From high hopes to high deficit and back: A historic overview of Europe’s HDTV policy and reflections towards the future of HDTV

This paper describes the standardisation process and introduction timeline of high definition television. The development of the standard is a process that goes back over 40 years, but HDTV is only today slowly finding its place in the home entertainment market. This paper explores why the European standard for analogue HDTV was not widely adopted, what Europe’s relation to HDTV means today, and proposes some general lessons that can be learned for the benefit of the development of HDTV’s successor, Ultra HDTV aka Super Hi-Vision.