WEBVTT - The TV Story Part 3 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in tech with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.280 stuff works dot com. Hey then, everyone, and welcome to 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:17.079 tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, senior writer for 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:19.159 how stuff Works dot com, and today we're going to 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:23.079 continue our series on the history of TV technology. Now. 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.520 In our last episode where we last left off, if 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:31.560 you prefer or last week on tech Stuff, we covered 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.960 the contentious birth of the electronic television, talked about how 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.240 a couple of different inventors and companies were laying claim 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.800 to being the inventor of TV. And we also talked 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.720 all the way up to the the invention of color 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:51.240 TV and how CBS had tried to define color television, 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:55.840 but our c A eventually was able to undermine that 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.800 and create their own version, their own standard for color 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:03.000 t V that ended up becoming the standard. I'm gonna 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.679 try and pack a lot in with this particular episode 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:08.440 to talk about the significant developments that happened once color 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.800 television started making an impact in the sixties and seventies, 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:15.560 although I'm gonna have to backtrack some to cover some 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.720 of these topics, because, as it turns out, history is 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:23.120 not a very simple timeline of dates. Right. If you 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:26.120 want to explain how something works, sometimes you have to 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:30.240 follow that trail down a few years before you backtrack 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:32.880 and go back to an earlier point to go to 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:38.440 the next logical section of your explanation. I wish time 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.160 didn't work that way, because it would make organizing podcasts 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:46.639 way easier. Now, for the most part, I've stayed away 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.559 from talking about actual programming on television. In other words, 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:52.320 I haven't really talked about the types of stuff you'd 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.760 watch on TV, just the technology of television itself. But 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:00.360 television has really transformed our world in many ways, and 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:05.480 it also cemented several notions when it comes to business practices, 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:10.120 things like sponsorships and advertising. TV was able to establish 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:14.040 some basic rules that ended up being applied to other industries, 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:18.040 including the online world. And we've seen a lot of 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.680 growing pains because of that, because we've seen how the 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:25.359 online world is very different from the broadcast TV world, 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:27.760 and yet for a long time it was being treated 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:29.919 as if it were the same thing from a marketing 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.280 and advertising point of view. Uh And to this day, 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:37.560 we're still struggling with that that decision. But let's get 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.200 back to the technology section. So while our c A 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.120 and CBS, we're duking out which company would define the 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:47.040 color TV standard. Other eggheads were working on different ways 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.959 to transform the TV viewing experience. So as early as 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.360 the nineteen thirties, A T and T began to experiment 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:58.720 with coaxial cables to carry television transmissions to homes that 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:02.240 couldn't receive over the air signals. And this was a 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.359 problem not just in remote areas that were really far 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.400 away from transmitters, but also in big cities where buildings 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:13.680 could block signals. So I've covered cable TV and other 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.320 episodes of tech stuff. I'm not really going to dive 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.880 into it here because it would just be repeating stuff 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.679 I've talked about in previous episodes. But I'll just say 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.560 that it was the rise of cable, particularly in the 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.400 nineteen eighties, that transformed television again and gave audiences far 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.519 more options than just a few local channels. It's also 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:37.280 what gave rise to superstations that could cover an entire region, 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.040 an entire country. The United States is big. For a 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:45.240 long time, everyone just had access to their local affiliate stations, 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.160 so they didn't have access to things that were playing 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.880 in other other regions, other markets. Here in Atlanta, you 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.400 could pick up Chicago stations occasionally and you can see 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.640 the Chicago version of the same stuff that you would 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.320 get with in Atlanta based version. But after the the 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:07.240 widespread use of cable, we started seeing these nationwide networks 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.160 that were the same across the entire United States. That 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.760 was only made possible through cable TV. But I again, 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:15.640 I covered that in a previous episode, so we're not 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.400 really going to focus on that today. Now, in the 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:23.359 late nineteen thirties, going back pretty far, Dr Fritz Fisher 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.400 of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology dreamed up a 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.440 way to project television images on a much larger screen. 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:33.320 So instead of just having a little twelve inch screen 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:35.920 that you stare at, this would be a projector that 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.919 could take TV signals and projected across a much wider 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.800 viewing area. And in fact, the first working projection TV 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:47.240 got its start in Europe in the nineteen thirties. Now, 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.800 before I explain more, I should say that Dr Fisher 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.760 wasn't the only person working on this goal. Lots of 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:56.680 people were trying to create projection televisions, including ones who 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.800 had been working on something before Dr Fisher got started. 