WEBVTT - The TV Story Part 2 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:14.040 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.560 I'm your host, senior writer Jonathan Strickland, and I write 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.599 for how stuff works dot com. That's the company name. 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:23.840 It is not stuff you should know. It is not 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:28.320 how things work. It is how stuff works. Sometimes I 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.360 feel it's necessary to remind folks about that. Anyway, today 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:33.239 we're gonna pick up where we left off in our 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:37.000 last episode with part two on the history of TVs 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.040 and how they work. So if you don't remember our 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:42.360 last episode, we spent a lot of time establishing the 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:46.080 basic science that the inventors of television depended upon when 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.360 they were making their stuff, and we also looked at 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.920 the curious world of mechanical televisions, which were the first 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.760 attempt to bring movie moving pictures to the average home 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:59.040 and actually had moving parts inside the TV. But now 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.600 it's time to transition over to electronic televisions and the 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.840 insane drama and betrayals that went along with the launch 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:08.800 of those electronic televisions. And there are a lot of 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.360 arguments among historians over whom we should credit as the 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:16.840 inventor of electronic televisions. There are very passionate advocates for 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:20.240 two primary individuals, although they're not the only ones. There 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.760 are others as well across the world in fact, but 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.800 the two primary ones both had an idea that would 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:31.920 transform TVs from these mechanical oddities into the electronic mainstays 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:34.200 and homes around the world. And it really depends upon 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:36.399 whom you ask as to which one should get the credit. 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:38.759 And I'm gonna do my best to try and remain 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:41.160 objective in this, but I do admit I have my 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.559 own opinions on this matter, and they're probably gonna show 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.960 through pretty clearly. So we're gonna pick up our story. 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.880 In Utah, there was a young inventive lad who worked 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:55.760 on his family's farm, and that lad's name was Filo 0:01:56.040 --> 0:02:01.240 Taylor Farnsworth Filo t. Farnsworth. He was precocious kid. He 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.240 had a keen interest in science and physics and electronics. 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:07.960 He was born in nineteen o six and according to 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:11.800 his family, when he was just fourteen years old, and 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.840 at this point I believe they had moved to Idaho, 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:17.600 he came up with an idea that would lead to 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:22.320 the invention of the electronic television. So, according to the story, Farnsworth, 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:26.720 who was already fascinated with the properties of the mysterious electron, 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.760 had been thinking about using electrons to transmit images rather 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.359 than the mechanical methods that were currently in development at 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.639 that time, the ones that depended upon the nip cow discs. 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:39.960 And if you don't know what a nip cow disc is, 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.720 just listen to part one of this series. I go 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:47.120 into detail about it. Anyway, Farnsworth thought that if you 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.680 could use electrons to scan and transmit images, you could 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.600 do so much faster, with a higher resolution and a 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.960 higher frame rate than the mechanical method could manage it. 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.400 But the question was how would you do that? And 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:04.040 there's a kind of an interesting story. Don't know if 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:06.160 it's true or not, but it's how his family told it. 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:11.160 Farnsworth was pulling a harrow across his family's potato field. 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:14.640 A harrow, by the way, is a heavy frame that 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.560 has times on it, like a fork, and you place 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:20.959 the frame on the ground so that the times face 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.800 downward into the ground, and you pull it across the ground, 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.200 typically across ground that's already been plowed, and this helps 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:33.480 break up clods and remove weeds and uh otherwise prepare 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.160 plowed land. It can also help cover seeds that have 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.560 already been planted. So, according to his family, it was 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.240 while Farnsworth was doing this for his farm and he 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:46.480 was looking at these neat, straight lines across freshly plowed earth, 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.760 they came up with the idea of creating televised images 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:55.160 line by line with electrons. So the television screen would 0:03:55.200 --> 0:04:00.400 effectively be a stack of horizontal lines, and the electron 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.720 stream would paint the lines in sequence so quickly as 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.400 to seem like an uninterrupted series of moving images to 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.560 the human eye. And this would be somewhere around the 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:15.040 year nineteen twenty when he came up with this idea. 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.800 But there's another inventor who factors into this story, and 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:24.080 that would be Vladimir Cosmo zorikin Now. Zorakin was born 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.440 in Russia in either eighteen eighty eight or eighteen eighty nine, 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.600 depending upon the the paperwork you look at. It seems 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:33.840 that eighty nine is the more accurate one, but I've 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:38.440 seen both listed. He attended school in Russia and in France. 