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Speaker 1: Get in tech with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey then, everyone, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, senior writer for

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Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com, and today we're going to

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Speaker 1: continue our series on the history of TV technology. Now.

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Speaker 1: In our last episode where we last left off, if

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Speaker 1: you prefer or last week on tech Stuff, we covered

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Speaker 1: the contentious birth of the electronic television, talked about how

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Speaker 1: a couple of different inventors and companies were laying claim

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Speaker 1: to being the inventor of TV. And we also talked

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Speaker 1: all the way up to the the invention of color

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Speaker 1: TV and how CBS had tried to define color television,

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Speaker 1: but our c A eventually was able to undermine that

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Speaker 1: and create their own version, their own standard for color

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Speaker 1: t V that ended up becoming the standard. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: try and pack a lot in with this particular episode

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Speaker 1: to talk about the significant developments that happened once color

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Speaker 1: television started making an impact in the sixties and seventies,

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Speaker 1: although I'm gonna have to backtrack some to cover some

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Speaker 1: of these topics, because, as it turns out, history is

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Speaker 1: not a very simple timeline of dates. Right. If you

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Speaker 1: want to explain how something works, sometimes you have to

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Speaker 1: follow that trail down a few years before you backtrack

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Speaker 1: and go back to an earlier point to go to

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Speaker 1: the next logical section of your explanation. I wish time

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Speaker 1: didn't work that way, because it would make organizing podcasts

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Speaker 1: way easier. Now, for the most part, I've stayed away

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Speaker 1: from talking about actual programming on television. In other words,

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Speaker 1: I haven't really talked about the types of stuff you'd

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Speaker 1: watch on TV, just the technology of television itself. But

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Speaker 1: television has really transformed our world in many ways, and

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Speaker 1: it also cemented several notions when it comes to business practices,

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Speaker 1: things like sponsorships and advertising. TV was able to establish

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Speaker 1: some basic rules that ended up being applied to other industries,

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Speaker 1: including the online world. And we've seen a lot of

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Speaker 1: growing pains because of that, because we've seen how the

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Speaker 1: online world is very different from the broadcast TV world,

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Speaker 1: and yet for a long time it was being treated

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Speaker 1: as if it were the same thing from a marketing

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Speaker 1: and advertising point of view. Uh And to this day,

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Speaker 1: we're still struggling with that that decision. But let's get

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Speaker 1: back to the technology section. So while our c A

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Speaker 1: and CBS, we're duking out which company would define the

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Speaker 1: color TV standard. Other eggheads were working on different ways

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Speaker 1: to transform the TV viewing experience. So as early as

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Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, A T and T began to experiment

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Speaker 1: with coaxial cables to carry television transmissions to homes that

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Speaker 1: couldn't receive over the air signals. And this was a

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Speaker 1: problem not just in remote areas that were really far

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Speaker 1: away from transmitters, but also in big cities where buildings

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Speaker 1: could block signals. So I've covered cable TV and other

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Speaker 1: episodes of tech stuff. I'm not really going to dive

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Speaker 1: into it here because it would just be repeating stuff

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Speaker 1: I've talked about in previous episodes. But I'll just say

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Speaker 1: that it was the rise of cable, particularly in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, that transformed television again and gave audiences far

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Speaker 1: more options than just a few local channels. It's also

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Speaker 1: what gave rise to superstations that could cover an entire region,

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Speaker 1: an entire country. The United States is big. For a

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Speaker 1: long time, everyone just had access to their local affiliate stations,

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Speaker 1: so they didn't have access to things that were playing

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Speaker 1: in other other regions, other markets. Here in Atlanta, you

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Speaker 1: could pick up Chicago stations occasionally and you can see

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Speaker 1: the Chicago version of the same stuff that you would

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Speaker 1: get with in Atlanta based version. But after the the

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Speaker 1: widespread use of cable, we started seeing these nationwide networks

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Speaker 1: that were the same across the entire United States. That

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Speaker 1: was only made possible through cable TV. But I again,

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Speaker 1: I covered that in a previous episode, so we're not

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Speaker 1: really going to focus on that today. Now, in the

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Speaker 1: late nineteen thirties, going back pretty far, Dr Fritz Fisher

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Speaker 1: of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology dreamed up a

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Speaker 1: way to project television images on a much larger screen.

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Speaker 1: So instead of just having a little twelve inch screen

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Speaker 1: that you stare at, this would be a projector that

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Speaker 1: could take TV signals and projected across a much wider

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Speaker 1: viewing area. And in fact, the first working projection TV

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Speaker 1: got its start in Europe in the nineteen thirties. Now,

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Speaker 1: before I explain more, I should say that Dr Fisher

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Speaker 1: wasn't the only person working on this goal. Lots of

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Speaker 1: people were trying to create projection televisions, including ones who

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Speaker 1: had been working on something before Dr Fisher got started.

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Speaker 1: Some even had a few working models, but most of

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Speaker 1: them were producing very dim pictures, so you couldn't see

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Speaker 1: them easily projected on a screen. So while I say

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Speaker 1: Dr Fisher invented the projection television, that's really an oversimplification.

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Speaker 1: Lots of people invented similar devices, and that seems to

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Speaker 1: be the case with technology as a whole. Whenever we

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Speaker 1: say so and so invented something, there almost always needs

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Speaker 1: to be an asterisk after that statement so that you

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Speaker 1: can clarify other people were working on this too. It's

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Speaker 1: just one incarnation ended up being superior to the others. Now,

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Speaker 1: this particular invention's goal was to project an image large

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Speaker 1: enough for a theater sized viewing space, and several movie

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Speaker 1: studios were interested in this technology because it could provide

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Speaker 1: another source of revenue. If you didn't have a television,

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Speaker 1: you could just hop down to your local movie house

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Speaker 1: and check out television broadcasts there. But first someone had

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Speaker 1: to make a gadget that could project a televised broadcast

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Speaker 1: onto a screen. Now, Fritzie he unveiled a working prototype

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Speaker 1: back in n teen forty four, and he received the

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Speaker 1: US patent for his invention in ninet and he called

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Speaker 1: it the IDA four television system. Now IDA four is

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Speaker 1: spelled E I D O P h O R, and technically,

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Speaker 1: if you're being kind of generous, it means image bearer

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Speaker 1: roughly speaking. And here's how it worked. I'm gonna go

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Speaker 1: a little easy on this because the technical details get

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Speaker 1: pretty complicated, so we're gonna kind of take a bird's

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Speaker 1: eye view of this. First. Dr Fisher knew this system

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Speaker 1: would need to be very bright to illuminate a theater screen,

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Speaker 1: which was a problem. The other systems were running into

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Speaker 1: much much brighter than a normal television set. So for

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Speaker 1: that reason, he decided to use a powerful arc light

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Speaker 1: to provide the initial illumination, which was essentially a booster

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Speaker 1: for the image, to make sure you got that bright

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Speaker 1: enough so that when it projected on the screen it

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Speaker 1: was visible. Then he had to find a way to

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Speaker 1: modulate that light, in other words, to manipulate the light

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Speaker 1: to actually make the moving images you would see on

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Speaker 1: the screen. And his solution was to create an electron

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Speaker 1: gun system that we used a very thin layer of

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Speaker 1: oil the heat called IDA four liquid. So this is

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Speaker 1: not wildly different from cathode ray tube television screens. Remember

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Speaker 1: a cathode ray tube generated a stream of electrons, and

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Speaker 1: you would use that to paint the backside of a

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Speaker 1: television screen which had a phosphorus coating on it. So

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Speaker 1: as the electrons made contact with the phosphors, they would luminess,

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Speaker 1: they would light up. This is kind of a similar idea,

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Speaker 1: except that you didn't have that phosphorus layer on a screen. Instead,

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Speaker 1: the arc light would shine through a window and sometimes

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Speaker 1: also a color wheel, a mechanical color wheel to add

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Speaker 1: color to the image. That's the same style of color

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Speaker 1: wheel that CBS was pioneering in their color television UH

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Speaker 1: standard that they were pushing. Then that light, after it's

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Speaker 1: gone through the color wheel, would go through what is

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Speaker 1: called a condenser lenn. Now, when light passes through a

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Speaker 1: condenser lens, it aligns in parallel or collineated ways, so

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Speaker 1: or collimated I should say not collineated collimated ways. You

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Speaker 1: have these parallel rays of light after they pass through.

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Speaker 1: So this is useful if you've got say a source

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Speaker 1: of light that is diverging, it's spreading as it extends

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Speaker 1: outward from the source. If it goes through a condenser lens,

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Speaker 1: then it concentrates into more of a beam. So you

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Speaker 1: can think of those flashlights that have the really narrow

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Speaker 1: beam that come out the end. Chances are they're using

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Speaker 1: a condenser lens to create that beam. Uh. So it

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Speaker 1: keeps the beam nice and tight, and those parallel rays

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Speaker 1: of light would then encounter a mirrored bar system I mean,

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Speaker 1: I mean physical bars. Think of like iron bars on

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Speaker 1: a window, except instead of them being ironed, they're actually mirrors.

