A little Television-Related History

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The television is an invention that has been evolving significantly over time. Rather than being created and developed by a single inventor, the television is actually the product of a wide variety of very bright minds and decades of hard labor and creative determination. Here is a little bit of history about the television, especially leading up to the plasma televisions that we know today.

A little Television-Related History

Televisions weren’t commercially available until the late 1920’s. However, the idea of transmitting images was being worked on as early as the late 1870’s. Many of the first units were electro-mechanical in nature, using varying means to capture, transmit, and recreate images. The first television system using electronic scanning of the pickup and display devices was invented by Philo Farnsworth in 1927, and was demonstrated to the press September 1st 1928. Television was first used practically in Germany with regular broadcasts happening by 1929. The 1936 Olympic games were also broadcast to stations in both Leipzig and Berlin for the public to view. Regular commercial programming did not occur in the United States until 1948 due to the fact that television was not introduced to the general public until 1939 and World War 2 broke out preventing large scale manufacture.

The basic principles for plasma television were first described in 1936 by one Kálmán Tihanyi, which later went on to become the first flat panel display system. Experiments began in 1931 culminated in color television in 1940, the work of Mexican inventor Guillermo González Camarena. He was also the inventor of the remote control, which has become a standard feature of television sets.

It doesn’t take much to find awe and surprise in how the television was invented and developed. This particular electronic device has come a long way through the years.

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Evolution of the Television, 1831 to 1870s

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The television set is an invention that did not come about as the result of a single inventor. Instead, many different people working separately and together contributed to the design and development of this unique and revolutionary electronic device. The development and evolution of the television can be traced back as far as 1831.

Back in 1831, Joseph Henry along with Michael Faraday was working with electromagnetism. The work that they did jumpstarted the “electronic communication” era.

In 1862, the first still image was transferred when the Pantelegraph was invented by Abbe Giovanna Caselli. He became the first ever person to transmit a still image across wires.

In 1873, May and Smith, scientists, were experimenting with selenium coupled with light. What this revealed was that there was a possibility for images to be transformed by inventors into electronic signals.

A civil servant in Boston, George Carey was thinking as early as 1876 about completed television systems. In the year 1877 he managed to put forward some drawings for an electronic device that he called the selenium camera, and this was going to make it possible for people to see by way of electricity. During this same era, a man named Eugen Goldstein coined the “cathode rays” term in order to describe the light that is emitted when electric currents are forced through vacuum tubes.

In the late 1870s, engineers and scientists like Figuier, Paiva and Senlecq were all in the process of suggesting various alternative designs for a devide known as a Telectroscope.

This was just the beginning, though. The true television system has not even been fully realized by this era, but inventions were coming a long way, and inventors were well on their way to finding a way to make their dreams come true.

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Evolution of the Television, 1880 to 1884

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The technology necessary to bring the television concept to fruition was quickly being developed, and dreams of viewing pictures on an electronic device were quickly coming to life. By 1880, things were really beginning to pick up steam. More and more inventors were becoming interested in the concept of the television, and this meant that some of the best and brightest possible minds were on the case.

In 1880, inventors Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell were both creating theories about using a telephone device that would be capable of transmitting the image as well as the sound. The Photophone invention from Alexander Graham Bell used light in order to transmit the sound of the callers, and he hoped that he could advance his device to the point where it was also sending images.

George Carey, in 1880, managed to build a rudimentary system making use of light sensitive cells as well.

In 1881, a man named Sheldon Bidwell began to experiment with a Telephotography invention that was quite similar in nature to the Photophone that Alexander Graham Bell had invented.

In 1884, Paul Nipkow began to send images across wires by using technology involving a rotating metal disk. He called this the electric telescope, and pointed out that it had 18 different lines of resolution. This was a big step in the right direction moving toward television development, and yet was very far away from the televisions of today as we know them.

Once again, this was still just the beginning when it came to the development of technology involving the television set. While technological inventions were moving along quickly during this era, it would still be a long time before the true television set was developed in any sense close to what we now know as the television set.

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Evolution of the Television in 1900

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The 1900s is when things really began to move in terms of television invention, evolution and development. In the Paris World’s Fair, the first ever International Congress of Electricity saw the light of day. Constantin Perskyi, a Russian inventor, was the first person ever during this era to use the term television to refer to the invention that has been in development for so many years.

Evolution of the Television in 1900 and Beyond

Soon after the year 1900, the momentum really began to shift away from discussions and ideas and into actual physical development of these television systems. There were two major paths that were pursued by these inventors in the way of developing television systems.

Inventors were beginning to build mechanical systems for televisions based on the rotating disks that Paul Nipkow had invented, and other inventors had begun to build electronic systems that were based on cathode ray tube technology. This technology was independently developed in the year 1907 by an English inventor named A.A. Campbell-Swinton along with the help of a scientist by the name of Boris Rosing.

An American inventor named Charles Jenkins, working with a Scotsman named John Baird began to follow this mechanical model. On the other hand, Philo Farnsworth in San Francisco and a Russian emigrant named Vladimir Zworkin began to advance the electronic concept for television development.

Eventually it was the electronic television system that won out, replacing the mechanical television system concept. Both systems had a lot of merits, but the electronic system using the cathode ray tube technology was proving to be the simpler and straighter forward concept, and so it was better received in comparison to the mechanical model. By now, it was clear that the first mechanical and electronic systems were well on their way in terms of development.

