Recent technological developments have affected each of these areas. Sometime in the next five years, new televisions will approximately double the number of horizontal lines on the screen, a feature that will improve the vividness of images and make television look more like film. High definition is clearly the most discussed of the new television features, largely because HDTV will require comprehensive changes in American broadcasting, including everything from studio equipment to transmission standards to home receivers. It may be important, however, not to overestimate the psychological significance of this change merely because it represents the greatest challenge to engineers and government. Image resolution will likely be only part of the story of advanced televisions.
Image size is a feature of advanced systems that is right now in a period of rapid change.
Screens are getting bigger. More importantly, the variance in available picture sizes has doubled over the last ten years, due largely to new big screens. Big screens do not only mean increased picture height. Screens will also be wider. The new aspect ratio is a significant change in picture area.