The invention of television has had a huge impact on almost every single person in the world. Many people think the invention of television was in the early 1900′s. While most of the achievements were in the early 1900′s strides were made in the late 1800′s as well. In addition to the interesting timeline for the invention of television, it should be noted that there were many great minds involved in bringing real images and sound into the living rooms of billions of people.
Click on each category for more details on the invention of television.
Inventors & their countries | Timeline of television invention | Various pictures
Invention of Color TV | Invention of Cable Television
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Here is a list of inventors who were involved with the television invention.
Paul Nipkow (Germany): Created a rotating disk that acted as a mechanical scanner which was the primary method for mechanical television’s at that time. He had the idea to use a scanning device (his rotating disk) to scan images and then project them onto a TV. Every full rotation equaled one frame on the TV. It is unclear whether or not Paul Nipkow developed a working model for the masses but he is credited with the rotating disk which set the stage for others to expand upon the idea.
Philo Farnsworth (America): Philo had a interest in TV ever since high school. His primary addition to the television movement was the dissector tube and to this day is the main component for electronic televisions. Philo had a total of 300 patents some of which assisted with the inventions of radar, infrared night light & electron microscope.
Charles Jenkins (America): He is widely recognized as the premier inventor of mechanical television in America. He first gained fame in 1894 when when he created a method to electronically transmit images. Around 1920, he invented a device called a prismatic ring which was the primary component of his Radiovisor TV kits. This kit primarily was a radio but had visual functions and displayed pictures up to a 48 line resolution. His tv station in Maryland was also the first one of it’s kind.
John Logie Baird (Britain, Scotland): Baird used the Nipkow disk mentioned above to derive a slightly different but more useful model of the mechanical television. The first successful transmission of live TV images is his other claim to fame. This happened in 1925 (via a human face projection) and this made him the British equivalent to Charles Jenkins for the US regarding the invention of television. He is also credited with the invention of color tv.
Invention of color TV – : In 1939, John Logie Baird revolved a fitted disc with color filters behind a cathode ray tube. This method was later adopted by CBS & RCA in the US. Later in in 1941 he created a 3 dimensional TV at a 500 line definition. He patented this and this helped him in demonstrating the world’s first full electronic color TV display on August 16, 1944.
Alan A. Campbell-Swinton (Britain): Cathode tubes were another invention of television. Swinton is credited with this technology even though he couldn’t quite develop a model. His efforts though helped inventors, Vladimir K. Zworykin and Philo T. Farnsworth in creating more effective electronic televisions.
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Timeline of television invention
There are several important moments for the timeline of television invention. Matter of fact, too many to mention. Some of the more popular highlights were:- TVs were available commercially from 1928 to 1934 in the United kingdom, United States and Russia. The first models were made by Baird and these models were radios that utilized the Nipkow disk. This Baird model was the first massed produced tv set ever and sold about 1,000 units.
- TVs with cathode rays were first produced by Telefunken in German in 1934.
- Many years followed where different countries adopted various technical standards.
- Europe transitioned to the 625-line PAL standard
- The United States standard NTSC 525-line remained in place until June 12, 2009. At that time, Digital terrestrial television or digital-only broadcasting was adopted.
The timeline of television invention has had some awesome moments. Surely, future additions to the TV will only add to the story of the TV.
Cable TV or Community Antenna Television or CATV. What would we do without it? Seriously. Not being sarcastic. It is an amazing piece of technology. So where did it come from?
The invention of cable television was actually created in the upper mountains of Pennsylvania sometime in the late 1940′s. John Walson and Margaret Walson founded the Service Electric Company in the mid 1940′s to be a full service General Electric (GE) appliance company. Around 1947 they added TV sets to their inventory list. But nearby residents of the Pennsylvania town in Mahanoy City were having reception problems in the mountains because of the mountainous region. John Walson built a antenna pole on a nearby mountain top to demonstrate the good reception that was available to other Pennsylvania stations.
Walson took a cable and connected the mountain antennae to his GE store and used modified signal boosters. He then connected several of his customers together who were along the cable path of his store. This became the first cable tv system.
His awesome idea has been recognized by many including the National Cable Television Association as well as the U.S. Congress as the founder of cable television. Walson was also the first cable operator to utilize coaxial cable for better quality, pay services like HBO and microwaves to import distant tv stations.
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Various pictures of the TV. Some old and some new.
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If it weren’t for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we’d still be eating frozen radio dinners.
~Johnny Carson
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