Find Out All About Televisions and How They Work

Did you ever wonder where your favorite shows come from? Did you ever wonder how they get to the TV set in your home?

When Was the Television Invented?

Inventors made the first TV pictures in the 1920s. Television stations started broadcasting the first regular TV shows around 1940s.

Fun Fact: The first TV sets had very small screens. The first TV sets showed black-and-white pictures

Television sets have gotten a lot better with time and innovations. Most TVs sold today show colored pictures. TV screens have gotten bigger and bigger. TV sets have gotten thinner and sleeker.

How Are Television Pictures Made?

A TV pictures start with a TV camera. Some TV cameras are big and some are small. The cameras in TV studios are big. Camera operators roll the big cameras around on wheels. There are usually several big cameras in a TV studio. Cameras used outside a TV studio are smaller. TV camera crews take the smaller cameras to news and sports events.

Some cameras send out live pictures to your TV set. Some cameras make videotapes that get played later on a television program.

A camera operator points the camera at a scene. The camera picks up light from the scene. It changes this light into an electric signal called the video signal. A microphone changes the sound of people talking or music playing into an electric signal called the audio signal.

TV cameras do not snap pictures the way an ordinary camera does. Parts inside a TV camera scan, or sweep over, the scene and trace a series of thin, horizontal lines, one below the other. A TV camera scans a whole scene much faster than you can blink. Lines from the scans go together to make a picture.

How Does A Program Get to Your Home?

The picture and sound signals go from the control room to a transmitter. The transmitter makes the signals stronger and sends them to a transmitting antenna. This antenna is very tall. It changes the electric signals into invisible television signals that go through the air. The television signals go out from the antenna in all directions.

TV signals can get to the TV set at your home in several ways. They can go through the air to an antenna on your roof. The antenna picks up the signals and sends them through wires to your TV set. The signals could go to a cable TV company. The company sends the signals through a cable to your home. The TV signals could come right to your house from a satellite circling high above Earth. A satellite dish outside your home can pick up the TV signals and send them over wires to your TV set indoors.

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