High-definition video

In 1939, the world witnessed the birth of electronic scanning, a 405-line system that stood as the first true high-definition television format, leaving mechanical predecessors far behind in the dust. This early system laid the groundwork for what would become a global race for clarity, with Europe and the United States experimenting with 605 and 441 lines before the Federal Communications Commission mandated 525 lines for the US in 1941. During the turmoil of wartime France, engineer René Barthélemy pushed the boundaries even further, testing resolutions as high as 1,042 lines, a feat that would eventually lead to official French transmissions of 819 lines in late 1949. Yet, the dream of ultra-high definition in analog form proved fleeting, as the French abandoned their 819-line standard by 1984 in favor of the more conventional 625-line color broadcast on the TF1 network.

The Analog Dream

Modern high-definition specifications trace their roots to the early 1980s, when Japanese engineers unveiled the HighVision 1,125-line interlaced TV standard, also known as MUSE, which ran at a smooth 60 frames per second. The Sony HDVS system made its debut at an international meeting of television engineers in Algiers in April 1981, followed by Japan's NHK presenting its analog high-definition television system at a Swiss conference in 1983. Although the NHK system was standardized in the United States as Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers standard 240M in the early 1990s, it was eventually abandoned when replaced by a DVB analog standard. HighVision video remains usable for HDTV video interchange, but almost no modern equipment exists to perform this function today. Attempts to implement HighVision as a 6 MHz broadcast channel were mostly unsuccessful, and all efforts to use this format for terrestrial TV transmission were abandoned by the mid-1990s. Europe developed HD-MAC, a 1,250-line, 50 Hz system that was a member of the MAC family of hybrid analogue-digital video standards, yet it never took off as a terrestrial video transmission format and was never designated for video interchange except by the European Broadcasting Union.

The Digital Revolution

High-definition digital video was impossible with uncompressed video due to impractically high memory and bandwidth requirements, with a bit rate exceeding 100 megabits per second for 1080p video. The breakthrough came with the development of discrete cosine transform video compression, a lossy compression technique first proposed by Nasir Ahmed in 1972 and later adapted into a motion-compensated DCT algorithm for video coding formats such as the H.26x formats from the Video Coding Experts Group from 1988 onwards and the MPEG formats from 1993 onwards. Motion-compensated DCT compression significantly reduced the amount of memory and bandwidth required for digital video, capable of achieving a data compression ratio of around 100:1 compared to uncompressed video. By the early 1990s, DCT video compression had been widely adopted as the video coding standard for HDTV. The current high-definition video standards in North America were developed during the course of the advanced television process initiated by the Federal Communications Commission in 1987 at the request of American broadcasters. The end of the 1980s marked the death knell for most analog high-definition technologies that had developed up to that time. The FCC process, led by the Advanced Television Systems Committee, adopted a range of standards from interlaced 1,080-line video with a maximum frame rate of 30 Hz and 720-line video, progressively scanned, with a maximum frame rate of 60 Hz. In the end, the DVB standard of resolutions 1080, 720, and 480 and respective frame rates 24, 25, and 30 were adopted in conjunction with the Europeans. The FCC officially adopted the ATSC transmission standard in 1996, which included both HD and SD video standards. In the early 2000s, it looked as if DVB would be the video standard far into the future, but both Brazil and China adopted alternative standards for high-definition video that precluded the interoperability that was hoped for after decades of largely non-interoperable analog TV broadcasting.

When was the first true high-definition television format introduced?

The first true high-definition television format was introduced in 1939 as a 405-line system. This electronic scanning system stood as the first true high-definition television format, leaving mechanical predecessors far behind in the dust.

What year did the Federal Communications Commission mandate 525 lines for the US?

The Federal Communications Commission mandated 525 lines for the US in 1941. This mandate followed experiments with 605 and 441 lines by Europe and the United States.

When did the French abandon their 819-line standard for high-definition video?

The French abandoned their 819-line standard by 1984 in favor of the more conventional 625-line color broadcast on the TF1 network. This decision marked the end of the dream of ultra-high definition in analog form for that country.

When did Sony unveil the HighVision 1,125-line interlaced TV standard?

