Televisions

The television is one of the oldest forms of consumer electronics still in widespread use. While there have certainly been changes in the technology that is used they have not been nearly as dramatic as they have been for other products. There is a reason for this and it has to do with the way that televisions operate, they are of little use on their own.

Compared to other electronic devices the evolution of televisions has been quite slow. The main reason for this is the need to change the infrastructure to support the televisions in order for the improvements to be of any real value. For example the first color televisions were of no real value until the networks started broadcasting in color. As a result of this need things have tended to remain much more stable for televisions than it has for most other electronic devices.

The first televisions were developed in the early twentieth century however they did not start to become commercially available until the late twenties. In part this was because there were no broadcasters until then. Even then the early sales of television sets were very slow and they really didn't start to become widely used until the fifties. The early sets were of course all black and white with color sets first appearing in the late fifties. Even then black and white sets could still be purchased well into the eighties before they were replaced by low cost color sets.

The next big development in televisions was the replacement of cathode rays by televisions that used LCD screens. This not only improved picture quality buy also made the televisions much thinner. There have since been other improvements like plasma screens although these remain fairly rare compared to the much more common LCD screens. The other big innovation to have occurred was the development of high definition televisions. This greatly improved picture quality although its introduction has been fairly slow. This is largely because of the need for broadcasters to start making programs available in high definition. Really most of the important innovations in televisions have been the result of the way that the programming is broadcast more than with the televisions themselves. This is most obvious with the widespread adoption of digital televisions.

One of the great things about televisions compared to other electronics is that they do not go obsolete nearly as fast. It is entirely possible to use the same television for years if not decades. In fact a television from thirty years ago will continue to work just fine as long as you have the adaptor for digital broadcasting. That being said most people will get a new television every few years if for no other reason than that the picture and sound quality has improved by so much over the years.