibrations as sound -- that's how you hear. Rapid
changes in air pressure are the most common thing to vibrate your eardrum.
An object produces sound when it vibrates in air (sound can also travel through
liquids and solids, but air is the transmission medium when we listen to speakers).
When something vibrates, it moves the air particles around it. Those air particles in
turn move the air particles around them, carrying the pulse of the vibration through
the air as a traveling disturbance.
To see how this works, let's look at a simple vibrating object -- a bell. When you ring
a bell, the metal vibrates -- flexes in and out -- rapidly. When it flexes out on one
side, it pushes out on the surrounding air particles on that side. These air particles
then collide with the particles in front of them, which collide with the particles in
front of them and so on. When the bell flexes away, it pulls in on these surrounding
air particles, creating a drop in pressure that pulls in on more surrounding air
particles, which creates another drop in pressure that pulls in particles that are even
farther out and so on. This decreasing of pressure is called rarefaction.
In this way, a vibrating object sends a wave of pressure fluctuation through the
atmosphere. When the fluctuation wave reaches your ear, it vibrates the eardrum
back and forth. Our brain interprets this motion as sound.
Differentiating Sound
We hear different sounds from different vibrating objects because of variations in:

Sound-wave frequency - A higher wave frequency simply means that the

air pressure fluctuates faster. We hear this as a higher pitch. When there are
fewer fluctuations in a period of time, the pitch is lower.

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Air-pressure level - This is the wave's amplitude, which determines how

loud the sound is. Sound waves with greater amplitudes move our ear drums
more, and we register this sensation as a higher volume.

A microphone works something like our ears. It has a diaphragm that is vibrated
by sound waves in an area. The signal from a microphone gets encoded on
a tape or CD as an electrical signal. When you play this signal back on your stereo,
the amplifier sends it to the speaker, which re-interprets it into physical vibrations.
Good speakers are optimized to produce extremely accurate fluctuations in air
pressure, just like the ones originally picked up by the microphone. In the next
section, we'll see how the speaker accomplishes this.
Making Sound
In the last section, we saw that sound travels in waves of air pressure fluctuation,
and that we hear sounds differently depending on the frequency and amplitude of
these waves. We also learned that microphones translate sound waves into
electrical signals, which can be encoded onto CDs, tapes, LPs, etc. Players convert
this stored information back into an electric current for use in the stereo system.
A speaker is essentially the final translation machine -- the reverse of
the microphone. It takes the electrical signal and translates it back into physical
vibrations to create sound waves. When everything is working as it should, the
speaker produces nearly the same vibrations that the microphone originally
recorded and encoded on a tape, CD, LP, etc.
Traditional speakers do this with one or more drivers.
Making Sound: Diaphragm
A driver produces sound waves by rapidly vibrating a flexible cone, or diaphragm.

The cone, usually made of paper, plastic or metal, is attached on the wide
end to the suspension.

The suspension, or surround, is a rim of flexible material that allows the

cone to move, and is attached to the driver's metal frame, called the basket.

The narrow end of the cone is connected to the voice coil.

The coil is attached to the basket by the spider, a ring of flexible material.
The spider holds the coil in position, but allows it to move freely back and
forth.

Some drivers have a dome instead of a cone. A dome is just a diaphragm that
extends out instead of tapering in.
Making Sound: Voice Coil

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When the electrical current flowing through the voice coil changes direction, the
coil's polar orientation reverses.
The voice coil is a basic electromagnet.
If you've read How Electromagnets Work, then you know that an electromagnet is a
coil of wire, usually wrapped around a piece of magnetic metal, such as iron.
Running electrical current through the wire creates a magnetic field around the coil,
magnetizing the metal it is wrapped around. The field acts just like the magnetic
field around a permanent magnet: It has a polar orientation -- a "north" end and and
a "south" end -- and it is attracted to iron objects. But unlike a permanent magnet,
in an electromagnet you can alter the orientation of the poles. If you reverse the
flow of the current, the north and south ends of the electromagnet switch.
This is exactly what a stereo signal does -- it constantly reverses the flow of
electricity. If you've ever hooked up a stereo system, then you know that there are
two output wires for each speaker -- typically a black one and a red one.
Essentially, the amplifier is constantly switching the electrical signal, fluctuating
between a positive charge and a negative charge on the red wire. Since electrons
always flow in the same direction between positively charged particles and
negatively charged particles, the current going through the speaker moves one way
and then reverses and flows the other way. This alternating current causes the
polar orientation of the electromagnet to reverse itself many times a second.
Making Sound: Magnets When the electrical current flowing through the voice
coil changes direction, the coil's polar orientation reverses. This changes the
magnetic forces between the voice coil and the permanent magnet, moving the coil
and attached diaphragm back and forth.
So how does the fluctuation make the speaker coil move back and forth? The
electromagnet is positioned in a constant magnetic field created by a permanent
magnet. These two magnets -- the electromagnet and the permanent magnet -interact with each other as any two magnets do. The positive end of the
electromagnet is attracted to the negative pole of the permanent magnetic field,
and the negative pole of the electromagnet is repelled by the permanent magnet's
negative pole. When the electromagnet's polar orientation switches, so does the
direction of repulsion and attraction. In this way, the alternating current constantly
reverses the magnetic forces between the voice coil and the permanent magnet.
This pushes the coil back and forth rapidly, like a piston.
When the coil moves, it pushes and pulls on the speaker cone. This vibrates the air
in front of the speaker, creating sound waves. The electrical audio signal can also be
interpreted as a wave. The frequency and amplitude of this wave, which represents
the original sound wave, dictates the rate and distance that the voice coil moves.

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This, in turn, determines the frequency and amplitude of the sound waves produced
by the diaphragm.
Different driver sizes are better suited for certain frequency ranges. For this reason,
loudspeaker units typically divide a wide frequency range among multiple drivers.
In the next section, we'll find out how speakers divide up the frequency range, and
we'll look at the main driver types used in loudspeakers.
Driver Types

Midrange
In the last section, we saw that traditional speakers produce sound by pushing and
pulling an electromagnet attached to a flexible cone. Although drivers are all based
on the same concept, there is a wide range in driver size and power. The basic
driver types are:

Woofers

Tweeters

Midrange

Woofers are the biggest drivers, and are designed to produce low frequency
sounds. Tweeters are much smaller units, designed to produce the highest
frequencies. Midrange speakers produce a range of frequencies in the middle of
the sound spectrum.
And if you think about it, this makes perfect sense. To create higher frequency
waves -- waves in which the points of high pressure and low pressure are closer
together -- the driver diaphragm must vibrate more quickly. This is harder to do with
a large cone because of the mass of the cone. Conversely, it's harder to get a small
driver to vibrate slowly enough to produce very low frequency sounds. It's more
suited to rapid movement.
Chunks of the Frequency Range

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The typical crossover unit from a loudspeaker: The frequency is divided up

by inductors and capacitors and then sent on to the woofer, tweeter and
mid-range driver.
To produce quality sound over a wide frequency range more effectively, you can
break the entire range into smaller chunks that are handled by specialized drivers.
Quality loudspeakers will typically have a woofer, a tweeter and sometimes a
midrange driver, all included in one enclosure.
Of course, to dedicate each driver to a particular frequency range, the speaker
system first needs to break the audio signal into different pieces -- low frequency,
high frequency and sometimes mid-range frequencies. This is the job of the speaker
crossover.
The most common type of crossover is passive, meaning it doesn't need an
external power source because it is activated by the audio signal passing through it.
This sort of crossover uses inductors, capacitors and sometimes other circuitry
components. Capacitors and inductors only become good conductors under certain
conditions. A crossover capacitor will conduct the current very well when the
frequency exceeds a certain level, but will conduct poorly when the frequency is
below that level. A crossover inductor acts in the reverse manner -- it is only a good
conductor when the frequency is below a certain level.
When the electrical audio signal travels through the speaker wire to the speaker, it
passes through the crossover units for each driver. To flow to the tweeter, the
current will have to pass through a capacitor. So for the most part, the high
frequency part of the signal will flow on to the tweeter voice coil. To flow to the
woofer, the current passes through an inductor, so the driver will mainly respond to
low frequencies. A crossover for the mid-range driver will conduct the current
through a capacitor and an inductor, to set an upper and lower cutoff point.
There are also active crossovers. Active crossovers are electronic devices that
pick out the different frequency ranges in an audio signal before it goes on to the
amplifier (you use an amplifier circuit for each driver). They have several
advantages over passive crossovers, the main one being that you can easily adjust
the frequency ranges. Passive crossover ranges are determined by the individual

