Chapter 2: Television: Its Past, Present, and Future

How many broadcast signals are there?

4

Broadcast signals hold data, which includes...

- Images
- Sounds
- Graphic art
- Electronic lettering

Broadcast signals control the...

- Brightness of the image
- Color of the image
- Audio from the image
- Synchronization of the transmitter and the receiver (a TV set)

Watching TV involves several steps...

1. We look at an image on the screen
2. That picture stays imprinted on our retina for just a fraction of a second
3. As we watch a sequence of rapid images at the right speed, an illusion is created of a complete and uninterrupted picture

Persistence of vision

As we watch a sequence of rapid images at the right speed, an illusion is created of a complete and uninterrupted picture

Pixels are made from three colors...

- Red
- Green
- Blue

The American broadcast standard is...

525-line, a 30-frames-per-second picture called the NTSC format

Since 1941, standard American TV sets were designed to display an aspect ratio of...

4:3

Paul Nipkow

- German engineer
- In 1884 he designed the primary component of early mechanical television systems called the scanning disk He called his early conceptual design an “electric telescope,” although he never actually built the device itself

Karl Braun

- German physicist
- In 1897 he invented the first cathode-ray tube, which forms the basis of most modern TV sets

Boris Rosing

- He was exploring the cathode-ray tube by 1906 He has been credited with discovering the theory for electronic television via wireless transmission in 1911 by using the Braun tube and the research of other scientists and engineers
- One of Rosing’s students was Vladimir Zworykin, with whom Rosing created “very crude images” and whose work would be integral to the advancement of television

John Logie Baird

- Scottish entrepreneur
- Had an engineering background
- Often called the pioneer of mechanical television
- He was the first to transmit a moving image using a mechanical television system in 1925 By 1930, the British public could either buy Baird kits or readymade TV sets to receive the broadcasts

Philo T. Farnsworth

- Mormon teenager who conceptualized the technology of television while plowing his rural fields
- He had designed the first all-electronic television system, patenting it in 1927 and holding its public premiere in 1928 Farnsworth’s invention in tandem with Zworykin’s “Iconoscope” combined to create all-electronic broadcasting in 1939

Charles Francis Jenkins

- He developed “radio movies to be broadcast for entertainment in the home.”
- In 1925, he broadcast a toy windmill as a moving silhouette over a five-mile distance to Washington, D.C.

Vladimir Zworykin

- Russian immigrant
- His research contributed to RCA’s domination of the infant television market by first manufacturing TV sets, then setting up the National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
- His efforts resulted in the Iconoscope, an early electronic camera tube that he patented in 1923, as well as an all-electronic TV receiver that utilized a picture tube, called a kinescope

Making a TV program relies on a complex system of factors...

- A good story
- Producers, writers, directors, actors, and a complete crew
- Money to finance it
- Time to complete it
- A guarantee that it will air or reach the desired end-user
- Camera and audio equipment to videotape the image and record the audio
- Technology to transmit pictures and sound
- Satellites, cable, and electricity

Guglielmo Marconi

- Played a key role in the invention of the television
- Italian inventor
- Discovered a method of transmitting
- Morse code over limited distances by using electromagnetic waves In 1896 his “wireless” telegraph crossed the globe
- He claimed responsibility for the broadcast—a transmission of sound waves that could move in all directions, follow the earth’s curvature, and be picked up by a receiver on the other end

David Sarnoff

- A young Russian immigrant
- Worked as an office boy at Marconi’s company
- He realized the potential of Marconi’s growing company
- He is now known as one of the founding fathers of NBC

Constantin Perskyi

- He was the first person known to bring the word “television” into the public’s consciousness, during the First International Congress of Electricity

Paul Nipkow

- He invented the design for the scanning disk
- It became the foundation for other mechanical television systems

Charles Francis Jenkins

- 1925 Successfully transmitted an image that was mechanically scanned
- The same year John Logie Baird transmitted pictures in his lab

Dr. Herbert Ives of Bell Telephone Labs

- 1927 Introduced his television research program, by transmitting an image of a tap dancer on top of a New York skyscraper, which was carried through phone wires

Dr. E. F. W. Alexanderson

- 1928 His first regular broadcasts on W2XB began in Schenectady, New York
- An engineer
- He demonstrated a television system that operated on revolving mirrors
- Unfortunately, very few people owned the Alexanderson TV sets that were necessary to watch the telecasts

