TV - You've Come A Long Way Baby

http://www.CostaProject.com


It is amazing where TV has gone where it is going (who knows). There are so many types and sizes now days. We saw an ad for one that is truly the size of an entire wall (the size most of us peons have) that is supposed to come out sometime this year. If you are really rich or have a really high ceiling in a really big room I guess you could call this a truly fantastic media room. However, most of us would not be able to afford it even when it does hit the market. The ultra rich market!!

We had a 32" TV, our very first new one that we bought about six years ago (my husband had been a TV repairman for years and we always had a used TV that someone didn't want to have fixed, so he fixed it and brought it home). It was quite an event to get this new TV and of course it didn't work when we got it home and plugged it in. Pure frustration, because he knew what the problem was right away and because we live in the mountains and it was over an hour to take it back to where we bought it, he called for service. They sent a guy out and because it was exactly what Fred thought it was they said we needed to return it to the store and have them exchange it because it was a defective set. So we took that long trip back to the store, exchanged it, went home and set it up again. This thing weighed a ton.

Well shock of shocks, in December for our Christmas present to ourselves he got a deal on a 42" flat screen, LSD HD TV. WHOA! That is a big sucker, is much thinner than the old 32" and weighs only about half of what the old one did. In 34 years of marriage our 2nd new TV!!!! Yippee!!

A chuckle for you. In February, we had a 3 day power outage and he was having TV withdrawals. He remembered that we had a little B&W battery TV, so he pulled it out so he could watch something (we have satellite regularly) and there was only one channel that came in and he had to hold it on his lap to be able to see anything because it was so small. He practically threw a party when the power came back on and he could watch the Big TV again, with a multitude of channels to choose from.

Well I'll let it go for now, but next time i'll talk about TV add on's, etc.

Enjoy your day!

Not Done With Color TV Yet

Hi again!

I have been busy trying to earn a living. If you want to see what at, check out my new website's www.costaproject.com and www.instant-millionaire.org/1/14126820-invitation-page.aspx

Anyway, we'll try and continue where I left off. Because color TV was so expensive, only 3.1 percent of households in the United States had one as late as 1964. However, NBC announced that their prime time schedule for fall of 1965 would be almost entirely in color and this started the speed up of color programs. By the 1966-67 broadcast season all three networks, NBC, ABC, CBS had full color prime time schedules but the number of color TV's sold didn't out sell black and white until 1972. That was only 36 years ago, which sounds like a long time, but really isn't. That year more than 50% of people that had TV sets had a color set.

Believe it or not Cuba became the second country in the world to introduce color TV broadcasting in 1958. These broadcasts ended in 1959 during the Cuban Revolution and they didn't get it again until 1975.

For more detailed information check out http://en.wikipedia.org for the history of TV.

Color broadcasts in Mexico were authorized in 1963, Canada's started in 1966, Europe seemed to have some technical difficulties and ended up with a system used through most of Western Europe called PAL. The first broadcasts started in July 1967. Italy adopted the PAL system in 1977. Color broadcasts were introduced throughout the rest of the world at different intervals from 1959 on. Some countries continued to have only black and white until the 1980's until they changed over to color.

My grandpa passed away in 1974 and they still had a black and white TV, but boy did he enjoy it. Especially variety shows and Base Ball. He was a huge fan, and for many of us, depending on what our spouses favorite sport is also become fans (of a sort), or become sports widows while our man (or woman) glues themselves to the TV to watch. I know right now the Sacramento Kings are dominating some of my favorite channels and pre-empting some of my shows. Sports has become BIG business for the all of the networks.

A lot of commercials lately have been using black and white and then throwing in a little bit of color to really get your attention. It is all pretty cool, and color TV has grown and evolved and we will continue in the journey of TV and see where it has webbed out, next time.

I am trying really hard to not let you go too long without something new to read and learn and hopefully enjoy.

Later Gater!

Color - Here We Go

Wow, how time flies!

Not only from black and white to color but in wow the days fly by. I didn't realize that it had been so long since my last input. Geez, it seems like it was just yesterday.

I hope you all have enjoyed my blog so far. It has been fun writing it.