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circuitry components -- to change them, you need to install new capacitors and
inductors. Active crossovers aren't as widely used as passive crossovers, however,
because the equipment is much more expensive and you need multiple amplifier
outputs for your speakers.
Crossovers and drivers can be installed as separate components in a sound system,
but most people end up buying speaker units that house the crossover and multiple
drivers in one box. In the next section, we'll find out what these speaker
enclosures do and how they affect the speaker's sound quality

In a sealed speaker setup, the driver diaphragm compresses air in the

enclosure when it moves in and rarefies air when it moves out.
Sealed Speaker Enclosures
In most loudspeaker systems, the drivers and the crossover are housed in some sort
of speaker enclosure. These enclosures serve a number of functions. On their
most basic level, they make it much easier to set up the speakers. Everything's in
one unit and the drivers are kept in the right position, so they work together to
produce the best sound. Enclosures are usually built with heavy wood or another
solid material that will effectively absorb the driver's vibration. If you simply placed
a driver on a table, the table would vibrate so much it would drown out a lot of the
speaker's sound.
Additionally, the speaker enclosure affects how sound is produced. When we looked
at speaker drivers, we focused on how the vibrating diaphragm emitted sound
waves in front of the cone. But, since the diaphragm is moving back and forth, it's
actually producing sound waves behind the cone as well. Different enclosure types
have different ways of handling these "backward" waves.
The most common type of enclosure is the sealed enclosure, also called acoustic
suspension enclosure. These enclosures are completely sealed, so no air can
escape. This means the forward wave travels outward into the room, while the
backward wave travels only into the box. Of course, since no air can escape, the

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internal air pressure is constantly changing -- when the driver moves in, the
pressure is increased and when the driver moves out, it is decreased. Both
movements create pressure differences between the air inside the box and the air
outside the box. The air will always move to equalize pressure levels, so the driver is
constantly being pushed toward its "resting" state -- the position at which internal
and external air pressure are the same.
These enclosures are less efficient than other designs because the amplifier has to
boost the electrical signal to overcome the force of air pressure. The force serves a
valuable function, however -- it acts like

Other Speaker Enclosures

Other enclosure designs redirect the inward pressure outward, using it to
supplement the forward sound wave. The most common way to do this is to build a
small port into the speaker. In these bass reflex speakers, the backward motion of
the diaphragm pushes sound waves out of the port, boosting the overall sound
level. The main advantage of bass reflex enclosures is efficiency. The power moving
the driver is used to emit two sound waves rather than one. The disadvantage is
that there is no air pressure difference to spring the driver back into place, so the
sound production is not as precise.

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Passive radiator enclosures are very similar to bass reflex units, but in passive
radiator enclosures, the backward wave moves an additional, passive driver,
instead of escaping out of the port. The passive driver is just like the main,
active drivers except it doesn't have an electromagnet voice coil, and it isn't
connected to the amplifier. It is moved only by the sound waves coming from the
active drivers. This type of enclosure is more efficient than sealed designs and more
precise than bass reflex models.
Some enclosure designs have an active driver facing one way and a passive driver
facing the other way. This dipole design diffuses the sound in all directions, making
it a good choice for the rear channels in a home theater system.
These are just a few of the many enclosure types available. There are a huge range
of speaker units on the market, with a variety of unique structures and driver
arrangements. Check out this page to learn about some of these designs.
a spring to keep the driver in the right position. This makes for tighter, more precise
sound production.

The diaphragm is alternately charged with a positive current and a

negative current, based on the varying electrical audio signal. When the
diaphragm is positively charged, it fluctuates toward the front plate, and
when it is negatively charged it fluctuates toward the rear plate. In this
way, it precisely reproduces the recorded pattern of air fluctuations.
Alternative Speaker Designs
Most loudspeakers produce sound with traditional drivers. But there are a few other
technologies on the market. These designs have some advantages over traditional
dynamic speakers, but they fall short in other areas. For this reason, they are often
used in conjunction with driver units.

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The most popular alternative is the electrostatic speaker. These speakers vibrate
air with a large, thin, conductive diaphragm panel. This diaphragm panel is
suspended between two stationary conductive panels that are charged with
electrical current from a wall outlet. These panels create an electrical field with a
positive end and a negative end. The audio signal runs a current through the
suspended panel, rapidly switching between a positive charge and a negative
charge. When the charge is positive, the panel is drawn toward the negative end of
the field, and when the charge is negative, it moves toward the positive end in the
field.
In this way, the diaphragm rapidly vibrates the air in front of it. Because the panel
has such a low mass, it responds very quickly and precisely to changes in the audio
signal. This makes for clear, extremely accurate sound reproduction. The panel
doesn't move a great distance, however, so it is not very effective at producing
lower frequency sounds. For this reason, electrostatic speakers are often paired with
a woofer that boosts the low frequency range. The other problem with electrostatic
speakers is that they must be plugged into the wall and so are more difficult to
place in a room.
Another alternative is the planar magnetic speaker. These units use a long,
metal ribbon suspended between two magnetic panels. They basically work the
same way as electrostatic speakers, except that the alternating positive and
negative current moves the diaphragm in a magnetic field rather than an electric
field. Like electrostatic speakers, they produce high-frequency sound with
extraordinary precision, but low frequency sounds are less defined. For this reason,
the planar magnetic speaker is usually used only as a tweeter.
Both of these designs are becoming more popular with audio enthusiasts, but
traditional dynamic drivers are still the most prevalent technology, far and away.
You'll find them everywhere you go -- not only in stereo setups, but in alarm clocks,
public address systems, televisions, computers, headphones and tons of other
devices. It's amazing how such a simple concept has revolutionized the modern
world!
Types of Microphones
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There are many different types of microphones. See more audio tech
pictures.
Sound is an amazing thing. All of the different noises we hear are caused by minute
pressure differences in the air around us. What's amazing about it is that the air
transmits those pressure changes so well -- and so accurately -- over relatively long
distances.
If you've read How CDs Work, you learned about the very first microphone. It was a
metal diaphragm attached to a needle, and this needle scratched a pattern onto a
piece of metal foil. The pressure differences in the air that occurred when someone
spoke toward the diaphragm moved the diaphragm, which moved the needle, which
then recorded on the foil. When the needle was later run back over the foil, the
vibrations scratched on the foil would then move the diaphragm and re-create the
sound. The fact that this purely mechanical system works shows how much energy
the vibrations in the air can have.
All modern microphones are trying to accomplish the same thing as the original, but
do it electronically rather than mechanically. A microphone wants to take varying
pressure waves in the air and convert them into varying electrical signals. There are
several different technologies commonly used to accomplish this conversion. Take a
look at the next page to learn more about different types of mics -- including one of
the first invented by Alexander Graham Bell.
Liquid microphones, invented by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson, were
among the first working microphones to be developed, and they were a precursor to
what would later become the condenser microphone. Early liquid microphones used
a metal cup filled with water and sulfuric acid. A diaphragm was placed over the cup
with a needle on the receiving side of the diaphragm. Sound waves would cause the
needle to move in the water. A small electrical current ran to the needle, which was
modulated by sound vibrations. The liquid microphone was never a particularly
functional device, but it makes a great science experiment
The oldest and simplest microphone uses carbon dust. This is the technology used
in the first telephones and is still used in some telephones today. The carbon dust
has a thin metal or plastic diaphragm on one side. As sound waves hit the
diaphragm, they compress the carbon dust, which changes its resistance. By
running a current through the carbon, the changing resistance changes the amount
of current that flows

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5. Monochromatic, single-phase, columnated light

leaves the ruby through the half-silvered mirror -laser light! Simple ruby laser works.
How Oscillators Work