Baird Television

- 1928 They proclaimed the first all-mechanical television system, in color
- This system appeared to be satisfactory at the time; it would be several years before investors would fund research for a better way to capture, transmit, and receive an image by using electronics and moving away from the cumbersome mechanical system

German Television

- 1929 They began as electromechanical broadcasts
- Transmitted without sound for five more years

Canadian Television

- 1936 The Canadian Broadcast Company (CBC) was formalized
- 1952 The CBC began television broadcasting
- Eventually, it adopted the NTSC 525-line standard of its American neighbors
- The Montreal station is transmitted in both French and English, and its Toronto flagship station is in English

French television

- 1935 Their first official channel debuted at a primitive 60 lines
- 1935 By the end of the year, the channel was broadcasting from the Eiffel Tower on 180 lines
- 1937 They had switched over to an electronic system
- 1940 The tower’s transmitter was sabotaged, and French television was subsequently seized by the German occupying forces
- 1944 Paris and its television channel were liberated by the Americans

National Television System Committee

- 1936 A landmark breakthrough came with the introduction of coaxial cable
- 1941 Comprised primarily of engineers, the NTSC researched and recommended a comprehensive set of standards for electronic television that was adopted
- This prompted the FCC to create the NTSC (the National Television System Committee)
- The majority of these original guidelines are still in effect today

The first TV commercial

Bulova watches

NBC

- The Blue network transmitted programs that were more cultural in content like drama, music, and thoughtful commentary
- The Red network favored entertainment and comedy

The Birth of Madison Avenue

- Advertisers recognized television’s value as a marketplace with which to sell products
- Television’s Golden Age had begun
- With the end of World War II, the economy essentially recovered and stabilized, and television became so popular that magazines regularly featured articles on home decorating with the TV set as the centerpiece

The FCC guidelines included...

The assignment of very high frequency (VHF) and ultra-high frequency (UHF) channels

Electronic character generator

- It could create opening and closing credits as well as superimpose words over a picture and lower thirds that can spell out the speaker’s name, occupation, and/or location under his or her picture on the screen

Slo-mo

- The ability to first record a picture and then replay it in slow motion

Television now is controlled by the consumer and can be...

- Totally flexible
- Searched
- Manipulated
- Stored
- Accessed at the viewer’s whim
- Multichoice
- Able to be customized
- Interactive
- Watched when and where the viewer chooses

Digital Video Recorder (DVR)

- Also called personal video recorders
- They can be programmed to record several programs, which are then stored on a hard drive so that the user can choose when to view them
- DVR is generally combined with digital TV service and can be accessed, played, rewound, and paused at will
- DVRs also provide menus and guides that tell the viewer how to access a program, and usually supply specific facts about each show

Video on Demand (VOD)

- A system that gives its user a variety of ways in which to watch video, film, and user-generated content
- It searches, selects, stores, and screens content

Multicasting

- Broadcasters who transmit their programming via digital signals can send out one high-quality, high-definition picture—or, by using the same amount of signal, they can multicast four regular, standard-definition pictures

The transmission services include

- Broadcast towers
- Satellite dishes
- Direct satellite system (DSS)
- Internet
- Mobile phones

Digital transmission can deliver data that gives our TV sets the potential to be interactive so that we can...

- Vote
- Shop
- Order specialized programs

Digital transmission is transmitted via...

- An aerial tower
- Phone lines
- Cable into either a box on top of the user’s TV
- Decoder built into the set

Interactive TV (ITV)

- Involves a digital signal that can transmit a multitude of images and sound as well as graphics, games, forms of information, and whatever available data a broadcaster wants to add to its signal
- Networks air their shows with an Internet component of “Enhanced TV” that encourages viewers to play along with game shows and to watch the short ads that either play in the shows or are embedded

How Television works...

- Television content - what is seen on our sets - comes into our TV set via broadcast signals
- There are four broadcast signals
- Broadcast signals are transmitted through virtually the same radio waves that deliver a radio show

Broadcast signals hold data, which includes...

- Images
- Sounds
- Graphic art
- Electronic lettering

Broadcast signals control the...

