Different experiments by various people, in the field of electricity and radio, led to the development of basic technologies and ideas that laid the foundation for the invention of television.
In the late 1800s, Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, a student in Germany, developed the first ever mechanical module of television. He succeeded in sending images through wires with the help of a rotating metal disk. This technology was called the ‘electric telescope’ that had 18 lines of resolution.
Around 1907, two separate inventors, A.A. Campbell-Swinton from England and Russian scientist Boris Rosing, used the cathode ray tube in addition to the mechanical scanner system, to create a new television system. From the experiments of Nipkow and Rosing, two types of television systems came into existence: mechanical television and electronic television.
In 1923, an American inventor called Charles Jenkins used the disk idea of Nipkow to invent the first ever practical mechanical television system. By 1931, his Radiovisor Model 100 was being sold in a complete kit as a mechanical television.
In 1926, just a little after Jenkins, a British inventor known as John Logie Baird, was the first person to have succeeded in transmitting moving pictures through the mechanical disk system started by Nipkow. He also started the first ever TV studio.
From 1926 till 1931, the mechanical television system saw many innovations. Although the discoveries of these men in the department of mechanical television were very innovative, by 1934, all television systems had converted into the electronic system, which is what is being used even today.
Color television is something that we all take for granted today. When one talks of television, it invariably means a color television in today’s times. But before the invention of color television, it was not so. There was a time when owning a color television was considered to be the ultimate status symbol as it was not something that everyone could afford. Let’s take a look at where and how it all started.
The first ever recorded mention of a color television system was way back in 1904. A patent given in Germany provides evidence to the fact that an idea for a color television was proposed at that time. But it was just that – an idea.
Come 1925 and Zworykin also conceptualized a color television system, which again was not converted into reality and did not succeed. It was as many as 20 years later, in 1946, when the idea of color television was mentioned again.
By 1946, the Second World War was history, and people in America wanted to make up for all the time lost to the war. Black and white television was thought of as old and it was time to do something new. This is when color television systems first began to be considered seriously. In America, the color television war was fought by two giants in the television industry CBS and RCA. CBS was the first to develop a color television system that was mechanical. This system was inspired by John Baird’s ideas of color TV. Color television was thus a reality, but this first system was not compatible with any black and white television sets.
By 1950, the FCC had announced the CBS color system as the national standard, and by 1951, CBS had started color broadcasts in the East Coast of the US. Not to be left behind, RCA sued CBS as their system could not be used with the millions of black and white televisions across America, most of which were RCA sets. The Korean War and the very public television war gave RCA time to develop a better color TV system than CBS. Their system was not mechanical like that of CBS but electronic and far superior. Finally, by 1953, FCC gave the nod to their color television system and color TV sets of RCA were available to the buying public from 1954 onwards.
Answer the following questions:
1. How is television often referred to?
2. According to the article what are the benefits of TV?
3. Provide in a chronological order the evolution of color TV.
4. In your opinion, how have you been benefitted by watching TV?
5. How many hours per week do you watch TV?