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The First Mechanical and Electronic Television Systems

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1906 brought about the first ever mechanical television system, while the early electronic television systems were not seeing development until 1907 or so. Lee de Forest is responsible for inventing an Audion vacuum tube, which proved to be essential when it came to the development of electronics. This Audion tube was the first ever vacuum tube that actually had the ability to create amplification for signals.

The First Mechanical and Electronic Television Systems

Boris Rosing was responsible for combining the disk from Nipkow with the cathode ray tube concept in order to build the first ever mechanical television system in 1906.

In 1907, Boris Rosing and Campbell Swinton suggested using cathode ray tubes for the purpose of transmitting images through wires. Independent from one another, they both managed to successfully develop a way to reproduce images by way of electronic scanning methods.

Evolution into 1923

The iconscope was patented in 1923 by Vladimir Zworkin. This was a television camera tube that was based on the ideas conjured up by Swinton. The iconscope was known as an electric eye, and it became the cornerstone for all further development of the television. Zworkin later went on to develop the kinescope, which was the receiver for the purpose of picture display.

Moving Silhouette Images in 1924 and 1925

Charles Jenkins worked with John Baird, from America and Scotland respectively, and each managed to demonstrate that images could be mechanically transmitted across wire circuits. John Baird became the first person ever to transmit a moving silhouette image across a mechanical system, which he did based on the Nipkow disk system.

Charles Jenkins built what was known as a Radiovisor. In 1931, he went on to sold it in kit form to consumers who could put it together. During the same era, a color television system had been developed and patented by Vladimir Zworkin.

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1926 Television Evolution and Beyond

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In 1926, John Baird operated a television system that utilized 30 lines of resolution with a frames per second rate of 5.

In 1927, the Bell Telephone Company and the United States Department of Commerce conducted the first ever use of a television over long distance, which they held between New York City and Washington D.C. on the 9th of April. The Secretary of Commerce at the time, Herbert Hoover, was especially impressed.

During this same era, Philo Farnsworth filed a patent for the first ever complete electronic television, which at the time was known as an image dissector.

1928 Television Evolution and Beyond

In 1928, the Federal Radio Commission issued a television station license for the first time. W3XK was issued to Charles Jenkins.

In 1929, Vladimir Zworkin demonstrated the first ever practical electronic television system, which could handle both transmission as well as reception of television images using a kinescope tube.

During this same area, John Baird opened the first ever television studio, but the image quality that he was capable of producing was still poor.

The first television commercial was broadcast in the year 1930 by Charles Jenkins.

The BBC began its regular television transmissions in the year 1930 as well.

By 1933, w9XK was owned by Iowa State University, and they began to broadcast television programs twice weekly in cooperation with a radio station known as WSUI.

By 1936, there were approximately 200 television sets currently in use across the globe. Coaxial cables were introduced in 1936 as well, using pure copper wire or copper-coated wire to transmit telephone, television and data signals over short and long distances. AT&T was the first television company to lay experimental coaxial cables.

And this was only the beginning because now there are more than a billion television sets worldwide.

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New Technology

The trend of increasing competition in telecommunications markets has invigorated the development of new technologies and investment in the cable industry. Marketing used to be done on old-fashioned paper, but with everyone wanting to go green and go big, online printing, television marketing, and radio broadcasts have become more popular. This has broadened competitive business options, opened up future directions for cable, and improved customer service.

Over 91 thousand miles of cable plant has been laid in this state. Cable companies continue to modernize their systems with fiber optic cable, providing better system capability and increased channel capacity. Cable programming and services will increasingly be showcased through the continued advancement of other significant technological advancements, such as digital compression, interactive video and high-definition television (HDTV).

The new generation of cable technology, such as modems, digital set tops and Internet telephony, is also moving the cable industry toward greater “interoperability” with other communications technologies. Cable products that work with other communications services will increasingly allow cable customers to shop competitively at retail stores for innovative and reasonably priced products.

CCTA continues to support and showcase efforts to develop cable technologies that improve the value of subscriber services and better position the industry in a competitive environment. In a world where new technologies can impact public policies, CCTA uses its legislative, regulatory and legal expertise to assure that competitive policies include review and discussion of any critical technologies on the horizon.

CableNET®
Each year CCTA presents a major educational exhibit of cable technology at its Western Show convention. CableNET® continues to demonstrate the power of the cable industry’s hybrid fiber coaxial systems and its expanding telecommunications and entertainment applications, as well as the potential for consumer retail sales.

CableLabs®
Supported by cable operators in California, and throughout the nation, CableLabs® was created in 1989 to establish a long-term industry commitment to research and to develop the next-generation cable technologies, such as HDTV and fiber optic transmission systems. CableLabs® cosponsors the annual CableNET® exhibit with CCTA to demonstrate and promote technologies that will increase the integration of cable with computer, consumer electronics and broadcast industries for the benefit of cable consumers.

High Tech Cable
In addition to CCTA members which operate cable systems in the state, there are over 400 “associate members” involved in the development, manufacturing and distribution of software and hardware for the cable industry. As a result of converging and interactive technologies and Internet applications, companies such as @Home Network, WINK Communications, CableData, PowerTV, Inc., and Macrovision Corporation are developing a high tech workforce in California based on cable industry growth.

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