Oscillators are important in many different types of

electronic equipment. For example, a quartz
watch uses a quartz oscillator to keep track of what
time it is. An AM radio transmitter uses an oscillator
to create the carrier wave for the station, and an AM
radio receiver uses a special form of oscillator called
a resonator to tune in a station. There are oscillators
in computers, metal detectors and even stun guns.
To understand how electronic oscillators work, it is
helpful to look at examples from the physical world.
In this article, you'll learn the basic idea behind
oscillators and how they're used in electronics.
Oscillation Basics
One of the most commonly used oscillators is
the pendulum of a clock. If you push on a pendulum
to start it swinging, it will oscillate at
some frequency -- it will swing back and forth a
certain number of times per second. The length of the

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pendulum is the main thing that controls the
frequency.
For something to oscillate, energy needs to move
back and forth between two forms. For example, in a
pendulum, energy moves between potential
energy and kinetic energy. When the pendulum is
at one end of its travel, its energy is all potential
energy and it is ready to fall. When the pendulum is
in the middle of its cycle, all of its potential energy
turns into kinetic energy and the pendulum is moving
as fast as it can. As the pendulum moves toward the
other end of its swing, all the kinetic energy turns
back into potential energy. This movement of energy
between the two forms is what causes the oscillation.
Eventually, any physical oscillator stops moving
because of friction. To keep it going, you have to add
a little bit of energy on each cycle. In a pendulum
clock, the energy that keeps the pendulum moving
comes from the spring. The pendulum gets a little
push on each stroke to make up for the energy it
loses to friction. See How Pendulum Clocks Work for
details.
An electronic oscillator works on the same
principle.

Oscillator Circuits
Energy needs to move back and forth from one form
to another for an oscillator to work. You can make a
very simple oscillator by connecting a capacitor and
an inductor together. If you've read How Capacitors
Work and How Inductors Work, you know that both
capacitors and inductors store energy. A capacitor
stores energy in the form of an electrostatic field,

134
while an inductor uses a magnetic field.
Imagine the following circuit:
If you charge up the capacitor with a battery and then
insert the inductor into the circuit, here's what will
happen:

The capacitor will start to discharge through

the inductor. As it does, the inductor will create
a magnetic field.

Once the capacitor discharges, the inductor will

try to keep the current in the circuit moving, so
it will charge up the other plate of the
capacitor.

Once the inductor's field collapses, the

capacitor has been recharged (but with the
opposite polarity), so it discharges again
through the inductor.

This oscillation will continue until the circuit runs out

of energy due to resistance in the wire. It will
oscillate at a frequency that depends on the size of
the inductor and the capacitor.

Resonators

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In a simple crystal radio (see How Radio Works for
details), a capacitor/inductor oscillator acts as
the tuner for the radio. It is connected to an antenna
and ground like this:
Thousands of sine waves from different radio
stations hit the antenna. The capacitor and inductor
want to resonate at one particular frequency. The sine
wave that matches that particular frequency will
get amplified by the resonator, and all of the other
frequencies will be ignored.
In a radio, either the capacitor or the inductor in the
resonator is adjustable. When you turn the tuner
knob on the radio, you are adjusting, for example, a
variable capacitor. Varying the capacitor changes the
resonant frequency of the resonator and therefore
changes the frequency of the sine wave that the
resonator amplifies. This is how you "tune in"
different stations on the radio!

How Amplifiers Work

When people refer to "amplifiers," they're usually talking about stereo components
or musical equipment. But this is only a small representation of the spectrum of
audio amplifiers. There are actually amplifiers all around us. You'll find them
in televisions, computers, portable CD players and most other devices that use
a speaker to produce sound.
Sound is a fascinating phenomenon. When something vibrates in the atmosphere, it
moves the air particles around it. Those air particles in turn move the air particles
around them, carrying the pulse of the vibration through the air. Our ears pick up
these fluctuations in air pressure and translate them into electrical signals the brain
can process.
Electronic sound equipment works the same basic way. It represents sound as a
varying electric current. Broadly speaking, there are three steps in this sort of sound
reproduction:

Sound waves move a microphone diaphragm back and forth, and the
microphone translates this movement into an electrical signal. The electrical
signal fluctuates to represent the compressions and rarefactions of the
sound wave.

136

A recorder encodes this electrical signal as a pattern in some sort of medium

-- as magnetic impulses on tape, for example, or as grooves in a record.

A player (such as a tape deck) re-interprets this pattern as an electrical signal

and uses this electricity to move a speaker cone back and forth. This recreates the air-pressure fluctuations originally recorded by the microphone.

As you can see, all the major components in this system are essentially translators:
They take the signal in one form and put it into another. In the end, the sound signal
is translated back into its original form, a physical sound wave.
In order to register all of the minute pressure fluctuations in a sound wave, the
microphone diaphragm has to be extremely sensitive. This means it is very thin and
moves only a short distance. Consequently, the microphone produces a fairly small
electrical current.
This is fine for most of the stages in the process -- it's strong enough for use in the
recorder, for example, and it is easily transmitted through wires. But the final step
in the process -- pushing the speaker cone back and forth -- is more difficult. To do
this, you need to boost the audio signal so it has a larger current while preserving
the same pattern of charge fluctuation.
This is the job of the amplifier. It simply produces a more powerful version of the
audio signal. In this article, we'll see what amplifiers do and how they do it.
Amplifiers can be very complex devices, with hundreds of tiny pieces, but you can
get a clear picture of how an amplifier works by examining the most basic
components. In this next section, we'll look at the basic elements of amplifiers.

137
The basic concept of an amplifier: A smaller current is used to modify a
larger current.
Pump it Up
In the last section, we saw that an amplifier's job is to take a weak audio signal and
boost it to generate a signal that is powerful enough to drive a speaker. This is an
accurate description when you consider the amplifier as a whole, but the process
inside the amplifier is a little more complex.
In actuality, the amplifier generates a completely new output signal based on the
input signal. You can understand these signals as two separate circuits. The output
circuit is generated by the amplifier's power supply, which draws energy from
a battery or power outlet. If the amplifier is powered by household alternating
current, where the flow of charge changes directions, the power supply will convert
it into direct current, where the charge always flows in the same direction. The
power supply also smoothes out the current to generate an absolutely even,
uninterrupted signal. The output circuit's load (the work it does) is moving the
speaker cone.
The input circuit is the electrical audio signal recorded on tape or running in from
a microphone. Its load is modifying the output circuit. It applies a varying
resistance to the output circuit to re-create the voltage fluctuations of the original
audio signal.
In most amplifiers, this load is too much work for the original audio signal. For this
reason, the signal is first boosted by a pre-amplifier, which sends a stronger
output signal to the power amplifier. The pre-amplifier works the same basic way
as the amplifier: The input circuit applies varying resistance to an output circuit
generated by the power supply. Some amplifier systems use several pre-amplifiers
to gradually build up to a high-voltage output signal.
So how does the amplifier do this? If you look inside an amplifier for an answer,
you'll only find a complex mass of wires and circuitry components. The amplifier
needs this elaborate setup to make sure each part of the audio signal is represented
correctly and accurately. Hi-fidelity output requires very precise control.
Inside an amplifier, you'll see a mass of electronic components. The central
components are the large transistors. The transistors generate a lot of
heat, which is dissipated by the heat sink.
All of the pieces in an amplifier are important, but you certainly don't need to
examine each one to understand how an amplifier works. There are only a few
elements that are crucial to the amplifier's functioning. In the next section, we'll see
how these elements come together in a very basic amplifier design.

