Engineers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are using data
compression developed for imaging nuclear blasts to help the US government
reassign analogue TV frequencies by 2006. The 20 megabits-per-second
high-definition TV signal normally takes up a whole digital channel. The lab
compresses it by throwing away image data “the eye will not miss” to create
enough space to squeeze in an analogue signal too. So after 2006, viewers can
re-tune analogue sets to a digital frequency, yet carry on viewing analogue
TV.
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