Television Turns 100 (blogspot.com) 29
Television marks its centenary today, exactly 100 years after Scottish inventor John Logie Baird first demonstrated his electro-mechanical system to journalists and members of the Royal Institution in a cramped attic workshop above what is now Bar Italia in London's Soho.
On January 26, 1926, small groups of visitors climbed to 22 Frith Street and watched fuzzy images of a ventriloquist's dummy called Stooky Bill appear on screen, followed by each other's faces transmitted from a separate room. One visitor got too close to the spinning discs and ended up with a sliced beard. The Times published a short account two days later.
Baird had built his first transmitting equipment in Hastings in 1923 using a hatbox, tea chest, darning needles and bicycle light lenses. A 1000-volt electric shock and a displeased landlord pushed him to London, where Gordon Selfridge soon invited him to demonstrate the device during the store's Birthday Week celebrations. The building at 22 Frith Street now carries three plaques commemorating the invention.
On January 26, 1926, small groups of visitors climbed to 22 Frith Street and watched fuzzy images of a ventriloquist's dummy called Stooky Bill appear on screen, followed by each other's faces transmitted from a separate room. One visitor got too close to the spinning discs and ended up with a sliced beard. The Times published a short account two days later.
Baird had built his first transmitting equipment in Hastings in 1923 using a hatbox, tea chest, darning needles and bicycle light lenses. A 1000-volt electric shock and a displeased landlord pushed him to London, where Gordon Selfridge soon invited him to demonstrate the device during the store's Birthday Week celebrations. The building at 22 Frith Street now carries three plaques commemorating the invention.
Re:yea but (Score:4, Informative)
Just the opposite--the article says: "It rapidly became clear that the Marconi system was far superior and Baird's was dropped after just three months."
Re:yea but (Score:5, Informative)
The Baird system was just an evolution of the Nipkow disc from the 1880s. It took more than 40 years for someone to make it even somewhat viable for some reason, but if you include mechanical transmission, I'd argue that it was invented in 1883.
But practically speaking, I would say that the 100-year anniversary of TV is in 2027, 100 years after Farnsworth transmitted the first electronically scanned TV signal.
The Marconi system (1930s) was an improved version of Farnsworth's system from 1927 (as proven by patent lawsuits).
Re: (Score:3)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
So that's how young TV is. Analog transmission stopped in 2009, 3 years after google bought youtube, and on-demand viewing started to dominate within 5 or 10 years. So the effective lifetime of "TV"
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I would say that the 100-year anniversary of TV is in 2027, 100 years after Farnsworth transmitted the first electronically scanned TV signal.
Good news, everyone!
Re: (Score:2)
Ultimately though, Baird was the first person to record an image in one location and display it in another in real time.
Nipkow didn't manage to actually use the disc and the Farnsworth version was superior, but Baird did it television (vision at a distance) first.
Re: (Score:2)
It's kind of a little weird because if you look at the technology involved, there's no good reason for it to be lower quality than CRTs. Noisier perhaps, but the quality itself was more of an issue because Baird was designing it to show live television using the same parameters for the signal as AM audio radio. While EMI, who developed the CRT system used in the UK, basically said "No, this'll need more bandwidth, and both audio and video need to coexist in the same channel."
So if Baird had actually accepte
Re: (Score:2)
When introduced:
Betamax - 250 lines of horizontal resolution, 1 hour per tape
VHS - 240 lines of horizontal resolution, 2 hours per tape
For most the significantly longer recording time of VHS, over the slightly better picture quality of Betamax, was the deciding feature. Later updates to both formats increased recording time at the expensive of picture quality, though it wasn't soon enough for Betamax.
Ahead of its time (Score:5, Funny)
Sadly, his business failed because his television lacked any internet connectivity that would have enabled him to monetize his users' personal info.
Re:Ahead of its time (Score:4, Funny)
And there wasn't any porn available on it.
Re: (Score:2)
Which explains why there wasn't any porn. But doesn't change the fact that porn has made a lot of new technologies successful.
Just in time to be basically dead. (Score:2)
Phonovision recordings (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
He chose the creepiest image he could find, seemingly.
Technically True, but just barely. (Score:4, Informative)
Yet they were only really such in the most generous definition of the word television. Everything has to start somewhere.
Philo T Farnsworth is the inventor of the television in a form that was actually functionally adequate for transmitting images that people could actually easily make out what the images were supposed to be. September 3, 1928 was the first public demonstration. And on August 25, 1934 a much more public demonstration was held at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Those dates, or the day in the garage, lab, or wherever it first actually worked should be the birthday.
This is akin to the wax drum, giving way to 78s, then eventually vinyl. The first version of the invention which was appealing to the masses. Farnsworth's invention was television's vinyl. But it did have to start somewhere. So hats off to John Logie Baird.
Re: (Score:2)
It's hard for us to think about the spinning mechanical disk TV because it's so different. A light shines on a spinning disk that has holes in a spiral pattern such that the light rasterizes across an object. The light bounces off the object and is detected by a sensor which then transmits the state of the sensor to the viewing device. The viewing device has the same type of spinning disk in front of a light that turns on or off based on the transmitted signal.
There are several problems with this technology
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Let me guess you are American and cannot stand the idea that TV was not invented by an American so will go through all sorts of mental contortions to claim it was.
The reality is that the first moving pictures transmitted over radio waves was acomplished by John Logie Baird. Further noting that Farnsworth was not the first person to demonstrate a fully electronic system, either.
Re: (Score:2)
You kids with your scanning cathode-ray-tubes... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Everyone knows it gives a warmer picture, truer to what the artist intended!
Re: (Score:2)
It has come back: it's used in spinning disc microscopy, a type of confocal microscope.
Alan Blumlein (Score:2)
Blumlein wasn't first, but its a name that's often forgotten in the history of television. From Wiki: "Blumlein was also largely responsible for the development of the waveform structure used in the 405-line Marconi-EMI system – developed for the UK's BBC Television Service at Alexandra Palace, the world's first scheduled "high definition" (240 lines or better) television service – which was later adopted as the CCIR System A."
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, a lot has to do with "who was first" without acknowledging there was enormous amounts of parallel development. Farnsworth usually gets the credit for CRT based TV because he released a finished, practical, CRT based system first. But what generally gets ignored is that CRT based images were actually already a thing before Farnsworth, there were a variety of different systems being worked on, and the consensus among researchers is that previous systems weren't high quality, had unwanted mechanical elem
Apollo camera's rotating disk (Score:2)
Still alive on radio amateur bands... (Score:2)