Television (often abbreviated to TV or idiot box) in British English is a widely used telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term may also be used to refer specifically to a television set, programming or television transmission. The word is derived from mixed Latin and Greek roots, meaning "far sight": Greek tele, far, and Latin vision, sight (from video, vis- to see).
Since it first became commercially available from the late 1930s, the television set has become a common household communications device in homes and institutions, particularly in the first world, as a source of entertainment and news.
Since the 1970s, video recordings on VCR tapes and later, digital playback systems such as DVDs, have enabled the television to be used to view recorded movies and other programs.
A television system may be made up of multiple components, so a screen which lacks an internal tuner to receive the broadcast signals is called a monitor rather than a television. A television may be built to receive different broadcast or video formats, such as high-definition television (HDTV).
The elements of a simple broadcast television system are:
* An image source. This is an electrical signal representing the visual image, and may be from a camera in the case of live images, a video tape recorder for playback of recorded images, or a film chain-telecine-flying spot scanner for transmission of motion pictures (films).
* A sound source. This is an electrical signal from a microphone or from the audio output of a video tape recorder or motion picture film scanner.
* A transmitter, which generates radio signals (radio waves) and encodes them with picture and sound information.
* An antenna coupled to the output of the transmitter for broadcasting the encoded signals.
* An antenna to receive the broadcast signals.
* A receiver (also called a tuner), which decodes the picture and sound information from the broadcast signals, and whose input is coupled to the antenna.
* A display device, which turns the electrical signals into visual images.
* An audio amplifier and loudspeaker, which turns electrical signals into sound waves (speech, music, and other sounds) to accompany the images.
Practical television systems include equipment for selecting different image sources, mixing images from several sources at once, insertion of pre-recorded video signals, synchronizing signals from many sources, and direct image generation by computer for such purposes as station identification. The facility for housing such equipment, as well as providing space for stages, sets, offices, etc., is called a television studio, and may be located many miles from the transmitter. Communication from the studio to the transmitter is accomplished via a dedicated cable or radio system.
Television signals were originally transmitted exclusively via land-based transmitters. The quality of reception varied greatly, dependent in large part on the location and type of receiving antenna. This led to the proliferation of large rooftop antennas to improve reception in the 1960s, replacing set-top dipole or "rabbit ears" antennas, which however remained popular. Antenna rotors, set-top controlled servo motors to which the mast of the antenna is mounted, to enable rotating the antenna such that it points to the desired transmitter, would also become popular.
In most cities today, cable television providers deliver signals over coaxial or fiber-optic cables for a fee. Signals can also be delivered by radio from satellites in geosynchronous orbit and received by parabolic dish antennas, which are comparatively large for analog signals, but much smaller for digital. Like cable providers, satellite television providers also require a fee, often less than cable systems. The affordability and convenience of digital satellite reception has led to the proliferation of small dish antennas outside many houses and apartments.
Digital systems may be inserted anywhere in the chain to provide better image transmission quality, reduction in transmission bandwidth, special effects, or security of transmission from reception by non-subscribers. A home today might have the choice of receiving analog or HDTV over the air, analog or digital cable with HDTV from a cable television company over coaxial cable, or even from the phone company over fiber optic lines. On the road, television can be received by pocket sized televisions, recorded on tape or digital media players, or played back on wireless phones (cell or "mobile" phones) over a high-speed or "broadband" internet connection.
EXPERIMENTS
Electronic television was first successfully demonstrated in San Francisco on Sept. 7, 1927. The system was designed by Philo Taylor Farnsworth, a 21-year-old inventor who had lived in a house without electricity until he was 14. While still in high school, Farnsworth had begun to conceive of a system that could capture moving images in a form that could be coded onto radio waves and then transformed back into a picture on a screen. Boris Rosing in Russia had conducted some crude experiments in transmitting images 16 years before Farnsworth's first success. Also, a mechanical television system, which scanned images using a rotating disk with holes arranged in a spiral pattern, had been demonstrated by John Logie Baird in England and Charles Francis Jenkins in the United States earlier in the 1920s. However, Farnsworth's invention, which scanned images with a beam of electrons, is the direct ancestor of modern television. The first image he transmitted on it was a simple line. Soon he aimed his primitive camera at a dollar sign because an investor had asked, "When are we going to see some dollars in this thing, Farnsworth?"
EARLY DEVELOPMENT
RCA, the company that dominated the radio business in the United States with its two NBC networks, invested $50 million in the development of electronic television. To direct the effort, the company's president, David Sarnoff, hired the Russian-born scientist Vladimir Kosma Zworykin, who had participated in Rosing's experiments. In 1939, RCA televised the opening of the New York World's Fair, including a speech by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was the first president to appear on television. Later that year RCA paid for a license to use Farnsworth's television patents. RCA began selling television sets with 5 by 12 in (12.7 by 25.4 cm) picture tubes. The company also began broadcasting regular programs, including scenes captured by a mobile unit and, on May 17, 1939, the first televised baseball gameÑbetween Princeton and Columbia universities. By 1941 the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), RCA's main competition in radio, was broadcasting two 15-minute newscasts a day to a tiny audience on its New York television station.
Early television was quite primitive. All the action at that first televised baseball game had to be captured by a single camera, and the limitations of early cameras forced actors in dramas to work under impossibly hot lights, wearing black lipstick and green makeup (the cameras had trouble with the color white). The early newscasts on CBS were "chalk talks," with a newsman moving a pointer across a map of Europe, then consumed by war. The poor quality of the picture made it difficult to make out the newsman, let alone the map. World War II slowed the development of television, as companies like RCA turned their attention to military production. Television's progress was further slowed by a struggle over wavelength allocations with the new FM radio and a battle over government regulation. The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) 1941 ruling that the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) had to sell one of its two radio networks was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1943. The second network became the new American Broadcasting Company (ABC), which would enter television early in the next decade. Six experimental television stations remained on the air during the warÑone each in Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Schenectady, N.Y., and two in New York City. But full-scale commercial television broadcasting did not begin in the United States until 1947.
THE BEGINNING OF COMMERCIAL TELEVISION
By 1949 Americans who lived within range of the growing number of television stations in the country could watch, for example, The Texaco Star Theater (1948), starring Milton Berle, or the children's program, Howdy Doody (1947Ð60). They could also choose between two 15-minute newscastsÑCBS TV News (1948) with Douglas Edwards and NBC's Camel News Caravan (1948) with John Cameron Swayze (who was required by the tobacco company sponsor to have a burning cigarette always visible when he was on camera). Many early programsÑsuch as Amos 'n' Andy (1951) or The Jack Benny Show (1950Ð65)Ñwere borrowed from early television's older, more established Big Brother: network radio. Most of the formats of the new programsÑnewscasts, situation comedies, variety shows, and dramasÑwere borrowed from radio, too. NBC and CBS took the funds needed to establish this new medium from their radio profits. However, television networks soon would be making substantial profits of their own, and network radio would all but disappear, except as a carrier of hourly newscasts. Ideas on what to do with the element television added to radio, the visuals, sometimes seemed in short supply. On news programs, in particular, the temptation was to fill the screen with "talking heads," newscasters simply reading the news, as they might have for radio. For shots of news events, the networks relied initially on the newsreel companies, whose work had been shown previously in movie studios. The number of television sets in use rose from 6,000 in 1946 to some 12 million by 1951. No new invention entered American homes faster than black and white television sets; by 1955 half of all U.S. homes had one.
McCARTHYISM
In 1947 the House Committee on Un-American Activities began an investigation of the film industry, and Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy soon began to inveigh against what he claimed was Communist infiltration of the government. Broadcasting, too, felt the impact of this growing national witch-hunt. Three former members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published "Counterattack: The Newsletter of Facts on Communism," and in 1950 a pamphlet, "Red Channels," listed the supposedly Communist associations of 151 performing artists. Anti-Communist vigilantes applied pressure to advertisersÑthe source of network profits. Political beliefs suddenly became grounds for getting fired. Most of the producers, writers, and actors who were accused of having had left-wing leanings found themselves blacklisted, unable to get work. CBS even instituted a loyalty oath for its employees. Among the few individuals in television well positioned enough and brave enough to take a stand against McCarthyism was the distinguished former radio reporter Edward R. Murrow. In partnership with the news producer Fred Friendly, Murrow began See It Now, a television documentary series, in 1950. On Mar. 9, 1954, Murrow narrated a report on McCarthy, exposing the senator's shoddy tactics. Of McCarthy, Murrow observed, "His mistake has been to confuse dissent with disloyalty." A nervous CBS refused to promote Murrow and Friendly's program. Offered free time by CBS, McCarthy replied on April 6, calling Murrow "the leader and the cleverest of the jackal pack which is always found at the throat of anyone who dares to expose Communist traitors." In this TV appearance, McCarthy proved to be his own worst enemy, and it became apparent that Murrow had helped to break McCarthy's reign of fear. In 1954 the U.S. Senate censured McCarthy, and CBS's "security" office was closed down.
THE GOLDEN AGE
Between 1953 and 1955, television programming began to take some steps away from radio formats. NBC television president Sylvester Weaver devised the "spectacular," a notable example of which was Peter Pan (1955), starring Mary Martin, which attracted 60 million viewers. Weaver also developed the magazine-format programs Today, which made its debut in 1952 with Dave Garroway as host (until 1961), and The Tonight Show, which began in 1953 hosted by Steve Allen (until 1957). The third network, ABC, turned its first profit with youth-oriented shows such as Disneyland, which debuted in 1954 (and has since been broadcast under different names), and The Mickey Mouse Club.
The programming that dominated the two major networks in the mid-1950s borrowed heavily from another medium: theater. NBC and CBS presented such noteworthy, and critically acclaimed, dramatic anthologies as Kraft Television Theater (1947), Studio One (1948), Playhouse 90 (1956), and The U.S. Steel Hour (1953). Memorable television dramas of the eraÑmost of them broadcast liveÑincluded Paddy Chayefsky's Marty (1955), starring Rod Steiger (Ernest Borgnine starred in the film), and Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men (1954). By the 1955Ð56 television season, 14 of these live-drama anthology series were being broadcast. This is often looked back on as the "Golden Age" of television. However, by 1960 only one of these series was still on the air. Viewers apparently preferred dramas or comedies that, while perhaps less literary, at least had the virtue of sustaining a familiar set of characters week after week. I Love Lucy, the hugely successful situation comedy starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, had been recorded on film since it debuted in 1951 (lasting until 1957). It had many imitators. The Honeymooners, starring Jackie Gleason, was first broadcast, also via film, in 1955 (lasting until 1956 with the original cast). The first videotape recorder was invented by Ampex in 1956. Another format introduced in the mid-1950s was the big-money quiz show. The $64,000 Question (1955Ð58) and Twenty-One (1956Ð58) quickly shot to the top of the ratings. In 1959, however, the creator of The $64,000 Question, Louis C. Cowan, by that time president of CBS television, was forced to resign from the network amid revelations of widespread fixing of game shows.
TELEVISION AND POLITICS
Television news first covered the presidential nominating conventions of the two major parties, events then still at the heart of America politics, in 1952. The term "anchorman" was used, probably for the first time, to describe Walter Cronkite's central role in CBS's convention coverage that year. In succeeding decades these conventions would become so concerned with looking good on television that they would lose their spontaneity and eventually their news value. The power of television news increased with the arrival of the popular newscast, The Huntley-Brinkley Report, on NBC in 1956. The networks had begun producing their own news film. Increasingly, they began to compete with newspapers as the country's primary source of news.
