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124-719: KCTS-TV (channel 9) is a PBS member television station in Seattle, Washington , United States, owned by Cascade Public Media. The station's studios are located at Broadway and Boren Avenue in Seattle's First Hill neighborhood, and its transmitter is located at 18th Avenue and E. Madison Street on the city's Capitol Hill . KCTS-TV is the primary PBS member station for the Seattle– Tacoma market alongside Tacoma-licensed KBTC-TV (channel 28), owned by Bates Technical College . Through PBS's Program Differentiation Plan (PDP), KCTS-TV carries
248-423: A PBS Passport member benefit subscription. On July 1, 2016, Amazon Prime Video and PBS Distribution entered into a multi-year agreement which saw several PBS Kids series on other streaming services move to Amazon Prime Video. PBS Distribution partnered with MultiChoice to launch PBS KIDS on May 22, 2019, on DStv and GOtv subscription platforms across its Sub-Saharan Africa footprint. In mid-2021,
372-634: A television or video system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since at least 1933; in more recent times, it refers to the generation following standard-definition television (SDTV). It is the standard video format used in most broadcasts: terrestrial broadcast television , cable television , satellite television . HDTV may be transmitted in various formats: When transmitted at two megapixels per frame, HDTV provides about five times as many pixels as SD (standard-definition television). The increased resolution provides for
496-523: A 2012 speech to 850 top executives from PBS stations, Senior Vice President of Digital Jason Seiken warned that PBS was in danger of being disrupted by YouTube studios such as Maker Studios . In the speech, later described as a "seminal moment" for public television, he laid out his vision for a new style of PBS digital video production. Station leadership rallied around his vision and Seiken formed PBS Digital Studios , which began producing educational but edgy videos, something Seiken called "PBS-quality with
620-474: A 5:3 (1.67:1) aspect ratio and 60 Hz refresh rate. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), headed by Charles Ginsburg, became the testing and study authority for HDTV technology in the international theater. SMPTE would test HDTV systems from different companies from every conceivable perspective, but the problem of combining the different formats plagued the technology for many years. There were four major HDTV systems tested by SMPTE in
744-764: A PBS Julia Child channel be added to Pluto TV in the United States. The channels "PBS Antiques Roadshow", "Julia Child", "Antiques Road Trip" and "PBS Nature" were added to a number of American FAST platforms in January 2023. Antiques Road Trip later became available in Australia. The channels "PBS Food" (in the United States) and "PBS History" (in the UK and Australia) launched on certain FAST platforms in late 2023. The channel "PBS Retro"
868-446: A YouTube sensibility". The studio's first hit, an auto-tuned version of the theme from one of their most famous television programs, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood , was one of YouTube's 10 most viral videos of 2012. By 2013, monthly video views on PBS.org had risen from 2 million to a quarter-billion, PBS.org traffic had surpassed that of the CBS, NBC, and ABC web sites, PBSKids.org had become
992-617: A clearer, more detailed picture. In addition, progressive scan and higher frame rates result in a picture with less flicker and better rendering of fast motion. Modern HDTV began broadcasting in 1989 in Japan, under the MUSE /Hi-Vision analog system. HDTV was widely adopted worldwide in the late 2000s. All modern high-definition broadcasts utilize digital television standards. The major digital television broadcast standards used for terrestrial, cable, satellite, and mobile devices are: These standards use
1116-420: A comprehensive HDTV standard was not in the end established, agreement on the aspect ratio was achieved. Initially the existing 5:3 aspect ratio had been the main candidate but, due to the influence of widescreen cinema, the aspect ratio 16:9 (1.78) eventually emerged as being a reasonable compromise between 5:3 (1.67) and the common 1.85 widescreen cinema format. An aspect ratio of 16:9 was duly agreed upon at
1240-718: A digital format from DVB. The first regular broadcasts began on January 1, 2004, when the Belgian company Euro1080 launched the HD1 channel with the traditional Vienna New Year's Concert . Test transmissions had been active since the IBC exhibition in September 2003, but the New Year's Day broadcast marked the official launch of the HD1 channel, and the official start of direct-to-home HDTV in Europe. Euro1080,
1364-433: A distance education and how-to service operated between 2000 and 2006, and was largely succeeded by Create (a similarly formatted network owned by American Public Television). The 24-hour PBS Kids Channel has had two iterations in the age of digital television ; one which existed between 1999 and 2005 (being superseded by PBS Kids Sprout), and the current version which was launched in 2017. World began operations in 2007 as
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#17328691677981488-404: A division of the later defunct Belgian TV services company Alfacam, broadcast HDTV channels to break the pan-European stalemate of "no HD broadcasts mean no HD TVs bought means no HD broadcasts ..." and kick-start HDTV interest in Europe. The HD1 channel was initially free-to-air and mainly comprised sporting, dramatic, musical and other cultural events broadcast with a multi-lingual soundtrack on
1612-488: A fire at its studio the following day caused extensive damage to its equipment, but suppliers expedited shipments of replacement equipment such that they all arrived within a week after the fire, avoiding a potential delay to its planned regular programming. KCTS began broadcasting at 7 p.m. on December 7, first airing a five-minute program preview hosted by UW professor and program director Milo Ryan before switching to an abridged performance of Felix Mendelssohn 's Elijah by
1736-717: A frequent source of viewer confusion. In December 2009, PBS signed up for the Nielsen ratings audience measurement reports, and began to be included in its primetime and daily "Television Index" reports, alongside the major commercial broadcast networks. In May 2011, PBS announced that it would incorporate breaks containing underwriter spots for corporate and foundation sponsors, program promotions and identification spots within four breaks placed within episodes of Nature and NOVA , airing episodes broken up into segments of up to 15 minutes, rather than airing them as straight 50- to 55-minute episodes. The strategy began that fall, with
1860-680: A genre-based schedule (for example, drama series encompass the Sunday schedule, while science-related programs are featured on Wednesdays). PBS broadcasts children's programming under the PBS Kids branding as part of the service's (and including content supplied by other distributors not programmed by the service, its member stations') morning and afternoon schedule. As the children's programs it distributes are intended to educate as well as entertain its target audience, PBS and its stations have long been in compliance with educational programming guidelines set by