Anyway, I found it really surprising, not only that TV (black and white) was invented so very long ago and color was not that far behind it, but was still so far behind when it came to putting it on the market for consumers.

Color TV was demonstrated at the International radio exhibition in Berlin in 1939. In the United States Bell Laboratories demonstrated a a mechanically scanned color TV in June 1929, a year after my husband was born. Electronically scanned color TV was demonstrated February 5, 1940 by RCA. CBS began experimental field tests August 28, 1940 and live cameras by November 12 the same year.

NBC (owned by RCA) had its first field test of color February 20, 1941. (I was still not a spark in any ones eye yet.) CBS started daily field tests June of 1941. The only viewers were limited to RCA and CBS engineers and invited press. Because of World War II all manufacture of television and radio equipment was stopped from April. 22, 1942 to August 20, 1945, so there was no opportunity to introduce the general public to color TV.

After the war, color TV development was dominated by three systems looking for approval by the FCC as color broadcasting standard for the U.S.: CBS, RCA and CTI. (All were incompatible with existing black and white sets.) RCA's became compatible in 1949.

CBS gave the first demonstrations of color to the general public January 12, 1950 on a daily basis for an hour daily from Mondays thru Saturdays and ran for the remainder of the month in Washington, D.C. in a public building on 16-inch color receivers. The FCC formally approved the CBS system as the U.S. color broadcasting standard October 11, 1950. RCA and CTI's systems were found by the FCC to have to many technical problems at the time. The worlds first RCA broadcast was June 25, 1951.

The first color TV (CBS-Columbia) sets had problems and were pulled off the market after only 100 were sold. The National Television System Committed during 1950 and 1953 developed a color system compatible with existing black and white sets and passed FCC quality standards. RCA developed the hardware. Kukla, Fran and Ollie (an NBC episode) was the first publicly TB broadcast program using NTSC compatible color system on August 30, 1953. The first coast-to-coast color broadcast by NBC was covering the January 1, 1954 Tournament of Roses Parade.

Well continue this really spell binding journey next time. Have a wonderful day!

Black & White or Color?

Hi guys!

This is just a little break in the information highway that I have started in the TV saga.

I don't know about you, but even though most people think that color is the only way to go no matter what you are watching, I think that maybe it depends on what you watched growing up.

There are some classics that I watched growing up like "Miracle on 47th Street", which was in black and white, and although I have seen the new colorized version which is great, it just doesn't have the same drama as seeing it in black and white.

How about another classic in black and white "Casablanca". I don't know if there is a colorized version of it or not, but I can't even imagine watching it in anything but black and white.

There are even some commercials now that are in mostly black and white and then show the product in color to make a dramatic statement.

If you are old enough to have kids that haven't seen any black and white movies (maybe you haven't seen any either), rent one, pop some corn, have a family night and enjoy!

Color is great, but sometimes... nothing says it like Black & White, Yeh!

The Journey of TV Continues

Hi Guys,

If you are super interested and want to fill in all of the really technical stuff or just the holes in this little TV Journey, I am giving you the link to read up on it to your little heart's content. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_TV#Electronic_television

If you want to continue on the shorter journey with me, we'll go on where we left off.

I hadn't realized that RCA was in on it from practically the very beginning, or at least from where we as consumers knew it.

As with so many things there was a patent suit that ended up with RCA pay for license payments for patents by Philo Farnsworth (they already had purchased Westinghouse's patent of the cathode ray tube) who transmitted the first live human images by his television system in 1929 (not yet to the public).

As I said before, my husband saw TV for the first time at the San Francisco World Fair when he was a kid, and had one in his shop before he had one personally.

I remember the first TV my family ever had was in 1957. I was ten. We were moving from Rogue River, OR to San Jose, CA and my dad was buying us a three bedroom trailer to live in and said he would buy it if they threw in the TV. I don't remember how big it was, I don't imagine the screen was very bit, but I didn't care. I remember the main thing was I got to watch the Mickey Mouse Club when I got home from school.

My husband said that when TV was introduced in the Bay Area (California), there was only one station and it was in 1949, (Channel 5, which was an independent station that eventually became CBS, Westinghouse).

