Compare cable TV and digital

With the devel­op­ment of tech­nol­o­gy, the num­ber of ways to trans­mit a TV sig­nal is only increas­ing. Now, as of April 2019, there are five broad­cast­ing stan­dards in EU — ter­res­tri­al ana­log, ter­res­tri­al dig­i­tal, cable ana­log, cable dig­i­tal (aka IP TV) and satel­lite. And the choice of type when con­duct­ing a new tele­vi­sion in an apart­ment is not an easy task.

Let’s try to fig­ure out how cable TV dif­fers from dig­i­tal and which is bet­ter.

It’s worth men­tion­ing right away that “dig­i­tal tele­vi­sion” in this mate­r­i­al means the so-called IP TV, when the TV sig­nal is broad­cast by an Inter­net provider via an Eth­er­net cable. It is this stan­dard that is now most wide­ly used in both large and small cities.

How cable TV works

From the point of view of the inter­face, cable tele­vi­sion is no dif­fer­ent from ter­res­tri­al. Well, except for the type of broad­cast. While ter­res­tri­al TV is dis­trib­uted over the “air” in the form of short and long waves, cable uses, as is self-evi­dent from the name, cable.

The cable TV cable is a reg­u­lar anten­na cable. And for the man­age­ment of sub­scriber equip­ment, spe­cial switchgears are respon­si­ble. It is thanks to them that tele­vi­sion is turned off when non-pay­ment is made, for exam­ple. Or spe­cial pack­ages, includ­ing paid con­tent, become avail­able to the sub­scriber.

Cable trans­mis­sion allows you to broad­cast a more “dense” sig­nal (wires have a greater band­width than the air), so that such TV has more chan­nels than the air one. In some cas­es, their num­ber may be sev­er­al hun­dred.

Using a stan­dard anten­na cable elim­i­nates the need for spe­cial receiv­ing equip­ment. The wire is sim­ply insert­ed into the TV, after which tens and hun­dreds of chan­nels become avail­able to the view­er. It is con­ve­nient and does not require addi­tion­al costs for sub­scriber receivers.

How­ev­er, cable TV has quite a few cons:

1. A stan­dard sim­i­lar to ethe­re­al, does not allow high-def­i­n­i­tion video stream­ing. On mod­ern large screen TVs with HD, FHD and above, the pic­ture may look “washed out” or “pix­e­lat­ed”, which reduces the view­ing plea­sure;

2. Although sub­scriber equip­ment is not required, con­nect­ing a sec­ond TV requires a thick and inflex­i­ble cable;

3. 
   Lack of inter­ac­tive on the part of the provider leads to addi­tion­al costs. For exam­ple, a child may acci­den­tal­ly switch to a paid chan­nel or watch a movie on demand.

4. But the main prob­lem lies pre­cise­ly in the fact that Broad­cast­ing is in low or medi­um qual­i­ty. And out­side the win­dow is 2019 (at least), so on mod­ern TV screens with a diag­o­nal of 40 inch­es or more, the “pic­ture” will look too unpleas­ant.

How digital TV works

Dig­i­tal tele­vi­sion, also known as IP TV, is a more mod­ern broad­cast­ing stan­dard, which, at the same time, has a rather inter­est­ing mechan­ics of work. It does not affect the qual­i­ty of the “pic­ture” in any way, nor the cost, nor oth­er para­me­ters, it is sim­ply inter­est­ing.

Dig­i­tal TV is pro­vid­ed by an Inter­net provider and, in fact, is a stream­ing of a TV sig­nal from TV chan­nel servers. The provider “mir­rors” the video stream through its serv­er, direct­ing it to the local net­work — the one to which Inter­net sub­scribers con­nect.

In order for a TV to be able to dis­play a TV show in prin­ci­ple, it needs a spe­cial decoder. Most often, the “receivers” are sup­plied by the provider itself, giv­ing out to users for rent. An Eth­er­net cable from the router is con­nect­ed to these devices, and then they are con­nect­ed to the TV via HDMI, SCART or coax­i­al inter­face.

An inter­est­ing fea­ture of dig­i­tal TV is that users have to wield two remotes. Chan­nels are switched not on the TV, but on the receiv­er. The vol­ume and some image para­me­ters can also be adjust­ed there.

The use of an all-dig­i­tal sig­nal — and that is what is trans­mit­ted over Eth­er­net — allows you to achieve sev­er­al impor­tant advan­tages:

1. 
   Abil­i­ty to broad­cast in HD. High-def­i­n­i­tion TV chan­nels are exact­ly what mod­ern TVs need. Only HD sig­nal can be dis­played cor­rect­ly on large screens;

2. 
   inter­ac­tiv­i­ty. For exam­ple, you can con­nect and dis­con­nect chan­nel pack­ages, watch movies on demand, lis­ten to the radio, rewind missed shows, and record videos for future view­ing. For all this, how­ev­er, most often you have to pay extra sep­a­rate­ly;

3. 
   Easy scal­ing option. Of course, the equip­ment and con­nec­tion will have to be ordered from the provider, how­ev­er, to con­nect a sec­ond, third, or some oth­er addi­tion­al screen, it will be enough to for­ward a thin Eth­er­net cable.

4. In addi­tion, providers now often offer low-cost home ser­vice pack­ages that include inter­net, TV, and a receiv­er for rent. And all this for a rel­a­tive­ly small amount.

Which is better — cable TV or digital?

It is self-evi­dent that in mod­ern con­di­tions dig­i­tal tele­vi­sion is lead­ing in all respects. It has only one draw­back — the need to use sub­scriber equip­ment (“receiv­er”). How­ev­er, this is also solved by providers who will­ing­ly pro­vide receivers for rent, includ­ing for com­plete­ly sym­bol­ic mon­ey like 1 ruble per month.

Clas­sic cable tele­vi­sion is now dying out. Some providers are con­vert­ing it to a dig­i­tal stan­dard, although the use of coax­i­al anten­na cables does not allow it to “turn to its full poten­tial”. And ana­log remained only in a few cities.

Thus, if you are faced with a choice — cable tele­vi­sion or dig­i­tal — feel free to choose the lat­ter. Even if you have to pay a lit­tle more, it will be com­pen­sat­ed by bet­ter sig­nal qual­i­ty and a vari­ety of con­tent.