The TV picture that has been America’s standard since the days of black-and-white is almost square. (You’ll sometimes hear it referred to as 4-x-3, meaning that the image is 4 parts wide and 3 parts tall.) That’s just fine — so long as whatever is happening is pretty much in the center of the screen. But, as any photographer can tell you, it’s tough to compose pictures dramatically in a fat rectangle.

The screens on high definition television sets aren’t just big, they’re almost always wide. (You’ll hear them referred to as 16x9, meaning — you guessed it — that the image is 16 parts wide and 9 parts tall.) That’s not quite as wide as the screen in a movie theater, but pretty close. For the creative folks who produce television programs, HDTV offers a whole new artistic palette.

HDTV is truly a revolution, and wide screens are just the beginning. Every high-definition video picture contains nearly 10 times the information of today’s TV images. The range of colors and tones is astonishing. Sound is always CD-quality, and many shows are broadcast in surround sound.

See for yourself! Take a look at our comparison of analog TV versus high-definition TV. Click Here