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.400 Some even had a few working models, but most of 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.880 them were producing very dim pictures, so you couldn't see 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.040 them easily projected on a screen. So while I say 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:13.120 Dr Fisher invented the projection television, that's really an oversimplification. 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:17.000 Lots of people invented similar devices, and that seems to 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:19.240 be the case with technology as a whole. Whenever we 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.200 say so and so invented something, there almost always needs 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.680 to be an asterisk after that statement so that you 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.720 can clarify other people were working on this too. It's 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:32.640 just one incarnation ended up being superior to the others. Now, 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:35.279 this particular invention's goal was to project an image large 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.960 enough for a theater sized viewing space, and several movie 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.440 studios were interested in this technology because it could provide 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.960 another source of revenue. If you didn't have a television, 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:48.440 you could just hop down to your local movie house 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.400 and check out television broadcasts there. But first someone had 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.080 to make a gadget that could project a televised broadcast 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:59.520 onto a screen. Now, Fritzie he unveiled a working prototype 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.440 back in n teen forty four, and he received the 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:06.279 US patent for his invention in ninet and he called 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.800 it the IDA four television system. Now IDA four is 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:14.320 spelled E I D O P h O R, and technically, 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.400 if you're being kind of generous, it means image bearer 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.640 roughly speaking. And here's how it worked. I'm gonna go 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:26.200 a little easy on this because the technical details get 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.599 pretty complicated, so we're gonna kind of take a bird's 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:32.719 eye view of this. First. Dr Fisher knew this system 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.799 would need to be very bright to illuminate a theater screen, 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.159 which was a problem. The other systems were running into 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.719 much much brighter than a normal television set. So for 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.400 that reason, he decided to use a powerful arc light 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:48.760 to provide the initial illumination, which was essentially a booster 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:50.800 for the image, to make sure you got that bright 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:52.839 enough so that when it projected on the screen it 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:55.120 was visible. Then he had to find a way to 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:57.960 modulate that light, in other words, to manipulate the light 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.760 to actually make the moving images you would see on 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.520 the screen. And his solution was to create an electron 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.800 gun system that we used a very thin layer of 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:10.800 oil the heat called IDA four liquid. So this is 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:16.120 not wildly different from cathode ray tube television screens. Remember 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.720 a cathode ray tube generated a stream of electrons, and 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:23.600 you would use that to paint the backside of a 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:27.520 television screen which had a phosphorus coating on it. So 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:31.360 as the electrons made contact with the phosphors, they would luminess, 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.640 they would light up. This is kind of a similar idea, 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:39.400 except that you didn't have that phosphorus layer on a screen. Instead, 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.400 the arc light would shine through a window and sometimes 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.440 also a color wheel, a mechanical color wheel to add 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.640 color to the image. That's the same style of color 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.520 wheel that CBS was pioneering in their color television UH 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:56.480 standard that they were pushing. Then that light, after it's 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:58.720 gone through the color wheel, would go through what is 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.000 called a condenser lenn. Now, when light passes through a 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:06.640 condenser lens, it aligns in parallel or collineated ways, so 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:11.080 or collimated I should say not collineated collimated ways. You 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.040 have these parallel rays of light after they pass through. 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.960 So this is useful if you've got say a source 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:21.120 of light that is diverging, it's spreading as it extends 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.440 outward from the source. If it goes through a condenser lens, 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:28.480 then it concentrates into more of a beam. So you 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.760 can think of those flashlights that have the really narrow 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.440 beam that come out the end. Chances are they're using 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:39.360 a condenser lens to create that beam. Uh. So it 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.760 keeps the beam nice and tight, and those parallel rays 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:47.559 of light would then encounter a mirrored bar system I mean, 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.720 I mean physical bars. Think of like iron bars on 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:54.200 a window, except instead of them being ironed, they're actually mirrors. 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.160 And it's angled in such a way that the light 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:01.440 coming from the arc lamp gets reflected uh ninety degrees 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:05.680 downward or to the lefter to the right, doesn't really matter, 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:10.760 but generally we diagram this as being downward. That light 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.560 would then hit a spherical mirror that would have a 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:17.720 very thin coating of this oil on it this ida 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:22.679 forore liquid on it, and pointed at this spherical mirror 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:26.199 was the electron gun. Now, the electron gun would fire 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:31.600 electrons just as a CRT tube would inside a television. Uh. 