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| 1884 | - German inventer Paul Nipkow develops a rotating-disc technology to transmit pictures over wire |
| 1927 | - American engineer Philo T. Farnsworth develops the dissector tube, the basis of current all-electronic televisions. |
| 1929 | The struggling radio network, CBS is bought by William S. Paley. Through Paley's management, the corporation grew and expanded to include radio and television, recorded music, musical instruments, and publishing. |
| 1937 | - The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Broadcasts the procession of the coronation of King George VI from Hyde Park Corner. This represents the 1st. notable broadcast outside the USA. |
| 1939 | - RCA and researcher Vladimir Zworykin research and perform experimental telecasts from the Empire State Building, in New York City. These efforts culminated in the debut of television at the 1939 Worlds Fair. |
| 1943 | -ABC was born, as a result of a government forced split of NBC. The network was bought by candy manufacturer Edward J Noble, who gave it it's namesake. |
| 1945 | - The FCC approves the use of 13 VHF band carrier frequencies, to be used for communications by police and fire departments - and television. Due to adjacent-channel intereference, only 7 channels can operate in any 1 market. |
| 1946 | - 60,000 television sets are sold in the US.
- CBS demonstrates it's UHF-band color TV system to the FCC. The system is incompatible with the existing black-and-white standard, though company officials have designed an inexpensive converter for the countries 250,000 black-and-white sets. |
| 1947 | |
| 1948 | - Concerned about cross-channel interference in the
VHF band, the government forbids construction of any new television
transmitters.
- About 70 stations were on the air in the U.S. |
| 1949 | - At the start of the year, television is attracting 19 percent of the broadcast audience. By December it draws 41 percent. |
| 1950 | - The FCC approves CBS's field sequential color
transmission system as the US standard. Using a spinning wheel inside
the camera and set, this color system will be incompatible with the 20
million black-and-white sets already in use.
- Cable TV is introduced as a means to bring broadcast reception to rural areas of the country. - The 1st pay TV system is tested by the Skiatron Company, on New Yorks WOR. |
| 1951 | - See It Now broadcasts simultaneous
live images of the Golden Gate and Brooklyn Bridges.
- The worlds first videotape recorder is tested at Bing Crosby's Los Angeles studios. The tape runs at 100 inches/second, and the recorder's reel holds 16 minutes of programming. - The Supreme Court upholds the FCC's decision to name CBS's incompatible color system the country's standard. |
| 1952 | - The FCC devises a national plan for channel
allocation, creating 550 VHF and 1,450 UHF potential channels.
- The first UHF station, KPTV in Portland, Oregon, goes on the air. |
| 1953 | - RCA demonstrates it's "Compatible"
525-line NTSC color TV system to the FCC. Allen DuMont testifies that
large sets using CBS's spinning-wheel color system would have to have
internal seven-foot disks spinning at 360 miles-per-hour. The FCC
reverses its decision and makes NTSC the national standard. Color
broadcasts are authorized to begin in January 1954.
- Casper, Wyoming's cable TV system uses a microwave relay systems to transmit distant television signals from Denver to its own cable system. |
| 1954 | - 500 television sets are sold in 12 months. |
| 1955 | |
| 1956 | - WNBQ (now WMAQ) in Chicago is the first television
station in the world to broadcast all of it's own programming in color.
Two percent of Chicago homes have color sets.
- Ampex demonstrates its first VTR. The tape runs at 15 inches-per-second. The machines are priced at $50,000; the company sells 80 within four days of introduction. |
| 1957 | |
| 1958 | |
| 1959 | - Sony, Matsushita, Toshiba, and JVC introduce helical-scan recording, a method using less tape than the existing standard. |
| 1960 | |
| 1961 | |
| 1962 | - The first satellite transmission of a television
signal is relayed from AT&T's telstar bird. Orbiting in a random
rather than geosynchronous orbit, the satellite can only be used during
limited periods of the day.
- The federal government requires that all new televisions be capable of receiving both VHF and UHF bands. |
| 1963 | - The worlds tallest structure, KTHI's transmission
tower, 2/5ths mile high, is built in Blanchard, North Dakota. It's noted
that if you start a 20-second commercial at the same time you drop a
baseball from the top of the tower, the commercial will end 4 seconds
before the baseball hits the ground.
