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A television set or television receiver (more commonly called TV, TV set, television, telly, or tele) is an electronic device for viewing and hearing television broadcasts. It combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers. Introduced in the late 1920s in mechanical form, television sets became a popular consumer product after World War II in electronic form, using cathode-ray tube (CRT) technology. The addition of color to broadcast television after 1953 further increased the popularity of television sets in the 1960s, and an outdoor antenna became a common feature of suburban homes. The ubiquitous television set became the display device for the first recorded media for consumer use in the 1970s, such as Betamax, VHS; these were later succeeded by DVD. It has been used as a display device since the first generation of (e.g. Timex Sinclair 1000) and dedicated video game consoles (e.g., Atari) in the 1980s. By the early 2010s, flat-panel television incorporating liquid-crystal display (LCD) technology, especially LED-backlit LCD technology, largely replaced CRT and other display technologies. Modern flat-panel TVs are typically capable of high-definition display (720p, 1080i, 1080p, 4K, 8K) and are capable of playing content from multiple sources, such as a USB device or Streaming media.
Karl Ferdinand Braun was the first to conceive the use of a CRT as a display device in 1897. (1985). 9789401170628, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company Inc.. ISBN 9789401170628 The "Braun tube" became the foundation of 20th century TV. In 1926, Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated the first TV system that employed a cathode-ray tube (CRT) display, at Hamamatsu Industrial High School in Japan. Kenjiro Takayanagi: The Father of Japanese Television, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), 2002, retrieved 2009-05-23. This was the first working example of a fully electronic television receiver. His research toward creating a production model was halted by the US after Japan lost World War II.
The first commercially made electronic televisions with CRTs were manufactured by Telefunken in Germany in 1934, Telefunken, Early Electronic TV Gallery, Early Television Foundation. 1934–35 Telefunken, Television History: The First 75 Years. followed by other makers in France (1936), 1936 French Television, Television History: The First 75 Years. Britain (1936), 1936 Baird T5, Television History: The First 75 Years. and US (1938). Communicating Systems, Inc., Early Electronic TV Gallery, Early Television Foundation. America's First Electronic Television Set, Television History: The First 75 Years. The cheapest model with a screen was $445 (). American TV Prices, Television History: The First 75 Years. An estimated 19,000 electronic televisions were manufactured in Britain, and about 1,600 in Germany, before World War II. About 7,000–8,000 electronic sets were made in the U.S. Annual Television Sales in USA, Television History: The First 75 Years. before the War Production Board halted manufacture in April 1942, production resuming in August 1945. Television usage in the western world skyrocketed after World War II with the lifting of the manufacturing freeze, war-related technological advances, the drop in television prices caused by mass production, increased leisure time, and additional disposable income. While only 0.5% of U.S. households had a television in 1946, 55.7% had one in 1954, and 90% by 1962. Number of TV Households in America, Television History: The First 75 Years. In Britain, there were 15,000 television households in 1947, 1.4 million in 1952, and 15.1 million by 1968. (2025). 9781118451557, John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781118451557
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, color television had come into wide use. In Britain, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV were regularly broadcasting in color by 1969.
Late model CRT TVs used highly integrated electronics such as a Jungle chip which performs the functions of many transistors. This shift began in the 1980s.
In the 1980s, with the advent of video in the form of VCRs, some TVs began to come with an RCA jack input for composite video input.Sony KV-1965 television These were typically high end TVs for the time, a notable example being the Sony ProFeel line, and were called video monitors, without necessarily having a built in TV tuner, and for the first time could have at least 2 video inputs. On screen displays started to be introduced around this time. While in theory the dedicated composite input improved image quality by eliminating the need for an RF modulator connected to the antenna input when connecting devices such as VCRs and computers, there was no guarantee for higher image quality. The television stopped being used for broadcast television only, and molded plastic construction started to become common, closely surrounding the CRT tube inside, shifting away from cabinet (box-like, furniture-like) construction in which the CRT tube was mounted inside a wooden box. RF modulators were used to connect a video source such as a VCR or a video game console to the TV by modulating it into a TV channel such as channel 3 or 4.
In 1973, T. Peter Brody, J. A. Asars and G. D. Dixon at Westinghouse Research Laboratories demonstrated the first thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD). Brody and Fang-Chen Luo demonstrated the first flat active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AM LCD) in 1974.
By 1982, pocket based on AM LCD technology were developed in Japan. The Epson ET-10 (Epson Elf) was the first color LCD pocket TV, released in 1984. In 1988, a Sharp research team led by engineer T. Nagayasu demonstrated a full-color LCD display, which convinced the electronics industry that LCD would eventually replace the CRT as the standard television display technology. The first wall-mountable TV was introduced by Sharp Corporation in 1992.
During the first decade of the 21st century, CRT "picture tube" display technology was almost entirely supplanted worldwide by flat-panel displays: first plasma displays around 1997, then LCDs. By the early 2010s, , which increasingly used , accounted for the overwhelming majority of television sets being manufactured.
In 2014, Curved OLED TVs were released to the market, which were intended to offer improved image quality but this effect was only visible at a certain position away from the TV.
Rollable OLED TVs were introduced in 2020, which allow the display panel of the TV to be hidden.
2023 saw the release of wireless TVs which connect to other devices solely through a transmitter box with an antenna that transmits information wirelessly to the TV. Demos of transparent TVs have also been made. There are TVs that are offered to users for free, but are paid for by showing ads to users and collecting user data.