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Speaker 1: And it's angled in such a way that the light

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Speaker 1: coming from the arc lamp gets reflected uh ninety degrees

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Speaker 1: downward or to the lefter to the right, doesn't really matter,

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Speaker 1: but generally we diagram this as being downward. That light

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Speaker 1: would then hit a spherical mirror that would have a

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Speaker 1: very thin coating of this oil on it this ida

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Speaker 1: forore liquid on it, and pointed at this spherical mirror

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Speaker 1: was the electron gun. Now, the electron gun would fire

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Speaker 1: electrons just as a CRT tube would inside a television. Uh.

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Speaker 1: By the way, CRT tube, I'm being redundant. It's like

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Speaker 1: a t M machine or pin number. But a CRT

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Speaker 1: would fire electrons at the screen. In this case, the

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Speaker 1: electron gun is firing electrons at that oil. The electron

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Speaker 1: collisions would cause electrostatic charges to form on the surface

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Speaker 1: of the oil, which would then make the oil create

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Speaker 1: these wave like corrugations, and the high of the waves

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Speaker 1: was proportional to the strength of the video signal or

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Speaker 1: how bright it needed to be. This wave like action

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Speaker 1: on the oil is what actually modulated that light. So

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Speaker 1: you had the light coming in, reflecting down off those

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Speaker 1: mirrored bars, hitting this spherical mirror, and then being modulated

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Speaker 1: by this undulating oil. And by undulating, I'm talking about

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Speaker 1: atomic size changes in what was going on on the

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Speaker 1: surface layer of the this oil. That would then be

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Speaker 1: reflected back up through the bars of this mirrored bar

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Speaker 1: system up toward a projection lens, which was then directed

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Speaker 1: at another mirror that would reflect the projection onto the

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Speaker 1: theatrical screen. So some of the light goes through those bars,

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Speaker 1: continues upward and hits that projection lens. Now, but this

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Speaker 1: is where that ninety degree turn is really important, because

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Speaker 1: without that ninety degree turn, the arc light would just

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Speaker 1: be shining lights straight through a projection lens, and all

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Speaker 1: you would get is a blank screen, just just project

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Speaker 1: just light projected on a screen. No image would be there.

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Speaker 1: By having this mirror there that would let some light

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Speaker 1: go through. You could angle that light downward and have

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Speaker 1: the projection lens above the mirrored bars, so only the

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Speaker 1: reflected light is what ends up being put back onto

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Speaker 1: the screen. The light directly from the arc lamp would

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Speaker 1: not hit the screen, so you don't have to worry

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Speaker 1: about the image bleeding out or just being a blank screen.

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Speaker 1: It's actually a really interesting system, and again it gets

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Speaker 1: way more technical than what I'm describing right here, but

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Speaker 1: without the use of visuals it becomes increasingly difficult to

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Speaker 1: explain how this works, and light modulation, as it turns out,

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Speaker 1: gets into some pretty heavy physics. And we've got to

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Speaker 1: be completely honest here, I think I'd do a really

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Speaker 1: lousy job at describing the whole process without a lot

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Speaker 1: more work on my end to really get grips with

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Speaker 1: the science of it. So part of this is because

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Speaker 1: it's difficult to explain without visuals, but the other part

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Speaker 1: is just that when you get down to the physics

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Speaker 1: of light, I have a basic understanding and would need

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Speaker 1: to study a lot more to get a deeper understanding

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Speaker 1: in order to express exactly how this machine worked in

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Speaker 1: a more meaningful way. So please cut me some slack.

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Speaker 1: I'm not an optic scientist. The point is this contraption,

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Speaker 1: which weighed nearly two thousand pounds, allowed a projectionist to

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Speaker 1: send a televised signal to a large movie screen. And

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Speaker 1: the reason it weighed so much was because it required

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Speaker 1: a lot of power. So you had a lot of

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Speaker 1: power elements inside this thing. Uh. The electron gun and

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Speaker 1: the IDA four liquid also had to be kept inside

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Speaker 1: a vacuum, so you needed to have vacuum pumps to

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Speaker 1: make sure that you maintain that vacuum inside the chamber

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Speaker 1: with the IDA four liquid, otherwise you wouldn't get the

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Speaker 1: results that you needed. Also, temperature changes could affect the

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Speaker 1: performance of the oil itself, so you had try and

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Speaker 1: keep the temperature of the whole device fairly constant, which

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Speaker 1: meant that you had to include fans to blast out

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Speaker 1: extras extra excess heat. So there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: different components that went together to make up this thing,

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Speaker 1: which meant that it was enormous and heavy as a result. Uh.

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Speaker 1: By nineteen fifty two, television had found its way to

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Speaker 1: the Great White North a k a. Canada, and uh,

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Speaker 1: here's a shout out to all my viewers in Canada.

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Speaker 1: You guys are awesome. You guys might have been a

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Speaker 1: little late to the TV game, but you've also produced

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Speaker 1: some of the greatest writers and television performers in history

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Speaker 1: from SCTV, two Kids in the Hall and hundreds more.

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Speaker 1: But then you also gave a Seline Dion, So don't

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Speaker 1: get full of yourselves. You need to think about what

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Speaker 1: you did. In nineteen fifty six, we get another interesting invention,

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Speaker 1: one of my favorites, Zenith revealed the Zenith Space Command.

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Speaker 1: So Zenith Space Command, uh, in case you're curious, was

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Speaker 1: not a computer game. It was a remote control. It

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Speaker 1: was the remote control, the first wireless remote control that

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Speaker 1: was successful in the consumer market place. It was not

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Speaker 1: the very first wireless remote control, but was the first

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Speaker 1: one to really be viable enough to make it to market.

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Speaker 1: And it was invented by a guy named Robert Adler.

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Speaker 1: And I probably should do a full episode on Robert Adler.

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Speaker 1: He was born in Austria, but he left Austria during

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Speaker 1: the rise of the Nazi Party in the nineteen thirties

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Speaker 1: and he moved around Europe a bit, went to the UK,

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Speaker 1: and eventually immigrated to the United States. Then he took

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Speaker 1: a job at Zenith Electronics in the R and D division. UH. Now,

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Speaker 1: before Adler's invention, remote controls hadn't seen much success beyond

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Speaker 1: the laboratory. Early versions were actually tethered. In other words,

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Speaker 1: they had a cable that would connect back to the TV,

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Speaker 1: so really the remote control was was tied to the television.

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Speaker 1: You couldn't go anywhere with it. Uh It limited their usefulness,

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Speaker 1: so they never saw widespread adoption. And an earlier wireless

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Speaker 1: system used visible light and light sensing photo cells on

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Speaker 1: the television itself, so it's almost like a little flashlight

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Speaker 1: and if you pressed a button, it would flash a

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Speaker 1: certain sequence to send a command to the television, which

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Speaker 1: would then detect it through photo cells. But there's a

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Speaker 1: problem there. It was depending upon visible light, and it

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Speaker 1: turns out we use a lot of different sources of

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Speaker 1: visible light because we do not see so well in

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Speaker 1: the dark. So if your television set was exposed to

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Speaker 1: other sources of visible light, like the sun, it could

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Speaker 1: mistakenly interpret those light sources as being commands and the

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Speaker 1: next thing you know, you can't hear anything because the

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Speaker 1: sun keeps lowering the volume on your television set, so

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Speaker 1: that was a bit of a problem. Adler had a

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Speaker 1: different solution um, and it was different from the ones

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Speaker 1: that we have today. Today's remote controls mostly rely on

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Speaker 1: some other four of electromagnetic radiation, whether it's infrared or

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Speaker 1: some form of WiFi radio signal. That's what most modern

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Speaker 1: remote controls rely upon today. But back in the day,

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Speaker 1: it was all about ultrasonic frequencies. Old television remotes used

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Speaker 1: sound to control TVs, and inside these remotes were actual

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Speaker 1: small metal bars, typically made out of aluminum. So you

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Speaker 1: had physical little metal bars inside this remote control box,

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Speaker 1: and if you pressed the button, it would cause a

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Speaker 1: little lever to make those bars vibrate, and that vibration

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Speaker 1: would give off an ultrasonic frequency, and a receiver on

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Speaker 1: the television would quote unquote here this frequency and then

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Speaker 1: transfer that into some form of control. So it might

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Speaker 1: be volume up or volume down, it might turn the

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Speaker 1: TV off or on, it might change a channel. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, your basic remote control functions. And these sounds

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Speaker 1: are ultrasonic, so they're beyond the range of Hugh been hearing.

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Speaker 1: Remember human hearing goes from about twenty hurts to twenty

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Speaker 1: killer hurts. Uh. Typically that's that's average. Your results may

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Speaker 1: vary depending upon the human of choice. My hearing is

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Speaker 1: probably I'm at an age where it's probably not nearly

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Speaker 1: as high as twenty. Killer hurts for me because as

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Speaker 1: you get older, you start to lose the ability to

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Speaker 1: detect those higher frequencies. This is why you would hear

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Speaker 1: stories about certain convenience stores employing sound systems that could

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Speaker 1: play a pitch that was above what the typical adult

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Speaker 1: could hear, but within the hearing of say, gnarly teenagers

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Speaker 1: who are always clogging up the store. You just crank

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Speaker 1: up this irritating pitch that only the teenagers can hear,

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Speaker 1: and next thing you know, there aren't bothering you anymore.