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A standard bipolar transistor

Electronic Elements
The component at the heart of most amplifiers is the transistor. The main
elements in a transistor are semiconductors, materials with varying ability to
conduct electric current. Typically, a semiconductor is made of a poor conductor,
such as silicon, that has had impurities (atoms of another material) added to it.
The process of adding impurities is called doping.
In pure silicon, all of the silicon atoms bond perfectly to their neighbors, leaving no
free electrons to conduct electric current. In doped silicon, additional atoms change
the balance, either adding free electrons or creating holes where electrons can go.
Electrical charge moves when electrons move from hole to hole, so either one of
these additions will make the material more conductive. N-type semiconductors are
characterized by extra electrons (which have a negative charge). P-type
semiconductors have an abundance of extra holes (which have a positive charge).
Let's look at an amplifier built around a basic bipolar-junction transistor. This
sort of transistor consists of three semiconductor layers -- in this case, a ptype semiconductor sandwiched between two n-type semiconductors. This
structure is best represented as a bar, as shown in the diagram below (the actual
design of modern transistors is a little different).
The first n-type layer is called the emitter, the p-type layer is called the base and
the second n-type layer is called the collector. The output circuit (the circuit that
drives the speaker) is connected to electrodes at the transistor's emitter and
collector. The input circuit connects to the emitter and the base.

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The free electrons in the n-type layers naturally want to fill the holes in the p-type
layer. There are many more free electrons than holes, so the holes fill up very
quickly. This creates depletion zones at the boundaries between n-type material
and p-type material. In a depletion zone, the semiconductor material is returned to
its original insulating state -- all the holes are filled, so there are no free electrons
or empty spaces for electrons, and charge can't flow. When the depletion zones are
thick, very little charge can move from the emitter to the collector, even though
there is a strong voltage difference between the two electrodes.
Boosting the Voltage
When depletion zones are thick, you can boost the voltage on the base electrode.
The voltage at this electrode is directly controlled by the input current. When the
input current is flowing, the base electrode has a relative positive charge, so it
draws electrons toward it from the emitter. This frees up some of the holes, which
shrinks the depletion zones. As the depletion zones are reduced, charge can move
from the emitter to the collector more easily -- the transistor becomes more
conductive. The size of the depletion zones, and therefore the conductivity of the
transistor, is determined by the voltage at the base electrode. In this way, the
fluctuating input current at the base electrode varies the current output at the
collector electrode. This output drives the speaker.
A single transistor like this represents one "stage" of an amplifier. A typical amplifier
will have several boosting stages, with the final stage driving the speaker.
In a small amplifier -- the amplifier in a speaker phone, for example -- the final stage
might produce only half a watt of power. In a home stereo amplifier, the final stage
might produce hundreds of watts. The amplifiers used in outdoor concerts can
produce thousands of watts.
The goal of a good amplifier is to cause as little distortion as possible. The final
signal driving the speakers should mimic the original input signal as closely as
possible, even though it has been boosted several times.
This basic approach can be used to amplify all kinds of things, not just audio signals.
Anything that can be carried by an electrical current -- radio and video signals, for
example -- can be amplified by similar means. Audio amplifiers seem to catch
people's attention more than anything else, however. Sound enthusiasts are
fascinated with variations in design that affect power
rating, impedance and fidelity, among other specifications.
How CDs Work

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CDs and DVDs are everywhere these days. Whether they are used to hold music,
data or computer software, they have become the standard medium for distributing
large quantities of information in a reliable package. Compact discs are so easy and
cheap to produce that America Online sends out millions of them every year to
entice new users. And if you have a computer and CD-R drive, you can create your
own CDs, including any information you want.
In this article, we will look at how CDs and CD drives work. We will also look at the
different forms CDs take, as well as what the future holds for this technology.

Cross-section of a CD
Understanding the CD: Material
As discussed in How Analog and Digital Recording Works, a CD can store up to 74
minutes of music, so the total amount of digital data that must be stored on a CD is:
44,100 samples/channel/second x 2 bytes/sample x 2 channels x 74
minutes x 60 seconds/minute = 783,216,000 bytes
To fit more than 783 megabytes (MB) onto a disc only 4.8 inches (12 cm) in
diameter requires that the individual bytes be very small. By examining the physical
construction of a CD, you can begin to understand just how small these bytes are.

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A CD is a fairly simple piece of plastic, about four one-hundredths (4/100) of an inch
(1.2 mm) thick. Most of a CD consists of an injection-molded piece of clear
polycarbonate plastic. During manufacturing, this plastic is impressed with
microscopic bumps arranged as a single, continuous, extremely long spiral track of
data. We'll return to the bumps in a moment. Once the clear piece of polycarbonate
is formed, a thin, reflective aluminum layer is sputtered onto the disc, covering the
bumps. Then a thin acrylic layer is sprayed over the aluminum to protect it. The
label is then printed onto the acrylic. A cross section of a complete CD (not to scale)
looks like this:

Understanding the CD: The Spiral

A CD has a single spiral track of data, circling from the inside of the disc to the
outside. The fact that the spiral track starts at the center means that the CD can be
smaller than 4.8 inches (12 cm) if desired, and in fact there are now plastic baseball
cards and business cards that you can put in a CD player. CD business cards hold
about 2 MB of data before the size and shape of the card cuts off the spiral.
What the picture on the right does not even begin to impress upon you is how
incredibly small the data track is -- it is approximately 0.5 microns wide, with 1.6
microns separating one track from the next. (A micron is a millionth of a meter.) And
the bumps are even more miniscule..
How CDs Work

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Understanding the CD: Bumps
The elongated bumps that make up the track are each 0.5 microns wide, a
minimum of 0.83 microns long and 125 nanometers high. (A nanometer is a billionth
of a meter.) Looking through the polycarbonate layer at the bumps, they look
something like this:
You will often read about "pits" on a CD instead of bumps. They appear as pits on
the aluminum side, but on the side the laser reads from, they are bumps.
The incredibly small dimensions of the bumps make the spiral track on a CD
extremely long. If you could lift the data track off a CD and stretch it out into a
straight line, it would be 0.5 microns wide and almost 3.5 miles (5 km) long!
To read something this small you need an incredibly precise disc-reading
mechanism. Let's take a look at that.
How CDs Work

Inside a CD player
CD player Components
The CD player has the job of finding and reading the data stored as bumps on the
CD. Considering how small the bumps are, the CD player is an exceptionally precise
piece of equipment. The drive consists of three fundamental components:

A drive motor spins the disc. This drive motor is precisely controlled to
rotate between 200 and 500 rpm depending on which track is being read.

A laser and a lens system focus in on and read the bumps.

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A tracking mechanism moves the laser assembly so that the laser's beam
can follow the spiral track. The tracking system has to be able to move the
laser at micron resolutions.

What the CD player Does: Laser Focus

Inside the CD player, there is a good bit of computer technology involved in forming
the data into understandable data blocks and sending them either to the DAC (in
the case of an audio CD) or to the computer (in the case of a CD-ROM drive).
The fundamental job of the CD player is to focus the laser on the track of bumps.
The laser beam passes through the polycarbonate layer, reflects off the aluminum
layer and hits an opto-electronic device that detects changes in light. The bumps
reflect light differently than the "lands" (the rest of the aluminum layer), and the
opto-electronic sensor detects that change in reflectivity. The electronics in the
drive interpret the changes in reflectivity in order to read the bits that make up
the bytes.
What the CD Player Does: Tracking
The hardest part is keeping the laser beam centered on the data track. This
centering is the job of the tracking system. The tracking system, as it plays the
CD, has to continually move the laser outward. As the laser moves outward from the
center of the disc, the bumps move past the laser faster -- this happens because the
linear, or tangential, speed of the bumps is equal to the radius times the speed at
which the disc is revolving (rpm). Therefore, as the laser moves outward,
the spindle motor must slow the speed of the CD. That way, the bumps travel past
the laser at a constant speed, and the data comes off the disc at a constant rate
CD Encoding Issues
If you have a CD-R drive, and want to produce your own audio CDs or CD-ROMs, one
of the great things you've got going in your favor is the fact that software can
handle all the details for you. You can say to your software, "Please store these
songs on this CD," or "Please store these data files on this CD-ROM," and the
software will do the rest. Because of this, you don't need to know anything about CD
data formatting to create your own CDs. However, CD data formatting is complex
and interesting, so let's go into it anyway.
To understand how data are stored on a CD, you need to understand all of the
different conditions the designers of the data encoding methodology were trying to
handle. Here is a fairly complete list:
Because the laser is tracking the spiral of data using the bumps, there cannot be
extended gaps where there are no bumps in the data track. To solve this problem,
data is encoded using EFM (eight-fourteen modulation). In EFM, 8-bit bytes are
converted to 14 bits, and it is guaranteed by EFM that some of those bits will be 1s.

