Today in history!: First color TV demo in New York City
The year was 1929 and to be honest this wasn't really a release of a commercially available product because there wasn't really anything being broadcast at that point in time. It would be another 20-30 years before people started purchasing televisions for their homes en masse. This was simply the unveiling of the technology as a discovery and it was a really big deal. It was a pipe dream for most people as even by nearly a decade later there was only 200 or so televisions in use in the ENTIRE WORLD.
source
by the 70's they had gotten the weight of a home television down to a mere 700 pounds
This demonstration was performed by Bell Laboratories in NYC and it was more of a "hey! look what we can do!" than anything else. At that point in time movies were still in black and white and would remain that way for a long time. There were some "color" movies as early as 1918 but those were created by hand painting individual frames of film... I can't even imagine how horrible that job was.
source
They didn't even know what to call it really. It was initially entitled "motion pictures by radio" and I wonder if these fellas had any idea how all-encompassing their product would eventually become.
I would imagine that it probably took a while before the people in 1927 even found out about this and it must have been difficult to fathom even what something like that would even mean. It's funny to think about how difficult it would be to explain the internet to someone living in the 20's. They would probably lock you up for witchcraft if you even mentioned a smartphone.
Wow! I didn’t realise it was in 1929 when the colour tv was introduced as a concept! But as you said it wasn’t really until the 70s that it was widespread and available.
Man, times have changed so rapidly in the past 15 years it seems...
myself and some pals were talking the other day about how we might be living in the time of the most rapid techological change in all of the history of time. Think about how much of everyone's lives evolve around the internet.... a process that barely existed even in the mid 90's.
Perhaps only the invention of the motor could anything even come close to this sort of a "game-changer"
oh and TV's experienced mass adoption long before the 70's probably around the early to mid 50's but i'm not sure about that and basing my experience solely on Back to the Future :P
Yes exaclty! We now NEED the internet, we all have to have it for everything - communication, navigation, finances, jobs etc... it’s moving at a very rapid rate still. I can hardly keep up!
Lol... The good people of the 20s are real heroes. Can't imagine life without TV, and smartphone and 4G broadband
We learn a new thing every day.
Ha. Awesome. I love old TVs. Wish I still had some around.
Many developments can be in prototype stage decades before becoming available to the public. This example is really cool.
they are the heroes, they simply going on inventing without thinking about commercial, they were rooted on the needs and solutions. Now it is different.
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.