20 Things You Didn't Know About... Television

A closer look at the boob tube on quasi-digital-switchover day.

By Rebecca Coffey
Feb 17, 2009 6:00 AMNov 12, 2019 5:57 AM
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Courtesy Bob Mahoney/NBC | NULL

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1 Fade to black: On February 17, television stations will broadcast only digital signals, ending the run of the TV system used in the United States for the past 55 years.

2 The digital television signal can transmit pictures composed of up to 1,080 lines. That’s a long way from the first TV, demonstrated by John Logie Baird in 1926. It used just 30 lines to create a coarse image.

3 Baird’s television looked like a peep-show device, held together with scrap wood, darning needles, string, and sealing wax. His invention was partly mechanical, relying on a spinning metal disk with a spiral of holes to chop up images for transmission.

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