Early HDTV broadcasting used analog technology, but today it is transmitted digitally and uses video compression.

However, with the roll out of digital broadcasting, and later HDTV broadcasting, countries retained their heritage systems.

In the late 90s, as HDTV broadcasting commenced, HDTV cameras suitable for news and general purpose work were introduced.

But 70 percent of Americans get their TV by cable, and the cable companies have only just begun HDTV broadcasting in certain cities.

This was the first broadcast of digital HDTV in history; Europe would not begin HDTV broadcasting en masse until 2004.

When shopping for a satellite system, be sure you get one that can do everything you want, and ask whether HDTV broadcasting will require a different or more expensive satellite dish.

Experimental HDTV broadcasting ended in February 2011.

The nation's complete transition to HDTV broadcasting is still years away, but if you have an HDTV set, you will be ready.

European officials say they have remedied their largest shortcoming by adding technical parameters for HDTV broadcasting.

With HDTV broadcasting, this is less of an issue, for the most part meaning only passing the captioning datastream on to the new source material.