The election of a young and vital president in 1960, John F. Kennedy, seemed to provide evidence of how profoundly television would change politics. Commentators pointed to the first televised debate that fall between Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for president, and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, the Republican's nominee. A survey of those who listened to the debate on radio indicated that Nixon had won; however, those who watched on television, and were able to contrast Nixon's poor posture and poorly shaven face with Kennedy's poise and grace, were more likely to think Kennedy had won the debate. Television's coverage of the assassination of President Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, and of the events that followed, provided further evidence of the medium's power. Most Americans joined in watching coverage of the shocking and tragic events, not as crowds in the streets, but from their own living rooms. A newscast that would soon surpass the popularity of Huntley-Brinkley, The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, debuted in 1962 (and was broadcast until 1981). By the end of the decade Cronkite had become not just a highly respected journalist but, according to public opinion surveys, "the most trusted man in America." His role in coverage of the Vietnam War would be important. While the overwhelming majority of television news reports on the Vietnam War were supportive of U.S. policy, television news film of the fighting sometimes gave Americans back home an unfamiliar, harsh, and unromantic view of combat. Many believed it contributed to growing public dissatisfaction with the war. And some of the anger of those defending U.S. policy in Vietnam was leveled against television news. In 1965, CBS reporter Morley Safer accompanied a group of U.S. Marines on a "search and destroy" mission to a complex of hamlets called Cam Ne. The Marines faced no enemy resistance, yet they held cigarette lighters to the thatched roofs and proceeded to "waste" Cam Ne. After much debate, Safer's filmed report on the incident was shown on CBS. Early the next morning the president of CBS received an angry phone call from the president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, accusing the network of a lack of patriotism. During the Tet offensive in 1968, Cronkite went to Vietnam to report a documentary on the state of the war. That documentary, broadcast on Feb. 28, 1968, concluded with what Cronkite has described as "a clearly labeled editorial": "It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out will be to negotiate," he said. President Johnson was watching Cronkite's report. According to Bill Moyers, one of his press aides at the time: "The president flipped off the set and said, `If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America.'"
THE THREE NETWORKS AT THE HEIGHT OF THEIR POWER
In 1964 color broadcasting began on prime-time television. The FCC initially approved a CBS color system, then swung in RCA's favor after Sarnoff swamped the marketplace with black-and-white sets compatible with RCA color (the CBS color system was not compatible with black-and-white sets and would have required the purchase of new sets). During the 1960s and 1970s a country increasingly fascinated with television was limited to watching almost exclusively what appeared on the three major networks: CBS, NBC, and ABC. These networks purchased time to broadcast their programs from about 200 affiliates eachÑstations in each of the major cities or metropolitan areas of the United States. In the larger cities, there might also be a few independent stations (mostly playing reruns of old network shows) and perhaps a fledgling public broadcasting channel. Programming on each of the three networks was designed to grab a mass audience. Network shows therefore catered, as critics put it, to the lowest common denominator. James Aubrey, president of CBS television, doubled the network's profits between 1960 and 1966 by broadcasting simple comedies like The Beverly Hillbillies (1962Ð71). In 1961, Newton Minow, then chairman of the FCC, called television a "vast wasteland." Programming became a little more adventurous with the arrival of more realistic situation comedies, beginning with CBS's All in the Family in 1971 (broadcast until 1979). Along with situation comediesÑusually a half-hour focused on either a family and their neighbors or a group of co-workersÑthe other main staple of network prime-time programming has been the one-hour drama, featuring the adventures of police, detectives, doctors, lawyers, or, in the early decades of television, cowboys. Daytime television programming consisted primarily of soap operas and quiz shows until the 1980s, when talk shows discussing subjects that were formerly taboo, such as sexuality, became popular.
The three major networks have always been in a continual race for ratings and advertising dollars. CBS and NBC dominated through the mid-1970s, when ABC, traditionally regarded as a poor third, rose to the top of the ratings, largely because of shrewd scheduling.
PUBLIC BROADCASTING
A Carnegie Commission report in 1967 recommended the creation of a fourth, noncommercial, public television network built around the educational nonprofit stations already in operation throughout the United States. Congress created the Public Broadcasting System that year. Unlike commercial networks, which are centered in New York and Los Angeles, PBS's key stations, many of which produce programs that are shown throughout the network, are spread across the country. PBS comprises more than 300 stations, more than any commercial network. Some of the most praised programs on PBS, such as the dramatic series Upstairs, Downstairs (1971), have been imports from Britain, which has long had a reputation for producing high-quality television. Perhaps the most influential of PBS's original contributions to American television were the educational program for preschoolers, Sesame Street, which first appeared in 1969Ñand is still a popular programÑand a thoughtful news program called The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (1995; originally The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, first broadcast in 1975Ñsee MacNeil, Robert and Lehrer, Jim). Among the many special series produced for public broadcasting, The Civil War (1990), a five-part historical documentary, was particularly successful and won some of the largest audiences ever achieved by public TV. PBS funds come from three major sources: congressional appropriations (which suffered substantial cuts beginning in 1982), viewer donations, and private corporate underwriters. None of these types of contributions are problem-free. Government funding brings the possibility of government interference. Conservatives, dating back to the Nixon administration, have pressured PBS to make its programming less liberal. The search for viewer donations has led to long on-air fundraising campaigns. And some critics contend that the need to win corporate support discourages programming that might challenge corporate values.
THE RISE OF CABLE
The force that would challenge the dominance of the three major television networks and offer Americans the choice of dozens and potentially hundreds of television channelsÑcable TVÑbegan quietly in a few geographically isolated towns. Large antennas erected in high places gave everyone connected the chance to receive all the channels available in the nearest city. By 1960 the United States had about 640 such CATV (community antenna television) systems. It soon became apparent, however, that the "television deprived" were not the only viewers who might want access to additional channels and additional programming. In New York City, cable operators contracted to broadcast the home games of the local basketball and hockey teams. By 1971 cable had more than 80,000 subscribers in New York. Then networks specifically designed to be distributed by the cable system began to appear: Time Inc.'s Home Box Office (HBO) in 1975; Ted Turner's "superstation," soon renamed WTBS, in 1976; C-SPAN (live broadcasts of the House of Representatives), ESPN (sports), and Nickelodeon (children's programming), all in 1979. Turner followed with the Cable News Network (CNN) the next year.
INTERNATIONAL GROWTH
Television's development followed different patterns in other countries. Often government, not private corporations, owned some, most, or all of the major networks. In Great Britain the British Broadcasting Corporation, the country's dominant radio broadcaster, established and retained dominance over television. The BBC, funded by a tax on the sale of television sets, established a worldwide reputation for producing quality programming. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, also freed by government support from many commercial pressures, was praised by some observers for the seriousness of much of its news and public-affairs programming. France's major television networks were also supported by the government; however, in France that support was seen as encouraging a tilt in news coverage toward the side of whatever party happened to be in power. By the late 1980s and 1990s, as cable and direct-satellite television systems increased the number of channels, the hold of these government-funded networks began to weaken. Most countries around the world began moving more toward the U.S. model of privately owned, advertiser-supported television networks.
POLITICS ADAPTS TO TELEVISION
By the 1980s politicians and government leaders were familiar enough with the workings of television to be able to exploit the medium to their own ends. This seemed particularly apparent during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, himself formerly the host of a television show (General Electric Theater, 1954Ð62). Reagan's skilled advisors were masters of the art of arranging flags and releasing balloons to place him in the most attractive settings. They also knew how to craft and release messages to maximize positive coverage on television newscasts. The Persian Gulf War in 1991 provided further proof of the power of television, with pictures of U.S. bombs falling on the Iraqi capital broadcast live in the United States. Both Iraqi and U.S. leaders admitted to monitoring CNN to help keep up with news of the war. However, the U.S. Defense Department, armed with lessons learned in Vietnam, succeeded in keeping most reporters well away from the action and the bloodshed. Instead, pictures were provided to television by the military of "smart" bombs deftly hitting their targets.
NEW TECHNOLOGIES
In the 1980s, home videocassette recorders became widely available. Viewers gained the ability to record and replay programs and, more significantly, to rent and watch movies at times of their own choosing in their own homes. Video games also became popular during this decade, particularly with the young, and the television, formally just the site of passive entertainment, became an intricate, moving, computerized game board. The number of cable networks grew throughout the 1980s and then exploded in the 1990s as improved cable technology and direct-broadcast satellite television multiplied the channels available to viewers. The number of broadcast networks increased also, with the success of the Fox network and then the arrival of the UPN and WB networks. The share the broadcast networks attracted continued to erode, from well over 90 percent in the early 1980s to under 50 percent by 1997. Although the population of the United States has continued to grow, the Nielson Media Research company estimated that fewer people watched the highly publicized final episode of Seinfeld in 1998 (first aired in 1990) than watched the final episode of MASH in 1983 (first aired in 1972). The trial of former football star O. J. Simpson in 1994 for the murder of his wife (he was acquitted) further demonstrated the hold that cable networks had on American audiences. Some stations carried almost every minute of the lengthy trial live and then filled the evening with talk shows dissecting that day's developments. The effects of television on children, particularly through its emphasis on violence and sex, has long been an issue for social scientists, parents, and politicians. In the late 1980s and 1990s, with increased competition brought on by the proliferation of cable networks, talk shows and "tabloid" news shows seemed to broaden further frank or sensational on-air discussion of sex.
In response to government pressure, the television industry decided to display ratings of its programs in 1996. The ratings were designed to indicate the age groups for which the programs might be suitable: TV-G (for general audiences), TV-PG (parental guidance suggested), TV-14 (unsuitable for children under 14), and TV-MA (for mature audiences only). In response to additional complaints, all the networks except NBC agreed the next year to add V (for violence), S (for sex), L (for course language) and D (for suggestive dialogue) to those ratings. Also, the "V-chip" imbedded in new television sets, in accordance with a provision of a telecommunications bill passed in 1996, gave parents the power to automatically prevent their children from watching television programs with inappropriate ratings. Critics of the ratings saw them as a step toward censorship and questioned whether a TV-14 rating would make a program seem more, not less, attractive to an inquisitive child. In 1997 the federal government gave each U.S. television broadcaster an additional channel on which to introduce high definition television, or HDTV. Initial transmissions of this high-resolution form of television, in which images appear much sharper and clearer, began in 1998. Standard television sets cannot pick up HDTV and will presumably have to be replaced or modified by 2006, when traditional, low-definition television broadcasts are scheduled to end and broadcasters are scheduled to return their original, non-HDTV channel to the government. The HDTV format approved in the United States calls for television signals to be transmitted digitally. This will allow for further convergence between computers, the Internet, and television.
In 1998 it was already possible to view video on the World Wide Web and to see and search television broadcasts on a computer. As computers become more powerful, they should be able to handle video as easily as they now handle text. The television schedule may eventually be replaced by a system in which viewers are able to watch digitally stored and distributed programs or segments of programs whenever they want. Such technological changes, including the spread of new cable networks, have been arriving slower in most other countries than in the United States. Indeed, according to one survey, it was only in the 1990s that the spread of television transmitters, television sets, and electricity made it possible for half of the individuals in the world to watch television. However, television's attraction globally is strong. Those human beings who have a television set watch it, by one estimate, for an average of two-and-a-half hours a day.