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:34.920 By the way, CRT tube, I'm being redundant. It's like 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:38.400 a t M machine or pin number. But a CRT 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:41.360 would fire electrons at the screen. In this case, the 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.920 electron gun is firing electrons at that oil. The electron 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:49.800 collisions would cause electrostatic charges to form on the surface 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.319 of the oil, which would then make the oil create 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.600 these wave like corrugations, and the high of the waves 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.480 was proportional to the strength of the video signal or 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:02.080 how bright it needed to be. This wave like action 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.640 on the oil is what actually modulated that light. So 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.480 you had the light coming in, reflecting down off those 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:11.400 mirrored bars, hitting this spherical mirror, and then being modulated 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:15.520 by this undulating oil. And by undulating, I'm talking about 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:20.400 atomic size changes in what was going on on the 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:25.160 surface layer of the this oil. That would then be 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:29.760 reflected back up through the bars of this mirrored bar 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:34.840 system up toward a projection lens, which was then directed 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:39.120 at another mirror that would reflect the projection onto the 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:43.600 theatrical screen. So some of the light goes through those bars, 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:49.439 continues upward and hits that projection lens. Now, but this 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.800 is where that ninety degree turn is really important, because 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.720 without that ninety degree turn, the arc light would just 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.520 be shining lights straight through a projection lens, and all 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:02.000 you would get is a blank screen, just just project 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.960 just light projected on a screen. No image would be there. 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.319 By having this mirror there that would let some light 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:14.560 go through. You could angle that light downward and have 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:20.320 the projection lens above the mirrored bars, so only the 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:24.199 reflected light is what ends up being put back onto 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.080 the screen. The light directly from the arc lamp would 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:30.240 not hit the screen, so you don't have to worry 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.040 about the image bleeding out or just being a blank screen. 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.079 It's actually a really interesting system, and again it gets 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.000 way more technical than what I'm describing right here, but 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:44.600 without the use of visuals it becomes increasingly difficult to 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:48.680 explain how this works, and light modulation, as it turns out, 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.800 gets into some pretty heavy physics. And we've got to 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:54.400 be completely honest here, I think I'd do a really 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.240 lousy job at describing the whole process without a lot 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:00.600 more work on my end to really get grips with 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:03.600 the science of it. So part of this is because 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.560 it's difficult to explain without visuals, but the other part 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.480 is just that when you get down to the physics 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.760 of light, I have a basic understanding and would need 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.840 to study a lot more to get a deeper understanding 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:19.680 in order to express exactly how this machine worked in 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.440 a more meaningful way. So please cut me some slack. 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.920 I'm not an optic scientist. The point is this contraption, 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:30.800 which weighed nearly two thousand pounds, allowed a projectionist to 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:34.320 send a televised signal to a large movie screen. And 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.160 the reason it weighed so much was because it required 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:38.760 a lot of power. So you had a lot of 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:42.160 power elements inside this thing. Uh. The electron gun and 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.600 the IDA four liquid also had to be kept inside 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.240 a vacuum, so you needed to have vacuum pumps to 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:50.440 make sure that you maintain that vacuum inside the chamber 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.800 with the IDA four liquid, otherwise you wouldn't get the 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:57.720 results that you needed. Also, temperature changes could affect the 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.400 performance of the oil itself, so you had try and 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.959 keep the temperature of the whole device fairly constant, which 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:06.520 meant that you had to include fans to blast out 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.880 extras extra excess heat. So there are a lot of 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.520 different components that went together to make up this thing, 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:17.959 which meant that it was enormous and heavy as a result. Uh. 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.480 By nineteen fifty two, television had found its way to 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:24.719 the Great White North a k a. Canada, and uh, 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.640 here's a shout out to all my viewers in Canada. 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.280 You guys are awesome. You guys might have been a 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.240 little late to the TV game, but you've also produced 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:37.559 some of the greatest writers and television performers in history 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:41.280 from SCTV, two Kids in the Hall and hundreds more. 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.839 But then you also gave a Seline Dion, So don't 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.880 get full of yourselves. You need to think about what 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:54.960 you did. In nineteen fifty six, we get another interesting invention, 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:59.200 one of my favorites, Zenith revealed the Zenith Space Command. 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:04.360 So Zenith Space Command, uh, in case you're curious, was 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:08.480 not a computer game. It was a remote control. It 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.960 was the remote control, the first wireless remote control that 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.400 was successful in the consumer market place. It was not 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.080 the very first wireless remote control, but was the first 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.600 one to really be viable enough to make it to market. 