In 2024, the sales of large-screen televisions significantly increased. Between January and September, approximately 38 thousand televisions with a screen size of or larger were sold globally. This surge in popularity can be attributed to several factors, including technological advancements and decreasing prices.
The availability of larger screen sizes at more affordable prices has driven consumer demand. For example, Samsung, a leading electronics manufacturer, introduced its first television in 2019 with a price tag of $99,000. In 2024, the company will offer four models starting at $4,000. This trend is reflected in the overall market, with the average price of a television exceeding , declining from $6,662 in 2023 to $3,113 in 2024. As technology advances, even larger screen sizes, such as , are becoming increasingly accessible to consumers.
There are four primary competing TV technologies:
In television sets (and most that use CRTs), the entire screen area is scanned repetitively (completing a full film frame 25 or 30 times a second) in a fixed pattern called a raster scan. The image information is received in real time from a video signal which controls the electric current supplying the electron gun, or in color televisions each of the three electron guns whose beams land on phosphors of the three primary colors (red, green, and blue). Except in the very early days of television, magnetic deflection has been used to scan the image onto the face of the CRT; this involves a varying current applied to both the vertical and horizontal placed around the neck of the tube just beyond the electron gun(s).
DLP technology is used in DLP front projectors (standalone projection units for classrooms and business primarily), DLP rear projection television sets, and digital signs. It is also used in about 85% of digital cinema projection, and in additive manufacturing as a power source in some SLA 3D printers to cure resins into solid 3D objects.
produced in 1936 used a twelve inch tube type 12H that was a little in excess of 30 inches long. These mirror lid televisions were large pieces of furniture.
As a solution, Philips introduced a television set in 1937 that relied on back projecting an image from a tube onto a screen. This required the tube to be driven very hard (at unusually high voltages and currents, see ) to produce an extremely bright image on its fluorescent screen. Further, Philips decided to use a green phosphor on the tube face as it was brighter than the white phosphors of the day. In fact these early tubes were not up to the job and by November of that year Philips decided that it was cheaper to buy the sets back than to provide replacement tubes under warranty every couple of weeks or so. Substantial improvements were very quickly made to these small tubes and a more satisfactory tube design was available the following year helped by Philips's decision to use a smaller screen size of . In 1950 a more efficient tube with vastly improved technology and more efficient white phosphor, along with smaller and less demanding screen sizes, was able to provide an acceptable image, though the life of the tubes was still shorter than contemporary direct view tubes. As CRT technology improved during the 1950s, producing larger and larger screen sizes and later on, (more or less) rectangular tubes, the rear projection system was obsolete before the end of the decade.
However, in the early to mid 2000s RPTV systems made a comeback as a cheaper alternative to contemporary LCD and Plasma TVs. They were larger and lighter than contemporary CRT TVs and had a flat screen just like LCD and Plasma, but unlike LCD and Plasma, RPTVs were often dimmer, had lower contrast ratios and viewing angles, image quality was affected by room lighting and suffered when compared with direct view CRTs, and were still bulky like CRTs. These TVs worked by having a DLP, LCoS or LCD projector at the bottom of the unit, and using a mirror to project the image onto a screen. The screen may be a Fresnel lens to increase brightness at the cost of viewing angles. Some early units used and were heavy, weighing up to 500 pounds. Most RPTVs used Ultra-high-performance lamps as their light source, which required periodic replacement partly because they dimmed with use but mainly because the operating bulb glass became weaker with ageing to the point where the bulb could eventually shatter often damaging the projection system. Those that used CRTs and lasers did not require replacement.
In 1997, Philips introduced at CES and CeBIT the first large () commercially available flat-panel TV, using Fujitsu plasma displays.
In 2007, LCD televisions surpassed sales of CRT-based televisions globally for the first time, and their sales figures relative to other technologies accelerated. LCD TVs quickly displaced the only major competitors in the large-screen market, the plasma display panel and rear-projection television. In the mid-2010s LCDs became, by far, the most widely produced and sold television display type.
LCDs also have disadvantages. Other technologies address these weaknesses, including , FED and SED. LCDs can have quantum dots and mini-LED backlights to enhance image quality.
There are two main families of OLED: those based on small molecules and those employing . Adding mobile to an OLED creates a light-emitting electrochemical cell or LEC, which has a slightly different mode of operation. OLED displays can use either passive-matrix (PMOLED) or active-matrix addressing schemes. Active-matrix OLEDs (AMOLED) require a thin-film transistor backplane to switch each individual pixel on or off, but allow for higher resolution and larger display sizes.
An OLED display works without a backlight. Thus, it can display deep and can be thinner and lighter than a liquid crystal display (LCD). In low ambient light conditions such as a dark room, an OLED screen can achieve a higher contrast ratio than an LCD, whether the LCD uses cold cathode or LED-backlit LCD.
Hospitality spaces are insecure with respect to content piracy, so many content providers require the use of Digital rights management. Hospitality TVs decrypt the industry standard Pro:Idiom when no set back box is used. While H.264 is not part of the ATSC 1.0 standard in North America, TV content in hospitality can include H.264 encoded video, so hospitality TVs include H.264 decoding. Managing dozens or hundreds of TVs can be time consuming, so hospitality TVs can be cloned by storing settings on a USB drive and restoring those settings quickly. Additionally, server-based and cloud-based management systems can monitor and configure an entire fleet of TVs.
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