1984-556: A global recommendation for Analog HDTV. These recommendations, however, did not fit in the broadcasting bands which could reach home users. The standardization of MPEG-1 in 1993 led to the acceptance of recommendations ITU-R BT.709 . In anticipation of these standards, the DVB organization was formed. It was alliance of broadcasters, consumer electronics manufacturers and regulatory bodies. The DVB develops and agrees upon specifications which are formally standardised by ETSI . DVB created first
2108-438: A larger proportion of PBS-distributed programming to the primary member station, with the secondary members being allowed to carry a lesser number of program offerings from the service's schedule. Unlike public broadcasters in most other countries, PBS cannot own any of the stations that broadcasts its programming; therefore, it is one of the few television programming bodies that does not have any owned-and-operated stations . This
2232-665: A major fundraising drive during the mid-1980s, KCTS moved to new studio space on the Seattle Center campus in October 1986 and would remain there until 2024. In 1987, UW spun off KCTS, and the station became a community licensee, thus separating it from KUOW-FM. KCTS is seen throughout southwestern British Columbia on local cable systems, as well as across Canada on the Bell Satellite TV and Shaw Direct satellite providers, as well as on many other Canadian cable TV systems. By 1996,
2356-536: A member of its initial sponsoring group. Sponsors at the time included UW, Seattle Public Schools , King County Public Schools, Seattle University , Seattle Pacific College , and the Seattle Public Library . A studio for KCTS was set up on the UW campus at 15th Avenue NE and NE Campus Parkway, with equipment donated by KING-TV owner Dorothy Bullitt . The station aired its first test pattern on November 18, 1954;
2480-400: A much wider set of frame rates: 59.94i, 60i, 23.976p, 24p, 29.97p, 30p, 59.94p and 60p. In the days of standard-definition television, the fractional rates were often rounded up to whole numbers, e.g. 23.976p was often called 24p, or 59.94i was often called 60i. Sixty Hertz high definition television supports both fractional and slightly different integer rates, therefore strict usage of notation
2604-476: A non-profit daily news site, and Spark Public. Cascade Public Media currently consists of KCTS, Crosscut and Piranha Partners. In July 2022, Cascade Public Media purchased Childhaven 's longtime facility in First Hill for $ 23 million and announced that it would move its operations there by the end of 2023; the organization stated on its website that the city of Seattle declined to renew the 40-year ground lease for
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#17328691677982728-434: A rolling schedule of four or five hours per day. These first European HDTV broadcasts used the 1080i format with MPEG-2 compression on a DVB-S signal from SES 's Astra 1H satellite. Euro1080 transmissions later changed to MPEG-4/AVC compression on a DVB-S2 signal in line with subsequent broadcast channels in Europe. Despite delays in some countries, the number of European HD channels and viewers has risen steadily since
2852-551: A service operated by PBS but is now managed by American Public Television. PBS has also restructured its satellite feed system, simplifying HD02 (PBS West) into a timeshift feed for the Pacific Time Zone , rather than a high-definition complement to its formerly primary SD feed. PBS Kids Go! was proposed as a replacement broadcast network for the original 1999–2005 version of the PBS Kids Channel; however, plans to launch
2976-408: A set schedule of programming, particularly in regard to its prime time schedule, member stations reserve the right to schedule PBS-distributed programming in other time slots or not clear it at all if they choose to do so; few of the service's members carry all its programming. Most PBS stations timeshift some distributed programs. Once PBS accepts a program offered for distribution, PBS, rather than
3100-559: A source of tension as stations seek to preserve their localism, and PBS strives to market a consistent national lineup. However, PBS has a policy of "common carriage", which requires most stations to clear the national prime time programs on a common programming schedule to market them nationally more effectively. Management at former Los Angeles member KCET cited unresolvable financial and programming disputes among its major reasons for leaving PBS after over 40 years in January 2011, although it would return to PBS in 2019. Although PBS has
3224-658: A third of KCTS's audience resided in British Columbia; after it was removed from its channel number (9) on basic cable systems in the province, donations declined by $ 1.2 million. KCTS continues to receive financial support from its Canadian audience, which was processed through the Pacific Coast Public Television Association until its dissolution in 2017. KCTS switched to a digital transmission signal from its Capitol Hill tower in March 1999, becoming
3348-551: A top broadcasting administrator in Japan admitted failure of its analog-based HDTV system, saying the U.S. digital format would be more likely a worldwide standard. However this announcement drew angry protests from broadcasters and electronic companies who invested heavily into the analog system. As a result, he took back his statement the next day saying that the government will continue to promote Hi-Vision/MUSE. That year NHK started development of digital television in an attempt to catch back up to America and Europe. This resulted in
3472-581: A top building sign visible off the Richmond Highway . On August 4, 2020, the Amazon Prime Video platform added a "PBS Documentaries" package. As of that time it offered four separately-subscribable selections of PBS programming in the United States, "PBS Documentaries", "PBS Living" (also on Apple TV), "PBS Masterpiece" (also in Canada) and "PBS KIDS". In the UK, a "PBS America" documentaries package
3596-507: A variety of video codecs , some of which are also used for internet video . The term high definition once described a series of television systems first announced in 1933 and launched starting in August 1936; however, these systems were only high definition when compared to earlier systems that were based on mechanical systems with as few as 30 lines of resolution. The ongoing competition between companies and nations to create true HDTV spanned
3720-508: Is The Lawrence Welk Show , which has aired continuously in reruns on PBS (through the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority ) almost every weekend since 1986. Reruns of programs originally produced for public television are common, especially with former PBS shows whose hosts have retired or died (for example, The Joy of Painting and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood ). Children's programming (such as Clifford
3844-478: Is NETA (formerly SECA), whose properties have included The Shapies and Jerry Yarnell School of Fine Art . In addition, the member stations themselves also produce a variety of local shows, some of which subsequently receive national distribution through PBS or other distributors. Rerun programming , especially domestic programming not originally produced for public television, is generally uncommon on PBS or its member stations. The most prominent exception to this
