Courtesy: philotfarnsworth.com

Eighty-four years ago, the first known video transmission was made from an idea conceived by a child who was only 14 years old. August marks the birth of the man known as the Father of Television – Philo T. Farnsworth – and it seems fitting to tell a bit of his tale.

Was he a child prodigy? Or just a visionary with the drive to make something of his vision? Growing up in a home without electricity, one can imagine he might have had ‘power sources’ on his mind a lot.

Born 105 years ago in 1906, it’s an interesting fact that as popular and worldwide his invention has become, he’s not very well-known at all, and in fact lived his life in obscurity and died nearly penniless.

Farnsworth came up with the idea of picture transmission when he was 14 years old* and showed his chemistry teacher sketches for a vacuum tube that would electronically copy images on a screen, one line at a time. His first transmission was a 60-horizontal line image of a dollar bill and he subsequently applied for and earned the patent for an all-electronic TV in 1927. Electronics engineers at the time were testing other methods of transmitting images using spinning discs.

In the 1930s,engineers at RCA (Radio Corporation of America) were in the process of inventing a different type of television using a cathode tube and he became embroiled in a decade-long legal war that ended with RCA paying Farnsworth a million dollars for royalties for patent licenses for several of his inventions including TV scanning, syncing, and contrast control.

Many of Farnsworth’s 165 patents for electronic inventions include amplifiers, a system for air traffic control, night vision devices, radar and cathode-ray and vacuum tubes.

As remarkable as it sounds, television is still a ‘young’ invention – and is already disappearing form many households today. Farnsworth passed away in 1971, just when his invention was really starting to get a firm foothold in American households. Farnsworth didn’t gain wealth from his invention, and, in fact, spent his lifetime fighting to hold claim to the patent, and his wife continued to fight the battle until her death.

Want to see the man talk about his work? Here’s a YouTube clip of him on the TV classic “I’ve Got a Secret” from the 1950s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKM4MNrB25o After everyone is amazed that the inventor of TV was such an unknown man, notice what he says about TV at 6:15 on this clip. He talks about the ”future” of TV, including better utilization of the bandwidth, hoping to expand it to 2000 lines rather than 525 lines, visual memory, and flat screens – this is Hi Def, folks! It took four decades longer to get this. What a visionary.

I love history, and the history of television in particular, and although TV might be approaching the end of it’s life as we know it, as video producers we all owe a bit of gratitude to Philo T. Farnsworth for his vision and amazing mind.

If you want to read more history of TV or video, check out LabGuy’s site: http://www.labguysworld.com/ Among other things he has his very own museum of “Extinct Devices” including his collection of old video tape recorders and old video cameras. Hum… I wonder if he’d be interested in that old Panasonic VHS cam sitting on our “museum shelf”.

* Some reports say Farnsworth was 15 or 16, but he says he was 14 on the “I’ve Got a Secret” show mentioned in this report.

PHOTO CREDIT: Farnsworth Archives, philotfarnsworth.com

Hollywood was putting on the Ritz this month, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lucille Ball, the amazing iconic redhead of the longest syndicated-running show on television: I Love Lucy.  But Hollywood wasn’t alone, there were worldwide festivities celebrating the comedienne’s role “Lucy Ricardo“, as the  I Love Lucy show moves into 60 years of making viewers laugh.

Hard to believe that “Lucy Ricardo” could be 100, or that the show is six decades old, but generations have grown up watching the program, and to us, she will forever be immortalized as the 1950s era New York housewife, married to the Cuban band leader, Ricky Ricardo.

What was “just a show” to most viewers, to we video producers it was the program that launched the technical set-up and format to TV producing that many of us follow today. I Love Lucy was the first show recorded with a live audience, and it was also the first show to use 35mm film, instead of 16mm kinescope. The 35mm film was of a much higher quality which is one of the reasons we can still find I Love Lucy in syndication.

The builders of the  I Love Lucy show were also the first to design the recording studio in a classic 3-camera setup,  which is the design still in use today. Other firsts included using a large muted light grid, eliminating annoying and “false” shadows, giving an even tone and more natural look to the set. It was one of the first to feature a pregnancy into a show’s storyline.

CBS, the show’s original owner, had reservations about using Lucille Ball’s real-life husband,  Desi Arnaz, as a main character because he was Cuban, but Lucille Ball held strong to her demands.

Although people have heard of all the behind the scenes drama including Lucille Ball’s and Desi Arnez’s breakup, the two were quite the team, financing part of the show themselves, and were eventually able to buy the rights from CBS, creating Desilu Studios which controlled I Love Lucy and also brought many other popular shows under it’s wings including  The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, My Three Sons,Star Trek, Mission: Impossible,  Family Affair,  The Untouchables, I Spy, That Girl, Make Room for Daddy and more and more and more.

Lucille Ball was born August 6, 1911, and I Love Lucy premiered on CBS on October 15, 1951 a few months after her 40th birthday. The I Love Lucy show has been running almost daily – somewhere – worldwide for the past 60 years.

The former “Ziegfeld Girl” dizzy comedienne was nothing like her TV alter-ego, she was tough, driven, and financially savvy enough to be the first woman to head a major studio after she bought out her husband’s share of Desilu Studios following their divorce.

Lucy’s character was so different than what we are forced to ‘relate’ to today: plastic “Stepford Wives” clones of every-other TV no-name ‘talent’ who will fade into nothingness the first season their show is no longer on the air.

Why – of all the TV shows that have come and gone, is this one still entertaining viewers: good writing, perfect comedic timing, and castmembers that knew their roles and played them well.   oh.. and it was one heck of a funny show. We should all be so lucky to produce such an iconic show that will live long after the physical TV set is no longer in every home in the world.

