Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome (black-and-white) or colored, with or without accompanying sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming, or television transmission.
The etymology of the word has a mixed Latin and Greek origin, meaning "far sight": Greek tele (τῆλε), far, and Latin visio, sight (from video, vis- to see, or to view in the first person).
Commercially available since the late 1920s, the television set has become commonplace in homes, businesses and institutions, particularly as a vehicle for advertising, a source of entertainment, and news. Since the 1950s, television has been the main medium for molding public opinion. Since the 1970s the availability of video cassettes, laserdiscs, DVDs and now Blu-ray Discs, have resulted in the television set frequently being used for viewing recorded as well as broadcast material. In recent years Internet television has seen the rise of television available via the Internet, e.g. iPlayer and Hulu.
Although other forms such as closed-circuit television (CCTV) are in use, the most common usage of the medium is for broadcast television, which was modeled on the existing radio broadcasting systems developed in the 1920s, and uses high-powered radio-frequency transmitters to broadcast the television signal to individual TV receivers.
The broadcast television system is typically disseminated via radio transmissions on designated channels in the 54–890 MHz frequency band. Signals are now often transmitted with stereo or surround sound in many countries. Until the 2000s broadcast TV programs were generally transmitted as an analog television signal, but in 2008 the USA went almost exclusively digital.
A standard television set comprises multiple internal electronic circuits, including those for receiving and decoding broadcast signals. A visual display device which lacks a tuner is properly called a video monitor, rather than a television. A television system may use different technical standards such as digital television (DTV) and high-definition television (HDTV). Television systems are also used for surveillance, industrial process control, and guiding of weapons, in places where direct observation is difficult or dangerous. Some studies have found a link between infancy exposure to television and ADHD.
Read more about Television: History, Geographical Usage, Sales of Televisions, Social Aspects and Effects On Children, Environmental Aspects
Other articles related to "television, televisions":
... concern about electronic waste from discarded televisions ... Further environmental concerns related to television design and use relate to the devices' increasing electrical energy requirements ...
... Initially, a version of SECAM for the French 819-line television standard was devised and tested, but not introduced ... the conversion by switching over to a 625-line television standard, which happened at the beginning of the 1960s with the introduction of a second network ... couleur !" (fr And here is color!) In 1967, CLT of Lebanon became the third television station in the world after the Soviet Union and France to broadcast in color, utilizing the ...
... is served by the Columbus, Georgia Television Designated Market Area (DMA) ... Charter Communications and Knology provide cable television service ... DirecTV and Dish Network provide direct broadcast satellite television including both local and national channels to area residents ...
... G4 (TV channel), an American television channel G4 Canada, a Canadian television channel devoted to technology-related programming ...
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.”
—Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)