television

Introduction

CE5

Video transmission and reception of color and black-and-white television: The camera lens focuses collected light rays into mirrors, which separate the image into its three primary color component images. Each color component is focused onto the face of a camera tube. The scanning beam of each tube converts the primary image into a color signal. The adder combines the three color signals to make the brightness signal. The encoder combines the signals to transmit hue and saturation information. A black-and-white television receiver processes only the brightness signal. A color television receiver separates the received signal into brightness and hue and saturation components, which are recombined to produce primary color signals for the picture tube.

television, transmission and reception of still or moving images by means of electrical signals, originally primarily by means of electromagnetic radiation using the techniques of radio, now also by fiber-optic and coaxial cables and other means. Television has become a major industry, especially in the industrialized nations, and a major medium of communication and source of home entertainment. Television is put to varied use in industry, e.g., for surveillance in places inaccessible to or dangerous for human beings; in science, e.g., in tissue microscopy (see microscope); in medicine, e.g., in endoscopic surgery (see endoscope); and in education.

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