- The 1st home videotape recorders are demonstrated. Ampex sells its version exclusively through Neiman-Marcus for $30,000. The unit is nicknamed Grant's Tomb, for its size as well as for the company's marketing director. |
| 1964 | - American Airline switches from 8mm film to video for
it's in-flight entertainment system, buying Sony's 1st helical-scan
recorder.
- California's voters make pay TV illegal, an effort led by the movie and TV industries, concerned about lost profits. The Supreme Court rules the attempt unconstitutional, but Subscription Television, Inc., by then loses $10 million and goes bankrupt. |
| 1965 | - Early Bird (Intelsat 1) is launched by the
International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium.
- CBS announces that virtually its entire schedule will be broadcast in color. |
| 1966 | - ABC becomes an all-color network.
- Dual heterodyne set-top converters allow regular television receivers to receive more than 12 channels. |
| 1967 | - Seeking to provide an alternative to commercial
broadcasting, educational stations banded together to form the Public
Broadcasting Service (PBS) - federally funded by the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting (CPB)
- The U.K. begins PAL color broadcasts, simultaneously switching its transmission standard from 405 to 625 scan lines. |
| 1968 | - The FCC authorizes pay-cable transmissions, ruling that only 1 pay TV station is allowed per market, only markets with 4 commercial stations can have pay, decoders can only be leased, and each pay outlet must carry a minimum of 28 hrs of free TV. Despite the restrictions, the National Association of Theatre Owners and the joint committee Against Toll TV go to court to block pay TV. |
| 1969 | - Avco Industries ends production of its Playtape
video cartridge system. Japanese manufacturers begin to take over the
VCR market.
- The Supreme Court denies an injunction against pay TV. |
| 1970 | - Japan's NHK begins research into high-definition television (HDTV). |
| 1971 | - Electronic channel tuning is introduced.
- Sony's U-matic VCR introduced. The 1st units sell for $2,500. Sony president Akio Morita claims U-matic will be the "color video phonograph" of the 1970s. - Sync suppression scrambling of television signals is demonstrated at the National Cable Association convention. This allows cable operators to offer basic and premium service tiers. - Scientific Atlanta demonstrates 2-way digital communications, the forerunner of interactive cable TV. |
| 1972 | - Anik 1, the 1st domestic communications satellite
travelling in a geo-synchronous orbit, is launched.
- FCC creates the Cable Television Report and Order, creating must-carry and may-carry stations and requiring all cable systems to be built with a capacity of at least 20 channels. - The FCC authorizes 3 over-the-air pay stations: Zenith's Phonovision, Teleglobe's Pay TV Systems, and Blonder-Tongue Labratories' BTVision. -The first HBO programming is transmitted to 365 Service Electric subscribers in Pennsylvania. |
| 1973 | - Giant screen-projection color TVs begin to be
marketed.
- Systems capable of offering 35 channels of programming become the cable industry standard. |
| 1974 | |
| 1975 | - The Walt Disney Co. and MCA sue Sony, claiming
copyright violation by consumers using VCR's to tape their programs.
- The 1st personal computers are sold. - HBO begins distribution of its programming via satellite, becomming, in effect, a network. |
| 1976 | - First Betamax VCR is introduced in the U.S. Priced
at $1,295, it records for a maximum of 1 hour. "Make your own TV
schedule" - early ads proclaim.
-Japan Victor Corporation's (JVC) VHS (video home system) is introduced, offering double the recording time of the beta format. - Fiber-optic cable is first used to distribute cable TV programming. This new technology increases potential channel capacity and improves picture reception. |
| 1977 | - Andre' Blay, a detroit businessman, starts Video
Club of America. In 5 months he sells 40,000 pre-recorded films through
the mail at $50.00 each.
- 75 percent of TV homes have at least 1 color set. - LA businessman George Atkinson becomes the 1st person to rent videotapes to the public. Within 5 years he franchises more than 400 Video Station stores across the country. - Home color TV cameras are introduced. |
| 1978 | - Videodisc players are first marketed. |
| 1979 | |
| 1980 | - The 1st portable recorder and camera combinations
(Camcorders) are introduced.