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Speaker 1: It's a brilliant technology. In my mind, it saves me

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Speaker 1: from yelling at kids to get off my lawn. But

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Speaker 1: going back to the TV, this was supposed to be

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Speaker 1: at signals that not even teenagers can hear, even if

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Speaker 1: you ask them. Now, because the remote control and receiver

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Speaker 1: we're using these ultrasonic frequencies, you could cause your old

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Speaker 1: television to freak out with stuff like loose change or slinky. Really,

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Speaker 1: any metal or metallic device that could vibrate at a

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Speaker 1: at a frequency that would generate ultrasonic sound. You could

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Speaker 1: end up affecting a television this way. So this explains

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Speaker 1: how back when I would sit down to watch Saturday

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Speaker 1: morning cartoons, which, by the way, we're a thing that

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Speaker 1: used to happen. Now you don't really see them anymore,

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Speaker 1: but back in the day, that's when you would watch

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Speaker 1: cartoons Saturday mornings. You can get up seven or eight

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Speaker 1: am and just start watching on various television stations. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: when I would sit there and watch and then just

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Speaker 1: idly fidget with a slinky, I could magically make my

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Speaker 1: TV do stuff like turn the volume down over and

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Speaker 1: over again until I had to track down the actual

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Speaker 1: remote control and turn the volume back up because I

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Speaker 1: couldn't do I couldn't control the TV. I could make

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Speaker 1: it do things, but I couldn't make it do what

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Speaker 1: I wanted it to. It just would do whatever the

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Speaker 1: ultrasonic frequencies were telling the television to do, and I

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Speaker 1: couldn't have that kind of fine control over my slinky

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Speaker 1: manipulation skills to make it do what I wanted it

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Speaker 1: to do. But still kind of cool. Uh. The later

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Speaker 1: systems that used infrared and WiFi won't respond to ultrasonic frequencies.

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Speaker 1: But I maintained it's still fun to tell kids about

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Speaker 1: how a slinky used to be able to control a

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Speaker 1: television and then don't tell them that it doesn't work anymore,

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Speaker 1: because they could provide hours of entertainment for all involved. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: I just like tricking kids. I guess that seems like

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Speaker 1: a good segue. Let's take a quick break to thank

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Speaker 1: our sponsor, So let's skip ahead to nineteen sixty two.

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Speaker 1: That's when broadcasting companies from the United States, the United Kingdom,

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Speaker 1: and France collaborate on the design of the world's first

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Speaker 1: active communication satellite called tell Star one. Companies like Bell

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Speaker 1: Labs and A T and T took part in this,

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Speaker 1: as did NASA and the British Post Office and the

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Speaker 1: French Post as well. This satellite would allow a broadcast

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Speaker 1: station in Europe to send signals over to the United

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Speaker 1: States and vice versa. It also allowed for satellite uplink

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Speaker 1: on phone calls and faxes, so you could have transatlantic

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Speaker 1: communication via satellite. You didn't have to worry about laying

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Speaker 1: a cable down between Europe and the United States, for example,

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Speaker 1: so very useful now. The satellite entered low Earth orbit

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Speaker 1: on July tenth, two and it used for teen whole

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Speaker 1: lots of power. Chances are your laptop uses more than that,

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Speaker 1: but fourteen wats of power for this little satellite, and

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Speaker 1: it generated electricity using thousands of solar panels on its

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Speaker 1: outer hull. And it was spherically shaped, So if you

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Speaker 1: look at a picture of the tell Star one and

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Speaker 1: you don't have anything next to it to give you

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Speaker 1: any sense of scale, you might think it's the product

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Speaker 1: of a marriage between a disco ball and the Death Star,

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Speaker 1: which I maintain would be an awesome technology. But then again,

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Speaker 1: I also happened to own the Star Wars and Other

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Speaker 1: Galactic Funk vinyl album by Miko. Anyone out there who

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Speaker 1: knows what I'm saying man rock On as an awesome, awesome,

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Speaker 1: cheesy album, and I really do own it on vinyl.

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Speaker 1: The tell Star one satellite allowed for near instantaneous transmission

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Speaker 1: across the Atlantic with very little delay. It was possible

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Speaker 1: to watch real time live TV broadcast from across the

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Speaker 1: and but you could only do it for about twenty

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Speaker 1: minutes because the satellite was in low Earth orbit. That's

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Speaker 1: a problem because at low eth orbit it is actually

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Speaker 1: circling the Earth multiple times every day. It took about

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Speaker 1: two and a half hours for it to orbit the planet,

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Speaker 1: which meant that you had about twenty minutes of time

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Speaker 1: where the satellite was ideally positioned to transmit signals from

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Speaker 1: Europe to the United States or vice versa. Later on

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Speaker 1: we would launch communication satellites much much further out from

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Speaker 1: Earth had very high orbits into what is called geosynchronous orbits,

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Speaker 1: and a geosynchronous orbit allows the satellite to move in

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Speaker 1: a pattern over the same general area above the Earth,

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Speaker 1: so as the Earth turns, the satellites orbiting at the

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Speaker 1: same speed as the rotation of the Earth same relative speed,

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Speaker 1: not the exact same speed, because obviously you have to

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Speaker 1: move faster the further out you are, but it would

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Speaker 1: be able to maintain a general position above a certain

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Speaker 1: region of the Earth, and it tends to move in

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Speaker 1: a pattern, often a figure eight style pattern. There is

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Speaker 1: a subset of geosynchronous orbit called geo stationary orbit, in

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Speaker 1: which a satellite appears to be directly above a single

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Speaker 1: point on Earth along the equator. You have to be

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Speaker 1: along the equator in order for this to work. But

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Speaker 1: that is a subset of geosynchronous. So geosynchronous and geo

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Speaker 1: stationary are not exactly the same. Geo stationary as a

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Speaker 1: subset of geosynchronous orbits. Just something for you to think

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Speaker 1: of next time you're doing pub trivia and this kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff pops up. I don't know about your pub trivia,

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Speaker 1: but it pops up all the time for mine. By

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, broadcast networks in the United States began

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Speaker 1: to transmit color television programming on a regular basis. You

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Speaker 1: remember we talked about color TV in the last episode.

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Speaker 1: It would still be a few years before color television

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Speaker 1: sales outpaced black and white TVs. Uh, really, you're talking

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Speaker 1: about nineteen seventy And by nineteen seventy two you finally

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Speaker 1: got to a point where color televisions made up about

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Speaker 1: fifty of all TVs in the United States. And in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, the world watched as footage from the

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Speaker 1: moon landing reached TVs across the globe, and the astronauts

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Speaker 1: on that moon landing had a special camera, and the

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Speaker 1: camera had its own mechanical color wheel inside of it,

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Speaker 1: which was the same thing I talked about way back

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Speaker 1: in the first episode with mechanical televisions, I also mentioned

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Speaker 1: them in electronic TVs. The mechanical color wheel in the

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Speaker 1: camera cut down on the need for expensive and bulky components,

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Speaker 1: and it also meant the astronauts didn't have to send

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Speaker 1: as much data at a single time down to Earth

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Speaker 1: within a transmission, so it cut down on the bandwidth

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Speaker 1: necessary to send images back down to Earth. Synchronized color

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Speaker 1: wheels on the planet, we're able to reinsert color into

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Speaker 1: images before transmitting them to televisions, and I think it's

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Speaker 1: pretty cool. The technology that dates all the way back

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Speaker 1: to the mechanical TVs of the past found its way

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Speaker 1: to the Moon. It's pretty nifty. Also, in the nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: scientists developed three technologies that would eventually displace CRT televisions.

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Speaker 1: That would be light emitting diodes or l e d S,

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Speaker 1: liquid crystal displays or l c d S, and plasma

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Speaker 1: display panels or p DPS. L c D televisions wouldn't

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Speaker 1: take off for a few years, but they would come

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Speaker 1: first out of those three. It would take a couple

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Speaker 1: of decades for plasma to become a viable technology for

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Speaker 1: television's although they started being used for smaller displays earlier,

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Speaker 1: and LED televisions are even more relatively recent. Although the

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Speaker 1: development of the l E ED dates back to the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, we didn't see LED televisions until fairly recent uh,

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Speaker 1: But a lot of people were experimenting with these all

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Speaker 1: the way through the nineteen seventies, trying to get the

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Speaker 1: next technology for CRT S or to replace c r

432
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:55,639
Speaker 1: T S. I should say, now, let's start with nineteen

433
00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:58,439
Speaker 1: sixty four in the invention of the plasma display panel.

434
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 1: So yeah, plasma di lays date back to nineteen sixty four.

435
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 1: It was co invented by Donald Bitzer, H Gene Slotto,

436
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:10,919
Speaker 1: and Robert Wilson. Now they were working on developing a

437
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:15,160
Speaker 1: computer display, not really a television, but the basic principle

438
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,640
Speaker 1: is the same. The display consists of two panes of

439
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 1: glass that are pretty close together, but there's enough space

440
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:25,920
Speaker 1: in between them to insert and inert mixture of gases,

441
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 1: which are typically neon and xenon. Those gases can turn

442
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: into a plasma, which is an electrically conductive gas has

443
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:37,679
Speaker 1: some free electrons which allow it to conduct electricity. This is,

444
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,199
Speaker 1: by the way, the most plentiful type of matter in

445
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: the universe. It's the stuff that stars are made out of.