The technology of television has changed since its early days using a mechanical system invented by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow in 1884.
Elements of a television system
The elements of a simple broadcast television system are:
* An image source. This is the electrical signal representing the visual image, and may be from a camera in the case of live images, a video tape recorder for playback of recorded images, or a film chain-telecine-flying spot scanner for transmission of motion pictures (films).
* A sound source. This is an electrical signal from a microphone or from the audio output of a video tape recorder or motion picture film scanner.
* A transmitter, which generates radio signals (radio waves) and encodes them with picture and sound information.
* An antenna coupled to the output of the transmitter for broadcasting the encoded signals.
* An antenna to receive the broadcast signals.
* A receiver (also called a tuner), which decodes the picture and sound information from the broadcast signals, and whose input is coupled to the antenna.
* A display device, which turns the electrical signals into visual images.
* An audio amplifier and loudspeaker, which turns electrical signals into sound waves (speech, music, and other sounds) to accompany the images.
Practical television systems include equipment for selecting different image sources, mixing images from several sources at once, insertion of pre-recorded video signals, synchronizing signals from many sources, and direct image generation by computer for such purposes as station identification. The facility for housing such equipment, as well as providing space for stages, sets, offices, etc., is called a television studio, and may be located many miles from the transmitter. Communication from the studio to the transmitter is accomplished via a dedicated cable or radio system.
Television signals were originally transmitted exclusively via land-based transmitters. The quality of reception varied greatly, dependent in large part on the location and type of receiving antenna. This led to the proliferation of large rooftop antennas to improve reception in the 1960s, replacing set-top dipole or "rabbit ears" antennas, which however remained popular. Antenna rotors, set-top controlled servo motors to which the mast of the antenna is mounted, to enable rotating the antenna such that it points to the desired transmitter, would also become popular.
In most cities today, cable television providers deliver signals over coaxial or fiber-optic cables for a fee. Signals can also be delivered by radio from satellites in geosynchronous orbit and received by parabolic dish antennas, which are comparatively large for analog signals, but much smaller for digital. Like cable providers, satellite television providers also require a fee, often less than cable systems. The affordability and convenience of digital satellite reception has led to the proliferation of small dish antennas outside many houses and apartments.
Digital systems may be inserted anywhere in the chain to provide better image transmission quality, reduction in transmission bandwidth, special effects, or security of transmission from reception by non-subscribers. A home today might have the choice of receiving analog or HDTV over the air, analog or digital cable with HDTV from a cable television company over coaxial cable, or even from the phone company over fiber optic lines. On the road, television can be received by pocket sized televisions, recorded on tape or digital media players, or played back on wireless phones (mobile or "cell" phones) over a high-speed or "broadband" internet connection.
Display technology
Thanks to the advances in display technology, there are now several kinds of video displays used in modern TV sets:
* CRT (cathode-ray tube): The most common screens were direct-view CRTs for up to roughly 100 cm (40 inch) (in 4:3 ratio) and 115 cm (45 inch) (in 16:9 ratio) diagonals. These are the least expensive, and are a refined technology that can still provide the best overall picture quality value. As they do not have a fixed native resolution, they are capable of displaying sources with different resolutions at the best possible image quality. The frame rate or refresh rate of a typical NTSC format CRT TV is 29.97 Hz, and for the PAL format, 25 Hz, both are scanned with two fields per frame in an interlaced fashion. A typical NTSC broadcast signal's visible portion has an equivalent resolution of about 640x480 pixels. It actually could be slightly higher than that, but the vertical blanking interval (VBI), allows other signals to be carried along with the broadcast.
* Rear Projection (RPTV): Most very large screen TVs (up to 254 cm (100 inch) and beyond) use projection technology. Three types of projection systems are used in projection TVs: CRT-based, LCD-based, and DLP (reflective micromirror chip) -based, D-ILA and LCOS-based. Projection television has been commercially available since the 1970s, but at that time could not match the image sharpness of the CRT; current models are vastly improved, and offer a cost-effective large-screen display.
o A variation is a video projector, using similar technology, which projects onto a screen. This is often referred to as "front projection".
* Flat panel (LCD or plasma): Modern advances have brought flat panels to TV that use active matrix LCD or plasma display technology. Flat panel LCDs and plasma displays are as little as 25.4 mm (1 inch) thick and can be hung on a wall like a picture or put over a pedestal. Some models can also be used as computer monitors.
* LED technology has become one of the choices for outdoor video and stadium uses, since the advent of bright LEDs and driver circuits. LEDs enable scalable ultra-large flat panel video displays that other technologies are currently not able to match in performance.
Each has its pros and cons. Flat panel LCD and plasma displays have a wide viewing angle (around 178 degrees) so they may best suited for a home theatre with a wide seating arrangement. Rear projection screens do not perform well in daylight or well-lit rooms and so are only suited to darker viewing areas.
Terminology for televisions
Pixel resolution is the number of pixels of one row on a given screen. Before the year 2000 horizontal lines of resolution was the standard method of measurement for analog video. For example, a VHS VCR might be described as having 250 lines of resolution as measured across a circle circumscribed in the center of the screen (approximately 440 pixels edge-to-edge).
A typical resolution of 720×480 and 720x576 means that the television display has 720 pixels across and 480 or 576 pixels on the vertical axis. The higher the resolution on a specified display the sharper the image. Contrast ratio is a measurement of the range between the lightest and darkest points on the screen.
The higher the contrast ratio, the better looking picture there is in terms of richness, deepness, and shadow detail. The brightness of a picture measures how vibrant and impacting the colors are. Measured in cd / m2 equivalent to the amount of candles required to power the image.
On the other hand, the so-called brightness and contrast adjustment controls on televisions and monitors are traditionally used to control different aspects of the picture display. The brightness control shifts the black level, affecting the image intensity or brightness, while the contrast control adjusts the contrast range of the image.
Transmission band
There are various bands on which televisions operate depending upon the country. The VHF and UHF signals in bands III to V are generally used. Lower frequencies do not have enough bandwidth available for television. Although the BBC initially used Band I VHF at 45 MHz, this frequency is (in the UK) no longer in use for this purpose. Band II is used for FM radio transmissions. Higher frequencies behave more like light and do not penetrate buildings or travel around obstructions well enough to be used in a conventional broadcast TV system, so they are generally only used for MMDS and satellite television, which uses frequencies from 2 to 12 GHz. TV systems in most countries relay the video as an AM (amplitude-modulation) signal and the sound as an FM (frequency-modulation) signal. An exception is France, where the sound is AM.
Aspect ratios
Aspect ratio refers to the ratio of the horizontal to vertical measurements of a television's picture. Mechanically scanned television as first demonstrated by John Logie Baird in 1926 used a 7:3 vertical aspect ratio, oriented for the head and shoulders of a single person in close-up.
Most of the early electronic TV systems, from the mid-1930s onward, shared the same aspect ratio of 4:3 which was chosen to match the Academy Ratio used in cinema films at the time. This ratio was also square enough to be conveniently viewed on round cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), which were all that could be produced given the manufacturing technology of the time. (Today's CRT technology allows the manufacture of much wider tubes, and the flat-screen technologies which are becoming steadily more popular have no technical aspect ratio limitations at all.) The BBC's television service used a more squarish 5:4 ratio from 1936 to 3 April 1950, when it too switched to a 4:3 ratio. This did not present significant problems, as most sets at the time used round tubes which were easily adjusted to the 4:3 ratio when the transmissions changed.
In the early 1950s, movie studios moved towards widescreen aspect ratios such as CinemaScope in an effort to distance their product from television. Although this was initially just a gimmick, widescreen is still the format of choice today and 4:3 aspect ratio movies are rare.
Yet the various television systems were not originally designed to be compatible with film at all. Traditional, narrow-screen movies are projected onto a television camera either so that the top of the screens line up to show facial features, or, for films with subtitles, the bottoms. What this means is that filmed newspapers or long captions filling the screen for explanation are cut off at each end. Similarly, while the frame rate of sound films is 24 per second, the screen scanning rate of the NTSC is 29.97 Hz (per second), which requires a complex scanning schedule. That of PAL and SECAM are 50 Hz, which means that films are shortened (and the sound is offkey) by scanning each frame twice for 25 per second.
The switch to digital television systems has been used as an opportunity to change the standard television picture format from the old ratio of 4:3 (1.33:1) to an aspect ratio of 16:9 (approximately 1.78:1). This enables TV to get closer to the aspect ratio of modern widescreen movies, which range from 1.66:1 through 1.85:1 to 2.35:1. There are two methods for transporting widescreen content, the most common of which uses what is called anamorphic widescreen format. This format is very similar to the technique used to fit a widescreen movie frame inside a 1.33:1 35 mm film frame. The image is compressed horizontally when recorded, then expanded again when played back. The anamorphic widescreen 16:9 format was first introduced via European PALplus television broadcasts and then later on "widescreen" Laser Discs and DVDs; the ATSC HDTV system uses straight widescreen format, no horizontal compression or expansion is used.
Recently "widescreen" has spread from television to computing where both desktop and laptop computers are commonly equipped with widescreen displays. There are some complaints about distortions of movie picture ratio due to some DVD playback software not taking account of aspect ratios; but this may subside as the DVD playback software matures. Furthermore, computer and laptop widescreen displays are in the 16:10 aspect ratio both physically in size and in pixel counts, and not in 16:9 of consumer televisions, leading to further complexity. This was a result of widescreen computer display engineers' assumption that people viewing 16:9 content on their computer would prefer that an area of the screen be reserved for playback controls, subtitles or their Taskbar, as opposed to viewing content full-screen.
Aspect ratio incompatibility
The television industry's changing of aspect ratios is not without difficulties, and can present a considerable problem.
Displaying a widescreen aspect (rectangular) image on a conventional aspect (square or 4:3) display can be shown:
* in "letterbox" format, with black horizontal bars at the top and bottom
* with part of the image being cropped, usually the extreme left and right of the image being cut off (or in "pan and scan", parts selected by an operator or a viewer)
* with the image horizontally compressed
A conventional aspect (square or 4:3) image on a widescreen aspect (rectangular with longer horizon) display can be shown:
* in "pillar box" format, with black vertical bars to the left and right
* with upper and lower portions of the image cut off (or in "tilt and scan", parts selected by an operator)
* with the image vertically compressed
A common compromise is to shoot or create material at an aspect ratio of 14:9, and to lose some image at each side for 4:3 presentation, and some image at top and bottom for 16:9 presentation. In recent years, the cinematographic process known as Super 35 (championed by James Cameron) has been used to film a number of major movies such as Titanic, Legally Blonde, Austin Powers, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This process results in a camera-negative which can then be used to create both wide-screen theatrical prints, and standard "full screen" releases for television/VHS/DVD which avoid the need for either "letterboxing" or the severe loss of information caused by conventional "pan-and-scan" cropping.
