This paper deals with the emergence of ’high definition television’ (HDTV) as a new movement of experimentation and standardization in the 1970s and 1980s, spanning East and West in terms of sites, actors and issues. By exploring the circumstances, tactics and means through which a particular research, development and demonstration project (HD-Divine) evolved and came to the attention of others until July 1992, the paper opens up a window on some of the ways technical standards for television as well as new ’digital’worlds are created, governed and govern. Based upon this analysis, the paper demonstrates that the contingent and ’messy’ processes through which the analogue-digital divide has emerged and become entangled with the (re)creation of rules and routines in recent decades deserve more detailed empirical attention. In doing so, it also offers reasons for exploring an issue that hitherto has been devoted surprisingly little scholarly attention: how do ’thoughts’ (ideas, claims etc) gain–or fail to gain–credibility and persuasiveness in the creation of technical standards?