But for those of us who had seen what HDTV really could be (see my post above) this was a real downer. One one side of the broadcast hardware/software development ecosystem, you had designers working to elevate the quality level of video and audio for everyone. On the other side you had people going ‘what? you mean we can spew 6 times as many adverts at people for crap they don’t need? Sign us up!’
Sadly this is also logical from most consumer viewpoints. When push comes to shove, a wider choice of content to consume was always going to win out over quality - look at the very small number of UHD channels going live to air, they just didn’t prove to be the big hit that was anticipated (see also: 3D).
On the quality end, things are now getting a little silly - see those wonderful folks at NHK working on 8K and even 16K.
Eh, so I finally remembered to click on the link in the MUSE entry for HDVS:
That was the kit I worked on back in the day. None of the MUSE compression techniques on the production gear, and stunning pictures.
“The price of the HDD-1000 and its required companion HDDP-1000 video processor in 1988 was US$600,000. The metal evaporated tape (tape whose magnetic material was evaporated and deposited onto the tape in a vacuum chamber) cost US$2500.00 per hour of tape and each reel weighed nearly 10 pounds. The high price of the system limited its adoption severely, selling just several dozen systems and making its adoption largely limited to medical, aerospace engineering, and animation applications.”
Now that’s what I call a video tape 
. I was a 22 year old student, and they let me make hardware modifications on their HDM-1730 17" monitors - I think they were about £20k list price at the time.
There was one of the 38" HDM-3830 monitors in the back of the warehouse, waiting for the insurance claim to be processed. It came with a handling kit consisting of 6 metal rods that screwed into the chassis (3 each side), then 2 scaffold bars that bolted on the end. Handling instructions mandated a 6 person lift, but they tried to do it with 4… 
Happy times!