Television add-ons
The television was the first consumer mass market for video displays. Today there are many television add-ons including video game consoles, VCRs, Set-top boxes for Cable, Satellite and DVB-T compliant Digital Television reception, DVD players, or Digital Video Recorders (including personal video recorders, PVRs). The add-on market continues to grow as new technologies are developed. Computers, the internet, and even pocket devices such as the iPod provide other ways to consume video content.
The social aspects of television are influences this medium has had on society since its inception. The belief that this impact has been dramatic has been largely unchallenged in media theory since its inception. However, there is much dispute as to what those effects are, how serious the ramifications are and if these effects are more or less evolutionary with human communication.
Positive effects
Before TV, it can be considered that printing was the medium considered the main channel to access information and knowledge.
Media theorist Joshua Meyrowitz argues that the medium has guided its viewers to areas and subjects to which they were previously denied access. For example Elspeth Van Veeren argues that the television show 24 helps audiences to understand the global war on terror.
Social surrogacy hypothesis
Current research is discovering that individuals can employ television to create what is termed a parasocial or faux relationship with characters from their favorite television shows and movies as a way of deflecting feelings of loneliness and social deprivation. Just as an individual would spend time with a real person sharing opinions and thoughts, pseudo-relationships are formed with TV characters by becoming personally invested in their lives as if they were a close friend so that the individual can satiate the human desire to form meaningful relationships and establish themselves in society. Jaye Derrick and Shira Gabriel of the University of Buffalo, and Kurt Hugenberg of Miami University found that when an individual is not able to participate in interactions with real people, they are less likely to indicate feelings of loneliness when watching their favorite TV show.
They refer to this finding as the Social Surrogacy Hypothesis. Furthermore, when an event such as a fight or argument disrupts a personal relationship, watching a favorite TV show was able to create a cushion and prevent the individual from experiencing reduced self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy that can often accompany the perceived threat. By providing a temporary substitute for acceptance and belonging that is experienced through social relationships TV is helping to relieve feelings of depression and loneliness when those relationships are not available. This benefit is considered a positive consequence of watching television as it can counteract the psychological damage that is caused by isolation from social relationships.
Educational advantagesSeveral studies have found that television has many educational advantages. The Media Awareness Network, explains in its article, The Good Things about Television, that television can be a very powerful and effective learning tool for children if used wisely. The article states that television can help young people discover where they fit into society, develop closer relationships with peers and family, and teach them to understand complex social aspects of communication. Dimitri Christakis cites studies in which those who watched "Sesame Street" and other educational programs as preschoolers had higher grades, were reading more books, placed more value on achievement and were more creative. Similarly, while those exposed to negative role models suffered, those exposed to positive models behaved better.
Negative effects
There are many pejorative terms for television, including "boob tube" and "chewing gum for the mind", showing the disdain held by many people for this medium. Newton N. Minow spoke of the "vast wasteland" that was the television programming of the day in his 1961 speech.
Complaints about the social influence of television have been heard from the U.S. justice system as investigators and prosecutors decry what they refer to as “the CSI Syndrome.” They complain that, because of the popularity and considerable viewership of CSI and its spin-offs, juries today expect to be “dazzled,” and will acquit criminals of charges unless presented with impressive physical evidence, even when motive, testimony, and lack of alibi are presented by the prosecution.
Television has also been credited with changing the norms of social propriety, although the direction and value of this change are disputed. Milton Shulman, writing about television in the 1960s, wrote that “TV cartoons showed cows without udders and not even a pause was pregnant,” and noted that on-air vulgarity was highly frowned upon. Shulman suggested that, even by the 1970s, television was shaping the ideas of propriety and appropriateness in the countries the medium blanketed. He asserted that, as a particularly “pervasive and ubiquitous” medium, television could create a comfortable familiarity with and acceptance of language and behavior once deemed socially unacceptable. Television, as well as influencing its viewers, evoked an imitative response from other competing media as they struggle to keep pace and retain viewer- or readership.
According to recent research, conducted by John Robinson and Steven Martin from the University of Maryland, people who are not satisfied with their lives spend 30% more time watching TV than satisfied people do. The research was conducted with 30,000 people during the period between 1975 and 2006. This new study slightly contradicted previous research, which concluded that watching TV was the happiest time of the day for some people. However, prof. Robinson commented that watching TV could bring a short-time happiness, which would be just a result of an overall dissatisfaction.
Psychological effects
Some studies suggest that, when a person plays video games or watches TV, the basal ganglia portion of the brain becomes very active and dopamine is released. Some scientists believe that release of high amounts of dopamine reduces the amount of the neurotransmitter available for other purposes, although this remains a controversial conclusion. A study conducted by Herbert Krugman found that while viewers are watching television the right side of the brain is twice as active as the left which causes a state of hypnosis.
Physical effects
Studies in both children and adults have found an association between the number of hours of television watched and obesity. A study found that watching television decreases the metabolic rate in children to below that found in children at rest. Author John Steinbeck describes television watchers:
"I have observed the physical symptoms of television-looking on children as well as on adults. The mouth grows slack and the lips hang open; the eyes take on a hypnotized or doped look; the nose runs rather more than usual; the backbone turns to water and the fingers slowly and methodically pick the designs out of brocade furniture. Such is the appearance of semiconsciousness that one wonders how much of the ‘message’ of television is getting through to the brain."
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children under two years of age should not watch any television and children two and older should watch one to two hours at most. Children who watch more than four hours of television a day are more likely to become overweight.
TV watching and other sedentary activities is associated with greater risk of heart attack.
Alleged dangers
Legislators, scientists and parents are debating the effects of television violence on viewers, particularly youth. Fifty years of research on the impact of television on children's emotional and social development have not ended this debate.
Bushman & Anderson among others have claimed that the evidence clearly supports a causal relationship between media violence and societal violence. However other authors note significant methodological problems with the literature and mismatch between increasing media violence and decreasing crime rates in the United States.
A 2002 article in Scientific American suggested that compulsive television watching, television addiction, was no different from any other addiction, a finding backed up by reports of withdrawal symptoms among families forced by circumstance to cease watching. However this view has not yet received widespread acceptance among all scholars, and "television addiction" is not a diagnoseable condition according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual -IV -TR.
A longitudinal study in New Zealand involving 1000 people (from childhood to 26 years of age) demonstrated that "television viewing in childhood and adolescence is associated with poor educational achievement by 12 years of age". The same paper noted that there was a significant negative association between time spent watching television per day as a child and educational attainment by age 26: the more time a child spent watching television at ages 5 to 15, the less likely they were to have a university degree by age 26. A study published in the Journal of Sexuality Research and Social Policy concluded that parental television involvement was associated with greater body satisfaction among adolescent girls, less sexual experience amongst both male and female adolescents, and that parental television involvement may influence self-esteem and body image, in part by increasing parent-child closeness. Numerous studies have been done on the relationship between TV viewing and school grades. Many studies have found little or no effect of television viewing on viewers. For example a recent long-term outcome study of youth found no long-term relationship between watching violent television and youth violence or bullying On July 26, 2000 the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry stated that "prolonged viewing of media violence can lead to emotional desensitization toward violence in real life." However, scholars have since analyzed several statements in this release, both about the number of studies conducted, and a comparison with medical effects, and found many errors (Block & Crain, 2007; Freedman, 2002)
Propaganda
Television is used to promote commercial, social and political agendas. Use of public service announcements (including those paid for by governing bodies or politicians), news and current affairs, television advertisement, advertorials and talk shows are used to influence public opinion. The Cultivation Hypothesis suggests that some viewers may begin to repeat questionable or even blatantly fictitious information gleaned from the media as if it were factual. Considerable debate remains, however, whether the Cultivation Hypothesis is well supported by scientific literature, however, the effectiveness of television for propaganda (including commercial advertising) is unsurpassed. The US military and State Department often turn to media to broadcast into hostile territory or nation.
Politics
Since it first became commercially available from the late 1930s, the television set has become a common household communications device in homes and institutions, particularly in the first world, as a source of entertainment and news.
Since the 1970s, video recordings on VCR tapes and later, digital playback systems such as DVDs, have enabled the television to be used to view recorded movies and other programs.
A television system may be made up of multiple components, so a screen which lacks an internal tuner to receive the broadcast signals is called a monitor rather than a television. A television may be built to receive different broadcast or video formats, such as high-definition television (HDTV).
The elements of a simple broadcast television system are:
* An image source. This is an electrical signal representing the visual image, and may be from a camera in the case of live images, a video tape recorder for playback of recorded images, or a film chain-telecine-flying spot scanner for transmission of motion pictures (films).
* A sound source. This is an electrical signal from a microphone or from the audio output of a video tape recorder or motion picture film scanner.
* A transmitter, which generates radio signals (radio waves) and encodes them with picture and sound information.
* An antenna coupled to the output of the transmitter for broadcasting the encoded signals.
* An antenna to receive the broadcast signals.
* A receiver (also called a tuner), which decodes the picture and sound information from the broadcast signals, and whose input is coupled to the antenna.
* A display device, which turns the electrical signals into visual images.
* An audio amplifier and loudspeaker, which turns electrical signals into sound waves (speech, music, and other sounds) to accompany the images.
Practical television systems include equipment for selecting different image sources, mixing images from several sources at once, insertion of pre-recorded video signals, synchronizing signals from many sources, and direct image generation by computer for such purposes as station identification. The facility for housing such equipment, as well as providing space for stages, sets, offices, etc., is called a television studio, and may be located many miles from the transmitter. Communication from the studio to the transmitter is accomplished via a dedicated cable or radio system.
Television signals were originally transmitted exclusively via land-based transmitters. The quality of reception varied greatly, dependent in large part on the location and type of receiving antenna. This led to the proliferation of large rooftop antennas to improve reception in the 1960s, replacing set-top dipole or "rabbit ears" antennas, which however remained popular. Antenna rotors, set-top controlled servo motors to which the mast of the antenna is mounted, to enable rotating the antenna such that it points to the desired transmitter, would also become popular.
In most cities today, cable television providers deliver signals over coaxial or fiber-optic cables for a fee. Signals can also be delivered by radio from satellites in geosynchronous orbit and received by parabolic dish antennas, which are comparatively large for analog signals, but much smaller for digital. Like cable providers, satellite television providers also require a fee, often less than cable systems. The affordability and convenience of digital satellite reception has led to the proliferation of small dish antennas outside many houses and apartments.
Digital systems may be inserted anywhere in the chain to provide better image transmission quality, reduction in transmission bandwidth, special effects, or security of transmission from reception by non-subscribers. A home today might have the choice of receiving analog or HDTV over the air, analog or digital cable with HDTV from a cable television company over coaxial cable, or even from the phone company over fiber optic lines. On the road, television can be received by pocket sized televisions, recorded on tape or digital media players, or played back on wireless phones (cell or "mobile" phones) over a high-speed or "broadband" internet connection.