- The introduction of addressable cable TV converters allows operators to control which channels each subscriber will receive, without having to send a technician to the home. With remote control of channel reception, pay-per-view events become a reality. |
| 1981 | |
| 1982 | - VHS-C format is brought to the market. |
| 1983 | - CBS describes a 1050-line high defination TV system
that would be compatible with current 525-line broadcast standards.
- Beta format camcorders are introduced, using 8mm tape that is incompatible with the existing VHS standard. |
| 1984 | - Hughes receives an FCC permit to build and operate a
high-power direct-broadcast satellite system (DSS).
- After 2 reversals, the courts finally find in favor of Sony in it's copyright dispute with MCA and Disney over home recording. - Multi-channel stereo TV sound is authorized by the FCC. Stereo TV broadcasts begin. |
| 1985 | |
| 1986 | - Scrambling of satellite signals begins, by HBO. Programs and decoders are sold to home dish owners who had been receiving pay and basic cable programming without charge. |
| 1987 | - Sony stops marketing Beta format VCR's in the US.
- The S-VHS recording standard is introduced. Picture quality is superior to every recorded format except laserdisc and 1-inch tape. |
| 1988 | - Rupert Murdoch establishes the Fox Broadcasting
Company - the 4th major U.S. commercial broadcasting network.
- Sony begins it's own manufacture of VHS-format VCRs. |
| 1989 | - Japan initiates the world's 1st broadcast of 1,125 scanline HDTV programs. |
| 1990 | - Closed-captioning decoders are required in all TVs
manufactured after July 1993.
- Developers of HDTV systems propose creating a digital, rather than analogue standard. |
| 1991 | - US testing of high-definition TV systems begin. |
| 1992 | |
| 1993 | - Wide-Screen NTSC 16:9 aspect ratio TV receivers go
on sale in the US.
- The 1st television program to use only computers - rather than film or videotape - to store, edit and broadcast its content is created by L.A. special-effects producer Scott Billups. |
| 1994 | - DirecTV and USSB begin digitally compressed home satellite services, using a 18-inch dish. The technology becomes the fastest-growing consumer electronic item in history, with 1.1 million subscribers signing up the 1st year. |
| 1995 | - InTV launches the L.A. Project, the nations 1st.
interactive TV network, on Ventura County Cablevision. Viewers can
choose different camera angles for sporting events and select particular
stories from CNN.
- Sony, Philips, and Toshiba agree on a compromise standard for the next-generation consumer video-playback device, the CD-sized Digital Video Disc. DVD offers picture quality superior to broadcast TV. - An FCC advisory group recommends a digital HDTV standard to the FCC. Wide-Screen HDTV sets are predicted to go on sale by 1997. 25.7 million color TV receivers (and 460,000 Black-and White TVs) are sold this year. |
| 1996 | |
| 1997 | |
| 1998 | 1st notable High Definition TV broadcasts in the United States. |
| 1999 | |
| 2000 | |
| 2001 | |
| 2002 | Early adopters start buying HDTV displays/tuners for the home. |
| 2003 | DVD players and DVD movies become more popular than VHS. Cable TV companies start offering HDTV programming. |
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Color Television The Development of Color
Television Between 1946 and 1950 the research staff of RCA Laboratories invented the world?s first electronic, monochrome compatible, color television system. In 1940, prior to RCA, CBS researchers led by Peter Goldmark invented a mechanical color television system based on the 1928 designs of John Logie Baird. The FCC authorized CBS's color television technology as the national standard in October of 1950, despite the fact that the system was bulky, flickered, and was not compatible with earlier black and white sets. RCA sued to stop the public broadcasting of CBS based systems. CBS had begun color broadcasting on five East Coast stations in June of 1951. However, at that time 10.5 million black and white televisions (half RCA sets) had been sold to the public and very few color sets. Color television production was halted during the Korean war, with that and the lawsuits, and the sluggish sales, the CBS system failed. Those factors provided RCA with the time to design a better color television, which they based on the 1947 patent application of Alfred Schroeder, for a shadow mask CRT. Their system passed FCC approval in late 1953 and sales of RCA color televisions began in 1954. The premier of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color in September, 1961, was a turning point, persuading consumers to go out and purchase color televisions.
Audio and video compression techniques are extremely complex. The most advanced techniques in wide use for entertainment audio and video include:
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