446
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:46,920
Speaker 1: Although they are much hotter than a plasma TV, You're

447
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 1: not gonna melt your house down with a at least

448
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 1: a properly functioning plasma TV. The plasma, once it's carrying electricity,

449
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 1: then excites phosphors, very similar to the way a cr

450
00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:04,400
Speaker 1: T television would use electrons to excite phosphors. And when

451
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:08,199
Speaker 1: you do that, you increase the energy levels in the

452
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:12,360
Speaker 1: electrons in those phosphor out atoms, and then they immediately

453
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: come back down. And when they come back down their

454
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 1: energy levels they have to release that excess energy in

455
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 1: the form of light, So the phosphers end up glowing.

456
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: They give off light, So the plasma takes that place

457
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 1: of the electron beam. And the first plasma display panel

458
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 1: could only display a single color. Uh they made some

459
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 1: in orange, green, and yellow. Those were your basic colors

460
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 1: that you would get for your computer monitors back in

461
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 1: the day. Now, the plasma display didn't take off in

462
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 1: the market or replace the CRT right away, largely due

463
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 1: to economics. It had nothing to do with the science

464
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: or the technology itself. It had to do with how

465
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: expensive it was to produce versus c RT technology. Semiconductor

466
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 1: memory was plummeting in price. This was something Gordon More

467
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: predicted in his obser vation that has since been called

468
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: Moore's law. Moore's law is not really about advancing technology,

469
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 1: so that's twice as powerful each year, or each eighteen

470
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: months or twenty four months, or however you wanted to

471
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: find the time period. It's really about how much less

472
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 1: expensive it is to manufacture those components and make it

473
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:24,920
Speaker 1: UH viable as a marketplace product. So every time that advances,

474
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 1: it gives companies the incentive to develop even more powerful semiconductors.

475
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:32,359
Speaker 1: That also means the price starts to come down, and

476
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:35,920
Speaker 1: that's what was happening at this time. So CRT technology

477
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: became super cheap. So there was really no incentive to

478
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 1: pursue plasma display technology at that time, not for televisions anyway.

479
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 1: So it was only that point where the PDPs performance

480
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 1: were so above and beyond what CRT s could do

481
00:28:55,360 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: that it started to counterbalance this this UH disparity in price,

482
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: and once that happened, then we started seeing plasma displays

483
00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:09,720
Speaker 1: adopted more widely. It also allowed for much slimmer form

484
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: factors than your CRT sets. I mean a CRT is

485
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 1: essentially a vacuum tube. It's a vacuum tube that generates

486
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:18,479
Speaker 1: a stream of electrons, which means you need to have

487
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: space in your television set to hold an electron tube.

488
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: Plasma displays don't need that. They have these two panes

489
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: of glass and then this gas that's in between them,

490
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 1: and then you just have to electrically excite the gas

491
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:33,239
Speaker 1: the proper way to make the phosphors glow, so they

492
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 1: could be much much thinner than CRT screens. But again,

493
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: that wasn't really a concern until much later than the

494
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, so it would be a long time before

495
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: we would see the rise of the flat screen television.

496
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 1: But PDPs had an advantage over the other early CRT

497
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 1: replacement technology of l c d s. That was the

498
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 1: other big one. Plasma displays are not constantly back lit,

499
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:00,760
Speaker 1: but l c d s are. Will get more into

500
00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: that in just a second. That means you could get

501
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 1: a much better contrast ratio between the brightest and darkest

502
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: colors on display, so you can get those what they

503
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: call true blacks on a on a plasma display. Because

504
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: there's no light coming from behind shining through a layer,

505
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 1: whereas l c D s did have that light constantly

506
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 1: there as long as the television set was on at

507
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: any rate. Also, plasma displays had better viewing angles than

508
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: earlier l c D displays dead and better response time

509
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 1: and better color representation than early l c D s,

510
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: So eventually l c D would eliminate those advantages. They

511
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: would catch up to plasma displays. But this is the

512
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 1: reason why home theater enthusiasts back in the day, and

513
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: by back in the day, I really mean the ninety

514
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 1: nineties would swear by plasma over l c D technology

515
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: because of this color representation, contrast ratio, better viewing angles,

516
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Eventually, LED tech would push

517
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 1: both of those aside. But more on that in a second.

518
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 1: So let's talk about l c D s. That stands

519
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 1: for liquid crystal displays, and liquid crystals are sort of

520
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 1: a weird molecule. They kind of act like a solid

521
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:14,560
Speaker 1: and they kind of act like a liquid. So solids,

522
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: I'm sure you recall, you guys, remember your elementary science.

523
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: They have all their atoms locked together, either in a

524
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: crystalline structure or not. But they are locked so that

525
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: they can't move around right, they're stuck in place. Otherwise

526
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be, you know, solid, But liquids have molecules

527
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 1: that hang together, so the molecules don't break apart, but

528
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 1: they can't move around more freely than in a solid,

529
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: and they can change their orientation with relation to each other, uh,

530
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: without any problems. So liquid crystals are sort of a

531
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: hybrid between these two, and the l c D s

532
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 1: and television are affected by electric current. In their natural state,

533
00:31:56,920 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: these crystals have a twisted formation because of the way

534
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 1: are attached at either end inside a television display. More

535
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 1: on that in a second. But when you apply a

536
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 1: current to them, they untwist, and it's through this twisting

537
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: and untwisting that you're able to manipulate light and have

538
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: it go through to a screen and create the moving

539
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: images you would see on an l c D television screen. Uh.

540
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 1: That's the simple explanation, but let's dive into it a

541
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 1: little bit further. So we're gonna explain this in one

542
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 1: of my favorite ways to describe technology as a sandwich,

543
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 1: because lunch was a long time ago, y'all, So our

544
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:36,080
Speaker 1: bottom bun in this sandwich is a light source, uh,

545
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 1: such as a fluorescent tube. That's your typical light source

546
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 1: in your early L C D s now. On top

547
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: of that first layer, that bottom bun, we have a

548
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:50,960
Speaker 1: tasty piece of polarizing film. So polarizing film can align light,

549
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:55,239
Speaker 1: polarize it in a certain way. Next, on top of

550
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: that we put a glass filter which is aligned the

551
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 1: same way as the polar rising film. Then we put

552
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: a negative electrode on top of that glass filter. That's

553
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 1: the electrode that says mean things about other electrodes. Not sorry,

554
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 1: that's just in my notes. This is actually the electrode

555
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 1: that puts out electrons. It generates electrons, sends those through.

556
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 1: It's the where the electrons come from. Now, on top

557
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: of the negative filter are are liquid crystals that we

558
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: arrange in a layer on that. On the other side

559
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 1: of the liquid crystals comes a positive electrode. This is

560
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: where the electrons quote unquote want to go to. Remember,

561
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: electrons are negative themselves and like repels like, so they

562
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 1: want to get away from the negative side and go

563
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: toward the positive side. Uh. So, on top of the

564
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 1: positive electrode is another glass filter, and on top of

565
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: that is another sheet of polarizing film, and that is

566
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: in a orientation that is ninety degrees off from the

567
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: first polarizing filter. So in other words, it's that a

568
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: right angle to the first layer. Then you've got the

569
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:06,840
Speaker 1: glass cover or screen, and that acts as the top bun.

570
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:11,240
Speaker 1: So here's what's going on. Light comes from the fluorescent tube,

571
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:14,480
Speaker 1: it hits that first filter I talked about, which then

572
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 1: polarizes the light that puts the light in a certain alignment.

573
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:24,840
Speaker 1: Let's say that light, now realigned, goes through the series

574
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:28,719
Speaker 1: of liquid crystals which are manipulated by electric fields to

575
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: twist or untwist in certain ways. That actually changes the

576
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 1: lights plane of vibration as it's guided through this this

577
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 1: layer of liquid crystals until it passes through and it

578
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: hits that second polarized filter. Now, any light that matches

579
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 1: the polarization of that second filter can pass through. Any

580
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 1: light that doesn't match that polarization is stopped. So you

581
00:34:56,080 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 1: can only pass through if you're aligned with that same polarization.

582
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: And think of it like a bunch of vertical slits

583
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 1: that are next to each other. And if you have

584
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:12,280
Speaker 1: a ray of light that isn't vertically oriented, it cannot

585
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: fit through that vertical slit. Or if you prefer think

586
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: of round pegs and square holes, you can't get the

587
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:22,240
Speaker 1: round peg through the square hole because the shape doesn't

588
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 1: fit correctly. It's the same general concept we're talking with polarization.

589
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:28,799
Speaker 1: So some of the light is angled the proper way

590
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:30,799
Speaker 1: and it passes through, and that's the light you see

591
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 1: on the screen. Other light gets blocked by this second

592
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 1: polarization filter and doesn't make it to the screen. Uh,

593
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:42,279
Speaker 1: and that is your basic l c D television screen. Now,

594
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: in a color display, which is typically what we see

595
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:48,600
Speaker 1: with l c D television's, each pixel has three cells.

596
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:52,360
Speaker 1: These are sometimes called sub pixels, and these are red, green,

597
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 1: and blue, and the combination of these make up all

598
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 1: the possible colors. We talked a little bit about color

599
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:01,439
Speaker 1: television in our last episode, so the same principle applies here,

600
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 1: except we're talking about light being passed through l c

601
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:08,839
Speaker 1: D s as opposed to an electron gun painting phosphors.