History of Television (TV)
Few inventions have had as much effect on contemporary American society as television. Before 1947 the number of U.S. homes with television sets could be measured in the thousands. By the late 1990s, 98 percent of U.S. homes had at least one television set, and those sets were on for an average of more than seven hours a day. The typical American spends (depending on the survey and the time of year) from two-and-a-half to almost five hours a day watching television. It is significant not only that this time is being spent with television but that it is not being spent engaging in other activities, such as reading or going out or socializing.EXPERIMENTS
Electronic television was first successfully demonstrated in San Francisco on Sept. 7, 1927. The system was designed by Philo Taylor Farnsworth, a 21-year-old inventor who had lived in a house without electricity until he was 14. While still in high school, Farnsworth had begun to conceive of a system that could capture moving images in a form that could be coded onto radio waves and then transformed back into a picture on a screen. Boris Rosing in Russia had conducted some crude experiments in transmitting images 16 years before Farnsworth's first success. Also, a mechanical television system, which scanned images using a rotating disk with holes arranged in a spiral pattern, had been demonstrated by John Logie Baird in England and Charles Francis Jenkins in the United States earlier in the 1920s. However, Farnsworth's invention, which scanned images with a beam of electrons, is the direct ancestor of modern television. The first image he transmitted on it was a simple line. Soon he aimed his primitive camera at a dollar sign because an investor had asked, "When are we going to see some dollars in this thing, Farnsworth?"
EARLY DEVELOPMENT
RCA, the company that dominated the radio business in the United States with its two NBC networks, invested $50 million in the development of electronic television. To direct the effort, the company's president, David Sarnoff, hired the Russian-born scientist Vladimir Kosma Zworykin, who had participated in Rosing's experiments. In 1939, RCA televised the opening of the New York World's Fair, including a speech by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was the first president to appear on television. Later that year RCA paid for a license to use Farnsworth's television patents. RCA began selling television sets with 5 by 12 in (12.7 by 25.4 cm) picture tubes. The company also began broadcasting regular programs, including scenes captured by a mobile unit and, on May 17, 1939, the first televised baseball gameÑbetween Princeton and Columbia universities. By 1941 the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), RCA's main competition in radio, was broadcasting two 15-minute newscasts a day to a tiny audience on its New York television station.
Early television was quite primitive. All the action at that first televised baseball game had to be captured by a single camera, and the limitations of early cameras forced actors in dramas to work under impossibly hot lights, wearing black lipstick and green makeup (the cameras had trouble with the color white). The early newscasts on CBS were "chalk talks," with a newsman moving a pointer across a map of Europe, then consumed by war. The poor quality of the picture made it difficult to make out the newsman, let alone the map. World War II slowed the development of television, as companies like RCA turned their attention to military production. Television's progress was further slowed by a struggle over wavelength allocations with the new FM radio and a battle over government regulation. The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) 1941 ruling that the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) had to sell one of its two radio networks was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1943. The second network became the new American Broadcasting Company (ABC), which would enter television early in the next decade. Six experimental television stations remained on the air during the warÑone each in Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Schenectady, N.Y., and two in New York City. But full-scale commercial television broadcasting did not begin in the United States until 1947.
THE BEGINNING OF COMMERCIAL TELEVISION
By 1949 Americans who lived within range of the growing number of television stations in the country could watch, for example, The Texaco Star Theater (1948), starring Milton Berle, or the children's program, Howdy Doody (1947Ð60). They could also choose between two 15-minute newscastsÑCBS TV News (1948) with Douglas Edwards and NBC's Camel News Caravan (1948) with John Cameron Swayze (who was required by the tobacco company sponsor to have a burning cigarette always visible when he was on camera). Many early programsÑsuch as Amos 'n' Andy (1951) or The Jack Benny Show (1950Ð65)Ñwere borrowed from early television's older, more established Big Brother: network radio. Most of the formats of the new programsÑnewscasts, situation comedies, variety shows, and dramasÑwere borrowed from radio, too. NBC and CBS took the funds needed to establish this new medium from their radio profits. However, television networks soon would be making substantial profits of their own, and network radio would all but disappear, except as a carrier of hourly newscasts. Ideas on what to do with the element television added to radio, the visuals, sometimes seemed in short supply. On news programs, in particular, the temptation was to fill the screen with "talking heads," newscasters simply reading the news, as they might have for radio. For shots of news events, the networks relied initially on the newsreel companies, whose work had been shown previously in movie studios. The number of television sets in use rose from 6,000 in 1946 to some 12 million by 1951. No new invention entered American homes faster than black and white television sets; by 1955 half of all U.S. homes had one.
McCARTHYISM
In 1947 the House Committee on Un-American Activities began an investigation of the film industry, and Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy soon began to inveigh against what he claimed was Communist infiltration of the government. Broadcasting, too, felt the impact of this growing national witch-hunt. Three former members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published "Counterattack: The Newsletter of Facts on Communism," and in 1950 a pamphlet, "Red Channels," listed the supposedly Communist associations of 151 performing artists. Anti-Communist vigilantes applied pressure to advertisersÑthe source of network profits. Political beliefs suddenly became grounds for getting fired. Most of the producers, writers, and actors who were accused of having had left-wing leanings found themselves blacklisted, unable to get work. CBS even instituted a loyalty oath for its employees. Among the few individuals in television well positioned enough and brave enough to take a stand against McCarthyism was the distinguished former radio reporter Edward R. Murrow. In partnership with the news producer Fred Friendly, Murrow began See It Now, a television documentary series, in 1950. On Mar. 9, 1954, Murrow narrated a report on McCarthy, exposing the senator's shoddy tactics. Of McCarthy, Murrow observed, "His mistake has been to confuse dissent with disloyalty." A nervous CBS refused to promote Murrow and Friendly's program. Offered free time by CBS, McCarthy replied on April 6, calling Murrow "the leader and the cleverest of the jackal pack which is always found at the throat of anyone who dares to expose Communist traitors." In this TV appearance, McCarthy proved to be his own worst enemy, and it became apparent that Murrow had helped to break McCarthy's reign of fear. In 1954 the U.S. Senate censured McCarthy, and CBS's "security" office was closed down.
THE GOLDEN AGE
Between 1953 and 1955, television programming began to take some steps away from radio formats. NBC television president Sylvester Weaver devised the "spectacular," a notable example of which was Peter Pan (1955), starring Mary Martin, which attracted 60 million viewers. Weaver also developed the magazine-format programs Today, which made its debut in 1952 with Dave Garroway as host (until 1961), and The Tonight Show, which began in 1953 hosted by Steve Allen (until 1957). The third network, ABC, turned its first profit with youth-oriented shows such as Disneyland, which debuted in 1954 (and has since been broadcast under different names), and The Mickey Mouse Club.
The programming that dominated the two major networks in the mid-1950s borrowed heavily from another medium: theater. NBC and CBS presented such noteworthy, and critically acclaimed, dramatic anthologies as Kraft Television Theater (1947), Studio One (1948), Playhouse 90 (1956), and The U.S. Steel Hour (1953). Memorable television dramas of the eraÑmost of them broadcast liveÑincluded Paddy Chayefsky's Marty (1955), starring Rod Steiger (Ernest Borgnine starred in the film), and Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men (1954). By the 1955Ð56 television season, 14 of these live-drama anthology series were being broadcast. This is often looked back on as the "Golden Age" of television. However, by 1960 only one of these series was still on the air. Viewers apparently preferred dramas or comedies that, while perhaps less literary, at least had the virtue of sustaining a familiar set of characters week after week. I Love Lucy, the hugely successful situation comedy starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, had been recorded on film since it debuted in 1951 (lasting until 1957). It had many imitators. The Honeymooners, starring Jackie Gleason, was first broadcast, also via film, in 1955 (lasting until 1956 with the original cast). The first videotape recorder was invented by Ampex in 1956. Another format introduced in the mid-1950s was the big-money quiz show. The $64,000 Question (1955Ð58) and Twenty-One (1956Ð58) quickly shot to the top of the ratings. In 1959, however, the creator of The $64,000 Question, Louis C. Cowan, by that time president of CBS television, was forced to resign from the network amid revelations of widespread fixing of game shows.
TELEVISION AND POLITICS
Television news first covered the presidential nominating conventions of the two major parties, events then still at the heart of America politics, in 1952. The term "anchorman" was used, probably for the first time, to describe Walter Cronkite's central role in CBS's convention coverage that year. In succeeding decades these conventions would become so concerned with looking good on television that they would lose their spontaneity and eventually their news value. The power of television news increased with the arrival of the popular newscast, The Huntley-Brinkley Report, on NBC in 1956. The networks had begun producing their own news film. Increasingly, they began to compete with newspapers as the country's primary source of news.
The election of a young and vital president in 1960, John F. Kennedy, seemed to provide evidence of how profoundly television would change politics. Commentators pointed to the first televised debate that fall between Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for president, and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, the Republican's nominee. A survey of those who listened to the debate on radio indicated that Nixon had won; however, those who watched on television, and were able to contrast Nixon's poor posture and poorly shaven face with Kennedy's poise and grace, were more likely to think Kennedy had won the debate. Television's coverage of the assassination of President Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, and of the events that followed, provided further evidence of the medium's power. Most Americans joined in watching coverage of the shocking and tragic events, not as crowds in the streets, but from their own living rooms. A newscast that would soon surpass the popularity of Huntley-Brinkley, The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, debuted in 1962 (and was broadcast until 1981). By the end of the decade Cronkite had become not just a highly respected journalist but, according to public opinion surveys, "the most trusted man in America." His role in coverage of the Vietnam War would be important. While the overwhelming majority of television news reports on the Vietnam War were supportive of U.S. policy, television news film of the fighting sometimes gave Americans back home an unfamiliar, harsh, and unromantic view of combat. Many believed it contributed to growing public dissatisfaction with the war. And some of the anger of those defending U.S. policy in Vietnam was leveled against television news. In 1965, CBS reporter Morley Safer accompanied a group of U.S. Marines on a "search and destroy" mission to a complex of hamlets called Cam Ne. The Marines faced no enemy resistance, yet they held cigarette lighters to the thatched roofs and proceeded to "waste" Cam Ne. After much debate, Safer's filmed report on the incident was shown on CBS. Early the next morning the president of CBS received an angry phone call from the president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, accusing the network of a lack of patriotism. During the Tet offensive in 1968, Cronkite went to Vietnam to report a documentary on the state of the war. That documentary, broadcast on Feb. 28, 1968, concluded with what Cronkite has described as "a clearly labeled editorial": "It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out will be to negotiate," he said. President Johnson was watching Cronkite's report. According to Bill Moyers, one of his press aides at the time: "The president flipped off the set and said, `If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America.'"
THE THREE NETWORKS AT THE HEIGHT OF THEIR POWER
In 1964 color broadcasting began on prime-time television. The FCC initially approved a CBS color system, then swung in RCA's favor after Sarnoff swamped the marketplace with black-and-white sets compatible with RCA color (the CBS color system was not compatible with black-and-white sets and would have required the purchase of new sets). During the 1960s and 1970s a country increasingly fascinated with television was limited to watching almost exclusively what appeared on the three major networks: CBS, NBC, and ABC. These networks purchased time to broadcast their programs from about 200 affiliates eachÑstations in each of the major cities or metropolitan areas of the United States. In the larger cities, there might also be a few independent stations (mostly playing reruns of old network shows) and perhaps a fledgling public broadcasting channel. Programming on each of the three networks was designed to grab a mass audience. Network shows therefore catered, as critics put it, to the lowest common denominator. James Aubrey, president of CBS television, doubled the network's profits between 1960 and 1966 by broadcasting simple comedies like The Beverly Hillbillies (1962Ð71). In 1961, Newton Minow, then chairman of the FCC, called television a "vast wasteland." Programming became a little more adventurous with the arrival of more realistic situation comedies, beginning with CBS's All in the Family in 1971 (broadcast until 1979). Along with situation comediesÑusually a half-hour focused on either a family and their neighbors or a group of co-workersÑthe other main staple of network prime-time programming has been the one-hour drama, featuring the adventures of police, detectives, doctors, lawyers, or, in the early decades of television, cowboys. Daytime television programming consisted primarily of soap operas and quiz shows until the 1980s, when talk shows discussing subjects that were formerly taboo, such as sexuality, became popular.
