We explain and summarize the history of television and how it evolved. Also, what are its characteristics and its golden era.
The history of television began in the late 19th century and continues to the present day.
What was the history of television like?
The history of television encompasses the series of scientific discoveries, technological advances and industrial bets that resulted in television. It includes innovations in the design, conception, manufacture and distribution of televisions. It also involved the development of television programming stations that feed them with programming to this day.
This technology It has been incorporated into our homes for decadesHowever, few know that a television operates like a terminal for receiving information sent by cable, satellite or Hertzian waves, which provides a specific pattern of points of light that appear on the screen (pixels). This generates an image and a sensation of movement, accompanied by a synchronized sound sequence.
Television background
The telephone was invented in 1854 by Antonio Meucci.
In order for the first steps in television to be taken, the following technological discoveries had to be achieved first:
- Photography and cinema. The first successes in preserving images and putting them in motion were achieved during the 19th century, when photographic technique achieved its first daguerreotypes and long exposure photographs, using techniques that were modernized until allowing, at the end of the century, The first moving images were captured and reproduced: a long series of photographs that follow one another at a constant speed, giving the impression of movement. This is how cinema was born.
- The phone. The ability to transmit the human voice encoded in electrical impulses was the foundation for the appearance of the telephone, invented in 1854 by Antonio Meucci but popularized by Alexander Graham Bell after 1876.
- Radio. The transmission of electromagnetic waves through the manipulation of electric and magnetic fields was possible at the end of the 19th century thanks to the experiences and theories of Maxwell, Hertz, Tesla and Marconi. This allowed the development of a wireless telegraph, which, taking advantage of the advances made by Bell Laboratories regarding telephony, produced the first radio devices.
Origin of television
The history of television It begins with the invention of the Nipkow disk in 1884.: a device that consisted of a metal disk and a light source, which served to project the light projected by objects onto selenium sheets.
It was a first attempt to capture moving images, although it could not be effectively put into practice. But it served for the development of the first television systems at the beginning of the 20th century.
The first successful television experience occurred in 1925when the Scotsman John Logie Baird managed to synchronize two Nipkow disks, attached to the same axis. Using one as a transmitter and the other as a receiver, he effectively transmitted the image of a mannequin’s head at 14 frames per second.
The experience He replied to the Royal Institution from London in 1926In 1927 Baird managed to transmit the same image over 438 miles using a telephone wire. In 1928 he did it again, this time from London to New York, via Hertzian waves.
This technology was used in the first television broadcasts. The name that had already begun to emerge since the beginning of the 20th century, when the Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi proposed it during the first International Congress of Electricity.
Evolution of television
In 1931 Vladimir Zvorykin invented the iconoscope at the RCA laboratories.
The first commercially available television receiver was created in 1926.was the work of the Scotsman Baird and consisted of a mechanical device. This format was marketed between 1928 and 1934 in the United States, the United Kingdom and the USSR.
It was about radios that had a neon tube behind a Nipkow recordwhich produced an image the size of a stamp, magnified by a lens to twice its size. From 1929, the 240-line mechanical scanning, which substantially improved the performance of the device, was introduced.
In 1931 Vladimir Zvorykin invented the iconoscope. in the RCA laboratories. It was an electronic tube that allowed it to replace all other television systems, thanks to an electronic mosaic composed of thousands of independent photoelectric cells in three thin layers. This advance revolutionized the industry and allowed the appearance of electric television.
Subsequently, In 1934 the cathode ray tube system appeared (CRT), which achieved better resolutions and speeds. This was the work of Telefunken in Germany, and soon had versions in the main world powers. Before the Second World War, about 19,000 devices had been sold in the United Kingdom and about 1,600 in Germany.
The first television broadcast
The very first television broadcast was made by Baird himself in his laboratory, but it was only for promotional or demonstrative purposes. In 1927 the BBC produced the first programming broadcastswhich was not broadcast on a regular schedule. The first simultaneous transmission of audio and black and white images was made in 1930.
In 1931 the first television station was created in Germany, in the house of Manfred von Ardenne. In 1932, regular broadcasts began in Paris, although the image quality did not exceed 60 lines and was in black and white.
To receive the first scheduled television broadcasts, one would have to wait until 1936 in England, or 1939 in the United States. The first regular electronic TV broadcasts occurred in 1937. in France and England.
The golden age of television
In the mid-20th century, televisions and recording studios proliferated.
In the middle of the 20th century, the golden age of this medium occurred, when it began to spread throughout the world and Various broadcasting stations emerged in each of the countries of the worldIn 1953, Eurovision was created to connect European countries’ stations via microwaves, and in 1960, Mundovisión was created in an attempt to do the same on a global scale.
In this period TV arrived in Latin America and became extremely popularAs a result, the first national broadcasting stations in each country were founded and the large private television consortiums, such as Televisa, were born.
Color television
The adaptation of televisions to color was completed in the 1970s.
Although color transmission had been experimented with from the beginning, using colored filters to tint the images, color television was not achieved until much later. The first step was taken in 1940: the Mexican Guillermo González Camarena a sequential trichromatic system.
Eight years later, the American Peter Goldmark used this system to develop a similar one. That is how In 1948 the Sequential Field System was bornwhich was successful and was used by the Columbia Broadcasting System.
However, it took a long time to adapt this system to work on the millions of monochrome televisions already sold, which took its first steps in 1950. The adaptation of televisions to color was completed in the 1970s.although monochrome televisions continued to exist for much longer.
Consequences of its popularity
This technology quickly conquered homes around the world, largely displacing radio as a preferred medium for obtaining information or around which to gather the family.
The result was a significant gain in news immediacy and a greater burden of power and responsibility on the mediaFrom then on, they had a very intimate reach in homes, and the television became one of the main household appliances.
Satellite television
Satellite television requires the installation of receiving antennas.
The development of space technology and satellites allowed television to take a global turn. The use of satellites to the reception and transmission of television broadcasts via microwaves It facilitated its distribution, making it more agile, faster and more effective across wide geographical areas.
This too allowed access to foreign programming through paid subscriptions. They required the installation of satellite dishes on the roofs of buildings: bulky and dangerous devices that were quickly replaced by smaller and local variants, installed in the windows of apartments.
Digital television
Starting in the 1980s, television began to take its first steps towards digitalization, pushed by the digital revolution that the appearance of computers brought about. This technology allowed for greater data transmission capacitybetter resolution and taking advantage of all the processing power of the computerized world.
Digitalization was applied to both video production and transmission, via satellite, cable and terrestrial radio frequency. Today, You can watch television on computers equipped for it and through internet platforms, such as Youtubeboth live and recorded.
The future of television
Television could be reinvented according to the advances of artificial intelligence.
The future of television is uncertain, but in many ways points towards the Internet and Web 3.0. The replacement of televisions with computer screens is an ongoing trend, so it is possible to assume that television will be reinvented according to the more personal, more interactive mode of consumption conditioned by artificial intelligence.