602
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 1: Each subpixel can be independently controlled to make lots of

603
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:16,839
Speaker 1: different colors when you combine these over the course of

604
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 1: multiple scans within a second, and some companies enhance this

605
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 1: with other additional subpixels, like sharp they have a yellow subpixel,

606
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: and they claim that this leads to more accurate color representation.

607
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:34,799
Speaker 1: But this method also means that you always have a

608
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:39,360
Speaker 1: light source behind all those liquid crystals and polarization filters,

609
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 1: and while it can prevent light from coming through, there's

610
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:46,320
Speaker 1: still usually a distinct glow coming from the screen because

611
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: the forests and lights are just lit behind the whole time.

612
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 1: Does that means? Sel c D screens, particularly the older ones,

613
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: had trouble displaying darker colors without light bleeding through the screen.

614
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,319
Speaker 1: So if you had a perfectly ark room and you

615
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: were watching a movie on an old l c D

616
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 1: television and the screen goes to black, you would actually

617
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 1: see almost like a charcoal gray screen. You would still

618
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:13,879
Speaker 1: be able to pick the screen out from the rest

619
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:15,799
Speaker 1: of the room because it's not able to present a

620
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:21,319
Speaker 1: true black because you always have that backlight on. Uh.

621
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 1: But then again, you know, while while plasma screens could

622
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 1: present a true black, they also had another problem called burning,

623
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 1: which is when you have an image that's on display

624
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:35,040
Speaker 1: for too long on a screen and it burns into

625
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:38,520
Speaker 1: the screen itself. So, for example, if you had a

626
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:41,799
Speaker 1: just a waiting screen showing like maybe it was a

627
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,840
Speaker 1: paused movie or television show or something along those lines,

628
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 1: and it was on the plasma display for a really

629
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,880
Speaker 1: long time. This happened a lot with demo displays that

630
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 1: would show a logo for a really long time that

631
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:56,359
Speaker 1: would burn into the screen, so you could always see

632
00:37:56,360 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: a ghostly image of that on on older alasthma displays.

633
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:04,440
Speaker 1: Just like l c D technology eventually evolved to the

634
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 1: point where the differences between l c D and plasma

635
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 1: became less noticeable. Plasma technology also advanced to a point

636
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:16,480
Speaker 1: where burning became less of a problem, but those early

637
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 1: screens definitely suffered from that problem. Now LED televisions might

638
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 1: as well fell finish the trifecta here. LED televisions use

639
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: light emitting diodes as the light source instead of fluorescent tubes,

640
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:32,760
Speaker 1: but they still use liquid crystals a layer of liquid

641
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: crystals to determine which light gets through to those polarization filters.

642
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: So really you could think of l e D television's

643
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 1: as a subset of l c D t vs. But

644
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 1: with l e D s there's much better power efficiency

645
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: uh than those fluorescent based sets because l E D

646
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:53,280
Speaker 1: s are are just extremely efficient. Also, you could allow

647
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 1: televisions to become even more thin than before. L e

648
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 1: D s take up very little space, and because you're

649
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 1: using an array of l e d s instead of

650
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:04,440
Speaker 1: a couple of fluorescent lights, you have way more control

651
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:05,839
Speaker 1: over which l e d s are lit up at

652
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 1: which time, so you could produce better contrast ratio with

653
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:12,400
Speaker 1: an LED television set than with a traditional l c

654
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 1: D set. And I've done a lot of episodes about

655
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:16,320
Speaker 1: l e d s in the past, so I'm not

656
00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:18,839
Speaker 1: going to divide into it more here except to say

657
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:23,160
Speaker 1: they're pretty boss. Then there's no lead sets, but I'm

658
00:39:23,200 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 1: not really going to go into that at all because

659
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: it would require a full episode on its own. But

660
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 1: those are organic light emitting diodes. That's what allows you

661
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:36,280
Speaker 1: the truly super thin screens. And they can also be flexible.

662
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 1: You can get those curved screens, you can get screens

663
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 1: that can change shape. You might remember there were a

664
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:46,239
Speaker 1: couple of television sets that were promoted as being able

665
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 1: to change from flat to curved. I think most companies

666
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 1: have abandoned that now because there just wasn't widespread adoption.

667
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:58,160
Speaker 1: It was almost as a curiosity but oh lad technology

668
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 1: allows that to happen. Now, in the early nineties seventies,

669
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:05,800
Speaker 1: now that we've described the technologies that would eventually supplant

670
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 1: CRT s, we started seeing the first of giant screen televisions,

671
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:15,400
Speaker 1: and the earliest were CRT televisions that were projection TVs.

672
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 1: That meant that they used cathode ray tubes just like

673
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:22,400
Speaker 1: traditional televisions did, or at least they also used CRT s.

674
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:25,239
Speaker 1: It was actually a little different from the way traditional

675
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:29,360
Speaker 1: TVs used them. It also made the sets really heavy

676
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:31,440
Speaker 1: and they gave off a lot of heat. If you've

677
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: ever used an old front or rear projection television that

678
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:38,680
Speaker 1: use CRT s, you know how big and clunky and

679
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 1: bulky and hot they got. They also worked a little

680
00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 1: bit differently, as I said, from standard CRT s. But

681
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 1: the the early early models were front projection televisions. That

682
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 1: meant that you had a component that actually sat in

683
00:40:52,120 --> 00:40:56,200
Speaker 1: front of the TV and projected onto the screen, sort

684
00:40:56,239 --> 00:40:59,720
Speaker 1: of like a movie projector does to a movie screen, except,

685
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 1: of course, we're talking about television images here, not not

686
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:07,719
Speaker 1: a light shining through moving film. Now, the projectors in

687
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 1: front of the television consisted of three light guns. So

688
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:14,319
Speaker 1: each of these light guns had a CRT inside them.

689
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:16,720
Speaker 1: There was one that was red, one that was blue,

690
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:18,840
Speaker 1: and one that was green. Big surprise there right the

691
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:22,279
Speaker 1: colors that we would use to create all the other

692
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:27,319
Speaker 1: colors that could be represented on a television. So all

693
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: three of those colors would combine. The series of images

694
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:33,880
Speaker 1: would combine in different intensities to create the moving images

695
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 1: you would see in front of you as you're watching

696
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 1: this television. Uh, and the intensity of the light through

697
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:42,720
Speaker 1: each light gun is what would determine the final color

698
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,240
Speaker 1: as it was painting this picture. So the projection screen

699
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:48,360
Speaker 1: was was painted and pretty much the same way the

700
00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: CRT TV sets painted the back of the screen with electrons.

701
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:54,919
Speaker 1: These televisions were generally lower resolution than what you would

702
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:58,520
Speaker 1: get with a typical CRT screen, So while you could

703
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:02,240
Speaker 1: get a bigger television at it wasn't at the level

704
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 1: of quality that you would expect with an old CRT

705
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:09,239
Speaker 1: TV set. And then there were rear projection CRT t

706
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: vs where you would have all those components, but they

707
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 1: would be inside the television itself and projecting on the

708
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 1: back of the TV TV screen, but still a projection

709
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 1: it wasn't painting phosphors the way a CRT TV set would.

710
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 1: These were huge. I should know. I had one once

711
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:30,600
Speaker 1: upon a time. I bought one just as CRT rear

712
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:33,719
Speaker 1: projection televisions were going off the market, so it was

713
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 1: super cheap. It's also huge, took up an enormous space

714
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 1: in my living room, and now it's in storage. True story,

715
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:45,719
Speaker 1: all right, so let's skip ahead of it. Television continued

716
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:50,240
Speaker 1: to proliferate around the world, with color television's eventually becoming

717
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 1: the standard and replacing black and white TVs. Meanwhile, over

718
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:56,760
Speaker 1: in Japan, researchers were hard at work developing the next

719
00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:00,839
Speaker 1: generation of television technologies, and a team of scientists at

720
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 1: NHK we're able to demonstrate an h d TV format

721
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 1: with one thousand onive lines of resolution, so HDTV stands

722
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:13,399
Speaker 1: for high definition TV, and those lines of resolution um

723
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,840
Speaker 1: were more. It was a huge amount, Like five twenty

724
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:19,279
Speaker 1: five was the standard here in the United States. It's

725
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: different than other parts of the world, but here in

726
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:23,480
Speaker 1: the US you had five hundred twenty five full lines

727
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:26,120
Speaker 1: of resolutions. So one thousand, one and twenty five was

728
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: a big jump up. And remember uh, more lines of

729
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:35,839
Speaker 1: resolution means sharper pictures. This happened all the way back

730
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 1: in nineteen eight one, So the first h d TV

731
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:44,359
Speaker 1: standard proposed came in eighty one, which blows my mind

732
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:47,479
Speaker 1: because it wasn't until the mid nineties that I really

733
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 1: started seeing HDTV take off. Two years later three this

734
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:56,240
Speaker 1: team from NHK actually demonstrated this technology at a conference

735
00:43:56,280 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 1: in Montrue, Switzerland. Uh and I hear they were rewarded

736
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 1: with many, many chocolates. It's good work for them. However,

737
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 1: in nineteen six they met with resistance from agencies in

738
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 1: Europe and the United States. The agency's declined to acquiesce

739
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:18,319
Speaker 1: to Japan's request that this version of HDTV become the

740
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 1: global standard. So Japan went ahead and started broadcasting in

741
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:27,440
Speaker 1: HDTV in Japan. Uh and they did that despite the

742
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 1: fact that everyone else said, no, that's not going to

743
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 1: be the standards. So they started doing that in nine

744
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: they actually became the first country to regularly broadcast in HDTV. However,

745
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 1: the rest of the world would resist adopting their standard

746
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:43,399
Speaker 1: and instead try to develop their own, so you had

747
00:44:43,719 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: various components all doing this at the same time. The

748
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:50,719
Speaker 1: United States had the FCC creating a special committee to

749
00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:54,280
Speaker 1: determine what the new digital standard in the United States

750
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 1: should be, just the digital standard, not even the HDTV standard.