The three major networks have always been in a continual race for ratings and advertising dollars. CBS and NBC dominated through the mid-1970s, when ABC, traditionally regarded as a poor third, rose to the top of the ratings, largely because of shrewd scheduling.
PUBLIC BROADCASTING
A Carnegie Commission report in 1967 recommended the creation of a fourth, noncommercial, public television network built around the educational nonprofit stations already in operation throughout the United States. Congress created the Public Broadcasting System that year. Unlike commercial networks, which are centered in New York and Los Angeles, PBS's key stations, many of which produce programs that are shown throughout the network, are spread across the country. PBS comprises more than 300 stations, more than any commercial network. Some of the most praised programs on PBS, such as the dramatic series Upstairs, Downstairs (1971), have been imports from Britain, which has long had a reputation for producing high-quality television. Perhaps the most influential of PBS's original contributions to American television were the educational program for preschoolers, Sesame Street, which first appeared in 1969Ñand is still a popular programÑand a thoughtful news program called The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (1995; originally The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, first broadcast in 1975Ñsee MacNeil, Robert and Lehrer, Jim). Among the many special series produced for public broadcasting, The Civil War (1990), a five-part historical documentary, was particularly successful and won some of the largest audiences ever achieved by public TV. PBS funds come from three major sources: congressional appropriations (which suffered substantial cuts beginning in 1982), viewer donations, and private corporate underwriters. None of these types of contributions are problem-free. Government funding brings the possibility of government interference. Conservatives, dating back to the Nixon administration, have pressured PBS to make its programming less liberal. The search for viewer donations has led to long on-air fundraising campaigns. And some critics contend that the need to win corporate support discourages programming that might challenge corporate values.
THE RISE OF CABLE
The force that would challenge the dominance of the three major television networks and offer Americans the choice of dozens and potentially hundreds of television channelsÑcable TVÑbegan quietly in a few geographically isolated towns. Large antennas erected in high places gave everyone connected the chance to receive all the channels available in the nearest city. By 1960 the United States had about 640 such CATV (community antenna television) systems. It soon became apparent, however, that the "television deprived" were not the only viewers who might want access to additional channels and additional programming. In New York City, cable operators contracted to broadcast the home games of the local basketball and hockey teams. By 1971 cable had more than 80,000 subscribers in New York. Then networks specifically designed to be distributed by the cable system began to appear: Time Inc.'s Home Box Office (HBO) in 1975; Ted Turner's "superstation," soon renamed WTBS, in 1976; C-SPAN (live broadcasts of the House of Representatives), ESPN (sports), and Nickelodeon (children's programming), all in 1979. Turner followed with the Cable News Network (CNN) the next year.
INTERNATIONAL GROWTH
Television's development followed different patterns in other countries. Often government, not private corporations, owned some, most, or all of the major networks. In Great Britain the British Broadcasting Corporation, the country's dominant radio broadcaster, established and retained dominance over television. The BBC, funded by a tax on the sale of television sets, established a worldwide reputation for producing quality programming. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, also freed by government support from many commercial pressures, was praised by some observers for the seriousness of much of its news and public-affairs programming. France's major television networks were also supported by the government; however, in France that support was seen as encouraging a tilt in news coverage toward the side of whatever party happened to be in power. By the late 1980s and 1990s, as cable and direct-satellite television systems increased the number of channels, the hold of these government-funded networks began to weaken. Most countries around the world began moving more toward the U.S. model of privately owned, advertiser-supported television networks.
POLITICS ADAPTS TO TELEVISION
By the 1980s politicians and government leaders were familiar enough with the workings of television to be able to exploit the medium to their own ends. This seemed particularly apparent during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, himself formerly the host of a television show (General Electric Theater, 1954Ð62). Reagan's skilled advisors were masters of the art of arranging flags and releasing balloons to place him in the most attractive settings. They also knew how to craft and release messages to maximize positive coverage on television newscasts. The Persian Gulf War in 1991 provided further proof of the power of television, with pictures of U.S. bombs falling on the Iraqi capital broadcast live in the United States. Both Iraqi and U.S. leaders admitted to monitoring CNN to help keep up with news of the war. However, the U.S. Defense Department, armed with lessons learned in Vietnam, succeeded in keeping most reporters well away from the action and the bloodshed. Instead, pictures were provided to television by the military of "smart" bombs deftly hitting their targets.
NEW TECHNOLOGIES
In the 1980s, home videocassette recorders became widely available. Viewers gained the ability to record and replay programs and, more significantly, to rent and watch movies at times of their own choosing in their own homes. Video games also became popular during this decade, particularly with the young, and the television, formally just the site of passive entertainment, became an intricate, moving, computerized game board. The number of cable networks grew throughout the 1980s and then exploded in the 1990s as improved cable technology and direct-broadcast satellite television multiplied the channels available to viewers. The number of broadcast networks increased also, with the success of the Fox network and then the arrival of the UPN and WB networks. The share the broadcast networks attracted continued to erode, from well over 90 percent in the early 1980s to under 50 percent by 1997. Although the population of the United States has continued to grow, the Nielson Media Research company estimated that fewer people watched the highly publicized final episode of Seinfeld in 1998 (first aired in 1990) than watched the final episode of MASH in 1983 (first aired in 1972). The trial of former football star O. J. Simpson in 1994 for the murder of his wife (he was acquitted) further demonstrated the hold that cable networks had on American audiences. Some stations carried almost every minute of the lengthy trial live and then filled the evening with talk shows dissecting that day's developments. The effects of television on children, particularly through its emphasis on violence and sex, has long been an issue for social scientists, parents, and politicians. In the late 1980s and 1990s, with increased competition brought on by the proliferation of cable networks, talk shows and "tabloid" news shows seemed to broaden further frank or sensational on-air discussion of sex.
In response to government pressure, the television industry decided to display ratings of its programs in 1996. The ratings were designed to indicate the age groups for which the programs might be suitable: TV-G (for general audiences), TV-PG (parental guidance suggested), TV-14 (unsuitable for children under 14), and TV-MA (for mature audiences only). In response to additional complaints, all the networks except NBC agreed the next year to add V (for violence), S (for sex), L (for course language) and D (for suggestive dialogue) to those ratings. Also, the "V-chip" imbedded in new television sets, in accordance with a provision of a telecommunications bill passed in 1996, gave parents the power to automatically prevent their children from watching television programs with inappropriate ratings. Critics of the ratings saw them as a step toward censorship and questioned whether a TV-14 rating would make a program seem more, not less, attractive to an inquisitive child. In 1997 the federal government gave each U.S. television broadcaster an additional channel on which to introduce high definition television, or HDTV. Initial transmissions of this high-resolution form of television, in which images appear much sharper and clearer, began in 1998. Standard television sets cannot pick up HDTV and will presumably have to be replaced or modified by 2006, when traditional, low-definition television broadcasts are scheduled to end and broadcasters are scheduled to return their original, non-HDTV channel to the government. The HDTV format approved in the United States calls for television signals to be transmitted digitally. This will allow for further convergence between computers, the Internet, and television.
In 1998 it was already possible to view video on the World Wide Web and to see and search television broadcasts on a computer. As computers become more powerful, they should be able to handle video as easily as they now handle text. The television schedule may eventually be replaced by a system in which viewers are able to watch digitally stored and distributed programs or segments of programs whenever they want. Such technological changes, including the spread of new cable networks, have been arriving slower in most other countries than in the United States. Indeed, according to one survey, it was only in the 1990s that the spread of television transmitters, television sets, and electricity made it possible for half of the individuals in the world to watch television. However, television's attraction globally is strong. Those human beings who have a television set watch it, by one estimate, for an average of two-and-a-half hours a day.
Technology of television
The technology of television has changed since its early days using a mechanical system invented by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow in 1884.
Elements of a television system
The elements of a simple broadcast television system are:
* An image source. This is the electrical signal representing the visual image, and may be from a camera in the case of live images, a video tape recorder for playback of recorded images, or a film chain-telecine-flying spot scanner for transmission of motion pictures (films).
* A sound source. This is an electrical signal from a microphone or from the audio output of a video tape recorder or motion picture film scanner.
* A transmitter, which generates radio signals (radio waves) and encodes them with picture and sound information.
* An antenna coupled to the output of the transmitter for broadcasting the encoded signals.
* An antenna to receive the broadcast signals.
* A receiver (also called a tuner), which decodes the picture and sound information from the broadcast signals, and whose input is coupled to the antenna.
* A display device, which turns the electrical signals into visual images.
* An audio amplifier and loudspeaker, which turns electrical signals into sound waves (speech, music, and other sounds) to accompany the images.
Practical television systems include equipment for selecting different image sources, mixing images from several sources at once, insertion of pre-recorded video signals, synchronizing signals from many sources, and direct image generation by computer for such purposes as station identification. The facility for housing such equipment, as well as providing space for stages, sets, offices, etc., is called a television studio, and may be located many miles from the transmitter. Communication from the studio to the transmitter is accomplished via a dedicated cable or radio system.
Television signals were originally transmitted exclusively via land-based transmitters. The quality of reception varied greatly, dependent in large part on the location and type of receiving antenna. This led to the proliferation of large rooftop antennas to improve reception in the 1960s, replacing set-top dipole or "rabbit ears" antennas, which however remained popular. Antenna rotors, set-top controlled servo motors to which the mast of the antenna is mounted, to enable rotating the antenna such that it points to the desired transmitter, would also become popular.
In most cities today, cable television providers deliver signals over coaxial or fiber-optic cables for a fee. Signals can also be delivered by radio from satellites in geosynchronous orbit and received by parabolic dish antennas, which are comparatively large for analog signals, but much smaller for digital. Like cable providers, satellite television providers also require a fee, often less than cable systems. The affordability and convenience of digital satellite reception has led to the proliferation of small dish antennas outside many houses and apartments.
Digital systems may be inserted anywhere in the chain to provide better image transmission quality, reduction in transmission bandwidth, special effects, or security of transmission from reception by non-subscribers. A home today might have the choice of receiving analog or HDTV over the air, analog or digital cable with HDTV from a cable television company over coaxial cable, or even from the phone company over fiber optic lines. On the road, television can be received by pocket sized televisions, recorded on tape or digital media players, or played back on wireless phones (mobile or "cell" phones) over a high-speed or "broadband" internet connection.