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.440 He studied science. One of his teachers was a guy 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.520 named Boris Rosing, who in nineteen o seven, filed a 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.120 patent for a television system. They used a mechanical scanning 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:50.640 method similar to the nip Cow disc we talked about 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:54.440 in Part one, but it used an electronic receiver that 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:59.320 used a cathode ray tube to transmit electrons to a screen, 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.200 so it was kind of a hybrid between mechanical and electronic, 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:07.920 and Rosing demonstrated a version of that technology in nineteen eleven, 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:14.039 so uh Zorikin was at least aware of that work 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:18.559 at the time. Now, during World War One, Zorikin joined 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.760 the Russian Signal Signal Corps, and after the war he 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.679 moved to the United States. He got out of Russia 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.880 just as it was experiencing its own civil war. He 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.120 grew up in Czarist Russia, and then there was the 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:35.320 Great Revolution in Russia. He got out. His family worked 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.280 for the Czar, so he found work as an employee 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.480 of Westinghouse. After settling in the United States, he actually 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:43.919 traveled back and forth a couple of times, but ultimately 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.200 decided to relocate to the US permanently, so he started 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:50.520 working for Westinghouse and in nineteen three he filed a 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:54.279 patent for an electron scanning tube and it would eventually 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.480 be named the or it would eventually be incorporated in 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:01.400 an invention called the iconoscope that will be important later on. 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:04.799 So his work and began to work on this idea, 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.960 trying to create a practical application based upon the notion 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:11.440 of a scan electron scanning tube. But his early efforts 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:16.120 weren't terribly successful. In fact, his employers at Westinghouse, sensing 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.120 that Zorikin wasn't making much progress, actually told him he 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:23.400 should work on something else. They were not impressed at all. Meanwhile, 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.359 over in the US, Farnsworth was also trying to build 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:30.240 a practical electron scanning tube. Now he called his version 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:33.440 the image dissector. And he wasn't the only person to 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:35.520 come up with this idea. There was also a German 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.359 scientist named Max Nieckman, and also Rudolph Hell who was 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.240 a student of Deacons, who filed for a patent for 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:45.360 a similar device in Europe. But it seems Farnsworth, who 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:50.039 was working completely independently and unaware of that work, was 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.800 the first guy to create a working version of this 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:57.360 particular technology. The tube was meant to replace the mechanical 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.560 scanners used in nip cal discs, and we be inside 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:02.800 a camera, so the camera lens would direct light to 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.960 an image dissector, which would focus that light onto some 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.800 photo sensitive material that would create a voltage, inducing current 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.240 to flow through a wire. The current strength was proportional 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:16.920 to the brightness of the image, so darker stuff generated 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.200 a lower current than brighter stuff, and if you used 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:24.679 magnetic fields or electrostatic plates, you could then direct that 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.800 that actual flow and the image dissector could scan an 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.080 image many times a second, and then the photo system 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.600 material would convert that light energy into electricity. A receiver 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.680 that was synchronized with the scanner could then take that 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.320 current and apply it to a cathode ray tube, which 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:42.680 would shoot electrons at the back side of a screen, 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:46.160 and the synchronization allowed the receiver to project the electrons 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:48.800 in the appropriate order and at the appropriate level on 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.440 the screen, so that you would get an image, a 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.160 moving image, of whatever it was the camera had been 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:58.400 looking at. Now. The screen itself is essentially a series 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.640 of horizontal lines. Each line is made up of points, 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.720 which we call pixels, that represent a point of light. 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.040 These are all side by side in those horizontal lines. 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:10.960 So the backside of a television screen also has a 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:15.120 phosphorus coding on it, and the coding will fluoresce or 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:17.840 light up when it is struck by an electron at 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:23.160 high velocity. So the cathode ray tube sends electrons shooting 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:27.000 out at this phosphorus coating on the back side of 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.920 the screen, and when the electron collides with the phosphorescent atoms, 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.080 it causes them to jump up in energy levels. And 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.000 when the electrons come back down from those excited energy levels, 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:40.360 that's when they give off light when they fluoresce. The 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.520 brightness of the light depends upon the amount of energy 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:46.120 that hits the the atoms, so it depends on how 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.760 fast those electrons are going, or rather the current that's 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.440 coming from that cathode ray too, So all of that 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:54.800 is dependent upon how much light came into the camera 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.920 in the first place. It's a really elegant kind of situation, 0:08:58.480 --> 0:08:59.959 and you might wonder, all right, well, how does the 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.360 catholice ray tube actually paint the backside of a television screen? 