751
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:02,279
Speaker 1: Over in Europe you had companies introduced the D two

752
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: Multiplexed Analog Components standard to lay the groundwork for analog

753
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 1: HDTV over on the continent, in a multinational committee of

754
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 1: engineers decided that the Moving Pictures Experts Group Format IMPEG

755
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 1: two would be the global standard for broadcasting digital television pictures.

756
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:27,239
Speaker 1: But they did not standardize a method of encoding the

757
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: sound or a method for actual broadcast of that standard.

758
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:35,760
Speaker 1: So they said, this is going to be the standard

759
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:38,759
Speaker 1: to carry the information, but they didn't standardize the way

760
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 1: to deliver it or how to encode sound with it,

761
00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:45,400
Speaker 1: which meant every country developed its own standard which are

762
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:49,720
Speaker 1: incompatible with other countries, thus creating all these compatibility issues

763
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 1: between different regions. That was fun. Now I've got a

764
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 1: lot more to talk about in this third section about

765
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:00,759
Speaker 1: the history of televisions, but wore I jump into that.

766
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 1: Let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. Let's

767
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:17,240
Speaker 1: pick up in that's when direct TV launched. I guess

768
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:20,240
Speaker 1: literally anyway, I should do a full episode just about

769
00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:23,680
Speaker 1: satellite television, because I don't think I have. I've covered

770
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:27,360
Speaker 1: cable television pretty extensively in past episodes, but I don't

771
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 1: think I've covered satellite TV that much. I might have

772
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 1: talked about a little bit back when Chris Palette was

773
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:37,880
Speaker 1: my co host, because he used to work tangentially anyway

774
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 1: with a satellite television company, and he would always recuse

775
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 1: himself at the beginning of those discussions. So maybe I

776
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:47,880
Speaker 1: will do a full episode about satellite television sometime in

777
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:53,280
Speaker 1: the future. In the FCC would approve a new standard

778
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 1: called Advanced TV in the United States that included both

779
00:46:57,400 --> 00:47:01,560
Speaker 1: multi channel standard digital television also known as s DTV,

780
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:06,840
Speaker 1: as well as high definition television. By more than twenty

781
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:10,319
Speaker 1: stations in the US across the top ten markets in

782
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 1: the country began to broadcast in digital formats rather than

783
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 1: an analog. Now more current televisions are equipped for this,

784
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:21,439
Speaker 1: but older sets would actually need a converter in order

785
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:24,600
Speaker 1: to accept a digital signal and then converted into an

786
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 1: analog signal that the television could then display. By the

787
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,240
Speaker 1: mid two thousand's, we reached the time in the US

788
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:35,200
Speaker 1: when all broadcasts were to switch to digital only that

789
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:37,759
Speaker 1: actually ended up getting delayed to the late two thousand's,

790
00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:40,719
Speaker 1: UM that first decade, in the late two thousand's, I

791
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:44,239
Speaker 1: should say, because we're still pretty early on People from

792
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:47,520
Speaker 1: the Future. This episode was recorded in seventeen, so I

793
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 1: don't mean like two thousand, nine hundred, So coolier jets. Also,

794
00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:57,520
Speaker 1: thanks for tuning in. But anyway, this, this conversion from

795
00:47:57,560 --> 00:48:01,040
Speaker 1: digital or from analog to digital, I should say, caused

796
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 1: some confusion in the marketplace, more than a little confusion,

797
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 1: partly because the messaging was muddled. It was hard to

798
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 1: understand what was actually being communicated. Consumers were not really

799
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:15,920
Speaker 1: sure if their televisions would continue to work after the

800
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:19,479
Speaker 1: switchover date, and I suspect a lot of people bought

801
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 1: unnecessary converters from analog or digital to analog, thinking, oh,

802
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 1: I guess I need this so that my TV can

803
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:30,320
Speaker 1: display it, not knowing that their television was already accepting

804
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:35,640
Speaker 1: digital signals because all the recent television sets that have

805
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:39,440
Speaker 1: been sold over the past decade really were equipped for

806
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 1: digital broadcasts, not for analog, but not everyone knew that UM,

807
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:46,799
Speaker 1: and so a lot of people ended up thinking they

808
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 1: needed a converter if they didn't really and they didn't

809
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:54,200
Speaker 1: really need one. So the the problem was that anyone

810
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 1: who was using an analog television set would be left

811
00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: behind because their television would no longer be able to

812
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:02,520
Speaker 1: take over the air broadcast. And this only affected over

813
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:04,760
Speaker 1: the air as well. If you were cable you were fine,

814
00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:09,279
Speaker 1: your cable box was doing everything for you. Um, but

815
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:11,239
Speaker 1: if you were doing over the air, like you were

816
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:15,760
Speaker 1: using an antenna to get your programming, then you needed

817
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:18,400
Speaker 1: to have an adapter if you had an old analog

818
00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:21,839
Speaker 1: television set. But this, all of this information was communicated

819
00:49:22,040 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 1: really haphazard and ineffective way. Uh. The cynical among us

820
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:29,840
Speaker 1: might say, well, that's the government for you, but really

821
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 1: it just was a It was a really chaotic and

822
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 1: confusing time for a lot of consumers. One of the

823
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 1: earliest episodes of tech Stuff I ever recorded was about

824
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:44,480
Speaker 1: this switch. I recorded it with my original co host,

825
00:49:44,600 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 1: Chris Palette, and if you want to listen to that

826
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:52,120
Speaker 1: now completely irrelevant episode, it is called do I really

827
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 1: need a digital converter box for my TV? I published

828
00:49:56,160 --> 00:50:00,720
Speaker 1: on July four, two thousand eight, Bastille Day. The answer,

829
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:03,440
Speaker 1: by the way, to that question is no, you do

830
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:05,880
Speaker 1: not need a digital converter for your TV, unless you've

831
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:08,840
Speaker 1: been wondering since two thousand eight why you're perfectly serviceable

832
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:12,080
Speaker 1: analog television is no longer picking up more than mindy reruns,

833
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 1: in which case the answer it might be, yeah, you

834
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:16,719
Speaker 1: do need a digital converter for your TV, and you

835
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:20,359
Speaker 1: have needed it for like a decade, But the better

836
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:25,280
Speaker 1: answer is probably just buy a new television anyway. Since

837
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:28,880
Speaker 1: that time, we've seen the emergence of ultra high definition television.

838
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:32,879
Speaker 1: This includes four K and eight K televisions, which up

839
00:50:32,920 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 1: the anti on resolution and honestly, at least in my opinion,

840
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:41,720
Speaker 1: this is my opinion, unless your television is truly gargangeline,

841
00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:44,680
Speaker 1: you really don't need to worry about four K and

842
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:47,239
Speaker 1: eight K television too much. If you sit close to

843
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 1: a really big TV, you'll notice the difference. But if

844
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:53,480
Speaker 1: you're at the proper distance, which most of us are

845
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:55,799
Speaker 1: sitting too close to our television's already. But if you're

846
00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 1: at what is considered the proper viewing distance and your

847
00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:03,360
Speaker 1: television isn't at seventy inches or larger, I doubt you'll

848
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:06,880
Speaker 1: really be able to see a huge distinction between HD

849
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:10,239
Speaker 1: at ultra HD. Now some of you might, but my

850
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:14,120
Speaker 1: old eyes have trouble telling the difference. If you put

851
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 1: an ultra HD set and an HD set of comparable

852
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:20,839
Speaker 1: size at the proper viewing distance away from me, I

853
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:23,279
Speaker 1: bet you it would be really hard for me to

854
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:26,600
Speaker 1: tell the difference, assuming that they both were calibrated to

855
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:30,720
Speaker 1: perform at peak performance. Because there are ways of making

856
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:34,680
Speaker 1: TVs look better or worse, people in electronics stores know

857
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 1: this trick. You can. You can calibrate one television to

858
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:44,000
Speaker 1: look really good on the display floor and another one

859
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:48,279
Speaker 1: to look less good because the really good one costs more,

860
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 1: and you can push people to buy the more expensive

861
00:51:50,680 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 1: television set. But if you truly calibrate both of them properly,

862
00:51:55,360 --> 00:51:58,120
Speaker 1: you might see less of a difference. That's not to

863
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 1: say that all TVs are created equal. They aren't, but

864
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:07,279
Speaker 1: sometimes these differences are exaggerated in order to make a sale. Also,

865
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:09,360
Speaker 1: you've got to remember that anything that was calibrated for

866
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:12,440
Speaker 1: the show floor is probably lousy in your living room.

867
00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to have it recalibrated so that you

868
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:18,000
Speaker 1: get the effect you what in your home theater based

869
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:21,640
Speaker 1: upon the light levels and other elements in your home.

