Digital Television

Welcome to BeTVsmart.com! This website compares digital television solutions. It describes digital television solutions such as DirecTV (or Direct TV), Dish Network and other digital television networks. It also explains television-related topics such as cable descramblers and digital video recording (DVR) systems like TiVo.

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ABOUT DIGITAL TELEVISION

Television was not invented by a single person, but rather by many people working individually and collectively.

Television Timeline

1831: Joseph Henry's and Michael Faraday's work with electromagnetism ushers in the era of electronic communication.

1862: Abbe Giovanna Caselli invents his "pantelegraph" and becomes the first person to transmit a still image over wires.

1873: Scientists May and Smith experiment with selenium and light, opening the door for inventors to transform images into electronic signals.

1877: George Carey creates drawings for what he calls a "selenium camera" that would allow people to "see by electricity." Eugen Goldstein coins the term "cathode rays" to describe the light emitted when an electric current is forced through a vacuum tube.

Late 1870s: Scientists and engineers like Paiva, Figuier and Senlecq suggest alternative designs for "telectroscopes."

1880: Inventors like Bell and Edison theorize about telephone devices that transmit image as well as sound. Bell's photophone uses light to transmit sound and he wants to advance his device for image sending. George Carey builds a rudimentary system with light-sensitive cells.

1881: Sheldon Bidwell experiments with telephotography, another photophone.

1884: Paul Nipkow sends images over wires using a rotating metal disk technology with 18 lines of resolution, calling it the "electric telescope."

1900: At the World's Fair in Paris, the First International Congress of Electricity is held. There, Russian Constantin Perskyi makes the first known use of the word "television."

Momentum begins to shift from ideas and discussions to physical development of TV systems. Two paths are followed:
mechanical television (based on Nipkow's rotating disks) and
electronic television (based on cathode ray tube work done independently in 1907 by English inventor A.A. Campbell-Swinton and Russian scientist Boris Rosing).

1906: Lee de Forest invents the "Audion" vacuum tube, the first tube with the ability to amplify signals. Boris Rosing combines Nipkow's disk and a cathode ray tube and builds the first working mechanical TV system.

1907: Campbell-Swinton and Rosing each suggest using cathode ray tubes to transmit images. Each develops electronic scanning methods of reproducing images.

American Charles Jenkins and Scotsman John Baird follow the mechanical model while Philo Farnsworth, working independently in San Francisco, and Russian émigré Vladimir Zworkin, working for Westinghouse and later RCA, advance the electronic model.

1923: Vladimir Zworykin patents his iconscope, a TV camera tube based on Campbell Swinton's ideas. The iconscope, which he calls an "electric eye," becomes the cornerstone for further television development. He later develops the kinescope for picture display.

1924-1925: American Charles Jenkins and Scot John Baird each demonstrate the mechanical transmissions of images over wire circuits. Baird becomes the first person to transmit moving silhouette images using a mechanical system based on Nipkow's disk. Vladimir Zworykin patents a color television system.

1926: John Baird operates a 30 lines of resolution system at 5 frames per second.

1927: On April 9, Bell Telephone and the U.S. Department of Commerce conduct the first long-distance use of television between Washington D.C. and New York City. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover says, "Today we have, in a sense, the transmission of sight for the first time in the world's history. Human genius has now destroyed the impediment of distance in a new respect, and in a manner hitherto unknown." Philo Farnsworth files for a patent on the first complete electronic television system, which he calls the Image Dissector.

1928: The Federal Radio Commission issues the first television license (W3XK) to Charles Jenkins.

1929: Vladimir Zworykin demonstrates the first practical electronic system for both the transmission and reception of images using his new kinescope tube. John Baird opens the first TV studio.

1930: Charles Jenkins broadcasts the first TV commercial. The BBC begins regular TV transmissions.

1933: Iowa State University (W9XK) starts broadcasting bi-weekly television programs in cooperation with radio station WSUI.

1936: Approximately two hundred television sets are in use worldwide. Coaxial cable, which consists of a pure copper or copper-coated wire surrounded by insulation and an aluminum covering, is introduced. The 1st "experimental" coaxial cable lines are laid by AT&T between New York and Philadelphia. The original L1 coaxial-cable system can carry 480 telephone conversations or one television program. (By the 1970s, L5 systems can carry 132,000 calls or more than 200 television programs.)

1937: CBS begins TV development. The BBC begins high definition broadcasts in London. Stanford researchers Russell and Sigurd Varian introduce the Klystron, a high-frequency amplifier for generating microwaves. The Klystron makes UHF-TV possible by generating the high power required in this spectrum.

1939: Vladimir Zworykin and RCA conduct experimental broadcasts from the Empire State Building. Television is demonstrated at the New York World's Fair and the San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition. RCA's David Sarnoff uses his company's exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair as a showcase for the first Presidential speech (by Franklin D. Roosevelt) on television and introduces RCA's new line of television receivers. Some of the new television sets must be coupled with radios in order to offer sound to the viewer. The Dumont company starts making television sets.

1940: Peter Goldmark invents a color television with 343 lines of resolution.

1941: The FCC releases the NTSC standard for black and white television. The first "regular" installation of coaxial cable lines connects Minneapolis, Minnesota and Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

1943: Vladimir Zworykin develops a better camera tube called the Orthicon, which has enough light sensitivity to record outdoor events at night.

1946: Peter Goldmark, working for CBS, demonstrates his color television system to the FCC. His system produces color pictures by having a red-blue-green wheel spin in front of a cathode ray tube.

1948: Cable television is introduced in Pennsylvania as a means of bringing television to rural areas. Louis W. Parker receives a patent for a low-cost television receiver. One million homes in the United States have television sets.

1950: The FCC approves the first color television standard; it os replaced by a second standard in 1953. Vladimir Zworykin develops a better camera tube called the Vidicon.

1956: Ampex introduces the first practical videotape system of broadcast quality.

1956: Robert Adler invents the Zenith Space Commander, the first practical remote control.

1960: The first split screen broadcast occurs during the Kennedy - Nixon debates.

1962: The All Channel Receiver Act requires that UHF tuners (channels 14 to 83) be included in all sets.

1962: AT&T launches Telstar, the first satellite to carry TV broadcasts. Broadcasts are now internationally relayed.

1967: Most TV broadcasts are in color.

1969: On July 20, 600 million people watch the first TV transmission from the surface of the moon.

1972: Half of all home television sets have color screens.

1973: Giant-screen projection TV is first marketed.

1976: Sony introduces Betamax, the first home video cassette recorder.

1978: PBS becomes the first TV station to switch to all-satellite delivery of programs.

1981: NHK demonstrates HDTV with 1,125 lines of resolution.

1982: Dolby surround sound for home sets is introduced.

1983: Direct Broadcast Satellite begins service in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1984: Stereo TV broadcasts are approved.

1986: The Super VHS video recording format is introduced.

1993: Closed captioning is required on all television sets.

1996: The FCC approves the ATSC's HDTV standard. One billion (1,000,000,000) TV sets are in use worldwide.