Television

Television (also, informally, "TV" and "telly") is the distant electronic transmission of moving pictures. Most television transmissions also include synchronized sound, an exception being surveillance cameras, which usually have no audio.

"Television" literally means "far sight". The word was formed by combining the Greek word τῆλε ("tele", or "far") with the Latin word visio-n ("sight", from video, vis- to see) — this coinage follows the pattern of telegraph ("far writer") and telephone ("far talker"). In general usage, the meaning of "television" has been expanded to also refer to receivers, and to both the video broadcasting industry and its programming.

Broadcasting development

In Britain, John Logie Baird demonstrated the first practical television on 26 January 1926 at his laboratory in London, and built a complete experimental broadcast system around his technology. The BBC transmitted regular broadcasts using Baird's 30-line mechanical-electronic system from 1930 through 1934. Work toward a higher-definition system developed along parallel lines, with Baird's eventually switching to a hybrid 240-line mechanical-electronic system, which employed scanned film as an intermediate step, while EMI-Marconi offered its 405-line "System A", which used Vladimir Zworykin's all-electronic setup. Beginning in November of 1936,the BBC alternated the Baird and EMI systems, but the Baird system tests were ended after four months. The start of the Second World War resulted in the suspension of the BBC service beginning September 1, 1939, which was not resumed until June 7, 1946.