Newnes Guide to Digital TV
by Richard Brice, Published by Newnes
ISBN 0-7506-5721-9, Hardcover, $39.99, 304 pages
EN-Genius Reviewer: Paul McGoldrick

This is the second edition of a book whose first edition was mistimed -- when the "digital" in Digital TV was not quite a visible reality. This second edition makes up for that by getting most of the latest information within its pages.

It is intended, the cover says, to be "A uniquely concise and readable guide -- written by an engineer for engineers, technicians and technical staff and management." At the engineering level, I would have described it as a bit more folksy than you would normally expect, although at one point we get led to a double integral: good way to terrify most people, even engineers! Oh, did I mention there are a lot of exclamation points used in the book?

The information is factual and accurate -- at least from my video understanding (digital audio and I are not close acquaintances) -- but it is hard to see a consistent level of approach; ranging, for example, from a good description of analogue TV (the book has not been "translated" for the US from the Queen's English to West Atlantic English) to a bizarre paragraph about protecting integrated circuits from static during handling -- who services down to the IC level any more, and how do you get a 64-pin package out of a PCB? There are some pieces that are a little glib, too; if you didn't already understand QAM, 8-VSB or OFDM modulation schemes you would have a tough time understanding the text here.

As a self-proclaimed "Units Emperor," I have to point out at least one use of µS (micro-Siemens?) instead of µs and there is a very annoying habit of using kbits/s (that's kilobit-second/second) instead of kbit/s -- but at least it is spelled out instead of one having to wonder whether bit or byte is meant, as I see every day coming from the digital side of the business. I would also blame the copy/layout editor at Newnes for the repeated annoyance of getting a figure printed on a page different from the referring text's page -- absolutely unnecessary, most of the time.

The text introduces the subject matter well, including analog encoding, and then goes into a history of television and light and aural theories and some of the obsolete HD analog systems. Then there is a chapter on the coding of digital video and audio followed by the best chapter in the book, on digital signal processing, with some extremely useful and straightforward explanations of digital filters. Two chapters on both compression for video and audio follow and then one on digital audio production -- the latter led with a diversion into the standards of VU and peak-program meters (PPMs). (I haven't seen a PPM for at least 35 years -- at the BBC, of course.)

Digital video production naturally comes next, followed by the "MPEG multiplex." The weak chapter on broadcasting DTV follows, and then Mr Brice talks rather haphazardly about consumer digital technology. Some of the information is useful, some historical, some bizarre (set-top box explanations using an obscure product from a UK design house, for instance).

Mr Brice finishes the book with a look at the future -- always a dodgy process in a technical book -- including future MPEG standards.

The book avoids getting itself bogged down with the minutiae that it could have, with different worldwide television standards competing for dozens of lines of standards data, but some of the circuit data (for the STB, for example) is excruciatingly annoying and out of place. And one topic completely ignored is the relationship between audio and video and the dreaded lip sync errors that we see every day.

This is a good, readable (I got through it in two-and-a-half hours waiting for my spouse's car to be serviced), introduction to the subject of digital TV. It is detailed enough in some places to satisfy the soul of an engineer and elsewhere it is benign enough to get management acquainted with the subject matter. It's good value and it's a good primer, but you know the third edition could be so much better. And I want the Newnes layout person strung up.