Television- the scientific, technical, and cultural field concerned with the transmission of visual information—moving images—over distances by electronic means; the term “television” also refers to the method used in such transmission. Once considered a complete luxury for a family to own, the television has become a stable fixture in households over the past few decades. In recent years, it has become unusual for a family not to own a television set and now it is just as uncommon for a family to own just one. Television or “TV” has become a prominent source for news and entertainment for billions of people around the world.
It is also one of the principal means of communication, used in science, management, technology, and other applied fields: for example, it is used in dispatching and monitoring systems for industry and transportation, in space and nuclear research, and in the military. For this, among other reasons, the concept of TV and its content has been the subject of much academic discourse and controversy. A lot of this discourse focuses on the ways television affects changes in societies’ behavior and culture. This is visible via various scholarly communities.John Logie Baird was born on 14 August 1888 in Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland, the son of a clergyman. Dogged by ill health for most of his life, he nonetheless showed early signs of ingenuity, rigging up a telephone exchange to connect his bedroom to those of his friends across the street.
His studies at the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College were interrupted by the outbreak of World War One. Rejected as unfit for the forces, he served as superintendent engineer of the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company. When the war ended he set himself up in business, with mixed results. Baird then moved to the south coast of England and applied himself to creating a television, a dream of many scientists for decades. His first crude apparatus was made of odds and ends, but by 1924 he managed to transmit a flickering image across a few feet.
On 26 January 1926 he gave the world's first demonstration of true television before 50 scientists in an attic room in central London.In 1927, his television was demonstrated over 438 miles of telephone line between London and Glasgow, and he formed the Baird Television Development Company. (BTDC). In 1928, the BTDC achieved the first transatlantic television transmission between London and New York and the first transmission to a ship in mid-Atlantic. He also gave the first demonstration of both color and stereoscopic television. In 1929, the German post office gave him the facilities to develop an experimental television service based on his mechanical system, the only one operable at the time.
Sound and vision were initially sent alternately, and only began to be transmitted simultaneously from 1930. However, Baird's mechanical system was rapidly becoming obsolete as electronic systems were developed, chiefly by Marconi in America.Although he had invested in the mechanical system in order to achieve early results, Baird had also been exploring electronic systems from an early stage. Nevertheless, a BBC committee of inquiry in 1935 prompted a side-by-side trial between Marconi's all-electronic television systems, which worked on 405 lines to Baird's 240. Marconi won, and in 1937 Baird's system was dropped. Baird died on 14 June 1946 in Bexhill-on-Sea in Sussex.
The final receiving component in television transmission is the human eye, and television systems are therefore designed to take into account the characteristics of human vision. Man perceives the real world visually in colors. He perceives objects positioned in space of a certain size, and he senses the dynamics, or motion, in events. Consequently, the ideal television system must be able to reproduce these characteristics of the material world. The problems of transmitting motion and color have been solved successfully, both technically and practically, in modern television.
Television systems capable of depicting objects and space in three dimensions are in the development stage.Three processes are required for the transmission of images by television: conversion of the light emitted by or reflected from an object into electrical signals; transmission of the electrical signals over communications channels and reception of the signals; and reconversion of the electrical signals into light impulses that reconstruct the image. The fundamental bases for the realization of these processes were defined by W. Smith (Great Britain), who discovered the photoconductive effect (1873); A.
G. Stoletov, who established the basic laws governing the photoemissive effect (1888); A. S. Popov, who invented radio communication (1895); and B. L. Rozing, who developed a system of transmitting images in which a cathode-ray tube was used to reproduce the images.
Rozing used his system to achieve the world’s first television transmission under laboratory conditions in 1911.However, it was necessary to solve many other complex problems before television could become practical. When objects are examined directly, it is possible to distinguish very fine details, depending on the resolving power of the eye. Consequently, an optical image projected on the retina can be formally regarded as comprising m resolvable components, or elements.
Each such element can be characterized by its brightness (or luminance) B, chrominance (hue ? and color purity p), and geometrical location (the coordinates xand y); that is, each element can be described by the function fi(B, ?, p, x, y). The entire image is described by the function.Television has a number of uses. First of all, it makes it possible for us to see what is happening far away.
In our homes we watch on television, films or events taking place in other cities, countries and other continents. The artificial satellites have made it possible to watch events in other countries directly. Television is a very fine medium of entertainment. It brings musician and the music, singer and his singing and actor and his acting close to us. Whether it is rain or sunshine, hot or cold, we can enjoy television programs within four walls of our homes.
Television can be used to teach uneducated people. Through it we can improve knowledge of our students and educated people. We can present on TV educational programs of different categories.We can telecast other programs of general information. For example there can be science programs about modern inventions. Special economic television programs can be very useful for general public, through them market rates of different articles can be quoted and explained.
Political television programs are of great importance. They bring political leaders and their views close to people.We should present such TV programs which entertain the people in the right way as well as improve their knowledge and character. We should avoid the presentation of programs that may spoil the taste, character and morale of people.Television today has a lot of positive effects and influences on our society and our American culture.
Television gives us helpful information, various forms of education and entertainment which are all a part of the positive effects that television has on our society. On a day to day basis, television keeps us informed with plenty of helpful information. The television in today’s society has become one of our most basic resources of information. Television is a pervasive element in society today and is seen as having a great deal of influence, especially over the young. Numerous concerns have been raised over the influence of television and the impact it has on social values. That impact is often negative, though perhaps not intended to be so.
Television from its beginning has presented itself as a reflection of society rather than a means of shaping it, yet critics charge that television does shape values and often does so by negating the social values considered most acceptable by society at large. The excuse for doing so is that the fact that people watch shows that they are not offended by the values seen on television. However, many people are offended and have challenged television to promote values beneficial to society rather than those that could damage society.
