In October of 1999, KPRC-DT was the first station in Houston to broadcast DTV at one Megawatt of power. KPRC has been broadcasting continuously at its maximum licensed power since we went on the air in 1999.

Our DTV assignment is on RF Channel 35. So, if you tune one of your old TVs to channel 35, you will see snow that looks slightly different than what your TV would pick up from plain static noise over the air. The DTV signal is data that is distributed over the RF channel in a way that it takes a special receiver to decode it. Those receivers can either be integrated to the television sets or be external boxes, more commonly referred to as Set Top Boxes (STBs).

The STB can normally feed only a High Definition or Digital Television Ready set, but there are a few STBs that have outputs to feed NTSC (today's TV format) as well.

DTV is Digital Television (Television as Data), a new standard in which there are several formats that have slight variations that can be carried over this Data Channel.

Depending on the capabilities of the TV stations doing the encoding, the DTV channel can contain a single or multiple channels of programming. The main reason for implementing a DTV channel format has been to allow for better video and audio quality to be made available, at no charge over the air, in the same fashion that basic television has existed for so many decades. The better quality formats available on DTV are referred to as High Definition Television (HDTV), while the digital equivalent to today's standard, is referred to as Standard Definition Television (SDTV). Most TV stations today are capable of generation and switching of SDTV, and maybe passing of HDTV, but very few stations in the US are capable of local generation of HDTV. Most of today's HDTV programming is made available to the local stations from the Networks.

At KPRC, we are equipped to provide our viewers with any HD programs made available by NBC.

We are currently taking advantage of the new technology to provide three channels of programming in our DTV Channel.

The first sub-channel is a simulcast of our Channel Two signal in SDTV (digital), which allows viewers with DTV receivers to get a nice clean feed for Channel 2, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The second sub-channel is the HD channel, this is where we broadcast Leno in HD, and during the rest of the day we have an Upconverted (like line doubling), signal of our regular Channel 2 programming. In the third sub-channel, we have a live feed of Doppler2000.

High Definition televisions are becoming more popular every day as prices have dropped.

As far as reception of our DTV signal is concerned, it is very much like any other UHF channel in town.

A good attic/rooftop UHF or VHF/UHF antenna would be the best way to receive the signal.

We have run some reception tests, and have been able to pick up our signal at 80 miles from our transmitter, so we know that signal strength is not as critical.

However, we also have seen that in areas with high buildings or structures, the reflections that normally produce bad ghosting in NTSC also can disrupt the DTV signal, so we recommend that if you are in the market for a DTV antenna, focus on getting a good directional antenna, and don't worry about having too much gain in it.

You may also contact Comcast to find out about the availability of our DTV Channel in its system.

More Information:

• What Is HDTV?