Analog High-definition Television System

Analog High-definition Television System

Historically, the term high-definition television was first used to refer to a analog video broadcast television system developed in the 1930s to replace early experimental systems with as few as 12-lines. On 2 November 1936 the BBC began transmitting the world's first public regular high-definition television (HDTV) service from the Victorian Alexandra Palace in north London. It therefore claims to be the birthplace of television broadcasting as we know it today. Not long afterwards John Logie Baird, Philo T. Farnsworth, and Vladimir Zworykin had each developed competing TV systems, but resolution was not the issue that separated their substantially different technologies, it was patent interference lawsuits and deployment issues given the tumultuous financial climate of the late '20s and '30s.

The British 405-line system was the first to advertise itself as high-definition and see widespread use. Most patents were expiring by the end of World War II leaving the market wide open and no worldwide standard for television agreed upon. The standards introduced in the early 1950s stayed for over half a century.