DTV: The Revolution in Digital Video

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Summary: Broad Coverage of the Digital Television Revolution
Review: Jerry Whitaker has been in the Radio and Television broadcast industry for many years, and has earned the highest awards in the field. This publication is his first forray into the newly emerging world of digital TV. The field is huge, much more complex and varied than the older world of television and radio transmission. In part the new complexity is due to the role of computers in generating and consuming broadcast imagery. More importantly, modern understanding of image compression and data brodcasting has added additional services and markets which much be addressed by the new system and it have become much more of an undertaking to cover all of these areas in one book.

Mr Whitaker does an admirable job of taking on this task. His summary of the political process leading up to the Grand Alliance is well worth reading for newcomers to the field as well as those who have been involved through the whole process. I found the clear description of the lineage of certain SMPTE standards to be quite useful.

The two chapters on applications and fundamental principles provide some crucial background for the novice in the field, but are probably better covered in books specifically on those areas. For instance, Blair's treatment of fundamentals in the "TV & Radio Engineer's Handbook" is a little more thorough, and would suit a class better than this book.

The section on digital coding is very well written; I'd reccomend this section for anyone considering implementing a digital broadcast facility. The compression chapter supports it well, though again as a textbook on compression one would do better with Jain's book, or possibly one of the many books on JPEG/MPEG.

I was least impressed with the section on production systems. In part, this is due to the rapid advancement in this area, but I found that the lack of discussion of emerging DV standards, some of the issues of image bandwidth, and the discussion of colorimetry to leave a bit to be desired. There is no better summary out there right now, but several authors are working on titles which should better address this area in the near future.

His sections on audio encoding, transmission, and recievers were all quite useful to me as a systems engineer. Specifically, the information on receivers would be useful for technical journalists and consumer sales and marketing professionals in the field, as well as engineers interested in the limitations and possiblities of new display technologies. This section in particular is well written and extremely accurate.

Finally, I found the references to be extremely well done; there is no existing collection of references as thorough as this one. The only minor shortcomming is in the index; the book could have benefitted from a larger index.

This book is a must-have for anyone involved in DTV/HDTV engineering. Despite a few minor shorcomings, it will be a valuable addittion to the practitioner's library.

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Summary: A good preview for newcomers to the field
Review: The book covers many issues in DTV as well as TV and video in general. It seems that it was intended for those who would like to go wide but not deep into details. There are 4 pages describing general A/D & D/A, but only few short paragraphs for the Trellis Decoder and Data De- Interleaver of the ATSC standard. I expected to find in this book more about the new standards and less about the general background.

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Summary: Digital Television is the Future of Imaging
Review: The electronics industry is on the verge of a revolution in imaging technology. Under the banner of high-definition television (HDTV), the previously divergent technologies of telecommunications, broadcasting, and computers will merge into a video information vehicle that will redefine the video industry. Because of the broad applications for HDTV, and the many different technologies involved, this imaging system is more properly referred to as digital television (DTV). This book is currently under development as the latest activities in the DTV arena are integrated into the manuscript. A detailed Table of Contents and other information on DTV:The Revolution in Electronic Imaging can be found at the web site www.technicalpress.com

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Summary: Updated Information in the Second Edition
Review: The Second Edition of this book contains a considerable amount of new information in the area of standards, implementation, and production systems for high-definition television. All of the new and proposed standards relating to DTV are covered. The book has been expanded by 100 pages to permit added coverage of a number of important technologies and developments in the realm of DTV. Among the new elements is an Afterword written by Dr. Robert Hopkins of the Sony Pictures High-Definition Center.

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Summary: Prerequisites of DTV: The revolution in Electronic Imaging
Review: This book by Jerry Whitaker requires a AAS in electronic Engeneering Technology and/or a understanding of TV, DVD Sattelitte, or Computers to grasp the techniques of digital decoders and encoders. Knowledge of Binary 1's and 0's in different size bytes is essential. Series to parallel conversion and digital to analog conversion is necessary to understand the manipulation of the serial data in the encoders transmission basics, and the compression and expansion of parallel data , with memory manipulation of the order of the frames of the raster. Digital Television Fundamentals:Design and Installation of Video and Audio Systems: by Michael Robin and Michel Poulin is an excellent prerequisite and follow up book to this one. The same requirements of digital data techniques are necessary... This book does not include the new decoder circuits used for transmitting and compressing the digital data, nor the circuitry of the monitors.

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Summary: The Most Complete Guide to DTV Available
Review: This book, now in its second edition, offers broad coverageofall the technologies that are encompassed by the ATSC DTV system. Asreaders have pointed out in reviews here on Amazon.com, the book examines the subject matter with a broad brush. This book is not a substitute for the actual ATSC documents, nor the many SMPTE standards that apply to digital video. It does, however, give readers a valuable understanding of all of the elements that make up the DTV system and, to a lesser extent, the DVB system. This breadth of coverage is available no where else. Because of the rapidly-advancing nature of this subject, monthly on-line updates are available at no cost from the publisher and author.

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Summary: A "must have" reference for DTV and DVD practitioners
Review: With a forward by Joe A. Flaherty, this tome covers the history, fundamentals and applications of digital television including transceivers, displays, codecs, compression and measurement. Audio encoding/decoding as well as transmission and implementation issues relating to the ATSC DTV system have their own chapters. A reference section and glossary are included. As a valuable part of the sometimes spotty McGraw-Hill Video/Audio Engineering series, this is a "must have" for DTV and new media practitioners alike.