Who’s On 1

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.