Display technology
Thanks to the advances in display technology, there are now several kinds of video displays used in modern TV sets:
* CRT (cathode-ray tube): The most common screens were direct-view CRTs for up to roughly 100 cm (40 inch) (in 4:3 ratio) and 115 cm (45 inch) (in 16:9 ratio) diagonals. These are the least expensive, and are a refined technology that can still provide the best overall picture quality value. As they do not have a fixed native resolution, they are capable of displaying sources with different resolutions at the best possible image quality. The frame rate or refresh rate of a typical NTSC format CRT TV is 29.97 Hz, and for the PAL format, 25 Hz, both are scanned with two fields per frame in an interlaced fashion. A typical NTSC broadcast signal's visible portion has an equivalent resolution of about 640x480 pixels. It actually could be slightly higher than that, but the vertical blanking interval (VBI), allows other signals to be carried along with the broadcast.
* Rear Projection (RPTV): Most very large screen TVs (up to 254 cm (100 inch) and beyond) use projection technology. Three types of projection systems are used in projection TVs: CRT-based, LCD-based, and DLP (reflective micromirror chip) -based, D-ILA and LCOS-based. Projection television has been commercially available since the 1970s, but at that time could not match the image sharpness of the CRT; current models are vastly improved, and offer a cost-effective large-screen display.
o A variation is a video projector, using similar technology, which projects onto a screen. This is often referred to as "front projection".
* Flat panel (LCD or plasma): Modern advances have brought flat panels to TV that use active matrix LCD or plasma display technology. Flat panel LCDs and plasma displays are as little as 25.4 mm (1 inch) thick and can be hung on a wall like a picture or put over a pedestal. Some models can also be used as computer monitors.
* LED technology has become one of the choices for outdoor video and stadium uses, since the advent of bright LEDs and driver circuits. LEDs enable scalable ultra-large flat panel video displays that other technologies are currently not able to match in performance.
Each has its pros and cons. Flat panel LCD and plasma displays have a wide viewing angle (around 178 degrees) so they may best suited for a home theatre with a wide seating arrangement. Rear projection screens do not perform well in daylight or well-lit rooms and so are only suited to darker viewing areas.
Terminology for televisions
Pixel resolution is the number of pixels of one row on a given screen. Before the year 2000 horizontal lines of resolution was the standard method of measurement for analog video. For example, a VHS VCR might be described as having 250 lines of resolution as measured across a circle circumscribed in the center of the screen (approximately 440 pixels edge-to-edge).
A typical resolution of 720×480 and 720x576 means that the television display has 720 pixels across and 480 or 576 pixels on the vertical axis. The higher the resolution on a specified display the sharper the image. Contrast ratio is a measurement of the range between the lightest and darkest points on the screen.
The higher the contrast ratio, the better looking picture there is in terms of richness, deepness, and shadow detail. The brightness of a picture measures how vibrant and impacting the colors are. Measured in cd / m2 equivalent to the amount of candles required to power the image.
On the other hand, the so-called brightness and contrast adjustment controls on televisions and monitors are traditionally used to control different aspects of the picture display. The brightness control shifts the black level, affecting the image intensity or brightness, while the contrast control adjusts the contrast range of the image.
Transmission band
There are various bands on which televisions operate depending upon the country. The VHF and UHF signals in bands III to V are generally used. Lower frequencies do not have enough bandwidth available for television. Although the BBC initially used Band I VHF at 45 MHz, this frequency is (in the UK) no longer in use for this purpose. Band II is used for FM radio transmissions. Higher frequencies behave more like light and do not penetrate buildings or travel around obstructions well enough to be used in a conventional broadcast TV system, so they are generally only used for MMDS and satellite television, which uses frequencies from 2 to 12 GHz. TV systems in most countries relay the video as an AM (amplitude-modulation) signal and the sound as an FM (frequency-modulation) signal. An exception is France, where the sound is AM.
Aspect ratios
Aspect ratio refers to the ratio of the horizontal to vertical measurements of a television's picture. Mechanically scanned television as first demonstrated by John Logie Baird in 1926 used a 7:3 vertical aspect ratio, oriented for the head and shoulders of a single person in close-up.
Most of the early electronic TV systems, from the mid-1930s onward, shared the same aspect ratio of 4:3 which was chosen to match the Academy Ratio used in cinema films at the time. This ratio was also square enough to be conveniently viewed on round cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), which were all that could be produced given the manufacturing technology of the time. (Today's CRT technology allows the manufacture of much wider tubes, and the flat-screen technologies which are becoming steadily more popular have no technical aspect ratio limitations at all.) The BBC's television service used a more squarish 5:4 ratio from 1936 to 3 April 1950, when it too switched to a 4:3 ratio. This did not present significant problems, as most sets at the time used round tubes which were easily adjusted to the 4:3 ratio when the transmissions changed.
In the early 1950s, movie studios moved towards widescreen aspect ratios such as CinemaScope in an effort to distance their product from television. Although this was initially just a gimmick, widescreen is still the format of choice today and 4:3 aspect ratio movies are rare.
Yet the various television systems were not originally designed to be compatible with film at all. Traditional, narrow-screen movies are projected onto a television camera either so that the top of the screens line up to show facial features, or, for films with subtitles, the bottoms. What this means is that filmed newspapers or long captions filling the screen for explanation are cut off at each end. Similarly, while the frame rate of sound films is 24 per second, the screen scanning rate of the NTSC is 29.97 Hz (per second), which requires a complex scanning schedule. That of PAL and SECAM are 50 Hz, which means that films are shortened (and the sound is offkey) by scanning each frame twice for 25 per second.
The switch to digital television systems has been used as an opportunity to change the standard television picture format from the old ratio of 4:3 (1.33:1) to an aspect ratio of 16:9 (approximately 1.78:1). This enables TV to get closer to the aspect ratio of modern widescreen movies, which range from 1.66:1 through 1.85:1 to 2.35:1. There are two methods for transporting widescreen content, the most common of which uses what is called anamorphic widescreen format. This format is very similar to the technique used to fit a widescreen movie frame inside a 1.33:1 35 mm film frame. The image is compressed horizontally when recorded, then expanded again when played back. The anamorphic widescreen 16:9 format was first introduced via European PALplus television broadcasts and then later on "widescreen" Laser Discs and DVDs; the ATSC HDTV system uses straight widescreen format, no horizontal compression or expansion is used.
Recently "widescreen" has spread from television to computing where both desktop and laptop computers are commonly equipped with widescreen displays. There are some complaints about distortions of movie picture ratio due to some DVD playback software not taking account of aspect ratios; but this may subside as the DVD playback software matures. Furthermore, computer and laptop widescreen displays are in the 16:10 aspect ratio both physically in size and in pixel counts, and not in 16:9 of consumer televisions, leading to further complexity. This was a result of widescreen computer display engineers' assumption that people viewing 16:9 content on their computer would prefer that an area of the screen be reserved for playback controls, subtitles or their Taskbar, as opposed to viewing content full-screen.
Aspect ratio incompatibility
The television industry's changing of aspect ratios is not without difficulties, and can present a considerable problem.
Displaying a widescreen aspect (rectangular) image on a conventional aspect (square or 4:3) display can be shown:
* in "letterbox" format, with black horizontal bars at the top and bottom
* with part of the image being cropped, usually the extreme left and right of the image being cut off (or in "pan and scan", parts selected by an operator or a viewer)
* with the image horizontally compressed
A conventional aspect (square or 4:3) image on a widescreen aspect (rectangular with longer horizon) display can be shown:
* in "pillar box" format, with black vertical bars to the left and right
* with upper and lower portions of the image cut off (or in "tilt and scan", parts selected by an operator)
* with the image vertically compressed
A common compromise is to shoot or create material at an aspect ratio of 14:9, and to lose some image at each side for 4:3 presentation, and some image at top and bottom for 16:9 presentation. In recent years, the cinematographic process known as Super 35 (championed by James Cameron) has been used to film a number of major movies such as Titanic, Legally Blonde, Austin Powers, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This process results in a camera-negative which can then be used to create both wide-screen theatrical prints, and standard "full screen" releases for television/VHS/DVD which avoid the need for either "letterboxing" or the severe loss of information caused by conventional "pan-and-scan" cropping.
Television add-ons
The television was the first consumer mass market for video displays. Today there are many television add-ons including video game consoles, VCRs, Set-top boxes for Cable, Satellite and DVB-T compliant Digital Television reception, DVD players, or Digital Video Recorders (including personal video recorders, PVRs). The add-on market continues to grow as new technologies are developed. Computers, the internet, and even pocket devices such as the iPod provide other ways to consume video content.
Social aspects and effects of television
The social aspects of television are influences this medium has had on society since its inception. The belief that this impact has been dramatic has been largely unchallenged in media theory since its inception. However, there is much dispute as to what those effects are, how serious the ramifications are and if these effects are more or less evolutionary with human communication.
Positive effects
Before TV, it can be considered that printing was the medium considered the main channel to access information and knowledge.
Media theorist Joshua Meyrowitz argues that the medium has guided its viewers to areas and subjects to which they were previously denied access. For example Elspeth Van Veeren argues that the television show 24 helps audiences to understand the global war on terror.
Social surrogacy hypothesis
Current research is discovering that individuals can employ television to create what is termed a parasocial or faux relationship with characters from their favorite television shows and movies as a way of deflecting feelings of loneliness and social deprivation. Just as an individual would spend time with a real person sharing opinions and thoughts, pseudo-relationships are formed with TV characters by becoming personally invested in their lives as if they were a close friend so that the individual can satiate the human desire to form meaningful relationships and establish themselves in society. Jaye Derrick and Shira Gabriel of the University of Buffalo, and Kurt Hugenberg of Miami University found that when an individual is not able to participate in interactions with real people, they are less likely to indicate feelings of loneliness when watching their favorite TV show.
They refer to this finding as the Social Surrogacy Hypothesis. Furthermore, when an event such as a fight or argument disrupts a personal relationship, watching a favorite TV show was able to create a cushion and prevent the individual from experiencing reduced self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy that can often accompany the perceived threat. By providing a temporary substitute for acceptance and belonging that is experienced through social relationships TV is helping to relieve feelings of depression and loneliness when those relationships are not available. This benefit is considered a positive consequence of watching television as it can counteract the psychological damage that is caused by isolation from social relationships.
Educational advantagesSeveral studies have found that television has many educational advantages. The Media Awareness Network, explains in its article, The Good Things about Television, that television can be a very powerful and effective learning tool for children if used wisely. The article states that television can help young people discover where they fit into society, develop closer relationships with peers and family, and teach them to understand complex social aspects of communication. Dimitri Christakis cites studies in which those who watched "Sesame Street" and other educational programs as preschoolers had higher grades, were reading more books, placed more value on achievement and were more creative. Similarly, while those exposed to negative role models suffered, those exposed to positive models behaved better.
Negative effects
There are many pejorative terms for television, including "boob tube" and "chewing gum for the mind", showing the disdain held by many people for this medium. Newton N. Minow spoke of the "vast wasteland" that was the television programming of the day in his 1961 speech.
Complaints about the social influence of television have been heard from the U.S. justice system as investigators and prosecutors decry what they refer to as “the CSI Syndrome.” They complain that, because of the popularity and considerable viewership of CSI and its spin-offs, juries today expect to be “dazzled,” and will acquit criminals of charges unless presented with impressive physical evidence, even when motive, testimony, and lack of alibi are presented by the prosecution.