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3968-486: Is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial , free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia . PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational programs to public television stations in the United States, distributing shows such as Frontline , Nova , PBS News Hour , Masterpiece , Sesame Street , and This Old House . PBS
4092-445: Is available on Amazon Prime Video. On September 3, 2020, PBS began to offer a livestream of their member stations for free via its website (as well as the websites from the member stations), on smart TVs, and on their mobile apps. However, only a small handful of stations currently do not have a livestream of their stations set up. Jefferson Graham of USA Today called it, "Arguably the best bargain in streaming". July 1, 2021 saw
4216-422: Is charged with the responsibility of programming local content such as news, interviews, cultural, and public affairs programs for its individual market or state that supplements content provided by PBS and other public television distributors. In a commercial broadcast television network structure, affiliates give up portions of their local advertising airtime in exchange for carrying network programming, and
4340-665: Is funded by a combination of member station dues, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting , pledge drives , and donations from both private foundations and individual citizens. All proposed funding for programming is subject to a set of standards to ensure the program is free of influence from the funding source. PBS has over 350 member television stations , many owned by educational institutions , nonprofit groups both independent or affiliated with one particular local public school district or collegiate educational institution, or entities owned by or related to state government . PBS
4464-486: Is no single standard for HDTV color support. Colors are typically broadcast using a (10-bits per channel) YUV color space but, depending on the underlying image generating technologies of the receiver, are then subsequently converted to a RGB color space using standardized algorithms. When transmitted directly through the Internet, the colors are typically pre-converted to 8-bit RGB channels for additional storage savings with
4588-491: Is not the first HDTV service over digital terrestrial television in Europe; Italy's RAI started broadcasting in 1080i on April 24, 2008, using the DVB-T transmission standard. In October 2008, France deployed five high definition channels using DVB-T transmission standard on digital terrestrial distribution. HDTV broadcast systems are identified with three major parameters: If all three parameters are used, they are specified in
4712-546: Is not the only distributor of public television programming to the member stations. Other distributors have emerged from the roots of companies that maintained loosely held regional public television stations in the 1960s. Boston -based American Public Television (which, among other names, was formerly known as Eastern Educational Network and the American Program Service) is second only to PBS for distributing programs to U.S. non-commercial stations. Another distributor
4836-680: Is one of the largest producers of educational television programming, including shows like American Experience , Arthur (with Canada-based CINAR ), Masterpiece Theatre , Nova , Antiques Roadshow and Frontline , as well as many other children's and lifestyle programs. News programs are produced by WETA-TV ( PBS News Hour ) in Washington, D.C. , WNET in New York City and WPBT in Miami . Newark, New Jersey/ New York City member WNET produces or distributes programs such as Secrets of
4960-534: Is partly due to the origins of the PBS stations themselves, and partly due to historical broadcast license issues. Most PBS member stations have produced at least some nationally distributed programs. Current regularly scheduled programming on the PBS national feed is produced by a smaller group of stations, including: PBS has spun off a number of television networks , often in partnership with other media companies. PBS YOU ,
5084-457: Is perhaps best known for producing/distributing the popular PBS Kids show Bill Nye the Science Guy , as well as other programs such as Students by Nature (not a PBS-distributed program), The Miracle Planet , cooking shows by Nick Stellino , Chefs A' Field , and the annual televised high school academic competition KYVE Apple Bowl . KCTS was among a number of PBS member stations to air
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5208-437: Is required to avoid ambiguity. Nevertheless, 29.97p/59.94i is almost universally called 60i, likewise 23.976p is called 24p. For the commercial naming of a product, the frame rate is often dropped and is implied from context (e.g., a 1080i television set ). A frame rate can also be specified without a resolution. For example, 24p means 24 progressive scan frames per second, and 50i means 25 interlaced frames per second. There
5332-544: Is responsible for governing and setting policy for PBS, consisting of 27 members: 14 professional directors (station managers), 12 general directors (outside directors), and the PBS president. All PBS Board members serve three-year terms, without pay. PBS member stations elect the 14 professional directors; the board elects the 12 general directors and appoints the PBS president and CEO; and the entire board elects its officers. As of March 2015 , PBS maintains current memberships with 354 television stations encompassing 50 states,
5456-501: Is the only children's programming block on U.S. broadcast television. As PBS is often known for doing, PBS Kids has broadcast imported series from other countries; these include British series originally broadcast by the BBC and ITV . Through American Public Television, many PBS stations also began airing the Australian series Raggs on June 4, 2007. Some of the programs broadcast as part of
5580-499: Is the use of highly efficient modulation techniques for further reducing bandwidth, and foremost for reducing receiver-hardware and antenna requirements. In 1983, the International Telecommunication Union's radio telecommunications sector (ITU-R) set up a working party (IWP11/6) with the aim of setting a single international HDTV standard. One of the thornier issues concerned a suitable frame/field refresh rate,
5704-468: Is used in all digital HDTV storage and transmission systems will distort the received picture when compared to the uncompressed source. ATSC and DVB define the following frame rates for use with the various broadcast standards: The optimum format for a broadcast depends upon the type of videographic recording medium used and the image's characteristics. For best fidelity to the source, the transmitted field ratio, lines, and frame rate should match those of
5828-506: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) because of their higher bandwidth requirements. At this time, the number of television channels was growing rapidly and bandwidth was already a problem. A new standard had to be more efficient, needing less bandwidth for HDTV than the existing NTSC. The limited standardization of analog HDTV in the 1990s did not lead to global HDTV adoption as technical and economic constraints at
