ABSTRACT
In the domain of audiovisual production and distribution, the past 20 years have been punctuated by a recurrent statement that high-definition television (HDTV) was just around the corner, that it represented the imminent future of television. For the last 10 years, that statement has been most frequently opposed by negative assertions that HD will never take off or that “high definition is not high enough.” Now suddenly HDTV has again become the “talk of the town,” and, what is much more important, the object of serious consideration as a technology everyone pays attention to. It is not anymore an object of laboratory research or theoretical debates, but a real-life production and transmission format used in a number of regular programs on different channels around the world.
