A year and a half ago, all the companies preparing proposals for an HDTV standard were working on analog systems.

However, we do need an American HDTV standard.

The argument that an American HDTV standard will level the playing field matters little when we don't have major league teams to play in consumer electronics.

An American HDTV standard will be adopted eventually in Japan, which has the same television standard as we do.

This is twice as fast as the maximum refresh rate in the current HDTV standard.

While a comprehensive HDTV standard was not in the end established, agreement on the aspect ratio was achieved.

This would require an HDTV standard that yields a "progressive scan" picture, viewable with comfort from a few inches.

They also have a higher resolution - current HDTV standards allow for resolutions of up to 1920 x 1080 pixels.

Some industry experts worry that selecting an HDTV standard on anything other than purely technical criteria could doom the nation to a second-rate system.

Uruguay hoped for neighboring countries reaching an agreement on an HDTV standard, but so far that does not seem to be the case.