5952-449: The Federal Communications Commission in response to the enactment of the Children's Television Act of 1990 . Many member stations have historically also broadcast distance education and other instructional television programs, typically during daytime slots; though with the advent of digital television, which has allowed stations to carry these programs on digital subchannels in lieu of
6076-535: The ISDB format. Japan started digital satellite and HDTV broadcasting in December 2000. High-definition digital television was not possible with uncompressed video , which requires a bandwidth exceeding 1 Gbit/s for studio-quality HD digital video . Digital HDTV was made possible by the development of discrete cosine transform (DCT) video compression . DCT coding is a lossy image compression technique that
6200-470: The 1980s onward, the national PBS network has not typically carried sporting events, mainly because the broadcast rights to most sporting events have become more cost-prohibitive in that timeframe, especially for nonprofits with limited revenue potential; in addition, starting with the respective launches of the MountainWest Sports Network (now defunct) and Big Ten Network in 2006 and 2007 and
6324-457: The 240-line with its 25 Hz frame rate. The 240-line system could have doubled its frame rate but this would have meant that the transmitted signal would have doubled in bandwidth, an unacceptable option as the video baseband bandwidth was required to be not more than 3 MHz. Color broadcasts started at similar line counts, first with the US NTSC color system in 1953, which was compatible with
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#17328691677986448-547: The Big Red Dog and DragonflyTV , the latter of which is also syndicated on commercial television) is rerun extensively. In 2020 and 2021, PBS served as the over-the-air home to select specials from the Peanuts library , under sublicense from Apple ; the deal was not renewed in 2022. Launched as PTV on July 11, 1994, PBS Kids is the brand for children's programs aired by PBS. PBS Kids, launched in 1999 and operated until 2005,
6572-448: The CMTT and ETSI, along with research by Italian broadcaster RAI , developed a DCT video codec that broadcast near-studio-quality HDTV transmission at about 70–140 Mbit/s. The first HDTV transmissions in Europe, albeit not direct-to-home, began in 1990, when RAI broadcast the 1990 FIFA World Cup using several experimental HDTV technologies, including the digital DCT-based EU 256 codec,
6696-751: The Dead , Nature , and Cyberchase . PBS also works with other networks for programming such as CNN International for Amanpour & Company which is a co-production of CNN International and WNET. PBS member stations are known for rebroadcasting British television costume dramas , comedies and science fiction programs (acquired from the BBC and other sources) such as Downton Abbey ; 'Allo 'Allo! ; Are You Being Served? ; The Benny Hill Show , Red Dwarf ; The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin ; Father Ted ; Fawlty Towers ; Harry Enfield & Chums ; Keeping Up Appearances ; Monty Python's Flying Circus ; Mr. Bean , The Vicar of Dibley ,
6820-552: The District of Columbia and four U.S. possessions; as such, it is the only television broadcaster in the United States—commercial or non-commercial—which has station partners licensed in every U.S. state (by comparison, none of the five major commercial broadcast networks has affiliates in certain states where PBS has members, most notably New Jersey ). The service has an estimated national reach of 93.74% of all households in
6944-601: The First Hill facility in January 2024, with both subsequently adopting the Cascade PBS name on March 1. In 1994, KCTS merged with KYVE, which has served central Washington since November 1, 1962. However, this was not the first time that the two stations had partnered together; during the early 1960s KYVE's engineers switched to and from KCTS's signal until the station's owners, the Yakima Board of Education, got enough funding for
7068-517: The Japanese public broadcaster NHK first developed consumer high-definition television with a 5:3 display aspect ratio. The system, known as Hi-Vision or MUSE after its multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding (MUSE) for encoding the signal, required about twice the bandwidth of the existing NTSC system but provided about four times the resolution (1035i/1125 lines). In 1981, the MUSE system was demonstrated for
7192-583: The Los Angeles market ; KCET served as the market's primary PBS member until it left the service in January 2011, at which time it was replaced by KOCE). KCET rejoined PBS in 2019, thus giving the Los Angeles area four different member stations. For these cases, PBS utilizes the Program Differentiation Plan, which divides by percentage the number of programs distributed by the service that each member can carry on their schedule; often, this assigns
7316-501: The Seattle Center facility. It retained architectural firm JPC Architects, general contractor Abbott Construction, and project manager OAC Services as part of a capital campaign to purchase and renovate the property. In October 2023, KCTS announced that it and Crosscut would merge under the new unified brand of Cascade PBS. It also announced plans for a new streaming app, expanding on a service that launched in 2020, that would be used by other PBS member stations. KCTS and Crosscut moved into
7440-713: The Seattle Pacific College Choir. Initially, it aired only two preview programs weekly; however, regular programming did not commence until nearly a month later on January 5, 1955, with the inaugural program featuring Governor Arthur B. Langlie as principal speaker. It had three telecast periods throughout the afternoon and evening during weekdays. During the 1950s and 1960s, KCTS primarily supplied classroom instructional programs used in Washington State's K–12 schools, plus National Educational Television (NET) programs. Outside of schoolrooms, KCTS's audience among
7564-404: The U.S., in which network-affiliated stations were initially owned by companies that owned few to no other television stations elsewhere in the country. In some U.S. states, a group of PBS stations throughout the entire state may be organized into a single regional "subnetwork" (such as Alabama Public Television and Arkansas PBS ); in this model, PBS programming and other content is distributed by
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#17328691677987688-578: The United Kingdom became the first European country to deploy high-definition content using the new DVB-T2 transmission standard, as specified in the Digital TV Group (DTG) D-book , on digital terrestrial television. The Freeview HD service contains 13 HD channels (as of April 2016 ) and was rolled out region by region across the UK in accordance with the digital switchover process, finally being completed in October 2012. However, Freeview HD
7812-442: The United States (or 292,926,047 Americans with at least one television set). PBS stations are commonly operated by nonprofit organizations , state agencies, local authorities (such as municipal boards of education), or universities in their city of license ; this is similar (albeit more centralized in states where a licensee owns multiple stations rebroadcasting the main PBS member) to the early model of commercial broadcasting in
