The answer is a bit more complex when it comes to the transition to modern high definition television. It's a bit of a long story with very interesting twists

The answer is a bit more complex when it comes to the transition to modern high definition television. It's a bit of a long story with very interesting twists and turns that involve politics, national security, the Pentagon, US Congress and none other than Donald Rumsfeld (CIA and Defense Secretary). The story is well chronicled in a book I read about twenty years ago: https://www.amazon.com/Defining-Vision-Broadcasters-Government-Revolution/dp/0156005972 https://www.amazon.com/Defining-Vision-Broadcasters-Governme... The title is intriguing enough: "Defining Vision: How Broadcasters Lured the Government into Inciting a Revolution in Television" I can't possibly do it justice here. I'll just mention that one would not be wrong to call Donald Rumsfeld the father of high definition television. His approach to wrangling the ATSC and FCC into adopting a cornucopia of standards was, from a business perspective, nothing less than genius while, from a technical perspective, a complete mess. The fractional frame rates would have evaporated from this planet had it not been for this part of the story. Well worth reading for anyone interested in the technology or working in associated industries. Your jaw will most definitely drop as you get deeper into the story.