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Because the laser wants to be able to move between songs, data needs to be
encoded into the music telling the drive "where it is" on the disc. This problem is
solved using what is known as sub code data. Sub code data can encode the
absolute and relative position of the laser in the track, and can also encode such
things as song titles.
Because the laser may misread a bump, there need to be error-correcting
codes to handle single-bit errors. To solve this problem, extra data bits are added
that allow the drive to detect single-bit errors and correct them.
Because a scratch or a speck on the CD might cause a whole packet of bytes to be
misread (known as a burst error), the drive needs to be able to recover from such
an event. This problem is solved by actually interleaving the data on the disc, so
that it is stored non-sequentially around one of the disc's circuits. The drive actually
reads data one revolution at a time, and un-interleaves the data in order to play it.
If a few bytes are misread in music, the worst thing that can happen is a little fuzz
during playback. When data is stored on a CD, however, any data error is
catastrophic. Therefore, additional error correction codes are used when storing
data on a CD-ROM.
CD Data Formats
There are several different formats used to store data on a CD, some widely used
and some long-forgotten. The two most common are CD-DA (audio) and CDROM (computer data).
For more information on CDs and related topics, check out the links on the next
page.
How CD Burners Work

An external writable CD drive, also called a CD burner, lets you take music
or data files from your computer and make your own CDs.
The advent of CD burners marked a huge cultural shift. The technology made it
feasible for the average person to gather songs and make their own CDs. Suddenly,
music-mix makers everywhere had their hands on the means of production.

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Today, writable CD drives (CD burners) are standard equipment in new PCs, and
more and more audio enthusiasts are adding separate CD burners to their stereo
systems. In less than five years, CDs have eclipsed tapes as the mix medium of
choice.
In this article, you'll find out how CD burners encode songs and other information
onto blank discs. We'll also look at CD re-writable technology, see how the data files
are put together and find out how you can make your own music mixes with a CD
burner.

A CD has a long, spiraled data track. If you were to unwind this track, it
would extend out 3.5 miles (5 km).
CD Basics: The Bumps
If you've read How CDs Work, you understand the basic idea of CD technology. CDs
store music and other files in digital form -- that is, the information on the disc is
represented by a series of 1s and 0s (see How Analog and Digital Recording
Works for more information). In conventional CDs, these 1s and 0s are represented
by millions of tiny bumps and flat areas on the disc's reflective surface. The bumps
and flats are arranged in a continuous track that measures about 0.5 microns
(millionths of a meter) across and 3.5 miles (5 km) long.
To read this information, the CD player passes a laser beam over the track. When
the laser passes over a flat area in the track, the beam is reflected directly to
an optical sensor on the laser assembly. The CD player interprets this as a 1.
When the beam passes over a bump, the light is bounced away from the optical
sensor. The CD player recognizes this as a 0.
A CD player guides a small laser along the CD's data track.
In conventional CDs, the flat areas, or lands, reflect the light back to the
laser assembly; the bumps deflect the light so it does not bounce back.
CD Basics: The Path

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The bumps are arranged in a spiral path, starting at the center of the disc. The CD
player spins the disc while the laser assembly moves outward from the center of
the CD. At a steady speed, the bumps move past any point at the outer edge of the
CD more rapidly than they move past any point nearer the CD's center. In order to
keep the bumps moving past the laser at a constant rate, the player must slow
the spinning speed of the disc as the laser assembly moves outward.
At its heart, this is all there is to a CD player. The execution of this idea is fairly
complicated, because the pattern of the spiral must be encoded and read with
incredible precision, but the basic process is pretty simple.
The CD player spins the disc while moving the laser assembly outward
from the middle. To keep the laser scanning the data track at a constant
speed, the player must slow the disc as the assembly moves outward.
In the next section, you'll find out how data is recorded on CDs, both by professional
equipment and the home CD burner.

The different layers of a conventional CD

Reading CDs
In the last section, we saw that conventional CDs store digital data as a pattern of
bumps and flat areas, arranged in a long spiral track. The CD fabrication machine
uses a high-powered laser to etch the bump pattern into photoresist material
coated onto a glass plate. Through an elaborate imprinting process, this pattern is
pressed onto acrylic discs. The discs are then coated with aluminum (or another
metal) to create the readable reflective surface. Finally, the disc is coated with a
transparent plastic layer that protects the reflective metal from nicks, scratches
and debris.
As you can see, this is a fairly complex, delicate operation, involving many steps
and several different materials. Like most complex manufacturing processes
(from newspaper printing to television assembly), conventional CD manufacturing
isn't practical for home use. It's only feasible for manufacturers who produce
hundreds, thousands or millions of CD copies.

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Consequently, conventional CDs have remained a "read only" storage medium for
the average consumer, like LPs or conventional DVDs. To audiophiles accustomed to
recordable cassettes, as well as computer users who were fed up with the
limited memory capacity of floppy disks, this limitation seemed like a major
drawback of CD technology. In the early '90s, more and more consumers and
professionals were looking for a way to make their own CD-quality digital
recordings.
Writing CDs
In response to this demand, electronics manufacturers introduced an alternative
sort of CD that could be encoded in a few easy steps. CD-recordable discs, or CDRs, don't have any bumps or flat areas at all. Instead, they have
a smooth reflective metal layer, which rests on top of a layer of photosensitive
dye.
When the disc is blank, the dye is translucent: Light can shine through and reflect
off the metal surface. But when you heat the dye layer with concentrated light of a
particular frequency and intensity, the dye turns opaque: It darkens to the point
that light can't pass through.
A CD-R doesn't have the same bumps and lands as a conventional CD.
Instead, the disc has a dye layer underneath a smooth, reflective surface.
On a blank CD-R disc, the dye layer is completely translucent, so all light
reflects. The write laser darkens the spots where the bumps would be in a
conventional CD, forming non-reflecting areas.
By selectively darkening particular points along the CD track, and leaving other
areas of dye translucent, you can create a digital pattern that a standard CD player
can read. The light from the player's laser beam will only bounce back to the sensor
when the dye is left translucent, in the same way that it will only bounce back from
the flat areas of a conventional CD. So, even though the CD-R disc doesn't have any
bumps pressed into it at all, it behaves just like a standard disc.
A CD burner's job, of course, is to "burn" the digital pattern onto a blank CD. In the
next section, we'll look inside a burner to see how it accomplishes this task.

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The laser assembly inside a CD burner

Burning CDs: Laser Assembly
In the last section, we saw that CD burners darken microscopic areas of CD-R discs
to record a digital pattern of reflective and non-reflective areas that can be read by
a standard CD player. Since the data must be accurately encoded on such a small
scale, the burning system must be extremely precise. Still, the basic process at
work is quite simple.
The CD burner has a moving laser assembly, just like an ordinary CD player. But in
addition to the standard "read laser," it has a "write laser." The write laser is more
powerful than the read laser, so it interacts with the disc differently: It alters the
surface instead of just bouncing light off it. Read lasers are not intense enough to
darken the dye material, so simply playing a CD-R in a CD drive will not destroy any
encoded information.

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The machinery in a CD burner looks pretty much the same as the

machinery in any CD player. There is a mechanism that spins the disc and
another mechanism that slides the laser assembly.
Burning CDs: Write Laser
The write laser moves in exactly the same way as the read laser: It moves outward
while the disc spins. The bottom plastic layer has grooves pre-pressed into it, to
guide the laser along the correct path. By calibrating the rate of spin with the
movement of the laser assembly, the burner keeps the laser running along the track
at a constant rate of speed. To record the data, the burner simply turns the laser
writer on and off in synch with the pattern of 1s and 0s. The laser darkens the
material to encode a 0 and leaves it translucent to encode a 1.
Most CD burners can create CDs at multiple speeds. At 1x speed, the CD spins at
about the same rate as it does when the player is reading it. This means it would
take you about 60 minutes to record 60 minutes of music. At 2x speed, it would take
you about half an hour to record 60 minutes, and so on. For faster burning speeds,
you need more advanced laser-control systems and a faster connection between the
computer and the burner. You also need a blank disc that is designed to record
information at this speed.
The main advantage of CD-R discs is that they work in almost all CD players and
CD-ROMS, which are among the most prevalent media players today. In addition to
this wide compatibility, CD-Rs are relatively inexpensive.
The main drawback of the format is that you can't reuse the discs. Once you've
burned in the digital pattern, it can't be erased and re-written. In the mid '90s,
electronics manufacturers introduced a new CD format that addressed this problem.

