The History of Television

The Histony of Television 1862 The first still images are transferred by Italian inventor Giovanna Caselli and his Pantelegraph, effectively a prototype fax machine. 1884 Paul Nipkow, a German student study- ing in West Prussia, patents the very first electromechanical system. Though he never built the device, the principle was sound, using rotating scanning disk to break images into a mosaic lines and points, and this basis was used by later inventors to develop the concept further. 1907 A Russian named Boris Rosing succeeds in using cathode ray tubes in conjunction with Nip- kow's mechanical scanner system to transfer black and white silhouettes of simple shapes, laying the foundations of electric television. It's not exactly gripping stuff just yet. He ceases his television work after being exiled by Stalin. 1925 John Logie Baird first transmits moving silhouette images. Basing his technology on Nipkow's scanning disc and adapting it using later developments in electronics, in the following year, he then transmits moving monochromatic images. 1928 Philo Farnsworth displays the world's first working television system to the press. WRGB, the world's oldest television station, is formed soon after. TV is truly born! 1932 BBC The British Broadcasting Corpora- tion - or BBC for short - begins test television broadcasting. 1936 The Berlin Olympic Games is the first sporting event to be broadcast live. Germans are able to watch live events in special viewing booths, called "Public Television Offices" both in Berlin and Pots- dam. They watch as Jesse Owens, the great American track and field ath- lete, wins four gold medals in the 100m, 200m, long jump and 4x100m relay. 1941 BU OVA d.. The first TV commercial is broad- cast in the United States advertis- AMERICA RUNS ON BULOVA TIME ing Bulova watches. It's spellbind- ing; take a look for yourself. 1946 Peter Goldmark, working for CBS, demonstrates his colour television system to the Federal Communi- cations Commission (FCC). His system produced colour pictures by having a red-blue-green wheel spin in front of a cathode ray tube. A gold mark for Goldmark. 1948 Cable television is introduced in Pennsylvania as a means of bringing television to rural and remote households. 1956 ZENITH Robert Adler creates the first genuinely prac- tical remote control, creatively named the Zenith Space Commander. The semantically licensed gadget fails to command space, but works with your telly at least. 1962 Satellite television is born when AT&T launches Telstar, the first satellite with the capability of carrying TV broadcasts, making TV truly international. 1969 An estimated 530 million people worldwide tune in to watch the moon landing broadcast live - around 14% of the global population. 1976 Sony introduces betamax, the first home video cassette recorder. It doesn't last, beaten by VHS in the battle of the video recorders. You Tube LOVEFILMT hulu amazon USTREAM instant video Sky Go BBC Player litv Player CiTunes NETFLIX 1994 ABC's World News program is the first TV program to be broadcast over the internet. Later, online applications like Netflix and the BBC's iPlayer offer online streaming of TV programmes and films all across the world. 2008 The Summer Olympics is watched by an estimated 4.7 billion people - 70% of the world's population - with anywhere between 1 and 4 billion viewers tuning in to the opening ceremony. Bejing 2002 20?? So what of the future of TV? 3D, social and on demand are already here, but then? Projective TVs 1mm deep? A-little-too-Smart TVs that tell you what you should be watching? The TV has come on a little since the days of Rosing and Nipkow. You should definitely be watching the news right now... visopix