Researchers from Forrester Research have finally made official what we all knew would happen for years: people are now spending more time on the internet than watching television.  This comes as no surprise. With services like Roku, Hulu, Xbox, and PS3, there has never been a better reason for cutting your subscription to cable TV. According to this study, time spent on the internet has risen by more than 121% over the past 5 years. With this increase in internet time, it was inevitable that 30% of people in all age groups now watch television content online compared to a measly 18% in 2007. All of these facts add up to some real tough times for cable television providers. These companies are not only losing ground to television broadcast on the internet, but they are losing ground to cell phone companies as well who are trying to convince subscribers to use their 4G networks for internet use instead.

The news is not all bad however. The data from Forrester Research does seem to suggest that people are still spending as much time watching television as they have in the past, however they have given up other activities like reading newspapers and magazines in order to devote more time online.

At the same time, many companies such as VIZIO, Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, and more are beginning to make the internet part of the television experience. By doing this, they can offer much of the same content that cable can provide, albeit at a much lower price. With all of this in mind, and with a bevy of internet-ready devices hitting the market, it may just be a matter of time before everyone replaces their coaxial cables with ethernet cables.

Just recently, a team at the University of Tokyo found that using titanium oxide could allow optical disks to store 5,000 gigabytes of information. Honestly, that’s astounding. At the same time, a lot of people’s minds began buzzing with the implications. With these discs, Hollywood studios could release entire television series such as Lost and 24 plus bonus content all on one disc. Video games could finally fit huge engines and graphics all on one disk. Finally, studios could include super high resolution video on their discs so that people could see the movie in its fully rendered glory. However, let’s stop for a moment to take a quick poll. How many of you even own a Blu-ray player? If more than one of you out of 10 raised your hand, congratulate yourselves on being ahead of the curve. Though a majority of people still get their movies and television series delivered to them by optical media, it seems as if new media such as Blu-ray simply can’t pick up steam. A Harris poll taken last year showed that only 7 percent of Americans owned a Blu-ray player. Even though Blu-ray offers more than twice the resolution of standard definition DVDs and a higher quality sound, Americans still aren’t sold on the idea. Of course, this begs the question: why?

Popular reasons include the extra price of Blu-ray discs and that some people are happy with things just the way they are. However, there seems to be an even bigger reason behind all of this. Let’s take one last poll. How many of you watch movies or television online? If more than half of you raised your hand, then you would fall in line with research recently done by shopping site Retrevo. The study found that 51% of people in all age groups watched at least some of their television online. With these facts, the question becomes this: when the internet offers both free and cheap high quality video content all without having to leave your La-Z-Boy, why would anyone want to invest in a Blu-ray player or a Blu-ray disc? The answer might be that for most people there are no better alternatives for watching high-definition content on their internet-free TVs. However, with products such as the Apple TV, the new Google TV, Roku, and of course, the HD rich cable set top boxes, it is evident that hardware manufacturers and cable providers are betting that pretty soon, you won’t have an excuse not to.

The only real problem I can foresee with Internet TV is the fact that bandwidth is notoriously spotty with many internet providers. Also, no software or hardware provider has yet mastered the user experience with Internet TV. Often, they’ll make the experience too much like the internet itself (and no one wants to type on a keyboard), or they’ll make it too much like a TV which is very limited in its function. However, one day when a company finally gets the balance of TV and internet just right, Internet TV could be the biggest revolution since cable.

Just about everyone loves watching movies. With both the clarity of sound and the resolution of the screen, theaters can uniquely make you feel more a part of the film than your television at home ever could. That was, until now. Even during all the hype of 3D, television manufacturers the likes of Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, and Samsung have been quietly releasing televisions with the same resolution of major Hollywood films. That means watching both television and movies at 4K resolution right from the comfort of your own home. Panasonic even went as far as releasing a 150 inch plasma screen at 4K resolution at CES in an effort to beat the competition in the 4K market. Having been to CES, I was able to actually see this screen with my own eyes. As a result, I can say that I feel confident that 4K is the future of television.

Unlike most televisions, when watching in 4096×2150 resolution, one can actually see more details in the picture as you get nearer to the screen. When watching a 4K television at NAB, to my amazement when I got closer to the Kung Fu movie on the screen, I was able to count the amount of noodles in the chow mein that a monk was eating way in the background giving the picture a breathtaking amount of realism. With experiences like this, it would seem that giving TVs higher resolution makes a picture more realistic than even putting it in 3D, with today’s technology. Of course, this would also make cinematographers and filmmakers happy as they could finally display their masterpieces in homes at the full resolution it was originally shot. With these kinds of benefits it is clear that television manufacturers see 4K as the next step in the future of the television market. As evidence, a company spokesperson for Sharp, talking about their 4K TV said, “We developed this LCD panel focusing on the upcoming ‘super HDTV’ generation. That is pretty exciting and with the constant improvements in video resolution and computer speeds, it seems like only a matter of time before you’ll be able to count the laces on a baseball thrown in a game broadcast in 4K HD.

Yes. We know. Web searching on TV has been around for a while. But not exactly in a way users have wanted it. Some call it “the last 10 feet”, bridging the internet from the computer to your TV in the living room.

The question has always been, how to get the internet to your TV in an easy, friendly and unobtrusive way. There have been huge boxes made just for that purpose, along with long download times, and some computers have the connectivity already in place, if you have to proper cables and your TV has the proper connection. However… these all proved too cumbersome for the average TV watcher and were received by the viewing audience in a less than enthusiastic manner.

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