MUSE (Multiple sub-Nyquist Sampling Encoding), commercially known as Hi-Vision (a contraction of HIgh-definition teleVISION) was a Japanese analog HDTV system, with design efforts going back to 1979. It used dot-interlacing and digital video compression to deliver 1125 line, 60 field-per-second (1125i60) signals to the home. The system was standardized as ITU-R recommendation BO.786 and specified by SMPTE 260M, using a colorimetry matrix specified by SMPTE 240M. As with other analog systems, not all lines carry visible information. On MUSE there are 1035 active interlaced lines, therefore this system is sometimes also mentioned as 1035i. It employed 2-dimensional filtering, dot-interlacing, motion-vector compensation and line-sequential color encoding with time compression to "fold" an original 20 MHz bandwidth source signal into just 8.1 MHz. Japan began broadcasting wideband analog HDTV signals in December 1988, initially with an aspect ratio of 2:1. The Sony HDVS high-definition video system supported the MUSE system. By the time of its commercial launch in 1991, digital HDTV was already under development in the United States. Hi-Vision was mainly broadcast by NHK through their BShi satellite TV channel. On May 20, 1994, Panasonic released the first MUSE LaserDisc player. There were a number of players available from other brands like Pioneer and Sony, yet Hi-Vision LaserDiscs are extremely rare and expensive. Hi-Vision continued broadcasting in analog until 2007. History MUSE was developed by NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories in the 1980s as a compression system for Hi-Vision HDTV signals. Japanese broadcast engineers immediately rejected conventional vestigial sideband broadcasting. It was decided early on that MUSE would be a satellite broadcast format as Japan economically supports satellite broadcasting. Modulation research Japanese broadcast engineers had been studying the various HDTV broadcast types for some time. It was initially thought that SHF, EHF or optic fiber would have to be used to transmit HDTV due to the high bandwidth of the signal, and HLO-PAL would be used for terrestrial broadcast. HLO-PAL is a conventionally constructed composite signal (based on for luminance and for chroma like NTSC and PAL) and uses a phase alternating by line with half-line offset carrier encoding of the wideband/narrowband chroma components. Only the very lowest part of the wideband chroma component overlapped the high-frequency chroma. The narrowband chroma was completely separated from luminance. PAF, or phase alternating by field (like the first NTSC color system trial) was also experimented with, and it gave much better decoding results,