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.880 And it was invented by a guy named Robert Adler. 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.040 And I probably should do a full episode on Robert Adler. 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:32.840 He was born in Austria, but he left Austria during 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:35.320 the rise of the Nazi Party in the nineteen thirties 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.000 and he moved around Europe a bit, went to the UK, 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.360 and eventually immigrated to the United States. Then he took 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:45.760 a job at Zenith Electronics in the R and D division. UH. Now, 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.440 before Adler's invention, remote controls hadn't seen much success beyond 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.560 the laboratory. Early versions were actually tethered. In other words, 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:55.760 they had a cable that would connect back to the TV, 0:14:55.880 --> 0:15:00.880 so really the remote control was was tied to the television. 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:05.000 You couldn't go anywhere with it. Uh It limited their usefulness, 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:09.240 so they never saw widespread adoption. And an earlier wireless 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.800 system used visible light and light sensing photo cells on 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.440 the television itself, so it's almost like a little flashlight 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:17.480 and if you pressed a button, it would flash a 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:21.680 certain sequence to send a command to the television, which 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.280 would then detect it through photo cells. But there's a 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.040 problem there. It was depending upon visible light, and it 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.000 turns out we use a lot of different sources of 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:31.440 visible light because we do not see so well in 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.640 the dark. So if your television set was exposed to 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:38.280 other sources of visible light, like the sun, it could 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:43.680 mistakenly interpret those light sources as being commands and the 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.120 next thing you know, you can't hear anything because the 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.800 sun keeps lowering the volume on your television set, so 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.560 that was a bit of a problem. Adler had a 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.760 different solution um, and it was different from the ones 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:59.360 that we have today. Today's remote controls mostly rely on 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:04.120 some other four of electromagnetic radiation, whether it's infrared or 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:08.760 some form of WiFi radio signal. That's what most modern 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.000 remote controls rely upon today. But back in the day, 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:17.920 it was all about ultrasonic frequencies. Old television remotes used 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:22.880 sound to control TVs, and inside these remotes were actual 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.640 small metal bars, typically made out of aluminum. So you 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.240 had physical little metal bars inside this remote control box, 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:32.360 and if you pressed the button, it would cause a 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:36.360 little lever to make those bars vibrate, and that vibration 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.640 would give off an ultrasonic frequency, and a receiver on 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:43.960 the television would quote unquote here this frequency and then 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.080 transfer that into some form of control. So it might 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.080 be volume up or volume down, it might turn the 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:52.880 TV off or on, it might change a channel. Uh, 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:56.960 you know, your basic remote control functions. And these sounds 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.480 are ultrasonic, so they're beyond the range of Hugh been hearing. 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:04.080 Remember human hearing goes from about twenty hurts to twenty 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:10.000 killer hurts. Uh. Typically that's that's average. Your results may 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:14.760 vary depending upon the human of choice. My hearing is 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.480 probably I'm at an age where it's probably not nearly 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:19.479 as high as twenty. Killer hurts for me because as 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:21.679 you get older, you start to lose the ability to 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:25.840 detect those higher frequencies. This is why you would hear 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:30.560 stories about certain convenience stores employing sound systems that could 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:33.359 play a pitch that was above what the typical adult 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:38.440 could hear, but within the hearing of say, gnarly teenagers 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.440 who are always clogging up the store. You just crank 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.680 up this irritating pitch that only the teenagers can hear, 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:48.480 and next thing you know, there aren't bothering you anymore. 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:54.080 It's a brilliant technology. In my mind, it saves me 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.080 from yelling at kids to get off my lawn. But 0:17:57.760 --> 0:17:59.919 going back to the TV, this was supposed to be 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:05.160 at signals that not even teenagers can hear, even if 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.720 you ask them. Now, because the remote control and receiver 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.200 we're using these ultrasonic frequencies, you could cause your old 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:18.720 television to freak out with stuff like loose change or slinky. Really, 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:23.680 any metal or metallic device that could vibrate at a 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:28.800 at a frequency that would generate ultrasonic sound. You could 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.680 end up affecting a television this way. So this explains 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.400 how back when I would sit down to watch Saturday 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:40.000 morning cartoons, which, by the way, we're a thing that 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.240 used to happen. Now you don't really see them anymore, 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:45.520 but back in the day, that's when you would watch 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.000 cartoons Saturday mornings. You can get up seven or eight 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:53.240 am and just start watching on various television stations. Anyway, 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:56.359 when I would sit there and watch and then just 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:00.119 idly fidget with a slinky, I could magically make my 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:02.800 TV do stuff like turn the volume down over and 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:04.920 over again until I had to track down the actual 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.159 remote control and turn the volume back up because I 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.600 couldn't do I couldn't control the TV. I could make 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:12.240 it do things, but I couldn't make it do what 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:14.639 I wanted it to. It just would do whatever the 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.919 ultrasonic frequencies were telling the television to do, and I 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.960 couldn't have that kind of fine control over my slinky 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.080 manipulation skills to make it do what I wanted it 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:30.600 to do. But still kind of cool. Uh. The later 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:35.800 systems that used infrared and WiFi won't respond to ultrasonic frequencies. 