ter visual detail, but it achieves much of its effect from its wider horizontal dimension. By offering almost twice as much detail, HDTV allows viewers to sit closer and thereby sense even more of a peripheral visual field. The experience seems more real when the screen extends to one's periphery. Japan was the first country to transmit high definition television. It did SO in the early 1980s, after which it reported its success at an international meeting of telecommunications engineers in Algiers. The Japanese system, MUSE (Multiple Sub- Nyquist Encoding), was a variant of its NHK HDTV standard for direct broadcast satellite service. Although MUSE is analog, the U.S. worried that Japan might overtake it in the global market for broadcasting equipment. Nevertheless, the FCC was slow to endorse an HDTV format. It was not until the Japanese actually demonstrated MUSE HDTV to American broadcasters, that the broadcasters themselves asked the FCC to develop an HDTV system for the U.S. The FCC responded, in 1987, by creating its Advanced Television Systems Committee or ATSC, which oversaw the competition to create a domestic HDTV system. A variety of companies each worked on an analog version of the specification. Then, abruptly, General Instruments demonstrated a digital system. Shortly thereafter, the ATSC asked HDTV competitors to cooperate. Should the FCC approve one competitor's strategy, all others could lose their investments. That risk, along with the prohibitive costs of going it alone, offset general reluctance. What is more, none of the four contenders could claim technology leadership; each led in one area or another. Therefore, in May 1993, they formed a cooperative effort known as the Grand Alliance. From the time of its formation until April 1995, the group (which included AT&T, General Instrument, MIT, Philips, David Sarnoff Research Center, Thomson Consumer Electronics, and Zenith Electronics) worked cooperatively on the specification. The Grand Alliance based conventions for HDTV upon the Internation