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In the next section, we'll look at these CD-rewritable discs, commonly called CDRWs, to see how they differ from standard CD-R discs.
Erasing CDs
In the last section, we looked at the most prevalent writable CD technology, CD-R.
CD-R discs hold a lot of data, work with most CD players and are fairly inexpensive.
But unlike tapes, floppy disks and many other data-storage mediums, you cannot
re-record on CD-R disc once you've filled it up.
CD-RW discs have taken the idea of writable CDs a step further, building in
an erase function so you can record over old data you don't need anymore. These
discs are based on phase-change technology. In CD-RW discs, the phase-change
element is a chemical compound of silver, antimony, tellurium and indium. As with
any physical material, you can change this compound's form by heating it to certain
temperatures. When the compound is heated above its melting temperature
(around 600 degrees Celsius), it becomes a liquid; at its crystallization
temperature (around 200 degrees Celsius), it turns into a solid.
In a CD-RW disc, the reflecting lands and non-reflecting bumps of a
conventional CD are represented by phase shifts in a special compound.
When the compound is in a crystalline state, it is translucent, so light can
shine through to the metal layer above and reflect back to the laser
assembly. When the compound is melted into an amorphous state, it
becomes opaque, making the area non-reflective.
Phase-change Compounds
In phase-change compounds, these shifts in form can be "locked into place":
They persist even after the material cools down again. If you heat the compound in
CD-RW discs to the melting temperature and let it cool rapidly, it will remain in a
fluid, amorphous state, even though it is below the crystallization temperature. In
order to crystallize the compound, you have to keep it at the crystallization
temperature for a certain length of time so that it turns into a solid before it cools
down again.
In the compound used in CD-RW discs, the crystalline form is translucent while the
amorphous fluid form will absorb most light. On a new, blank CD, all of the material
in the writable area is in the crystalline form, so light will shine through this layer to
the reflective metal above and bounce back to the light sensor. To encode
information on the disc, the CD burner uses its write laser, which is powerful
enough to heat the compound to its melting temperature. These "melted" spots
serve the same purpose as the bumps on a conventional CD and the opaque spots
on a CD-R: They block the "read" laser so it won't reflect off the metal layer.
Each non-reflective area indicates a 0 in the digital code. Every spot that remains
crystalline is still reflective, indicating a 1.

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The Erase Laser
As with CD-Rs, the read laser does not have enough power to change the state of
the material in the recording layer -- it's a lot weaker than the write laser. The erase
laser falls somewhere in between: While it isn't strong enough to melt the material,
it does have the necessary intensity to heat the material to the crystallization point.
By holding the material at this temperature, the erase laser restores the compound
to its crystalline state, effectively erasing the encoded 0. This clears the disc so new
data can be encoded.
CD-RW discs do not reflect as much light as older CD formats, so they cannot be
read by most older CD players and CD-ROM drives. Some newer drives and players,
including all CD-RW writers, can adjust the read laser to work with different CD
formats. But since CD-RWs will not work on many CD players, these are not a good
choice for music CDs. For the most part, they are used as back-up storage
devices for computer files.
As we've seen, the reflective and non-reflective patterns on a CD are incredibly
small, and they are burned and read very quickly with a speeding laser beam. In
this system, the chances of a data error are fairly high. In the next section, we'll
look at some of the ways that CD burners compensate for various encoding
problems.
CD Formats
In the previous sections, we looked at the basic idea of CD and CD-burner
technology. Using precise lasers or metal molds, you can mark a pattern of morereflective areas and less-reflective areas that represent a sequence of 1s and 0s.
The system is so basic that you can encode just about any sort of digital
information. There is no inherent limitation on what kind of mark pattern you put
down on the disc.
But in order to make the information accessible to another CD drive (or player), it
has to be encoded in an understandable form. The established form for music CDs,
called ISO 9660, was the foundation for later CD formats. This format was
specifically designed to minimize the effect of data errors.
This is accomplished by carefully arranging the recorded data and mixing it with a
lot of extra digital information. On the next page, you'll learn about the extra
information encoded on a burned CD
Encoding Data
There are a number of important aspects involved in making a CD readable to a CD
player:

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The CD track is marked with a sort of time code, which tells the CD player what
part of the disc it is reading at any particular time. Discs are also encoded with
a table of contents, located at the beginning of the track (the center of the disc),
which tells the player where particular songs (or files) are written onto the disc.
The data track is broken up by extra filler, so there are no long strings of 1s or 0s.
Without frequent shifts from 1 to 0, there would be large sections without a
changing pattern of reflectivity. This could cause the read laser to "lose its place" on
the disc. The filler data breaks up these large sections.
Extra data bits are included to help the player recognize and fix a mistake. If the
read laser misreads a single bit, the player is able to correct the problem using the
additional encoded data.
Recorded information is not encoded sequentially; it is interlaced in a set pattern.
This reduces the risk of losing whole sections of data. If a scratch or piece of debris
makes a part of the track unreadable, it will damage separate bits of data from
different parts of the song or file, instead of eliminating an entire segment of
information. Since only small pieces of each file segment are unreadable, it's easier
for the CD player to correct the problem or recover from it.
The actual arrangement of information on music CDs is incredibly complex. And CDROMS -- compact discs that contain computer files rather than song tracks -- have
even more extensive error-correction systems. This is because an error in a
computer file could corrupt an entire program, while a small uncorrected error on a
music CD only means a bit of fuzz or a skipping noise. If you are interested in the
various ways that data is arranged on different types of CDs, check out Audio
Compact Disc - Writing and Reading the Data.
With some writable CD formats, you have to prepare all of the information before
you begin burning. This limitation is built into the original format of CDs as well as
the physical design of the disc itself. After all, the long track forms one continuous,
connected string of 1s and 0s, and it's difficult to break this up into separate
sections. With newer disc formats, you can record files one "packet" at a time,
adding the table of contents and other unifying structures once you've filled up the
disc.
CD burners are an amazing piece of technology, and the inner workings are
certainly fascinating. But to the typical computer user, the most compelling aspect
of burners is what you can do with them. In the next section, we'll find out how you
can put all of this technology to work and make your own music mix.
Creating Your Own CDs: Software
While CD-Rs can store all sorts of digital information, the most widespread
application these days is making music-mix CDs with a computer. If you're new to

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the world of CD burners, this can seem like a daunting task. But it's actually very
simple, once you have the right software and know the general procedure.
If you have already hooked up your CD burner, the first step in making a CD is
loading the software you need. This music-management software serves several
functions:

It converts songs to the correct format for burning.

It allows you to arrange the songs for your mix.

It controls the encoding process for writing to the CD.

These days, most burners are packaged with one or more music programs, but you
can also buy programs or download them over the Internet. You may need separate
media applications to handle different elements in the process, but there are some
good programs that handle everything (see below). do a search for software related
to burning your own CDs.
Creating Your Own CDs: Music
When you have all of the software you need, it's time to gather some songs. You
may want to take songs directly from your CD collection. To do this, you need to
"rip" the songs -- copy them from your CD to your computer's hard drive. You'll
need an extraction program to do this. To copy a particular track, insert the CD into
your built-in CD-ROM drive (or the CD-burner itself) and select the song you want
through the extraction program. Essentially, the program will play the song and rerecord it into a usable data format. It's legal to make copies of songs you own, as
long as the CD is only for your personal use.
You can also gather MP3s over the Internet. You can download MP3s from pay-formusic sites or with file-sharing programs. Some MP3s are free, and can be legally
downloaded and copied onto a CD. Most are illegal copies, however, and it is a
copyright violation to download them and burn them onto a CD. To search for MP3related Web sites,
MP3s are compressed files, and you must expand (decode) them in order to burn
them onto a CD. Standard music-management programs can decode these files. If
you don't have the right software, there are a number of decoding programs that
you can download over the Internet.
Once you've gathered the songs, you can use your music manager to arrange them
in the order you want. Keep in mind that you have a limited amount of disc space to
work with. CD-Rs have varying capacities, measured in both megabytes and
minutes. These days, most CD-Rs are either 74 minutes or 80 minutes long. Before
you move on to burning your CD, you should make sure that your mix isn't too long
for the blank disc.