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.080 And it's all done with magnets. So let's consider the 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.679 anatomy of an old fashioned CRT television set. This is 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:12.199 what it would look like if you took one apart 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.240 by the way, do not take one apart. If you 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.240 puncture something, you could end up causing a bit of 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:21.120 an explosion, and it is messy and potentially dangerous, so 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.439 don't do it. You've got capacitors in there too that 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:28.440 can hold onto a charge. Uh, it's not safe, but 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:30.000 this is what would happen if you could, you know, 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.120 do an exploded view. So I mentioned that the screen 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.880 represents a series of horizontal lines. We're gonna be a 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.400 bit us centric in this part of the episode, so 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:43.200 I can just describe our CRT television's work, but just 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:45.520 know it works the same way in other places. It's 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:50.000 just the actual number of horizontal lines and frames per 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.800 second are a little different. So in the United States 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.440 with old CRT sets, the screen was a stack of 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:59.600 five twenty five horizontal lines of pixels, and it's the 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:03.400 cr te's job, the cathode ray tubes job, to paint 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.240 each of those lines multiple times per second to refresh 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:09.640 the image on screen and transmit that that sense of movement. 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:13.400 So you've got your CRT and that's shooting electrons at 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:15.760 a very tightly controlled beam on the back side of 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.800 the television screen. So how do you steer the electrons 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:24.359 use magnetic fields because remember, electrons are negatively charged particles, 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.720 so you can push them with similar similar negative charged 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.080 or negative magnetic fields, or you can attract them. You 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.240 can pull them with positive magnetic fields, so you can 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.040 actually change the flow of electrons by applying magnetic fields 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.840 in a very controlled way. Also, the magnetic fields are 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.520 a great band, and you should listen to them, but 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.040 it's kind of tangential to this discussion, so I don't 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:52.240 know why you brought it up now. Using magnetic fields 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:56.600 generated by a coil of copper wiring, the television paints 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.480 each line of phosphorescent material on the back side of 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.520 the screen one by one in a row from top 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:06.360 to bottom, so it goes top left or right down 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:10.800 to bottom. Uh, And it doesn't line by line. The 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.840 electron beam sweeps across the first horizontal line at a 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:18.000 blinding speed. It slams electrons into the phosphores to generate 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.280 the light you see on the other side, and there's 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:24.080 also an electron absorbing layer so it catches all those electrons. 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:26.520 They don't just keep on shooting outside the TV screen 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:31.960 and getting involved in all your business. They stop at 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:35.280 the screen because of that absorbent layer. Now, the beam 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.280 follows a pattern that's called a raster scan. So this 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.040 is where we paint that first line from left or right, 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:42.520 and when it gets to the end of the line, 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.720 it jumps back to the beginning of the next line. 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.880 So it doesn't go left to right and then right 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.199 to left. It goes left or right, jumps back down 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:53.000 to the beginning of the next line. It goes left 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:57.200 or right again. Sort of more on that in a second. Now, 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.280 that is called the horizontal retrace. When it it's to 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:02.000 the end of the line and moves to the beginning 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:05.600 of the next line. Uh, then you've got it going 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.520 all the way down the entire length of the screen 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.120 until it gets to the bottom right corner. At that point, 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.360 the beam switches off and it relocates it to the 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.720 top left part of the screen. That's the vertical retrace. 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.000 It's kind of a diagonal line from bottom right to 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.960 top left, so it gets it ready to start painting again. Uh. 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.000 And now I've got to explain that sort of I 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.720 mentioned earlier. You know, I said it it's sort of 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:35.120 goes to the next line. It's because of interlacing. See 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:40.040 the whole screen is refreshed sixty times per second. At 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.920 least that's the idea. You want a sixty time per 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:47.600 second refresh rate. That's not what the earliest electronic televisions did, 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:52.480 but ultimately that was the goal for us television's uh, 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:56.920 except that you really are doing thirty frames a second 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.600 because you're alternating lines. So I mentioned there are five 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.880 twenty five of these horizontal lines, and I mentioned that 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.720 the electron beam paints that horizontal line went after together. 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.880 Only it takes a lot of work to paint five 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:15.400 lines of pixels sixty times every second. And our human 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:19.120 vision really doesn't need the screen refreshed that frequently to 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.120 experience what seems to be movement to us. You could 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:26.000 have that and you still have convincing movement. Uh. So 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:30.080 film works at twenty four frames a second, television works 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.600 at thirty frames, although they're not really frames, it's more 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:38.600 like fields per second. Uh. But it alternates. It's kind 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:42.839 of weird. So the first time the electron beam goes down, 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:49.000 it will paint every other horizontal line, and then the 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:53.559 second time it will paint all the even numbered pixels 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.760 in a horizontal line. You know what this is gonna 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:00.160 require a lot more explaining, but before I jump into that, 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:04.000 let's take a little break right now and thank our sponsors. 