7936-634: The United States occurred on July 23, 1996, when the Raleigh, North Carolina television station WRAL-HD began broadcasting from the existing tower of WRAL-TV southeast of Raleigh, winning a race to be first with the HD Model Station in Washington, D.C. , which began broadcasting July 31, 1996 with the callsign WHD-TV, based out of the facilities of NBC owned and operated station WRC-TV . The American Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) HDTV system had its public launch on October 29, 1998, during
8060-465: The United States saw Hi-Vision/MUSE as an outdated system and had already made it clear that it would develop an all-digital system. Experts thought the commercial Hi-Vision system in 1992 was already eclipsed by digital technology developed in the U.S. since 1990. This was an American victory against the Japanese in terms of technological dominance. By mid-1993 prices of receivers were still as high as 1.5 million yen (US$ 15,000). On February 23, 1994,
8184-514: The assumption that it will only be viewed only on a ( sRGB ) computer screen. As an added benefit to the original broadcasters, the losses of the pre-conversion essentially make these files unsuitable for professional TV re-broadcasting. Most HDTV systems support resolutions and frame rates defined either in the ATSC table 3, or in EBU specification. The most common are noted below. At a minimum, HDTV has twice
8308-399: The channel in 2012). However, the original programming block still exists on PBS, filling daytime and in some cases, weekend morning schedules on its member stations; many members also carry 24-hour locally programmed children's networks featuring PBS Kids content on one of their digital subchannels. A revived version of the PBS Kids Channel was launched on January 16, 2017. As of 2019, PBS Kids
8432-448: The channel was added to Australia's Foxtel subscription platform. At the summer 2019 Television Critics Association press tour day for PBS on July 29, 2019, it was announced that MVPD YouTube TV would begin to carry PBS programming and member stations in the fall of 2019. Member stations have the choice of having their traditional channel on the service with its full programming schedule received by Google over-the-air and uploaded to
8556-454: The controversial "Sugartime!" episode of Postcards from Buster , a spinoff of Arthur about a cartoon rabbit named Buster Baxter, who travels the country with his father and interacts with children from different cultures and in different family structures. The episode had been removed from PBS Kids Go! 's national broadcast schedule after PBS received a critical letter from then-newly-appointed Education Secretary Margaret Spellings , who
8680-456: The course of a year. However, PBS is not responsible for all programming carried on public television stations, a large proportion of which may come from its member stations —including WGBH-TV , WETA-TV , WNET , WTTW , WQED , WHYY-TV , Twin Cities PBS — American Public Television , and independent producers. This distinction regarding the origin of different programs on the service presents
8804-600: The digital signals of some member stations, while HD02 (PBS West) serves as a secondary HD feed. With the absence of advertising , network identification on these PBS networks was limited to utilization at the end of the program, which includes the standard series of bumpers from the "Be More" campaign. While not operated or controlled by PBS proper, additional public broadcasting networks are available and carried by PBS member stations. The following three are also distributed by PBS via satellite. High-definition television High-definition television ( HDTV ) describes
8928-455: The dominant US children's site for video, and PBS had won more 2013 Webby Awards than any other media company in the world. On May 8, 2013, full-length episodes of PBS' prime time, news and children's programs were made available through the Roku streaming player; programming is available on Roku as separate streaming channels for "PBS" and " PBS KIDS " content. Some content is only available with
9052-702: The earlier monochrome systems and therefore had the same 525 lines per frame. European standards did not follow until the 1960s, when the PAL and SECAM color systems were added to the monochrome 625-line broadcasts. The NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) began researching to "unlock the fundamental mechanism of video and sound interactions with the five human senses" in 1964, after the Tokyo Olympics. NHK set out to create an HDTV system that scored much higher in subjective tests than NTSC's previously dubbed HDTV . This new system, NHK Color, created in 1972, included 1125 lines,
9176-457: The entire 20th century, as each new system became higher definition than the last. In the early 21st century, this race has continued with 4K , 5K and 8K systems. The British high-definition TV service started trials in August 1936 and a regular service on 2 November 1936 using both the (mechanical) Baird 240 line sequential scan (later referred to as progressive ) and the (electronic) Marconi-EMI 405 line interlaced systems. The Baird system
9300-408: The exception of Sprout, some of these services, including those from PBS member stations and networks, have not made contracts with Internet-distributed over-the-top MVPD services such as Sling TV and the now defunct PlayStation Vue . With the transition to over-the-air digital television broadcasts, many of the services are also often now available as standard-definition multicast channels on
9424-517: The exceptions of Washington Week in Review and Wall Street Week (CPB resumed funding of Washington Week in 1997). In 1994, The Chronicle of Philanthropy released the results of the largest study on the popularity and credibility of charitable and non-profit organizations. PBS ranked as the 11th "most popular charity/non-profit in America" from over 100 charities researched in the study conducted by
9548-453: The first HDTV broadcasts, with SES's annual Satellite Monitor market survey for 2010 reporting more than 200 commercial channels broadcasting in HD from Astra satellites, 185 million HD capable TVs sold in Europe (£60 million in 2010 alone), and 20 million households (27% of all European digital satellite TV homes) watching HD satellite broadcasts (16 million via Astra satellites). In December 2009,
9672-536: The first daily high-definition programs in the world, with regular testing starting on November 25, 1991, or "Hi-Vision Day" – dated exactly to refer to its 1,125-lines resolution. Regular broadcasting of BS -9ch commenced on November 25, 1994, which featured commercial and NHK programming. Several systems were proposed as the new standard for the US, including the Japanese MUSE system, but all were rejected by
9796-631: The first meeting of the IWP11/6 working party at the BBC's Research and Development establishment in Kingswood Warren. The resulting ITU-R Recommendation ITU-R BT.709-2 (" Rec. 709 ") includes the 16:9 aspect ratio, a specified colorimetry , and the scan modes 1080i (1,080 actively interlaced lines of resolution) and 1080p (1,080 progressively scanned lines). The British Freeview HD trials used MBAFF , which contains both progressive and interlaced content in
9920-465: The first time in the United States, using the same 5:3 aspect ratio as the Japanese system. Upon visiting a demonstration of MUSE in Washington, US President Ronald Reagan was impressed and officially declared it "a matter of national interest" to introduce HDTV to the US. NHK taped the 1984 Summer Olympics with a Hi-Vision camera, weighing 40 kg. Satellite test broadcasts started June 4, 1989,
