The invention of television

Television does not have just one inventor. The best early known writers on the subject of ‘distant electric vision’ and most accurate predictor was a prominent British electrical engineer named A.A Campbell Swinton. He suggested the idea of an entirely electronic video system in 1908.

The concept of ‘television’ can be traced back as far as 1875 when an American inventor, G.R Carey, created a primitive television using photoelectric cells.

His invention relied on an image being created through a panel of electric light bulbs, required an enormous numbers of wire, bulbs and photoelectric cells and only produced a low quality image.

In 1884, 23 years old engineering student, Paul Nipkow, took first practical step toward actually setting up a video system.

In 1920, a young American name Philo Farnsworth had an idea to send pictures as well as sound through the air. This led to the invention of the electronic television camera.

While, the earliest television broadcast were made in 1935 in Berlin and 1936 in Paris and England, popular interest in the medium did not develop until the late 1930s.

Today, advanced digital technology solutions for television have gone beyond the predictions of Swinton.
The invention of television