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:15.280 Al Right, So instead of painting the entire screen sixty 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:19.320 times a second, let's just paint half the screen thirty 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.720 times a second and the other half thirty times a second. 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.800 And then we do that just by alternating the lines. 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:30.440 That's what interlacing is. So CRT the cathode ray tube 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.200 would shoot electrons at the left top corner on line one. 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:35.040 At the end of line one, it would go to 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.160 the horizontal retrace. Only instead of starting at line to 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.520 it actually starts on line three. It skips line too. 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.040 It goes down line three, goes down to line five, 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.440 down to line seven, etcetera, until it gets all the 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:52.440 way down to In theory, not all television broadcasts actually 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:56.400 used all lines, but that doesn't really matter. It gets 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:57.960 down to the bottom, it's time for it to go 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:00.640 to the vertical retrace. Only instead of going back to 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.880 line number one, it actually goes to line number two, 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:06.520 and it starts to do the same process while all 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:08.520 the even numbered lines. So it goes to the end 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:12.440 of line two. Horizontal retrace brings it to line four, 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:15.800 goes to the end of line four, horizontal retrace brings 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:20.280 the line six, and it does that through that next sequence. 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:24.680 It does both of these things thirty times every second 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:29.240 for each thirty times each for every second that goes by. 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.760 So it's so fast that we don't detect that only 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.240 half the number of horizontal lines are being refreshed at 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:38.640 any given moment. It's way too fast for us to 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:40.960 be able to see that with our human eyes and 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:45.320 human brains. To us, it's just an uninterrupted sequence of 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:48.440 moving images. This is where we can take advantage of 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:52.200 human limitations. The technology is able to perform at a 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:56.720 level beyond what we humans can experience. So that allows 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.840 you to make some shortcuts on the technology side. And 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.400 as I said before, it's easier to refresh half the 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.480 screen thirty times a second than a full screen sixty 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:09.000 times a second. Kind of nifty. Now, eventually you would 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:13.680 get to progressive scans systems, and progressive scans do every 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:18.000 single horizontal line every you know, sixty times a second 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.080 or however many times it refreshes. You'll hear about crazy 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.040 refresh rates that like four eight hurts, which means four 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.160 d eight times a second it's refreshing the whole screen. 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:30.840 But that's way off further into the future. We are 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.000 not covering that in part two. You'll have to wait 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.080 for Part three to get to the high refresh rate stuff. 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:40.200 So you've got the basic idea of how these electron 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:44.240 scanning two machines worked. The prototypes that Farnsworth is working 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.520 created were much more primitive than what I just described, 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:52.280 but they used similar techniques. It was based upon essentially 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.840 the same principle, just it was more limited in what 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.960 it can do. Now let's get to the drama of 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:03.080 the story, because it gets pretty crazy. So Farnsworth grows up. 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:06.000 He's had this dream since he was fourteen of a 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.960 method of creating television. He starts to really investigate it 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.960 further as he gets older. He takes charge of his 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:16.000 family farm after his father passes away. But then he 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.040 ends up meeting and then marrying a woman named Elma 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:23.600 pem Gardner in nineteen six, and shortly thereafter they moved 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.440 to California. In fact, according to some accounts, as soon 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.400 as they got married they moved to California, and originally 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.639 they moved not too far away from cal Tech because 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:36.720 Farnsworth was hoping that he would be able to use 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:41.119 the location to help further his own efforts in developing 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:44.480 this electronic television idea he had uh some would say 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.280 that he was obsessed at this point, and the following year, 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:52.280 in nine seven, the two happily married people would relocate 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:56.000 to San Francisco, and there Farnsworth was able to find 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.560 some funding from investors, which was a tradition that many 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:03.159 start up follow to this very day. If you have 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:06.320 a startup in the tech world, chances are you're going 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.840 to San Francisco to take a lot of meetings. That year, 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.760 ninety seven, Farnsworth applied for a patent for his invention. 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.399 The title of the patent was Television System, and in 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.440 it he described his method for capturing, transmitting, and receiving 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:24.000 moving images. Now, Zorakin had filed his patent back in 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.520 nineteen twenty three, but the U. S. Patent Office still 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:32.320 had not granted that patent. It was still pending. Moreover, 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:37.320 z Workin's approach, while similar to Farnsworth's, wasn't exactly the same, 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.719 and Zorakin had had no real success up to that 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.320 point in getting it to work in the real world. 