It was years before color TV was available to the public, but believe it or not there was a patent application in Russian in 1889 for a mechanically-scanned color system and the first world's color transmission was demonstrated on July 3, 1928.

We'll start with that exciting exploration next time. Have a wonderful day!!

See ya!

When Did The Idea of TV Start

You know guys, until I decided to look into TV and when was it invented I had no idea that the idea and conception was sooo.. long ago.

I talked to my husband about it as he had a radio shop when he was in high school and he said that the first TV he had seen was at the San Francisco World's Fair in 1939. He had never fully delved into it either but learned a lot when he became a TV technician in 1949.

Anyway the origins can be tracked back to a discovery called photoconductivity of an element called selenium in 1873. See! I said it was a really long time ago. Then a guy invented what they called a scanning disk in 1884, and then the invention of an image dissector in 1927. For the real detailed skinny check out Wikipedia.

The very first patented electromechanical television system was in 1884. Who knew!! It was first read about at the International World Fair in Paris in 1900. Inventor's all over were experimenting with something called a cathode ray tube and using this created the first TV's that RCA purchased the patents for.

Well kiddies, we'll continue on from here in the next installment. Chao!

I'm Back with the iPhone

Hi Guys!

Sorry, life kind of put things on hold for a few days.

Any way, where were we. Oh yeh, That little gadget called an iPhone. It has all the features of a camera phone and and an iPod rolled into one. As I said before the keyboard is a virtual one and takes up the bottom half of the large 3.5 window when you need it. It offers many of the services you can get on a computer. E-mail, web browsing and local Wi-Fi access. It has four bands for roaming, it supports international capability and has increased data transmission rates and improved data transmission reliability. It has the technology of a 3G network but is generally classified as a 2.75G bacause it is slower.

WOW! How super is that! I myself can't imagine needing this type of technology, but for those people that are actually on the clock 24/7 this must be one of the best things ever.

I am sure there are people that have bought these phones that really have no use for all of the features, but just want the latest of whatever there is out there in portable technology. I rarely have need for the features on the camera phone that I have let alone would I ever have need of all of the features on an iPhone. But hey! If you can afford it, I guess, why not. I might even NEED one someday (ha! ha!)if I ever become a successful on-line bussiness guru.

So, if you have the desire or need for a iphone, go for it.

We will look into where we have come from in the area's of TV's since day one to now and what has developed to go along with them. This really goes into a big diverse arena. Stick with me and we'll start a new adventure next time. Enjoy, whatever you day with the new time change has in store for you. Remember to change your clocks to a hour ahead, of course unless you live in AZ.

Next time!

How About That iPhone

Hi Guys!

Well I thought maybe you might like to find out with me, something about the iPhone. Remember when they first came out with this new phenomenon? There was so much hype about it. With Apple having come out with the iPod, I guess it was just a matter of time, and yep, last year here came the iPhone. It started out at $500. WOW! That is a lot of bucks and yet people were standing in line (literally) to buy them. (Of course, it really hit the fan when several months later they brought the price down to $300 because China came out with a knock off cheaper.)

I got really confused the other day, because I didn't know what commercial I was watching. At first I thought it was an iPhone commercial, but it turned out to be the most advanced of the iPods. Anyway, apparently it is like a cell phone and computer combined. (Do you think grandpa could handle this one? I am having a hard time with it myself.)

How many years has it been since the phone went from crank to a standard rotater number selection, to push button number selection to a cell phone (a mega size phone) to a cell phone that gets smaller every year to the iPhone? In relative time, not long at all. One hundred years is nothing in the life span of invention. Consider how long it took to go from the crank to the cell phone. Then when the cell phones got smaller and we went from flip phone to the iPhone, it was like a blink of the eye.

The iPhone has one button for "home. It has a 3.5-inch color screen. The screen covers most of the face of the phone and is also a "multi-touch" display. It shows different controls depending on what kind of thing your doing. It actually has a keyboard that comes up on the bottom of the screen to type a text message using the phone part or e-mail using the computer part. Being the screen is bigger than the keyboard on any other kind of phone you have less finger cramping. (I don't text and when I see kids doing it and so fast too, I think, arthritis in the fingers when they get older. That's probably because I am older already and feeling the crampy fingers from years on the computer, and that has a big keyboard.)

