It’s hard to believe that the first televisions started as a spinning disc and neon lamp that gave a blurry image the size of a business card. These early televisions started to become available around 1928 and 1929, and looked a bit like a dresser with a tiny porthole inside it. American engineer Philo Farnsworth transmitted the first television image in 1927 – a simple transmission of only sixty horizontal lines. The image transmitted? Fittingly, a dollar sign. Dollar Signs Transform into Dollars When Philo Farnsworth died in 1971, televisions were already standard fixtures in American households, and color televisions were beginning to become ubiquitous – by 1972, half of American households owned color television sets. A race was underway to sell more televisions, better televisions, and higher resolution televisions. That race hasn’t stopped yet: more recent advances in television technologies include the plasma screen TV and the LCD TV, along with a host of other new technologies that are currently competing for the title of the latest and greatest television screen technology. Plasma Screen Televisions It was in 1983 that IBM invented the first plasma screen monitor, but it wasn’t until 1992 that the Japanese company Fujitsu introduced a 21-inch, full color plasma screen display. Two years later in 1994, Panasonic Corporation began an effort to produce plasma screen televisions on a large scale. Plasma screen displays were the primary displays used for high-definition TV, or HDTV, until the early 2000s. Until that time, it was widely believed that plasma screens were the best screens for large displays (above 40 inches), and LCD screens were believed to be suitable only for smaller televisions. LCD Screen Televisions LCD stands for “liquid-crystal display”. Much thinner than traditional television screens, sales of LCD television screens only recently (in 2007) surpassed the traditional CRT or cathode ray tube television screens that have been in use since the 1950s. CRT television sets are heavier, larger, and in some ways more fragile than its new plasma and LCD screen cousins; for most who follow the advance of television technologies, CRT screens are ancient history. Relative to other television set technologies currently on the market, LCD television sales are quickly accelerating. Once dominant large-screen plasma TVs are quickly being pushed out of the market by LCD screens. LCD screens are not without their disadvantages. Anyone who’s ever had to watch a television show on an LCD screen from a funny angle understands that LCD screens do not display well at certain angles. LCD screens also use a great deal of power, and when they are disposed of they can release a harmful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, nitrogen triflouride. Nitrogen triflouride, or NF3, is potentially far more harmful than carbon dioxide. LCD screens also contain mercury, leading to a growing concern over what exactly happens to LCD screens that wind up in landfills and dumps around the world. For television consumers with an environmental conscience, therefore, LCDs are less desirable than plasma screen TVs or even traditional CRT television sets. The OLED – an LCD Competitor Samsung, Sony, and other companies are working on OLED television sets, which might be the next big thing in television technology. OLEDs are ultra-thin – some as thin as a sheet of paper – and offer a far clearer picture than LCD screens. Sony has plans to sell 11-inch OLED screens in 2009, with the a display only 3 mm in width; Samsung, Philips, and Neoview Kolon are also hoping to introduce their own OLED products soon. But LCD screen producers shouldn’t sweat yet; OLEDs are still very hard to make beyond a 27-inch size. The Future of Television Technologies Less than seventy years after Philo Farnsworth’s transmission of a dollar sign, over one billion televisions populated the planet. In most developed nations, the ratio is one television to every citizen. Regardless of how the battle between television technologies play out, consumers can know without a doubt that television technology will march on, at an increasingly rapid rate of advance. The sky is the limit in the face of rapidly increasing television technology, and soon even the sky itself might not be out of bounds.

Futuratty is a keen consumer electronics enthusiast and in reviewing the latest TVs really liked the latest LED TV range.

Tagged with: • •

Filed under: Useful HDTV Articles

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!