The History of HDTV (High Definition Television)

The History Of HDTV
By Mitchell Medford

For those of you unfamiliar with HDTV, it is the highest DTV
resolution in the new set of standards combined with CD-quality
Dolby Digital surround sound. This combination creates
spectacular illustration with stunning audio effects, which is
quickly moving HDTV to become the new standard in television
systems.

HDTV seems like a completely new innovation but actually the
system has been around in various forms since the mid-1970s and
has developed quite an impressive history.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the trial product for HDTV was
being developed in Japan as a way to improve television quality
and therefore sell more TVs. The first HDTV system was called
MUSE and employed filtering tricks to reduce the original source
signal to decrease bandwidth utilization.

The idea of introducing HDTV in the United States was met with
mixed responses. In the 1980s, the National Association of
Broadcasters in the United States invited NHK, Japan’s public
network, to present the ideas behind the MUSE system to the
Federal Communications Commission. At that time, there were two
groups that were adamantly against the introduction of HDTV in
the U.S.

The first group that opposed the introduction of this new
technology was the Terrestrial Television Broadcasters. They
were scared by the possibility of being excluded from the HDTV
market because HDTV required more bandwidth (the amount of
information sent through a channel or connection) than standard
TV. These broadcasters worried because the channels that they
already had license to would not be able to handle the bandwidth
of this new form of television.

The other group that became concerned about HDTV in the U.S.
was Congress. Congress felt threatened by the many Japanese
innovations that they saw arriving in the U.S. and ultimately
they didn’t want to introduce a new form of communication that
was owned by another country all together.

With these two complaints in mind, the American government
sought to invent a new form of HDTV. Groups of researchers and
manufacturers were gathered together to form different teams.
Each team would attempt to create an HDTV system that could fit
into the existing channels that were used by broadcasters.

After years of work, the separate teams of researchers and
manufacturers decided to combine forces. This unity gave birth
to a new group known as Grand Alliance.

As researchers continued their attempts to develop this new
form of HDTV, they discovered that this new technology would
have to be partially digital in order for all the necessary
information to fit into the existing channels. With this in
mind, they were able to develop a system that was quite
different from the Japanese system. The Japanese NHK version of
HDTV was analog but the updated version created by the American
researchers ended up being completely digital.

Unlike BETA VCRs and 8-track players, HDTV is one form of
technology that is being built to withstand the test of time.

With the decades of development and research that have gone
into optimizing the HDTV system, this form of television is
likely to endure for decades to come.

About the Author: Mitchell Medford is a popular reviewer of
consumer electronics and technology. He has written for numerous
publications and served as a product development consultant for
several consumer electronics manufacturers. Visit his site or
more information on HDTVs, DVRs, and special offers on Dish
Network packages: http://www.gnpstv.com

Source: http://www.isnare.com

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