Television has also been credited with changing the norms of social propriety, although the direction and value of this change are disputed. Milton Shulman, writing about television in the 1960s, wrote that “TV cartoons showed cows without udders and not even a pause was pregnant,” and noted that on-air vulgarity was highly frowned upon. Shulman suggested that, even by the 1970s, television was shaping the ideas of propriety and appropriateness in the countries the medium blanketed. He asserted that, as a particularly “pervasive and ubiquitous” medium, television could create a comfortable familiarity with and acceptance of language and behavior once deemed socially unacceptable. Television, as well as influencing its viewers, evoked an imitative response from other competing media as they struggle to keep pace and retain viewer- or readership.
According to recent research, conducted by John Robinson and Steven Martin from the University of Maryland, people who are not satisfied with their lives spend 30% more time watching TV than satisfied people do. The research was conducted with 30,000 people during the period between 1975 and 2006. This new study slightly contradicted previous research, which concluded that watching TV was the happiest time of the day for some people. However, prof. Robinson commented that watching TV could bring a short-time happiness, which would be just a result of an overall dissatisfaction.
Psychological effects
Some studies suggest that, when a person plays video games or watches TV, the basal ganglia portion of the brain becomes very active and dopamine is released. Some scientists believe that release of high amounts of dopamine reduces the amount of the neurotransmitter available for other purposes, although this remains a controversial conclusion. A study conducted by Herbert Krugman found that while viewers are watching television the right side of the brain is twice as active as the left which causes a state of hypnosis.
Physical effects
Studies in both children and adults have found an association between the number of hours of television watched and obesity. A study found that watching television decreases the metabolic rate in children to below that found in children at rest. Author John Steinbeck describes television watchers:
"I have observed the physical symptoms of television-looking on children as well as on adults. The mouth grows slack and the lips hang open; the eyes take on a hypnotized or doped look; the nose runs rather more than usual; the backbone turns to water and the fingers slowly and methodically pick the designs out of brocade furniture. Such is the appearance of semiconsciousness that one wonders how much of the ‘message’ of television is getting through to the brain."
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children under two years of age should not watch any television and children two and older should watch one to two hours at most. Children who watch more than four hours of television a day are more likely to become overweight.
TV watching and other sedentary activities is associated with greater risk of heart attack.
Alleged dangers
Legislators, scientists and parents are debating the effects of television violence on viewers, particularly youth. Fifty years of research on the impact of television on children's emotional and social development have not ended this debate.
Bushman & Anderson among others have claimed that the evidence clearly supports a causal relationship between media violence and societal violence. However other authors note significant methodological problems with the literature and mismatch between increasing media violence and decreasing crime rates in the United States.
A 2002 article in Scientific American suggested that compulsive television watching, television addiction, was no different from any other addiction, a finding backed up by reports of withdrawal symptoms among families forced by circumstance to cease watching. However this view has not yet received widespread acceptance among all scholars, and "television addiction" is not a diagnoseable condition according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual -IV -TR.
A longitudinal study in New Zealand involving 1000 people (from childhood to 26 years of age) demonstrated that "television viewing in childhood and adolescence is associated with poor educational achievement by 12 years of age". The same paper noted that there was a significant negative association between time spent watching television per day as a child and educational attainment by age 26: the more time a child spent watching television at ages 5 to 15, the less likely they were to have a university degree by age 26. A study published in the Journal of Sexuality Research and Social Policy concluded that parental television involvement was associated with greater body satisfaction among adolescent girls, less sexual experience amongst both male and female adolescents, and that parental television involvement may influence self-esteem and body image, in part by increasing parent-child closeness. Numerous studies have been done on the relationship between TV viewing and school grades. Many studies have found little or no effect of television viewing on viewers. For example a recent long-term outcome study of youth found no long-term relationship between watching violent television and youth violence or bullying On July 26, 2000 the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry stated that "prolonged viewing of media violence can lead to emotional desensitization toward violence in real life." However, scholars have since analyzed several statements in this release, both about the number of studies conducted, and a comparison with medical effects, and found many errors (Block & Crain, 2007; Freedman, 2002)
Propaganda
Television is used to promote commercial, social and political agendas. Use of public service announcements (including those paid for by governing bodies or politicians), news and current affairs, television advertisement, advertorials and talk shows are used to influence public opinion. The Cultivation Hypothesis suggests that some viewers may begin to repeat questionable or even blatantly fictitious information gleaned from the media as if it were factual. Considerable debate remains, however, whether the Cultivation Hypothesis is well supported by scientific literature, however, the effectiveness of television for propaganda (including commercial advertising) is unsurpassed. The US military and State Department often turn to media to broadcast into hostile territory or nation.
Politics
While the effects of television depend on what is actually consumed, Neil Postman argues that the dominance of entertaining, but not informative programming, creates a politically ignorant society, undermining democracy: "Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least-informed people in the Western world." However some broadcasters do offer Americans intelligent political narrative and argument. This offers otherwise ignorant viewers, who may not read about politics elsewhere, the opportunity to access current or historical political views, for example.
Technology trends
In its infancy, television was a time-dependent, fleeting medium; it acted on the schedule of the institutions that broadcast the television signal or operated the cable. Fans of regular shows planned their schedules so that they could be available to watch their shows at their time of broadcast. The term appointment television was coined by marketers to describe this kind of attachment.
The viewership's dependence on schedule lessened with the invention of programmable video recorders, such as the Videocassette recorder and the Digital video recorder. Consumers could watch programs on their own schedule once they were broadcast and recorded. Television service providers also offer video on demand, a set of programs which could be watched at any time.
Both mobile phone networks and the Internet can give us video streams; video sharing websites have become popular.
The Japanese manufacturer Scalar has developed a very small TV-system attached to the eyeglasses, called "Teleglass T3-F".
While women, who were “traditionally more isolated than men” were given equal opportunity to consume shows about more “manly” endeavors, men’s feminine sides are tapped by the emotional nature of many television programs.
Television played a significant role in the feminist movement. Although most of the women portrayed on television conformed to stereotypes, television also showed the lives of men as well as news and current affairs. These "other lives" portrayed on television left many women unsatisfied with their current socialization.
The representation of males and females on the television screen has been a subject of much discussion since the television became commercially available in the late 1930s. In 1964 Betty Friedan claimed that “television has represented the American Woman as a “stupid, unattractive, insecure little household drudge who spends her martyred mindless, boring days dreaming of love—and plotting nasty revenge against her husband.” As women started to revolt and protest to become equals in society in the 1960s and 1970s, their portrayal on the television was an issue that they addressed. Journalist Susan Faludi suggested, “The practices and programming of network television in the 1980s were an attempt to get back to those earlier stereotypes of women.” Through television, even the most homebound women can experience parts of our culture once considered primarily male, such as sports, war, business, medicine, law, and politics.
The inherent intimacy of television makes it one of the few public arenas in our society where men routinely wear makeup and are judged as much on their personal appearance and their "style" as on their "accomplishments."
From 1930 to 2007 daytime television hasn’t changed much. Soap operas and talk shows still dominate the daytime time slot. Prime time television since the 1950s has been aimed at and catered towards males. In 1952, 68% of characters in primetime dramas were male; in 1973, 74% of characters in these shows were male. In 1970 the National Organization for Women (NOW) took action. They formed a task force to study and change the “derogatory stereotypes of women on television.” In 1972 they challenged the licences of two network-owned stations on the basis of their sexist programming. In the 1960s the shows I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched insinuated that the only way that a woman could escape her duties was to use magic. Industry analysis Shari Anne Brill of Carat USA states, “For years, when men were behind the camera, women were really ditsy. Now you have female leads playing superheroes, or super business women.” Current network broadcasting features a range of female portrayals. This is evident in a 1999 study by Lauzen and Dozier showing that "43% of all major characters on television are female".
Suitability for audience
The viewership's dependence on schedule lessened with the invention of programmable video recorders, such as the Videocassette recorder and the Digital video recorder. Consumers could watch programs on their own schedule once they were broadcast and recorded. Television service providers also offer video on demand, a set of programs which could be watched at any time.
Both mobile phone networks and the Internet can give us video streams; video sharing websites have become popular.
The Japanese manufacturer Scalar has developed a very small TV-system attached to the eyeglasses, called "Teleglass T3-F".
Gender and television
While women, who were “traditionally more isolated than men” were given equal opportunity to consume shows about more “manly” endeavors, men’s feminine sides are tapped by the emotional nature of many television programs.
Television played a significant role in the feminist movement. Although most of the women portrayed on television conformed to stereotypes, television also showed the lives of men as well as news and current affairs. These "other lives" portrayed on television left many women unsatisfied with their current socialization.
The representation of males and females on the television screen has been a subject of much discussion since the television became commercially available in the late 1930s. In 1964 Betty Friedan claimed that “television has represented the American Woman as a “stupid, unattractive, insecure little household drudge who spends her martyred mindless, boring days dreaming of love—and plotting nasty revenge against her husband.” As women started to revolt and protest to become equals in society in the 1960s and 1970s, their portrayal on the television was an issue that they addressed. Journalist Susan Faludi suggested, “The practices and programming of network television in the 1980s were an attempt to get back to those earlier stereotypes of women.” Through television, even the most homebound women can experience parts of our culture once considered primarily male, such as sports, war, business, medicine, law, and politics.
The inherent intimacy of television makes it one of the few public arenas in our society where men routinely wear makeup and are judged as much on their personal appearance and their "style" as on their "accomplishments."
From 1930 to 2007 daytime television hasn’t changed much. Soap operas and talk shows still dominate the daytime time slot. Prime time television since the 1950s has been aimed at and catered towards males. In 1952, 68% of characters in primetime dramas were male; in 1973, 74% of characters in these shows were male. In 1970 the National Organization for Women (NOW) took action. They formed a task force to study and change the “derogatory stereotypes of women on television.” In 1972 they challenged the licences of two network-owned stations on the basis of their sexist programming. In the 1960s the shows I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched insinuated that the only way that a woman could escape her duties was to use magic. Industry analysis Shari Anne Brill of Carat USA states, “For years, when men were behind the camera, women were really ditsy. Now you have female leads playing superheroes, or super business women.” Current network broadcasting features a range of female portrayals. This is evident in a 1999 study by Lauzen and Dozier showing that "43% of all major characters on television are female".
Suitability for audience
Almost since television's inception there has been claims that some programming is, in one way or another, inappropriate, offensive or indecent.
This was not as much of a problem when books were the main source of information because the literacy level of books would often correspond with the "appropriate" topics for children. Topics unsuitable for children would be written for a higher level of literacy and when most children would try to read these books they would be beyond their literary capabilities.
With television, the literacy level required to understand is substantially lower as well as it being difficult to monitor a child's use of the device and anticipate the content that will be delivered through it. However, much research and development is being dedicated to regain control, monitor and restrict children's consumption of television.
Often, television can show children what adults may not want them to know. A key example of this is in the television show Father Knows Best where children are let in on perhaps the biggest secret: that adults keep secrets from them.
Critics such as Jean Kilborne have claimed that television, as well as other mass media images, harm the self image of young girls. Other commentators such as Sut Jhally make the case that television advertisers in the U.S. deliberately try to. George Gerbner has presented evidence that the frequent portrayals of crime, especially minority crime, has led to the Mean World Syndrome, the view among frequent viewers of television that crime rates are much higher than the actual data would indicate. In addition, a lot of television has been charged with presenting propaganda, political or otherwise, and being pitched at a low intellectual level.
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