Fifteen years ago, in 1970, the NHK (the Japan Broadcasting Corporation) forecast today's information society and started research and development of a high-resolution and wide-screen television system which we now call high-definition television (HDTV) system, to produce a new television system most suitable to the creation of "video culture of the future." Wide ranging studies have been carried out by NHK on the establishment of desirable picture quality, picture aspect, and signal standards for transmission. The provisional HDTV system proposed by NHK based on the result of many studies and the performances of the system are described. Early in 1984, the MUSE system has been developed by NHK and the desirable HDTV information can be compressed with 8 MHz and packed with this system. Thanks to the development of the MUSE system, there is the potential of HDTV broadcasting via satellite and early introduction of HDTV into package media such as video discs and videotapes. The NHK's HDTV system was designed to match many other applications. Many kinds of HDTV equipment have been developed in Japan and HDTV is approached and studied in the relation to various aspects such as electrocinematography, printing, and medicine. NHK has been working on the development of the entire broadcasting system of HDTV to unite the whole world into one "television community" in the coming generation by a worldwide single standard. Video engineers all over the world should be aware of the importance of every possible effort toward the establishment of a global HDTV system.

Since 1970, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) has been making efforts in studies of future high-definition television systems in response to the expected demands of a future postindustrial society. The standards and signal systems and transmission parameters appropriate to high-definition TV are discussed. Several TV standards and the desired signal-to-noise ratios that will fit in with various viewing conditions from the viewpoint of the characteristics of the human visual system are described. Also described are the transmission primaries of the system and the signal parameters being used for a 1125-scanning-line system, which is the tentative standard chosen by NHK. In November 1978 and March 1979, transmission tests of the high-definition TV system were carried out via the broadcasting satellite "Yuri" in Japan.