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.120 But I maintained it's still fun to tell kids about 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.320 how a slinky used to be able to control a 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:44.160 television and then don't tell them that it doesn't work anymore, 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:49.600 because they could provide hours of entertainment for all involved. Anyway, 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.600 I just like tricking kids. I guess that seems like 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.920 a good segue. Let's take a quick break to thank 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:09.680 our sponsor, So let's skip ahead to nineteen sixty two. 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:13.400 That's when broadcasting companies from the United States, the United Kingdom, 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.520 and France collaborate on the design of the world's first 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:22.200 active communication satellite called tell Star one. Companies like Bell 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:24.399 Labs and A T and T took part in this, 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:27.920 as did NASA and the British Post Office and the 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:32.439 French Post as well. This satellite would allow a broadcast 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.159 station in Europe to send signals over to the United 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.600 States and vice versa. It also allowed for satellite uplink 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:43.000 on phone calls and faxes, so you could have transatlantic 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.040 communication via satellite. You didn't have to worry about laying 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:50.800 a cable down between Europe and the United States, for example, 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:55.160 so very useful now. The satellite entered low Earth orbit 0:20:55.680 --> 0:21:00.600 on July tenth, two and it used for teen whole 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:05.040 lots of power. Chances are your laptop uses more than that, 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:07.960 but fourteen wats of power for this little satellite, and 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.440 it generated electricity using thousands of solar panels on its 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.919 outer hull. And it was spherically shaped, So if you 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.119 look at a picture of the tell Star one and 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:20.359 you don't have anything next to it to give you 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.119 any sense of scale, you might think it's the product 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:25.760 of a marriage between a disco ball and the Death Star, 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.240 which I maintain would be an awesome technology. But then again, 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:32.880 I also happened to own the Star Wars and Other 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:37.440 Galactic Funk vinyl album by Miko. Anyone out there who 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:43.120 knows what I'm saying man rock On as an awesome, awesome, 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.119 cheesy album, and I really do own it on vinyl. 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:51.240 The tell Star one satellite allowed for near instantaneous transmission 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.560 across the Atlantic with very little delay. It was possible 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.879 to watch real time live TV broadcast from across the 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:03.320 and but you could only do it for about twenty 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:07.920 minutes because the satellite was in low Earth orbit. That's 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:10.640 a problem because at low eth orbit it is actually 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:14.760 circling the Earth multiple times every day. It took about 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:18.560 two and a half hours for it to orbit the planet, 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:22.240 which meant that you had about twenty minutes of time 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:26.040 where the satellite was ideally positioned to transmit signals from 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.959 Europe to the United States or vice versa. Later on 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.920 we would launch communication satellites much much further out from 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:39.400 Earth had very high orbits into what is called geosynchronous orbits, 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:42.800 and a geosynchronous orbit allows the satellite to move in 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:46.200 a pattern over the same general area above the Earth, 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:49.280 so as the Earth turns, the satellites orbiting at the 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:52.240 same speed as the rotation of the Earth same relative speed, 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.000 not the exact same speed, because obviously you have to 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:57.680 move faster the further out you are, but it would 0:22:57.720 --> 0:23:00.760 be able to maintain a general position above a certain 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:03.359 region of the Earth, and it tends to move in 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:07.320 a pattern, often a figure eight style pattern. There is 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:12.440 a subset of geosynchronous orbit called geo stationary orbit, in 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:17.199 which a satellite appears to be directly above a single 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:20.240 point on Earth along the equator. You have to be 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:22.840 along the equator in order for this to work. But 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:26.120 that is a subset of geosynchronous. So geosynchronous and geo 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:29.440 stationary are not exactly the same. Geo stationary as a 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:32.720 subset of geosynchronous orbits. Just something for you to think 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:35.360 of next time you're doing pub trivia and this kind 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:38.520 of stuff pops up. I don't know about your pub trivia, 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:41.159 but it pops up all the time for mine. By 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:44.040 nineteen sixty four, broadcast networks in the United States began 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:47.080 to transmit color television programming on a regular basis. You 0:23:47.119 --> 0:23:49.400 remember we talked about color TV in the last episode. 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:51.879 It would still be a few years before color television 0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:55.800 sales outpaced black and white TVs. Uh, really, you're talking 0:23:55.800 --> 0:23:58.800 about nineteen seventy And by nineteen seventy two you finally 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:02.320 got to a point where color televisions made up about 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:06.000 fifty of all TVs in the United States. And in 0:24:06.119 --> 0:24:08.760