KBTX Media has embarked on a massive transition as its local news joins other local and national content aired on the station in high definition. It's the latest of many big moves the station has made over its 50-plus-year history.

In May 1957, KBTX signed on for the first time. Then a satellite of Brazos Broadcasting-owned KWTX in Waco with some live local programming, the station eventually became a full-fledged operation of its own, the first local news, weather and sports on television for the Brazos Valley and from the Brazos Valley.

In the infancy of the visual medium, still photographs were filmed by studio cameras. Of course, they were black and white at first. The late 1960s saw color studio cameras installed at Channel 3, and by the mid-1970s, color film cameras were used to captures stories in the community. Cameras with tapes, disks and memory cards would follow down the line.

In October 1983, a new tower near the Grimes County community of Carlos was activated, doubling KBTX's audience to about half-a-million potential viewers.

Throughout the subsequent decades, technologies advanced, and so did News 3. While the commitment to covering the community remained the same, KBTX went into the digital age. The station created KBTX.com to provide information all the time, went to full power digital as part of the national switch from analog (a move that again dramatically increased the number of homes KBTX could reach), and took its broadcast and commercial programming to high definition.

Now, the final step that has been years in the making is being taken, as news, weather and sports go high def as well. A massive construction project at the Bryan studios will accompany the transition.

Links on the left will allow you to follow the progress of the coming weeks online, and regular updates will be on-air as well.