- Brightness of the image
- Color of the image
- Audio from the image
- Synchronization of the transmitter and the receiver (a TV set)

Watching TV involves several steps...

1. We look at an image on the screen
2. That picture stays imprinted on our retina for just a fraction of a second
3. This phenomenon is known as the persistence of vision; as we watch a sequence of rapid images at the right speed, an illusion is created of a complete and uninterrupted picture

Lines and Pixels

- In early television, scanning wheels created a picture by scanning an image slowly, line by line
- The blurry images on the earliest sets were comprised of only 48 scanned lines. Now, modern color sets reflect a picture made from several hundred scanned lines
- These lines contain over 100,000 rectangular or square picture elements known as pixels, a short version of “picture elements”
- Our TV screen is coated with fluorescent compounds consisting of millions of minuscule dots that give off light as they’re hit by electrons at high speed
- For an image to be transmitted and broadcast by electronic impulses, this image is first broken down into tiny pixels using a scanning process. Thousands of these pixels form lines that are rapidly transmitted, one line at a time
- The pixels are combined on a phosphor screen, close enough together that they appear to be just one color

Each of the pixels is made from three colors...

- Red
- Green
- Blue

NTSC format

- The American broadcast standard
- A 525-line, 30-frames-per-second picture

Since 1941, standard American TV sets were designed to display an aspect ratio of...

4:3

Paul Nipkow

- German engineer
- In 1884 he designed the primary component of early mechanical television systems called the scanning disk He called his early conceptual design an “electric telescope,” although he never actually built the device itself

Karl Braun

- German physicist
- In 1897 he invented the first cathode-ray tube, which forms the basis of most modern TV sets

Boris Rosing

- He was exploring the cathode-ray tube by 1906 He has been credited with discovering the theory for electronic television via wireless transmission in 1911 by using the Braun tube and the research of other scientists and engineers
- One of Rosing’s students was Vladimir Zworykin, with whom Rosing created “very crude images” and whose work would be integral to the advancement of television

John Logie Baird

- Scottish entrepreneur
- Had an engineering background
- Often called the pioneer of mechanical television
- He was the first to transmit a moving image using a mechanical television system in 1925 By 1930, the British public could either buy Baird kits or readymade TV sets to receive the broadcasts

Philo T. Farnsworth

- Mormon teenager who conceptualized the technology of television while plowing his rural fields
- He had designed the first all-electronic television system, patenting it in 1927 and holding its public premiere in 1928 Farnsworth’s invention in tandem with Zworykin’s “Iconoscope” combined to create all-electronic broadcasting in 1939

Charles Francis Jenkins

- He developed “radio movies to be broadcast for entertainment in the home.”
- In 1925, he broadcast a toy windmill as a moving silhouette over a five-mile distance to Washington, D.C.

Vladimir Zworykin

- Russian immigrant
- His research contributed to RCA’s domination of the infant television market by first manufacturing TV sets, then setting up the National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
- His efforts resulted in the Iconoscope, an early electronic camera tube that he patented in 1923, as well as an all-electronic TV receiver that utilized a picture tube, called a kinescope

Making a TV program relies on a complex system of factors...

- A good story
- Producers, writers, directors, actors, and a complete crew
- Money to finance it
- Time to complete it
- A guarantee that it will air or reach the desired end-user
- Camera and audio equipment to videotape the image and record the audio
- Technology to transmit pictures and sound
- Satellites, cable, and electricity

Guglielmo Marconi

- Played a key role in the invention of the television
- Italian inventor
- Discovered a method of transmitting
- Morse code over limited distances by using electromagnetic waves In 1896 his “wireless” telegraph crossed the globe
- He claimed responsibility for the broadcast—a transmission of sound waves that could move in all directions, follow the earth’s curvature, and be picked up by a receiver on the other end

David Sarnoff

- Young Russian immigrant
- Worked as an office boy at Marconi’s company
- He realized the potential of Marconi’s growing company
- He is now known as one of the founding fathers of NBC

Constantin Perskyi

- He was the first person known to bring the word “television” into the public’s consciousness, during the First International Congress of Electricity

Television now is controlled by the consumer and can be...

- Totally flexible
- Searched
- Manipulated
- Stored
- Accessed at the viewer’s whim
- Multichoice
- Able to be customized
- Interactive
- Watched when and where the viewer chooses