Well, my crampy old fingers need a rest, so we'll continue with the iPhone next time. Until then have a good one!

I'm Back With More iPod Thoughts and Info

Last time I talked about the "Shuffle" which was the first edition, so to speak, of the iPod and apparently still available (but doesn't have a viewing screen) at a very affordable price considering the cost of things today.

There is an iPod that you can view videos with called the "iPod nano" (this was not created by Robin Williams, remember "nano, nano"). I don't know about you but when I watch a video I don't want to have to watch it with a magnifying glass, but I guess if you are a real movie geek or are really bored, it is better than nothing.

I had no idea that there was so many different iPods. I thought an iPod was an iPod. I didn't know that there was different ones that did different things. Apparently most models can also be used as external data storage devices, as I said before, because of the flash memory.

These iPods are made to interface with iTunes which is an online media store run by Apple that sells songs. You plug in your iPod to your computer and then transfer the songs you purchase to your iPod. You can also download full-length movies the same way, of course your iPod has to be one that supports that function.

The most expensive of the iPods with a touch screen apparently does it all. I don't know about you, but I am a show me how and I can do it, but all those instruction books that come with the device give me a headache.

Not sure exactly what well talk about next time, but see you then!

Continuing The iPod Ride

As I promised, we will continue learning more about the iPod.

There is an entry-level iPod that is screenless and the budget model called the Shuffle (sounds like a dance to me!). This is what they called the first generation (they have improved them since they came out in 2005) that uses a flash memory. The flash memory can be electrically erased and reprogrammed, you know, like a memory stick you use for your computer to transfer data between computers and other digital products.

The Shuffle was/is easy to download music off of the computer (it plugs directly into your computer through an USB port) with a bunch of songs and be able to play them in random order (shuffle). Sounds like an MP3 Player doesn't it?

Anyway, the price was good and has come down under $100's as improved larger capacity generational ones have become available. This one only holds about 240 songs. It sounds about my speed. Good to take with me on my walks in nature.

I'll explain the next generation next time around.

See ya!

Here We Go - iPod

Hi everyone! I think my grandpa would really enjoy an iPod if someone helped him with it. It sounds like a real cool product. I still don't know if I would get one, but learning about it is fun. For one thing I was spelling it wrong (just a little thing).

Anyway I have learned a little more about iPods. The first iPod was much larger than some of the ones that can be gotten today which I understand can be as small as a pack of gum. This is the size of my USB memory stick (yeh, I do know about those)which I am glad has a neck strap or I would never find it. I guess I will have to go to a store an really look at them because it all just sounds too unbelievable.

There are hard drive-based ones, some that have flash memory so they can be smaller (I am guessing that the stick of gum size has one of these), some that have touchscreen capabilities, others that are video-capable (like the clerk at my grocery store).

You can hook these up to your computer and besides burning and ripping music from a CD like I mentioned before, you can transfer photos, videos, games and calendars to certain models.

Wow! grandpa!! how the world has changed. If you take a nap who knows what new iPod they will come up with while we're sleeping.

There is more detail to go into and we will check on some of it next time. Till then have a great day!!

Explore iPods With Me

Well I don't know about you but this is going to be an adventure for me.

When ipods first came out it seemed just to much to take in. Well for me it still is and I will probably never get one, because I know I would probably never use all of the features you can get in one.

I remember being in the grocery store in my little town and the check-out clerk was talking to the bagger about the ipod she had just gotten. She was so excited. I asked her what she was going to use it for most and she said mostly for watching videos. I was surprised, I had no idea it had that capability. Oh, I probably had heard but had forgotten. I said, "you watch that many video's?" Dummy me, she was only 20 (maybe).

Well as most everyone seems to know, iPod is actually a brand name and was designed, marketed and launched by Apple. Just like other types of products, other brands followed suit with their version of the iPod.