Sony unveiled the HighVision 1,125-line interlaced TV standard at an international meeting of television engineers in Algiers in April 1981. This system, also known as MUSE, ran at a smooth 60 frames per second.

When did the Federal Communications Commission officially adopt the ATSC transmission standard?

The Federal Communications Commission officially adopted the ATSC transmission standard in 1996. This standard included both HD and SD video standards and was part of the advanced television process initiated in 1987.

When did Toshiba announce it was abandoning the HD DVD format?

Toshiba announced it was abandoning the HD DVD format on the 19th of February 2008. The company would discontinue development, marketing, and manufacturing of HD DVD players and drives.

The Filmmaker's Choice

Film as a medium has inherent limitations, such as difficulty of viewing footage while recording, and suffers other problems caused by poor film development or processing, or poor monitoring systems. Given that there is increasing use of computer-generated or computer-altered imagery in movies, and that editing picture sequences is often done digitally, some directors have shot their movies using the HD format via high-end digital video cameras. While the quality of HD video is very high compared to SD video and offers improved signal-to-noise ratios against comparable sensitivity film, film remains able to resolve more image detail than current HD video formats. In addition, some films have a wider dynamic range, the ability to resolve extremes of dark and light areas in a scene, than even the best HD cameras. Thus, the most persuasive arguments for the use of HD are currently cost savings on film stock and the ease of transfer to editing systems for special effects. Depending on the year and format in which a movie was filmed, the exposed image can vary greatly in size, ranging from as big as 24 mm by 36 mm for VistaVision and Technirama 8 perforation cameras to as small as 9 mm by 21 mm in Academy Sound Aperture cameras modified for the Techniscope 2 perforation format. Movies are also produced using other film gauges, including 70 mm films or the rarely used 55 mm and CINERAMA. The four major film formats provide pixel resolutions roughly as follows: Academy Sound movies before 1955 at 15 mm by 21 mm, Academy camera US Widescreen at 11 mm by 21 mm, Current Anamorphic Panavision at 17.5 mm by 21 mm, and Super-35 for Anamorphic prints at 10 mm by 24 mm. In the process of making prints for exhibition, this negative is copied onto other film causing the resolution to be reduced with each emulsion copying step and when the image passes through a lens, and in many cases, the resolution can be reduced down to one-sixth of the original negative's resolution or worse.

The Surveillance and Gaming Front

Since the late 2000s, a considerably large number of security camera manufacturers have started to produce HD cameras, as the need for high resolution, color fidelity, and frame rate is acute for surveillance purposes to ensure that the quality of the video output is of an acceptable standard that can be used both for preventative surveillance as well as for evidence purposes. Although HD cameras can be highly effective indoors, special industries with outdoor environments called for a need to produce much higher resolutions for effective coverage. The ever-evolving image sensor technologies allowed manufacturers to develop cameras with 10 to 20 megapixel resolutions, which therefore have become efficient instruments to monitor larger areas. In order to further increase the resolution of security cameras, some manufacturers developed multi-sensor cameras, within which several sensor-lens combinations produce the images that are later merged during image processing. These security cameras are able to deliver even hundreds of megapixels with motion picture frame rate. Such high resolutions, however, require special recording, storage, and also video stream display technologies. Among video game consoles, the PS2 supports 1080i and Xbox 1080p, but only in a handful of games. The PS3 and 360 both output a 1080p signal, but few games are true 1080p; most only render at 720p or less and are upscaled internally. The Xbox, PS2, and PS3 do not universally upscale, and will fall back to lower resolution signals for most games; all later consoles can upscale all games to the console's maximum resolution. The Vita/PSTV renders 544p qHD scaled up to 1080p over HDMI output, the Wii does not support HD at all. The Wii U, Switch, Xbox One, and PS4 support native 1080p, though without an external TV the integrated display is 480p FWVGA in the Wii U GamePad and 720p in the Switch. The Xbox One X, Xbox Series X, PS4 Pro, PS5, and Switch 2 support native 4K, though the Switch 2 integrated screen is 1080p. The Xbox Series X and PS5 are advertised as capable of 8K after future firmware updates, and the PS5 Pro actually supports 8K from launch, though native 8K games are still under development, shipping games so far upscale from no more than 6K.