A friend and I had an argument yesterday about television broadcast standards. I was trying in vain to explain how the new digital standard in the U.S. actually has 18 different formats to muddy the waters; the argument came after a misunderstanding that only true geeks could have. It was like an Abbot and Costello sketch: I was saying ATSC… he thought I was saying 8VSB.
Say them both out loud and you’ll understand.
(ATSC is the Advanced Television Standards Committee, the name of the new digital television system in the U.S.; 8VSB is the “vestigial sideband” method of transmitting the ATSC standard signal. Confused yet?)
Oh, how exciting our geekspeak conversations must be to others listening in.
…and yet your dance card is still not full?
Shocking.