The thought of a HDTV came from wide-screen movies. As soon as the wide-screen was introduced, It was seen, that individuals who were seated in the first few rows enjoyed the effect much more, having a level of participation in the action. This was not seen in case of the conventional movies. A greater feeling of 'being there' is felt with the wide-screen occupying a greater field of view, especially peripherally.

High-Definition Television (HDTV) was launched in the market in the year 1998. If stating the reference of HDTV to a common man, it is all about a superior resolution and digital surround sound quality in the new state-of-art television95 HDTV. It refers to the broadcasting of signals with much higher resolution than before. Today around 80 other devices are sold in the market as HD but in actual they are not HD ready products. They may be good quality TVs, but they lack one necessary condition of being High Definition This is a High Definition Multimedia Interface adaptor which automatically lets the TV set handle the high resolution images all by itself.

Until now, the working of a TV involved some analog signal and a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) unit. The incoming signals were electronically processed into a picture and sound, displaying the picture on the TV screen. This conventional CRT set has a display of about 480 lines of pixels and all the signals worked well for years till the idea of higher resolution evolved. A higher resolution signal for better quality and more clarity could not have worked on this old model of CRT. Also, the conversion of the signals lowered the quality leading to more degradation in the class of the display and sound, in the traditional model of CRT. The new HDTV is almost incomparable to the Standard Definition Television (SDTV) in many terms, like, HDTV has twice the resolution in comparison to that of the SDTV, providing higher picture clarity.

Further, the range of broadcasting signal for HDTV can also handle higher aspect ratio pictures of higher resolution, without the use of letter boxing, thus further increasing the over all resolution for such signals. An aspect ratio is the measurement of the image displayed. It is the width of the image divided by the height. A traditional SDTV uses an aspect ratio of 4:3, while a HDTV has a much higher aspect ratio of 16:9 which helps the HDTV to handle bigger pictures and there is no need to compress them as well. HDTV also avoids the use of letter boxing; therefore, one can view the images in their original for wide form. Letter boxing is the technique of compressing the widescreen images to video formats.

The highest resolution of a SDTV is the lowest resolution of HDTV. For the readers information, the highest resolution for SDTV is just 704 x 480 pixels, while the highest resolution for HDTV is 1920 x 1080 pixels. Thus a High Definition TV can display 10 times more pixels than an analog SDTV set. The frame rate in seconds, which is best described as the frames per second, or the number of frames required to form a complete picture per second. The technology in a HDTV has a frame rate of 60 per second.

To express the advantages of HDTV purely in non-technical terms here are some of the points listed below:

1. Since High definition TV is digital in nature, it receives the transmitted digital signals. Either there is a signal or none signal at all. There will no blurred signals or weak signals, or signs of signal interferences. An HDTV will either deliver an excellent picture, a still picture or no picture at all. You would never get a snowy or washed out image from a weak signal, effects from signal interference, such as herringbone patterns, or vertical rolling.

2. Most HD programming TVs are presented in the 16:9 proportioned aspect ratios, with wide screens. These screens have some amount of empty space left out at its margins which can be used up easily in case of wide images. This displays the full width of the image.

3. There is also an option of enlarging the screen if the user wants to. In addition to this facility, the images can also be enlarged to fill up the whole screen; however this option will display a distorted, stretched-out picture.

4. A larger bandwidth is used for transferring signals for HDTV, so a very realistic image is formed with true colors. The reason behind this is that, the different colours lie in different ranges of the bandwidth. Therefore, if the bandwidth is increased, so will be the definition of the colours, and naturally better picture quality will be achieved.

5. Since the number of scanning lines are much more in a HDTV, providing a higher resolution, overall visual information is about 2-5 times more detailed in comparison to the normal SDTV. The spaces between scanning lines are smaller or invisible so a better quality is obtained.

6. The increased clarity and detail make larger screen sizes more comfortable and pleasing to watch for the user.

7. Dolby Digital 5.1 sounds are broadcasted along with standard HDTV video signals thus allowing full surround sound capabilities, where-as the broadcasted signals for SDTV are just the basic audio signals.

This new invention of HDTV is surely a noticeable leap in the technology, giving a higher standard to visual as well as sound quality. The true high-definition standard, in contrast, has brought in significantly greater resolution for everybody to enjoy. The up coming new models of HDTV- 720p and 1080i formats, which are very common in today's HD television sets, brings in image clarity several times higher than the standard definition TV model. For the time being, 1080p, the most highly developed and sophisticated HD standard model, is claiming to have images of higher clarity details than anything else out there in the market. All of the HD set-ups are designed for 16x9 widescreen televisions, just like today's movies. So just get out there and enjoy!

In short, HDTV has been termed as the technology of the future. In comparison to a standard analog TV, it features a much higher resolution, clarity and over twice the resolution of DVDs.

Fifty percent of the consumers in U.S. intend to buy a HDTV for their next television. Among the HDTV owners, more than 66% indicate HDTV as their next TV purchase. it is interesting to note that, by law, as from 17 February, 2009, U.S. TV stations will stop analog broadcasting. People continuing with their standard analog TV, will have to procure digital-to-analog converters.