Name: Hanz Clarence M.

Tebelin
BET-ESET-1A

The Evolution of Television

The First Television

A number of technological advancements made throughout the late 1800s prepared the way for
television. The cathode ray tube (CRT), developed by German physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun in
1897, was a key precursor to the television image tube. The CRT successfully integrated the
concepts of the camera and electricity when it was initially developed as a scanning instrument
called the cathode ray oscilloscope. When an electron beam impacted its fluorescent screen, it
released visible light.

Early Broadcasting
Television broadcasting began as early as 1928, when the Federal Radio Commission authorized
inventor Charles Jenkins to broadcast from W3XK, an experimental station in the Maryland
suburbs of Washington, DC. Silhouette images from motion picture films were broadcast to the
general public on a regular basis, at a resolution of just 48 lines. Similar experimental stations
ran broadcasts throughout the early 1930s. In 1939, RCA subsidiary NBC (National Broadcasting
Company) became the first network to introduce regular television broadcasts, transmitting its
inaugural telecast of the opening ceremonies at the New York World’s Fair. The station’s initial
broadcasts transmitted to just 400 television sets in the New York area, with an audience of
5,000 to 8,000 people

Color Technology
Although it wasn't invented until the 1950s and didn't become widely used until the 1960s, John
Logie Baird first presented the idea of color television in 1904, and he first exhibited it in 1928.

The Golden Age of Television

The1950s proved to be the golden age of television, during which the medium experienced
massive growth in popularity. Television became more affordable for the general public because
of the mass production innovations achieved during World War II. Less than 10,000 TVs were in
use in the United States in 1945. This number skyrocketed to approximately 6 million by 1950,
and by 1960, more than 60 million television sets had been sold.

Digital Television
Analog radio waves were used to transmit shows to televisions. Three distinct ways were used
to transmit the analog signal to TV sets: via satellite, a cable line, or the airwaves. The system
has a number of drawbacks even though it was in place for more than 60 years. The picture
quality of analog systems was significantly worse than that of movies seen in cinema theaters
because they were prone to static and distortion. The poor resolution made scan lines
uncomfortably evident as television screens grew larger, decreasing the sharpness of the image.

High-Definition Television
High-definition television, or HDTV, attempts to create a heightened sense of realism by
providing the viewer with an almost three-dimensional experience.
It has a much higher resolution than standard television systems, using around five times as
many pixels per frame. When HDTV items first became accessible in 1998, they were incredibly
expensive, costing anything from $5,000 to $10,000 per set. However, as with most new
technologies, costs fell noticeably over the following few years, making HDTV accessible to the
general public. Since the debut of the VCR in the 1980s, the rate at which high definition
television has been embraced by American audiences has increased to over half as of 2010.
Longer viewing sessions are becoming more popular thanks to new technology. The Nielsen
Business, a company that tracks TV viewing, claims that households with HDTV watch 3 percent
more prime-time television than their standard-definition counterparts do.