870
00:52:21,840 --> 00:52:26,400
Speaker 1: But that's a whole episode all by itself. Anyways, you

871
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:30,720
Speaker 1: might suspect these ultra high definition televisions cram way more

872
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 1: pixels onto the screen than either HD or certainly more

873
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:39,000
Speaker 1: than standard definition television sets. And that's what resolution is really,

874
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:41,439
Speaker 1: It's the number of pixels that you can fit within

875
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:45,520
Speaker 1: the frame of a picture. More pixels generally means you

876
00:52:45,560 --> 00:52:49,920
Speaker 1: can represent finer details and make it less blocky. So

877
00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:53,120
Speaker 1: you might remember in a previous episode in the series,

878
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 1: I gave an analogy in which I talked about trying

879
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:57,680
Speaker 1: to make a picture of the Eiffel Tower using solid

880
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:01,400
Speaker 1: colored bricks. So the small are and more numerous the

881
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:06,000
Speaker 1: blocks I'm given, the more accurately I can represent that image.

882
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 1: And that's the case with televisions. As pixels get smaller

883
00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:12,760
Speaker 1: and more numerous, the images they produce can have details

884
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:15,719
Speaker 1: so fine that the human I really can't detect it

885
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:18,799
Speaker 1: unless you're right up on that son of a gun,

886
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 1: and I mean inches away. Heck, when I first saw

887
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:26,560
Speaker 1: eight K television sets at c e S, the representatives

888
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 1: there would actually hand out magnifying glasses so that you

889
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:31,960
Speaker 1: could get just inches away from the screen, hold up

890
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:35,160
Speaker 1: the magnifying glass and see the pixels, and that was

891
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:37,880
Speaker 1: the only way you could even pick them out. And

892
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:40,120
Speaker 1: at that point you might think, well, we've kind of

893
00:53:40,120 --> 00:53:44,560
Speaker 1: reached a level where it's indiscernible from the human eye

894
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:48,480
Speaker 1: to tell the difference between this layer of resolution and

895
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:52,560
Speaker 1: this layer of resolution again without the added benefits of

896
00:53:52,920 --> 00:53:57,239
Speaker 1: ideal calibration. Now, the NHK guys over in Japan, the

897
00:53:57,280 --> 00:53:59,759
Speaker 1: ones who were working on that HDTV standard back in

898
00:53:59,840 --> 00:54:02,719
Speaker 1: Night one were the ones who helped define the four

899
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:07,960
Speaker 1: K and eight K standards. Now they managed to win out.

900
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:10,800
Speaker 1: In this case, HDTV got kind of tossed the side,

901
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:13,719
Speaker 1: but four K and eight K one the day. But

902
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:17,080
Speaker 1: right now there's a scarcity of content at those resolutions.

903
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:20,440
Speaker 1: We're starting to see that change over time. You're starting

904
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:23,360
Speaker 1: to see some set top boxes that can generate and

905
00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:28,120
Speaker 1: ultra high definition stream of data. There's some online sources

906
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 1: that are offering this ultra high definition level of resolution.

907
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:35,520
Speaker 1: Things like YouTube and Netflix are offering that as well

908
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:38,960
Speaker 1: as other streaming services. You're starting to see some of

909
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 1: the other companies kind of dip their toe in this,

910
00:54:42,160 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 1: but it's still very early days for ultra high definition.

911
00:54:47,120 --> 00:54:50,520
Speaker 1: So you could buy one of these sets and not

912
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:54,120
Speaker 1: really see the benefit from it unless you also subscribe

913
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 1: to one of these services where you're getting the actual

914
00:54:57,120 --> 00:55:00,600
Speaker 1: four K or eight K content. Otherwise you're just watching

915
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:04,879
Speaker 1: high definition or even standard definition content on an ultra

916
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:11,359
Speaker 1: high definition screen. Uh. And that's you know, that's that's

917
00:55:11,400 --> 00:55:14,600
Speaker 1: not great. It's not like it's magically a whole lot

918
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:17,799
Speaker 1: better than watching it on a native standard definition or

919
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:21,560
Speaker 1: high definition screen. Japan is actually trying over the air

920
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:25,400
Speaker 1: broadcasts in uh D. I will likely see other countries

921
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:30,560
Speaker 1: follow suit. Ah. Now, one last thing I want to

922
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:33,600
Speaker 1: cover before I wrap up is something called high dynamic

923
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:36,440
Speaker 1: range or HDR. And this is something that started popping

924
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:39,160
Speaker 1: up at consumer electronics shows over the last few years

925
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:43,640
Speaker 1: me five or six years. Really, Uh, this technology isn't

926
00:55:43,640 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 1: so much about the resolution of images, which is what

927
00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:50,040
Speaker 1: four K and a K are all about. It's more

928
00:55:50,080 --> 00:55:54,319
Speaker 1: about accurately representing the levels of light and color on

929
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 1: television screens. So, in other words, a TV with HDR

930
00:55:58,040 --> 00:56:01,240
Speaker 1: should start producing images that look so lifelike that seems

931
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:04,040
Speaker 1: as if you're looking through a window rather than looking

932
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:07,480
Speaker 1: at a television screen. Now there's a bit of confusion

933
00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:12,320
Speaker 1: about the types of HDR, because there's photo HDR, which

934
00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:16,120
Speaker 1: at a very high level essentially is talking about taking

935
00:56:16,120 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 1: a series of images at a different level of exposure

936
00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 1: and then kind of using an algorithm to combine those

937
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:25,600
Speaker 1: into an ideal image to present a photograph that's supposed

938
00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 1: to be better than any of the components that went

939
00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:33,360
Speaker 1: together to create that photograph. Some people hate that effect.

940
00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 1: That's not the same thing as television HDR. That's just

941
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:39,080
Speaker 1: for photographs. T V HDR uses a slightly different approach.

942
00:56:39,239 --> 00:56:41,759
Speaker 1: The secrets TV HDR all has to do with how

943
00:56:41,840 --> 00:56:44,759
Speaker 1: much light is being shown on the screen, or at

944
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:48,880
Speaker 1: least that's mostly what it has to do with as

945
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:51,400
Speaker 1: far as television technology goes. A TV with hd R

946
00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:54,800
Speaker 1: should be able to produce more light in one part

947
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:58,000
Speaker 1: of an image than in other parts, even pixel by pixel,

948
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:02,120
Speaker 1: so it can create very subtle gradations of light and shade,

949
00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:05,479
Speaker 1: which is what makes images appear more lifelike and can

950
00:57:05,520 --> 00:57:09,239
Speaker 1: also aid in color representation. Although there are related technologies

951
00:57:09,239 --> 00:57:13,319
Speaker 1: to HDR that help with that, and this is what

952
00:57:13,400 --> 00:57:17,160
Speaker 1: makes his lifelike images, and we see the same representations

953
00:57:17,160 --> 00:57:19,640
Speaker 1: of light that we would see out in the real world,

954
00:57:20,000 --> 00:57:24,040
Speaker 1: so it's not just it's not just a replication, but

955
00:57:24,440 --> 00:57:29,560
Speaker 1: a true representation of what was captured on the production side. However,

956
00:57:30,560 --> 00:57:33,560
Speaker 1: it does not happen all on its own. To display

957
00:57:33,680 --> 00:57:35,920
Speaker 1: an image so that it looks real enough to reach

958
00:57:35,960 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 1: out and touch, you have to actually produce it in HDR. So,

959
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:44,200
Speaker 1: in other words, using a regular camera to capture images

960
00:57:44,240 --> 00:57:46,840
Speaker 1: and send it to an HDR television, is it magically

961
00:57:46,920 --> 00:57:52,400
Speaker 1: going to create those incredibly vibrant, subtle gradations, right? You

962
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:55,520
Speaker 1: have to have the HDR technology built into the post

963
00:57:55,520 --> 00:57:58,920
Speaker 1: production process to create the colors in the first place

964
00:57:58,960 --> 00:58:03,800
Speaker 1: for HDR to rep locate, So there's an extra step,

965
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:08,640
Speaker 1: in other words, in the production process. So you probably

966
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:12,080
Speaker 1: know that if you watch a standard definition program on

967
00:58:12,120 --> 00:58:17,720
Speaker 1: an HD TV, you're not magically watching high definition. You're

968
00:58:17,720 --> 00:58:25,080
Speaker 1: watching standard definition that's typically upscaled two approximate high definition television.

969
00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:30,440
Speaker 1: Upscaling essentially means that you are adding in extra pixels,

970
00:58:30,520 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: like neighboring pixels. Think of think of standard definition and

971
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:36,680
Speaker 1: has a certain number of pixels, and let's argue for

972
00:58:36,720 --> 00:58:38,800
Speaker 1: the you know, just for the sake of simplicity, that

973
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 1: HD is twice as many pixels. So every odd pixel

974
00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:48,439
Speaker 1: in HD would correspond to a single pixel and an

975
00:58:48,560 --> 00:58:52,640
Speaker 1: s D, So you have pixels one and three an

976
00:58:52,800 --> 00:58:56,720
Speaker 1: HD which would represent pixels one and two in standard definition.