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Creating Your Own CDs: Burning
Once the mix is complete and you have saved it, all you need to do is insert a blank
CD-R disc into the burner and choose the "burn" or "write" option in your musicmanagement software. Be sure to select "music CD" rather than "data CD," or you
won't be able to play the disc on ordinary CD players. You'll also need to choose
the speed at which you want to burn the disc. Typically, a slower speed reduces
the chance of a major error during the writing process.
A lot of things can go wrong when you're burning a CD, so don't be surprised if
some of them don't come out right. Since CD-Rs can not be overwritten, any
irreversible mistake means you'll have to junk the whole disc. Among the CDburning set, this is called "making a coaster," as that's pretty much all you can do
with the damaged CD.
If you continually have problems burning CDs, your drive may be defective or your
music-management program may be faulty. Before you return your burner, try out
some other programs and see if they yield better results.
To make a CD-ROM, you'll go through a similar process -- but you'll code the disc as
a data CD, not a music CD. Some newer CD players and DVD players can read un
translated MP3 data files, and you may be able to make CD-ROM music mixes this
way. Since MP3s are compressed files, you can fit a lot more of them on a single
disc, which means you can make a longer mix. The drawback, of course, is that your
disc won't work in the vast majority of CD players.
CD burners have opened up a whole new world to the average computer user. You
can record music that will run in most anybody's CD player, or you can put together
CD-ROMs containing photos, Web pages or movies. With a piece of equipment about
the size of a car stereo, and about the price of a cheap bicycle, you can set up your
own multimedia production company!
How DVDs Work
It wasn't really that long ago that VHS tapes dominated the home video market, but
now, DVDs have all but wiped them out completely. Going from tape to disc gave
the home theater experience a major upgrade, and ushered in an era of featurepacked special edition home video.
In this article, you will learn what a DVD is made of, how a DVD player reads a disc,
a little DVD history and much more.
DVD Discs
A DVD is very similar to a CD, but it has a much larger data capacity. A standard
DVD holds about seven times more data than a CD does. This huge capacity means

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that a DVD has enough room to store a full-length, MPEG-2-encoded movie, as well
as a lot of other information.
Here are the typical contents of a DVD movie:

Up to 133 minutes of high-resolution video, in letterbox or pan-and-scan

format, with 720 dots of horizontal resolution (The video compression ratio is
typically 40:1 using MPEG-2 compression.)

Soundtrack presented in up to eight languages using 5.1 channel Dolby

digital surround sound

Subtitles in up to 32 languages

DVD can also be used to store almost eight hours of CD-quality music per side.
The format offers many advantages over VHS tapes:

DVD picture quality is better, and many DVDs have Dolby

Digital or DTS sound, which is much closer to the sound you experience in a
movie theater.

Many DVD movies have an on-screen index, where the creator of the DVD has
labeled many of the significant parts of the movie, sometimes with a picture.
With your remote, if you select the part of the movie you want to view, the
DVD player will take you right to that part, with no need to rewind or fastforward.

DVD players are compatible with audio CDs.

Some DVD movies have both the letterbox format, which fits widescreen TVs, and the standard TV size format, so you can choose which way
you want to watch the movie.

DVD movies may have several soundtracks on them, and they may provide
subtitles in different languages. Foreign movies may give you the choice
between the version dubbed into your language, or the original soundtrack
with subtitles in your language.

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DVD formats

DVD Layers

DVDs are of the same diameter and thickness as CDs, and they are made
using some of the same materials and manufacturing methods. Like a CD, the
data on a DVD is encoded in the form of small pits and bumps in the track of
the disc.

A DVD is composed of several layers of plastic, totaling about 1.2 millimeters

thick. Each layer is created by injection molding polycarbonate plastic. This
process forms a disc that has microscopic bumps arranged as a single,
continuous and extremely long spiral track of data. More on the bumps later.

Once the clear pieces of polycarbonate are formed, a thin reflective layer is
sputtered onto the disc, covering the bumps. Aluminum is used behind the
inner layers, but a semi-reflective gold layer is used for the outer layers,
allowing the laser to focus through the outer and onto the inner layers. After
all of the layers are made, each one is coated with lacquer, squeezed
together and cured under infrared light. For single-sided discs, the label is
silk-screened onto the non readable side. Double-sided discs are printed only
on the non readable area near the hole in the middle. Cross sections of the
various types of completed DVDs (not to scale) look like this:

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Data tracks on a DVD

HowStuffWorks.com

Each writable layer of a DVD has a spiral track of data. On single-layer DVDs,
the track always circles from the inside of the disc to the outside. That the
spiral track starts at the center means that a single-layer DVD can be smaller
than 12 centimeters if desired.

What the image to the left cannot impress upon you is how incredibly tiny the
data track is -- just 740 nanometers separate one track from the next (a
nanometer is a billionth of a meter). And the elongated bumps that make up
the track are each 320 nanometers wide, a minimum of 400 nanometers long
and 120 nanometers high. The following figure illustrates looking through the
polycarbonate layer at the bumps.

You will often read about "pits" on a DVD instead of bumps. They appear as
pits on the aluminum side, but on the side that the laser reads from, they are
bumps.

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DVD pit layout

HowStuffWorks.com

The microscopic dimensions of the bumps make the spiral track on a DVD
extremely long. If you could lift the data track off a single layer of a DVD, and
stretch it out into a straight line, it would be almost 7.5 miles long! That
means that a double-sided, double-layer DVD would have 30 miles (48 km)
of data!

To read bumps this small you need an incredibly precise disc-reading

mechanism.

DVD Storage Capacity

DVDs can store more data than CDs for a few reasons:

Higher-density data storage

Less overhead, more area

Multi-layer storage

Higher Density Data Storage

Single-sided, single-layer DVDs can store about seven times more data than CDs. A
large part of this increase comes from the pits and tracks being smaller on DVDs.
Track Pitch

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CD = 1600 nanometers

DVD = 740 nanometers

Minimum Pit Length (single-layer DVD)

CD = 830 nanometers

DVD = 400 nanometers

Minimum Pit Length (double-layer DVD)

CD = 830 nanometers

DVD = 440 nanometers

Let's try to get an idea of how much more data can be stored due to the physically
tighter spacing of pits on a DVD. The track pitch on a DVD is 2.16 times smaller, and
the minimum pit length for a single-layer DVD is 2.08 times smaller than on a CD.
By multiplying these two numbers, we find that there is room for about 4.5 times as
many pits on a DVD. So where does the rest of the increase come from?
Less Overhead, More Area
On a CD, there is a lot of extra information encoded on the disc to allow for error
correction -- this information is really just a repetition of information that is already
on the disc. The error correction scheme that a CD uses is quite old and inefficient
compared to the method used on DVDs. The DVD format doesn't waste as much
space on error correction, enabling it to store much more real information. Another
way that DVDs achieve higher capacity is by encoding data onto a slightly larger
area of the disc than is done on a CD.
Multi-Layer Storage
To increase the storage capacity even more, a DVD can have up to four layers, two
on each side. The laser that reads the disc can actually focus on the second layer
through the first layer. Here is a list of the capacities of different forms of DVDs:
Single-sided/Single-layer