10044-1084: The following form: [frame size][scanning system][frame or field rate] or [frame size]/[frame or field rate][scanning system] . Often, frame size or frame rate can be dropped if its value is implied from context. In this case, the remaining numeric parameter is specified first, followed by the scanning system. For example, 1920×1080p25 identifies progressive scanning format with 25 frames per second, each frame being 1,920 pixels wide and 1,080 pixels high. The 1080i25 or 1080i50 notation identifies interlaced scanning format with 25 frames (50 fields) per second, each frame being 1,920 pixels wide and 1,080 pixels high. The 1080i30 or 1080i60 notation identifies interlaced scanning format with 30 frames (60 fields) per second, each frame being 1,920 pixels wide and 1,080 pixels high. The 720p60 notation identifies progressive scanning format with 60 frames per second, each frame being 720 pixels high; 1,280 pixels horizontally are implied. Systems using 50 Hz support three scanning rates: 50i, 25p and 50p, while 60 Hz systems support
10168-443: The general public was somewhat limited, and most programming was in black-and-white until the mid-1970s (although the station did install color capability in 1967). In 1970, NET was absorbed into the newly created Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which commenced broadcasting on October 5. As a PBS member station, KCTS began offering a vastly enhanced scope of programming for the general public, including British programming. Thanks to
10292-413: The industry publication, with 38.2% of Americans over the age of 12 choosing "love" and "like a lot" for PBS. Since the mid-2000s, Roper Opinion Research polls commissioned by PBS have consistently placed the service as the most-trusted national institution in the United States. A 2016–2017 study by Nielsen Media Research found 80% of all US television households view the network's programs over
10416-411: The intended definition. All of these systems used interlacing and a 4:3 aspect ratio except the 240-line system which was progressive (actually described at the time by the technically correct term sequential ) and the 405-line system which started as 5:4 and later changed to 4:3. The 405-line system adopted the (at that time) revolutionary idea of interlaced scanning to overcome the flicker problem of
10540-551: The intent to expand the in-program breaks to the remainder of the schedule if successful. In 2011, PBS released apps for iOS and Android to allow viewing of full-length videos on mobile devices. Vern Seward of The Mac Observer calls the PBS iPad App, "...cool on so many levels." An update in 2015 added Chromecast support. "PBS UK" was launched as a paid subscription channel in the United Kingdom on November 1, 2011, featuring American documentary programming sourced from PBS. Better identifying its subject matter, this channel
10664-507: The late 1970s, and in 1979 an SMPTE study group released A Study of High Definition Television Systems : Since the formal adoption of Digital Video Broadcasting's (DVB) widescreen HDTV transmission modes in the mid to late 2000s; the 525-line NTSC (and PAL-M ) systems, as well as the European 625-line PAL and SECAM systems, have been regarded as standard definition television systems. Early HDTV broadcasting used analog technology that
10788-900: The later launches of the Pac-12 Network and ESPN's SEC Network and ACC Network , athletic conferences have acquired rights for all of their member university's sports programs for their cable channels, restricting their use from PBS member stations, even those associated with their own universities. From 1976 to 1989, KQED produced a series of Bundesliga matches under the banner Soccer Made in Germany , with Toby Charles announcing. PBS also carried tennis events, as well as Ivy League football. Notable football commentators included Upton Bell , Marty Glickman , Bob Casciola , Brian Dowling , Sean McDonough and Jack Corrigan . Other sports programs included interview series such as The Way It Was and The Sporting Life . The board of directors
10912-491: The linear resolution of standard-definition television (SDTV), thus showing greater detail than either analog television or regular DVD . The technical standards for broadcasting HDTV also handle the 16:9 aspect ratio images without using letterboxing or anamorphic stretching, thus increasing the effective image resolution. A very high-resolution source may require more bandwidth than available in order to be transmitted without loss of fidelity. The lossy compression that
11036-543: The live coverage of astronaut John Glenn 's return mission to space on board the Space Shuttle Discovery . The signal was transmitted coast-to-coast, and was seen by the public in science centers, and other public theaters specially equipped to receive and display the broadcast. Between 1988 and 1991, several European organizations were working on discrete cosine transform (DCT) based digital video coding standards for both SDTV and HDTV. The EU 256 project by
11160-502: The main PBS feed or exclusively over online, many member stations/networks have replaced distance education content with children's and other programming. Unlike its radio counterpart, National Public Radio , PBS does not have a central program production arm or news division. All of the programming carried by PBS, whether news, documentary or entertainment, is created by (or in most cases produced under contract with) other parties, such as individual member stations. Boston member WGBH-TV
11284-518: The majority (75%) of the network's programs, with KBTC-TV carrying the remaining 25%. Originally owned and operated by the University of Washington , KCTS-TV became a community licensee in 1987. In 2015, it was announced that the station would merge with Crosscut.com to form Cascade Public Media. KYVE (channel 47) in Yakima operates as a semi-satellite of KCTS-TV, serving as the PBS member station for
11408-518: The mid-1990s to the early 2000s, some programs included a combined "KCTS/KYVE" visual bug in the lower-right corner of the screen, indicating they were simulcast to both markets. However, since the early 2000s, KYVE has largely been a straight simulcast of KCTS, so the screen bug was dropped. Combined, the two stations serve 2.4 million people, accounting for almost two-thirds of Washington state's population. Its former studios were located at Braeburn Hall at Yakima Valley Community College . But since
11532-579: The mixed analog-digital HD-MAC technology, and the analog MUSE technology. The matches were shown in 8 cinemas in Italy, where the tournament was played, and 2 in Spain. The connection with Spain was made via the Olympus satellite link from Rome to Barcelona and then with a fiber optic connection from Barcelona to Madrid . After some HDTV transmissions in Europe, the standard was abandoned in 1993, to be replaced by
11656-419: The network pays its affiliates a share of the revenue it earns from advertising. By contrast, PBS member stations pay fees for the shows acquired and distributed by the national organization. Under this relationship, PBS member stations have greater latitude in local scheduling than their commercial broadcasting counterparts. Scheduling of PBS-distributed series may vary greatly depending on the market. This can be