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:46.040 He could not make a practical demonstration of it. The 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:52.160 attempts he made were very muddled. Now Farnsworth, by comparison, 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.639 was able to get a system working in ninety seven, 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.719 although that initial demonstration, which really was more just a 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:02.199 proof of concept, was ry modest. His first transmission was 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:06.280 a horizontal line. It wasn't exactly the Super Bowl, but 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:10.320 it did say that he was onto something and he 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.879 could capture, transmit, and playback moving images electronically. So he 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:17.040 kept at it, and in nineteen he brought some reporters 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:19.760 over to his laboratory and he held a demonstration that 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.280 was a little bit more impressive. It showed a very 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:27.040 blurry but clearly moving image on the screen uh and 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.679 it was at a refresh rate of twenty pictures per second, 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:34.520 so much less advanced than what we would see later on, 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.040 but enough to get the reporters excited, and it showed 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.760 actual motion. So that really got people talking about his methods, 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.880 and in nineteen thirty the U. S. Patent Office granted 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.199 Farnsworth his patent keep in minds workin still did not 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:50.720 have a patent for his invention. He was still encountering 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:54.120 problems with his approach, so in nineteen thirty, he decided 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:58.560 to visit Farnsworth. Farnsworth was known for getting this method 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.240 to work, and his workin was still running into problems, 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:04.639 so he arranged a visit and he went and visited 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:08.439 for about three days, according to Farnsworth's wife, and he 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:12.719 learned all about the methods Farnsworth used to create this 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:17.120 electronic television, and he even supposedly watched Farnsworth assemble one 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:21.479 of the scanning tubes. He then returned to Westinghouse and 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:25.960 attempted to reverse engineer Farnsworth's invention, and he was later 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:28.920 approached by our CI A and began working for them. 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.119 Uh our Cia had already made an enormous amount of 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:35.880 money by dominating the radio industry at that point, and 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:39.040 at the helm of the Radio Corporation of America was 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:41.720 a guy named David Sarnoff, who I'm going to talk 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:44.719 a lot about in this episode. He was originally from Russia, 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:47.240 and Starnoff was the type of guy who if he 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:50.520 wanted to dominate an industry, he would do so big time. 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:55.120 He would go in guns figuratively a blazon. He's really 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:57.480 good at it too, to a point where you might 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:01.560 call him um Ruthless really start off led our CIA 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.119 through an era of prosperity for the company. During the 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:07.880 radio days, our CIA had held onto patents that had 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.640 to do with radio components, and they also owned broadcast 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.639 stations and entire networks. Actually, essentially, if you were in 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:18.320 the business of radio back in those days, you were 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:21.720 paying our CIA for that privilege. You might be paying 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.800 licensing fees. You might be paying licensing fees just to 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.600 build radios for people to buy, or you might be 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:32.639 paying fees so that you could broadcast on stations. Pretty 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:34.800 much anyway that there was a way to make money 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:36.760 on the radio, some of that money was going to 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:40.879 our c A at that time. In fact, the company 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.800 even had a basic philosophy which a lot of people 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:45.879 have alluded to over the years, which was that our 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:49.200 CIA would not pay licensing fees. R c A was 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:54.360 the company to whom you paid licensing fees um. They 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:59.119 also created a major broadcast company INBC. You might have 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:00.879 heard of it if you're in the United States. It 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:04.879 is the oldest of the major broadcast networks in the US. UH. 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:07.040 This was back when our c A was still part 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.320 of General Electric, which eventually it would get spun off 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:13.720 from General Electric and become its own company. Also, if 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:16.720 you want to be technical, r c A created ABC 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:21.720 as well. ABC was originally part of NBC that they 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.040 had created two kind of parallel networks, both of which 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:28.679 were called NBC at the time. But uh, the government 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:31.240 stepped in and said, hey, you're muscling in on everybody. 0:22:31.240 --> 0:22:33.800 You've got to break this up. And so eventually they 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:38.440 spun off part of this network which would later become ABC. 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:41.480 So in a way, our c A was responsible for 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.240 two of the three major broadcast companies, and you early 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:50.320 u S Television, and these sort of practices got really serious, 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:54.160 so serious in fact, that the Department of Justice got interested, 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:57.919 and on May three, David Sarnov was called before the 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:00.440 Department of Justice and the d o J was concerned 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:04.360 that our CIA was using its patent portfolio to suppress competition. 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:07.720 So this is not a new thing. It might sound 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:10.240 familiar to anyone who has followed news about patent law 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:13.040 in general. There's been a lot of stories about companies 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:16.960 like say Apple and Samsung, using patents to put pressure 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:19.920 on each other, or you might have heard stories about 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:24.359