Mr. Detroit Public Television Answer Man

The average person spends about four hours a day watching television. Over a life span of 65 years, a person might spend nine years watching television. Yikes, that’s a lot of snack food! With all the time spent watching, those of us in the TV business spend very little time helping viewers understand how television works.

In the interest of righting that wrong, today we introduce Mr. Detroit Public Television Answer Man. In this space at the end of each week I’ll try to answer your Detroit Public Television questions, giving you a chance to understand us a little better. Here goes!

Mr. DPTV Guy,
I noticed that the programs on the Digital channel 56.1 are not always the same as the programs on Analog channel 56. What’s going on?
-Befuddled in Birmingham

Well B.I.B. you’re an astute viewer. Over the last few years PBS has provided a separate feed of High Definition-only programs. As the Digital Conversion Date draws nearer (Feb, 2009) more and more PBS programs will be produced in High Definition. Newshour with Jim Lehrer and many other programs are now being produced in HD. The goal is to convert the entire PBS schedule to HD by September of 2008.

Hey Answer Man,
SD, HD and Digital-- people throw these terms around all the time and confuse the daylights out of me. What does it all mean?
-Confused in Canton

I feel your pain Confused. Let’s see if I can help you focus on this issue. Digital television is a method of signal delivery. That means the signal is sent to your set by means of a binary data system (1s and 0s). Any digital TV is capable of displaying a digital signal. Channels 56.1, 56.2 and 56.3 are all digital channels. SD, Standard Definition, and HD High Definition are both digital signals. SD refers to the size or the aspect ratio of the picture it is usually 4:3 and the resolution (fine detail) is usually 480i. This means whatever the size of your TV screen the ratio between the width and height is always the same--4 units wide by 3 units high. HD signals have an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 16 units wide by 9 units high with a resolution that is usually 780p or 1080p.

Dear Public TV Man,
I noticed that you replay many of the evening programs (8-11pm) overnight from 1am-4pm. What gives?
-Interested in Inkster

I see triple I that you are not letting that insomnia get you down. Detroit Public Television is unique in that it is a station located on the Canadian border. Our signal is picked up off the air in Windsor, Ontario and relayed to satellite and cable systems across the Great White North. If you travel from Prince Edward Island in the east to British Columbia west you can probably find DPTV on many Canadian cable television systems. In fact, we have so many viewers in western Canada that replaying programs from 1am to 4am Eastern time allows them to watch them from 11pm to 1am Pacific time. By the way, it’s mighty handy if you missed a program earlier in the evening to record it over night with your VCR or DVR.

That’s all for this week, don’t forget to submit your questions to Mr. Detroit Public Television Answer Man in the comment section of this blog. By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, I made up all of today’s questions. There is no befuddlement in Birmingham or confusion in Canton; I do hope there is some interest in Inkster.