11780-484: The network were folded in 2006. Programming from the PBS Satellite Service has also been carried by certain member stations or regional member networks to fill their overnight schedules (particularly those that have transitioned to a 24-hour schedule since the late 1990s), in lieu of providing programming sourced from outside public television distributors or repeats of local programming (program promotions shown on
11904-629: The original run of Doctor Who , and Sherlock . However, a significant amount of sharing takes place. The BBC and British broadcasters such as Channel 4 often cooperate with PBS stations, producing material that is shown on both sides of the Atlantic . Less frequently, Canadian, Australian and other international programming appears on PBS stations (such as The Red Green Show , currently distributed by syndicator Executive Program Services); public broadcasting syndicators are more likely to offer this programming to U.S.-based public television stations. PBS
12028-1107: The originating member station, retains exclusive rebroadcasting rights during an agreed period. Suppliers, however, retain the right to sell the program's intellectual property in non-broadcast media such as DVDs , books, and sometimes PBS- licensed merchandise . The evening and primetime schedule on PBS features a diverse array of programming including fine arts ( Great Performances ); drama ( Masterpiece , Downton Abbey , American Family: Journey of Dreams ); science ( Nova , Nature ); history ( American Experience , American Masters , History Detectives , Antiques Roadshow ); music ( Austin City Limits , Soundstage ); public affairs ( Frontline , PBS NewsHour , Washington Week , Nightly Business Report ); independent films and documentaries ( P.O.V. , Independent Lens ); home improvement ( This Old House ); and interviews ( Amanpour & Company , Tavis Smiley , The Dick Cavett Show ). In 2012, PBS began organizing much of its prime time programming around
12152-558: The originating station in the subnetwork to other full-power stations that serve as satellites as well as any low-power translators in other areas of the state. Some states may be served by such a regional network and simultaneously have PBS member stations in a certain city (such as the case with secondary member KBDI-TV in Denver , which is not related to Colorado member network Rocky Mountain PBS and its flagship station and primary Denver PBS member, KRMA-TV) that operate autonomously from
12276-517: The proceedings nationwide, with Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer as commentators. Although all of the Big Three TV Networks ran coverage of the hearings, PBS re-broadcast them on prime time . For seven months, nightly "gavel-to-gavel" broadcasts drew great public interest, and raised the profile of the fledgling PBS network. In 1991, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting resumed funding for most PBS shows that debuted prior to 1977, with
12400-475: The regional member network. As opposed to the present commercial broadcasting model in which network programs are often carried exclusively on one television station in a given market, PBS may maintain more than one member station in certain markets, which may be owned by the licensee of the market's primary PBS member station or owned by a separate licensee (as a prime example, KOCE-TV , KLCS and KVCR-DT —which are all individually owned—serve as PBS stations for
12524-491: The same encoding. It also includes the alternative 1440×1152 HDMAC scan format. (According to some reports, a mooted 750-line (720p) format (720 progressively scanned lines) was viewed by some at the ITU as an enhanced television format rather than a true HDTV format, and so was not included, although 1920×1080i and 1280×720p systems for a range of frame and field rates were defined by several US SMPTE standards.) HDTV technology
12648-646: The same time, the groups started out the National Public Affairs Broadcast Center (later National Public Affairs Center for Television), which offered news and national affairs to the service. The group was later merged into member station WETA-TV in 1972. Immediately after public disclosure of the Watergate scandal , on May 17, 1973, the United States Senate Watergate Committee commenced proceedings; PBS broadcast
12772-439: The satellite feed advertise upcoming programs as being aired on PBS during the timeslot card normally used as a placeholder for member outlets to insert local airtime information). Some or all of these services are available on a digital cable tier of many cable providers, on a free-to-air (FTA) satellite receiver receiving from PBS Satellite Service , as well as via subscription-based direct broadcast satellite providers. With
12896-559: The service's children's lineup or through public broadcast syndication directly to its members have subsequently been syndicated to commercial television outlets (such as Ghostwriter and The Magic School Bus ). Many PBS member stations and networks—including Mississippi Public Broadcasting ( MHSAA ), Georgia Public Broadcasting ( GHSA ), Maine Public Broadcasting Network ( MPA ), Iowa PBS ( IGHSAU ), Nebraska Public Media ( NSAA ), and WKYU-TV ( Western Kentucky Hilltoppers )—locally broadcast high school and college sports. From
13020-539: The service, a YouTube TV-only feed provided by the station with some programming substitutions due to lack of digital rights, or a PBS-provided feed with limited localization, though with no local programming or pledge drive programming. In 2019, PBS announced plans to move its headquarters to another building in the Crystal Gateway complex, while remaining in Crystal City, Virginia , and did so in 2020, which included
13144-573: The standard for DVB-S digital satellite TV, DVB-C digital cable TV and DVB-T digital terrestrial TV. These broadcasting systems can be used for both SDTV and HDTV. In the US the Grand Alliance proposed ATSC as the new standard for SDTV and HDTV. Both ATSC and DVB were based on the MPEG-2 standard, although DVB systems may also be used to transmit video using the newer and more efficient H.264/MPEG-4 AVC compression standards. Common for all DVB standards
13268-667: The start of the millennium, local origination was severely reduced, and eventually, Braeburn Hall was torn down. KYVE later moved to a small office on 2nd Street (at the bottom of the Larson Building). This office is now home to the ticket office and administration for the Yakima Valley Pippins baseball team, and aside from the Ahtanum Ridge transmitter and the legal hourly station ID, KYVE no longer has any presence in Yakima. KCTS
13392-472: The station to be self-supporting. The station became a community licensee in 1984, but found the going difficult until its merger with KCTS. KYVE did produce a few local programs, including the KYVE Apple Bowl with host Tony Leita, a high school quiz competition; Northwest Outdoors with Wally Pease, an outdoors program; and Country Roads with Gwyn Gilmore , a showcase of country music videos . During
13516-466: The third television station in the Seattle area to make the transition. The station had been an early adopter of high-definition television programming and used its new digital signal to simulcast several programs. In January 2016, as part of a broader strategy to redefine itself as a content provider for various platforms other than television, the name of the licensee, KCTS Television became Cascade Public Media; its properties included KCTS-TV, Crosscut ,