4.38 GB

2 hours movie time

Single-sided/Double-layer

7.95 GB

4 hours movie time

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Double-sided/Single-layer

8.75 GB

4.5 hours movie time

Double-sided/Double-layer

15.9 GB

Over 8 hours movie time

You may be wondering why the capacity of a DVD doesn't double when you add a
whole second layer to the disc. This is because when a disc is made with two layers,
the pits have to be a little longer, on both layers, than when a single layer is used.
This helps to avoid interference between the layers, which would cause errors when
the disc is played.
DVD Video
Even though its storage capacity is huge, the uncompressed video data of a fulllength movie would never fit on a DVD. In order to fit a movie on a DVD, you
need video compression. A group called the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
establishes the standards for compressing moving pictures.
When movies are put onto DVDs, they are encoded in MPEG-2 format and then
stored on the disc. This compression format is a widely accepted international
standard. Your DVD player contains an MPEG-2 decoder, which can uncompress this
data as quickly as you can watch it.
The MPEG-2 Format and Data Size Reduction
A movie is usually filmed at a rate of 24 frames per second. This means that every
second, there are 24 complete images displayed on the movie screen. American
and Japanese television use a format called NTSC, which displays a total of 30
frames per second; but it does this in a sequence of 60 fields, each of which
contains alternating lines of the picture. Other countries use PAL format, which
displays at 50 fields per second, but at a higher resolution (see How Video
Formatting Works for details on these formats). Because of the differences in frame
rate and resolution, an MPEG movie needs to be formatted for either the NTSC or
the PAL system.
The MPEG encoder that creates the compressed movie file analyzes each frame and
decides how to encode it. The compression uses some of the same technology as
still image compression does to eliminate redundant or irrelevant data. It also uses
information from other frames to reduce the overall size of the file. Each frame can
be encoded in one of three ways:

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As an intra frame - An intra frame contains the complete image data for that
frame. This method of encoding provides the least compression.

As a predicted frame - A predicted frame contains just enough information

to tell the DVD player how to display the frame based on the most recently
displayed intra frame or predicted frame. This means that the frame contains
only the data that relates to how the picture has changed from the previous
frame.

As a bidirectional frame - In order to display this type of frame, the player

must have the information from the surrounding intra frame or predicted
frames. Using data from the closest surrounding frames, it uses interpolation
(something like averaging) to calculate the position and color of each pixel.

Depending on the type of scene being converted, the encoder will decide which
types of frames to use. If a newscast were being converted, a lot more predicted
frames could be used, because most of the scene is unaltered from one frame to
the next. On the other hand, if a very fast action scene were being converted, in
which things changed very quickly from one frame to the next, more intra frames
would have to be encoded. The newscast would compress to a much smaller size
than the action sequence.
If all of this sounds complicated, then you are starting to get a feeling for how much
work your DVD player does to decode an MPEG-2 movie. A lot of processing power
is required; even some computers with DVD players can't keep up with the
processing required to play a DVD movie.

Comparison of a raw audio signal to the CD audio and DVD audio output
DVD Audio
DVD audio and DVD video are different formats. DVD audio discs and players are
relatively rare right now, but they will become more common, and the difference in

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sound quality should be noticeable. In order to take advantage of higher-quality
DVD audio discs, you will need a DVD player with a 192kHz/24-bit digital-to-analog
converter (DAC). Most DVD players have only a 96kHz/24-bit digital-to-analog
converter. So if you want to be able to listen to DVD audio discs, be sure to look for
a DVD audio player with a 192kHz/24-bit digital-to-analog converter.
DVD audio recordings can provide far better sound quality than CDs. The chart
below lists the sampling rate and accuracy for CD recordings and the maximum
sampling rate and accuracy for DVD recordings. CDs can hold 74 minutes of music.
DVD audio discs can hold 74 minutes of music at their highest quality level,
192kHz/24-bit audio. By lowering either the sampling rate or the accuracy, DVDs
can be made to hold more music. A DVD audio disc can store up to two hours of 6channel, better than CD quality, 96kHz/24-bit music. Lower the specifications
further, and a DVD audio disc can hold almost seven hours of CD-quality audio.
Sampling Rate

CD Audio = 441. kHz

DVD Audio = 192 kHz

Samples Per Second

CD Audio = 44,100

DVD Audio = 192,000

Sampling Accuracy

CD Audio = 16-bit

DVD Audio = 24.bit

Number of Possible Output Levels

CD Audio = 65,536

DVD Audio = 16,777,216

In an audio CD or DVD, each bit represents a digital command telling the DAC what
voltage level to output (see How Analog and Digital Recording Works for details).
While an ideal recording would follow the raw waveform exactly, digital recordings
sample the sound at different frequencies, and therefore lose some of the data.
The graph above shows how the highest quality DVD audio compares to CD audio.
You can see that DVD follows the signal more closely, but it's still a long way from
perfect.

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To get the full experience of the Dolby Digital sound used on many DVDs, you need
a home theater system with five speakers, a subwoofer, and a receiver that is either
"Dolby Digital ready" or has a built-in Dolby Digital decoder.
If your receiver is Dolby Digital ready, then it does not have a Dolby Digital
decoder, so you need to buy a DVD player with its own Dolby Digital decoder and
5.1 channel outputs. If you also want your system to be compatible with DTS sound,
then your DVD player will need a DTS decoder, too.
If your receiver has its own Dolby Digital decoder and DTS decoder, then you don't
need a DVD player with 5.1 channel outputs, and you can save some money on
cables by using the digital outputs.
DID YOU KNOW?
Some DVDs carry commentary tracks, in which the filmmaker talks about the movie
while it is running. This can be very exciting for true film buffs. DVDs can also
contain extra, previously unreleased scenes. And a DVD is sometimes a director's
cut -- the film as the director originally intended it.
DVDs and Laser Discs
Laser disc is an older technology. It offered a better picture and better sound than
videotapes, and it is comparable to DVD. But the laser disc format is analog; DVDs
are digital (see How Analog and Digital Recording Works). Laser discs are only used
for prerecorded movies, and they are larger, about 12 inches (30.5 centimeters) in
diameter, instead the 5-inch (12.7-centimeter) diameter of DVDs. The two formats
usually can't be played on the same machine.
Laser discs, like DVDs, allow viewers to go to the exact scene they wish to see, and
to freeze a frame or slow the picture. Laser discs can only hold an hour on each
side, so you have to flip the disc to watch the second half of the movie.
Because of DVD compression techniques, DVDs can hold more data. You rarely have
to flip a DVD to watch a whole movie. Laser disc players are noisier than DVD
players, and they can sometimes suffer "laser rot" -- the aluminum side of the disc
oxidizes, and the quality of the disc deteriorates. DVDs are less likely to have this
problem, because manufacturing techniques have improved. As the popularity of
DVD grows, laser discs are becoming harder to find.
DVD FAQ
What does "DVD" stand for?
"DVD" stands for digital versatile disc, but some sources declare that it doesn't
stand for anything anymore.
Can I record television shows or movies on a DVD player?

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Yes, you can -- if your DVD player is also a DVD recorder.
Can I play CDs on a DVD player?
Yes. DVD players are completely compatible with audio compact discs. And music
will become increasingly available in DVD format. See What is the difference
between DVD-audio and CDs? for more discussion of the DVD audio format.
What is the difference between DVD+R and DVD-R?
DVD+ ("plus") and DVD- ("dash") are two competing DVD formats. You may
remember the "war" between the Bet amax and VHS formats for domination of
the VCR market. The big difference with DVD+R vs. DVD-R is that there are hybrid
(dual-format) drives capable of reading both types. Many companies have taken
sides -- the DVD Forum is a group of manufacturers that support DVD-R, while
the DVD+RW Alliance supports that format. Consumers have yet to make either
format the winner.
What are region codes?
Movie studios use region codes on DVDs to thwart unauthorized copying, and to
control the release dates of DVD movies. The actual region code is stored in
one byte on the DVD. The DVD player or drive has a region code in its firmware.
Personal computer DVD-ROM players often have the code in the software or in the
MPEG-2 decoder.
For the player or drive to play the movie, the two codes must match. The code is
also printed on the back of a DVD package, superimposed on a small image of the
globe. If you have a DVD that was made for release in Asia, you won't be able to
play it on a DVD player intended for use in Australia.

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