The iPod is a portable media player, which means, you can play tunes on it like an MP3 player. Also, because it has an internal hard drive (it seems everything these days has one) it not only plays music and can handle quite a large library, it can burn, and rip music from a CD. Even if that was all that it could do, it makes it quite spectacular. A lot of things, because of the hard drive, can be transfered to it.

Learn more as I learn. Next time! See ya later.

MP3 Players - Oophs! Not done yet

Well here we are again. My mind got wrapped up in something else and I forgot some things I wanted to say about MP3 players. Grandpa was much better at remembering things even just before he passed than I do.

Anyway, grandpa had lots of records, mostly 78's, I don't remember him having an 8-track track tape player (most of today's kids don't even know what they are. I know several people that still have 8-track players and 8-track recorders). Cassette tapes, were great because they were smaller and you could record on them easily from most boomboxes.

The MP3 player was revolutionary, it takes out sounds that you can't hear so that the files are smaller and so when tunes are downloaded they take up less space and thousands of tunes can be stored and played on a very small device. I saw one the other day that was about the size of an breath mint case. It was awsome. To small for me, as I would loose it for sure. I have a hard enough time finding my cell phone when I set it down.

OK, for sure next time we go on to IPods. Have a good one!!

Electronic Gagets - MP3 Players and beyond

First the MP3 players with realatively small gigabytes and now they are massive. You see people (mainly kids) with their ear plugs (what I call them) in, walking the streets and the malls. Every where you go (you have no idea what they are listening to and thank goodness in some cases). Sometimes they are so into what they are listening to they don't know anyone else is around. However in some cases they have them up so loud you can hear the slightest hint of music (the future is full of deafness from devices turned up to loud).

For those that are into MP3 players it is a great thing and better than the old hand held radio's or the portable cd player for jogging or gym workouts, and if that is all you want it for it is just the thing to have.

For those who want more, there is the Ipod (big drum roll!). Until I looked it up, I wasn't really sure what it was other than it was an upgrade from an MP3 player (you can tell I am older than dirt).

Get your feet wet along with me next time.

Electronic Gagets - MP3 Players

I don't know if you have the same problems with todays electronic technology as I do, but sometimes I feel like my grandpa would have if he was plopped in one of todays electronic superstores (or even a small one!)

There are so many choices, and for each choice a dozen price ranges, enough electronic gadgets to make your head spin.

How do you chose, say, an MP3 player. I wouldn't have a clue. There are different size gigabytes (who needs to be able to download 5,000 songs). I don't even understand the need or want for huge gigs on these.

I remember when MP3 players first came out. Wow! what a big deal that was. An expensive big deal at that. Every body had to have one. With the teenagers, you weren't anybody if you didn't have an MP3 player. Now they have ones for little kids in girl and boy colors with cute in the "now" superhero icons on them (or Spongebob Square Pants) and Barbie or High School Musical decals on them.

Watch out mom and dad, they wanted more, and the electronics industry obliged them.

What Would Grandpa Think

You know electronics have come a long way since I first started working in offices 1966. I used an antiquated IBM electric typewriter. The offices I worked in did not have computers yet.

Can you imagine what grandpa would think about today's electronic gadgets? Grandpa used a crank telephone with a 6 party line (Hi Madge, get me #329 (and heaven help you if it was something personal because Joan just might be listening in on the call and she was the biggest busybody around)). He would be totally freaked out with the cell phones of today. Gee, they not only allow you to make a call from anywhere to anywhere (if you have coverage), but they take pictures, let you check your e-mail (e-mail? What's that?), play games (????). If you just told him and he couldn't see for himself he would say, "that's a bunch of falderal!, a bunch of whooey!!"

My husband has a problem figuring out his cell phone. All he wants is to be able to make a call and receive a call. I program all of his numbers and have to check his phone for messages every day, because he can't remember how to retreive them. He took a couple of pictures, but doesn't know how to send them to the computer. Can you imagine if it was grandpa??

I know it may depend on how old your grandpa is. The grandpa's of today can still be pretty young and electronically hip, but my grandpa passed away 33 years ago at 82. Electronics was not a word he was familiar with. This is a world that would take his breath away.