13640-539: The time did not permit HDTV to use bandwidths greater than normal television. Early HDTV commercial experiments, such as NHK's MUSE, required over four times the bandwidth of a standard-definition broadcast. Despite efforts made to reduce analog HDTV to about twice the bandwidth of SDTV, these television formats were still distributable only by satellite. In Europe too, the HD-MAC standard was considered not technically viable. In addition, recording and reproducing an HDTV signal
13764-502: The western portion of the Yakima– Tri-Cities market. KYVE's transmitter is located on Ahtanum Ridge . KCTS was founded by the University of Washington (UW), the station's original licensee. It was a sister station to KUOW-FM , which UW put on the air in 1951. It was originally to have gone on the air under the callsign KUOW-TV, but it instead assumed the callsign KCTS, meaning Community Television Service, to avoid singling out
13888-424: The world already having split into two camps, 25/50 Hz and 30/60 Hz, largely due to the differences in mains frequency. The IWP11/6 working party considered many views and throughout the 1980s served to encourage development in a number of video digital processing areas, not least conversion between the two main frame/field rates using motion vectors , which led to further developments in other areas. While
14012-532: Was a research project and the system was never deployed by either the military or consumer broadcasting. In 1986, the European Community proposed HD-MAC , an analog HDTV system with 1,152 lines. A public demonstration took place for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. However HD-MAC was scrapped in 1993 and the DVB project was formed, which would foresee development of a digital HDTV standard. In 1979,
14136-677: Was a significant technical challenge in the early years of HDTV ( Sony HDVS ). Japan remained the only country with successful public broadcasting of analog HDTV, with seven broadcasters sharing a single channel. However, the Hi-Vision/MUSE system also faced commercial issues when it launched on November 25, 1991. Only 2,000 HDTV sets were sold by that day, rather than the enthusiastic 1.32 million estimation. Hi-Vision sets were very expensive, up to US$ 30,000 each, which contributed to its low consumer adaption. A Hi-Vision VCR from NEC released at Christmas time retailed for US$ 115,000. In addition,
14260-461: Was added to Roku's live TV channel lineup in the United States on April 23, 2024, airing PBS Kids shows from the 70s, 80s and 90s. Even with its status as a non-profit and educational television network, PBS engages in program distribution, providing television content and related services to its member stations, each of which together cooperatively owns the network. Unlike the affiliates for commercial TV networks, each non-profit PBS member station
14384-489: Was discontinued in February 1937. In 1938 France followed with its own 441-line system, variants of which were also used by a number of other countries. The US NTSC 525-line system joined in 1941. In 1949 France introduced an even higher-resolution standard at 819 lines , a system that would have been high definition even by modern standards, but was monochrome only and had technical limitations that prevented it from achieving
14508-572: Was established on November 3, 1969, by Hartford N. Gunn Jr. (president of WGBH ), John Macy (president of CPB ), James Day (last president of National Educational Television ), and Kenneth A. Christiansen (chairman of the department of broadcasting at the University of Florida ). It began operations on October 5, 1970, taking over many of the functions of its predecessor, National Educational Television (NET), which later merged with Newark, New Jersey station WNDT to form WNET . In 1973, it merged with Educational Television Stations . Around
14632-578: Was first proposed by Nasir Ahmed in 1972, and was later adapted into a motion-compensated DCT algorithm for video coding standards such as the H.26x formats from 1988 onwards and the MPEG formats from 1993 onwards. Motion-compensated DCT compression significantly reduces the amount of bandwidth required for a digital TV signal. By 1991, it had achieved data compression ratios from 8:1 to 14:1 for near-studio-quality HDTV transmission, down to 70–140 Mbit/s . Between 1988 and 1991, DCT video compression
14756-594: Was introduced in the United States in the early 1990s and made official in 1993 by the Digital HDTV Grand Alliance , a group of television, electronic equipment, communications companies consisting of AT&T Bell Labs , General Instrument , Philips , Sarnoff , Thomson , Zenith and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Field testing of HDTV at 199 sites in the United States was completed August 14, 1994. The first public HDTV broadcast in
14880-406: Was largely funded by satellite provider DirecTV . The original channel ceased operations on September 26, 2005, in favor of PBS Kids Sprout , a commercial digital cable and satellite television channel originally operated as a joint venture between PBS, Comcast , Sesame Workshop and Apax Partners ( NBCUniversal , which Comcast acquired in 2011, later acquired the other partners' interests in
15004-630: Was later converted to digital television with video compression . In 1949, France started its transmissions with an 819 lines system (with 737 active lines). The system was monochrome only and was used only on VHF for the first French TV channel. It was discontinued in 1983. In 1958, the Soviet Union developed Тransformator ( Russian : Трансформатор , meaning Transformer ), the first high-resolution (definition) television system capable of producing an image composed of 1,125 lines of resolution aimed at providing teleconferencing for military command. It
15128-472: Was renamed " PBS America " on July 4, 2012. The channel has subsequently become available in other parts of Europe and Australia. On February 28, 2012, PBS partnered with AOL to launch Makers: Women Who Make America , a digital documentary series focusing on high-achieving women in male-dominated industries such as war, comedy, space, business, Hollywood and politics. PBS initially struggled to compete with online media such as YouTube for market share. In
15252-677: Was upset that Buster was visiting a Vermont family headed by two women. WGBH , the Boston-based PBS affiliate and original producer of the program, subsequently made the episode available to stations that still wished to air it on an individual basis. The stations' signals are multiplexed : KCTS-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 9, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television . The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 41 to VHF channel 9. PBS The Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS )
15376-530: Was widely adopted as the video coding standard for HDTV implementations, enabling the development of practical digital HDTV. Dynamic random-access memory ( DRAM ) was also adopted as framebuffer semiconductor memory, with the DRAM semiconductor industry 's increased manufacturing and reducing prices important to the commercialization of HDTV. Since 1972, International Telecommunication Union 's radio telecommunications sector ( ITU-R ) had been working on creating
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