977
00:58:57,160 --> 00:59:01,440
Speaker 1: So what does the HD pixel to show? Well, upscaling

978
00:59:01,480 --> 00:59:04,600
Speaker 1: algorithms take a guess. They say, well, based upon what

979
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:07,720
Speaker 1: these two colors are, we would think that the pixel

980
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:11,920
Speaker 1: in between should be this color. So it it generates

981
00:59:11,920 --> 00:59:15,680
Speaker 1: a pixel that was not created in the initial process

982
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:21,600
Speaker 1: of capturing that standard definition content. It's inventing information based

983
00:59:21,640 --> 00:59:25,800
Speaker 1: on a best guess, and the algorithms are completely what

984
00:59:26,160 --> 00:59:30,640
Speaker 1: generate those guesses, and they're generally pretty good. But upscaled

985
00:59:31,000 --> 00:59:34,720
Speaker 1: standard definition doesn't look as good as true high definition.

986
00:59:35,200 --> 00:59:37,840
Speaker 1: Same thing with high dynamic range. You need to have

987
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:42,520
Speaker 1: that HDR source to enjoy the benefit of an HDR

988
00:59:42,640 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: television set. Without that source, it's just a technology that

989
00:59:46,840 --> 00:59:50,240
Speaker 1: really can't kick into gear. So you have to depend

990
00:59:50,320 --> 00:59:55,160
Speaker 1: upon the creators to generate the content, whether it's with

991
00:59:55,440 --> 01:00:00,000
Speaker 1: a Blu ray or whether it's through broadcast technology. Uh.

992
01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:03,800
Speaker 1: Otherwise you just have this cool tech that you really

993
01:00:03,840 --> 01:00:08,440
Speaker 1: can't do anything with. Probably an easier analogy to imagine

994
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:12,520
Speaker 1: is three D Television's if you're watching something that wasn't

995
01:00:12,560 --> 01:00:14,880
Speaker 1: shot in three D. It doesn't matter if you have

996
01:00:14,920 --> 01:00:18,560
Speaker 1: a three D television unless it's doing that really awful

997
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:22,360
Speaker 1: simulated three D, which I do not recommend. But if

998
01:00:22,400 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 1: it's taking just a regular image, then three D T

999
01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:29,440
Speaker 1: three D is just a feature that isn't used on

1000
01:00:29,480 --> 01:00:35,919
Speaker 1: that content stream. So it does require that post production work.

1001
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:38,520
Speaker 1: But assuming that you get that, then you get this

1002
01:00:38,640 --> 01:00:43,160
Speaker 1: incredible picture quality. And I've seen sets that have really

1003
01:00:43,200 --> 01:00:45,480
Speaker 1: good hd R on them and it is gorgeous, Like

1004
01:00:45,520 --> 01:00:49,040
Speaker 1: the color representation is breathtaking. It to me, it is

1005
01:00:50,360 --> 01:00:54,040
Speaker 1: more effective than these dramatic improvements and resolution because, like

1006
01:00:54,080 --> 01:00:56,200
Speaker 1: I said, once you get to a certain level, unless

1007
01:00:56,240 --> 01:01:00,720
Speaker 1: you have a ludicrously enormous TV, and I'm talking like

1008
01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:04,760
Speaker 1: a hundred inch television or bigger, then you don't really

1009
01:01:04,840 --> 01:01:07,959
Speaker 1: notice the difference in the jump in resolution. Just because

1010
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:11,880
Speaker 1: our our eyes aren't that advanced. We can't tell the

1011
01:01:11,920 --> 01:01:15,320
Speaker 1: difference unless we're really close to the screen, in which

1012
01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:17,919
Speaker 1: case you can't really see everything anyway, because your fill

1013
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:20,280
Speaker 1: of view is completely covered by part of the screen

1014
01:01:20,320 --> 01:01:24,160
Speaker 1: you're looking at. Uh HDR to me makes more of

1015
01:01:24,200 --> 01:01:28,120
Speaker 1: a difference. One person has said, it's not about more pixels.

1016
01:01:28,160 --> 01:01:32,960
Speaker 1: It's about better pixels, which is a rough way of

1017
01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:38,080
Speaker 1: of equating HDR versus high ultra high resolution. I'm being said,

1018
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:39,800
Speaker 1: I'm sure that a lot of people can tell the

1019
01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:44,160
Speaker 1: difference between high definition and ultra high definition. I'm not

1020
01:01:44,320 --> 01:01:45,840
Speaker 1: really one of those people. I can tell a little

1021
01:01:45,880 --> 01:01:47,680
Speaker 1: bit of a difference, but not enough. It's not as

1022
01:01:47,760 --> 01:01:51,600
Speaker 1: dramatic as the change from standard definition to high definition.

1023
01:01:52,000 --> 01:01:54,920
Speaker 1: Not for me anyway. Frame rates are another thing. I

1024
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:58,840
Speaker 1: could talk about frame rates and how television manufacturers have

1025
01:01:58,920 --> 01:02:04,880
Speaker 1: created super fast refresh rates for their TVs, where the

1026
01:02:05,120 --> 01:02:09,240
Speaker 1: screen is refreshing many more times per second than your

1027
01:02:09,280 --> 01:02:13,040
Speaker 1: standard definition television's were. This works great for stuff that's

1028
01:02:13,080 --> 01:02:16,240
Speaker 1: moving really fast on your screen, typically stuff like sports.

1029
01:02:16,720 --> 01:02:19,640
Speaker 1: If you're watching sports on television and you have a

1030
01:02:19,800 --> 01:02:23,040
Speaker 1: really fast frame rate, it may it reduces blur, so

1031
01:02:23,080 --> 01:02:25,160
Speaker 1: you can see all the action very clearly, and it's

1032
01:02:25,480 --> 01:02:29,800
Speaker 1: really impressive. If you're watching anything else, it's really disorienting.

1033
01:02:30,640 --> 01:02:33,160
Speaker 1: That's where you start getting that that what people call

1034
01:02:33,240 --> 01:02:37,920
Speaker 1: the soap opera effect, where everything starts looking like it

1035
01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 1: was shot on a soap opera set. Um. Yeah, Dylan's

1036
01:02:41,880 --> 01:02:44,920
Speaker 1: giving the old thumbs down. Uh, This is where I

1037
01:02:44,960 --> 01:02:48,000
Speaker 1: could go into a full rant about the Hobbit films,

1038
01:02:48,240 --> 01:02:51,640
Speaker 1: and I have done it on other podcasts. Anyone who's

1039
01:02:51,680 --> 01:02:53,920
Speaker 1: listened to those other podcasts knows what I'm talking about.

1040
01:02:54,880 --> 01:02:58,160
Speaker 1: Don't get me started. I don't like high frame rates

1041
01:02:58,840 --> 01:03:01,840
Speaker 1: or high refresh rates for that matter, for content that's

1042
01:03:01,880 --> 01:03:05,200
Speaker 1: not sports related anyway, and I'm not a big sports fan.

1043
01:03:05,560 --> 01:03:07,720
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, I just don't watch a lot of

1044
01:03:07,760 --> 01:03:12,840
Speaker 1: it anyway. If I wanted to dive into ultra high

1045
01:03:12,880 --> 01:03:19,800
Speaker 1: definition frame rates or refresh rates or HDR to any

1046
01:03:19,880 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 1: real extent, it would require a full episode dedicated to

1047
01:03:23,120 --> 01:03:26,600
Speaker 1: just that topic. And I really don't want to extend

1048
01:03:26,600 --> 01:03:30,080
Speaker 1: this series further at this time, so I'll probably revisit

1049
01:03:30,120 --> 01:03:33,120
Speaker 1: these topics further down the road. Let's get like a

1050
01:03:33,160 --> 01:03:36,200
Speaker 1: couple of dozen episodes of other stuff before I tackled

1051
01:03:36,240 --> 01:03:40,720
Speaker 1: TVs again. But I did have fun tracing the history

1052
01:03:40,960 --> 01:03:44,840
Speaker 1: of the evolution of televisions, particularly the early days, because

1053
01:03:45,160 --> 01:03:49,680
Speaker 1: it was such a dramatic story. Uh, for now, I'm

1054
01:03:49,680 --> 01:03:53,120
Speaker 1: gonna wrap up this series, and even now I had

1055
01:03:53,120 --> 01:03:55,560
Speaker 1: to gloss over a ton of stuff. I apologize for that,

1056
01:03:55,600 --> 01:03:58,280
Speaker 1: but honestly, I don't want to sit here and record

1057
01:03:58,320 --> 01:04:00,720
Speaker 1: for four hours, and Dylan definitely he doesn't want that,

1058
01:04:01,160 --> 01:04:03,320
Speaker 1: so we're gonna leave it for now. If you guys

1059
01:04:03,360 --> 01:04:06,560
Speaker 1: have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, please let

1060
01:04:06,680 --> 01:04:08,840
Speaker 1: me know. You can get in touch with me by

1061
01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:12,360
Speaker 1: sending an email to the address text stuff at how

1062
01:04:12,440 --> 01:04:14,960
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or you can drop me a

1063
01:04:15,000 --> 01:04:18,320
Speaker 1: line on Facebook or Twitter. The handle at both of

1064
01:04:18,320 --> 01:04:22,280
Speaker 1: those locations is tech Stuff H s W and I'll

1065
01:04:22,280 --> 01:04:30,440
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. For more on this

1066
01:04:30,560 --> 01:04:33,080
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works

1067
01:04:33,120 --> 01:04:42,400
Speaker 1: dot com