The Story Of Television (1956)

★★★ · (Up to 1956 that is) · Spuzz · 2004-11-13

Not bad doc about the many advances television had gone through to 1956. Although padded somewhat at the beginning with a history of how man wanted to see "beyond the valleys" the film gets back on course by telling the many wonders television pioneers, more specifically, RCA, has done. We get to see a very badly done "conversation" between two of them. What could have been an interesting talk just looks like two old men reading from cue cards (and that's what it is). The historical aspect of tv is shown from it's mainstream introduction at the world's fair to them bringing tv on the road…

★★★ · The Story of Television · Christine Hennig · 2002-10-06

This film about the history of television was made by RCA in 1956, so it concentrates on the early stuff. The history presented here is history according to RCA, focusing on the technological advances that could be attributed to RCA and de-emphasizing everything else. A lot of tv "firsts" are shown: first president to be televised, first televised baseball game, etc. David Sarnoff talks with Vladimir Zworykin about television's early development at RCA (and sounds like he's reading from cue cards). The last third of the film suddenly breaks into color (though very poor color) and talks about…

★★ · Behind every great fortune is a crime... · donwert · 2010-03-06

An RCA film that purports to show how RCA invented modern television. Needless to say, it doesn't even hint that RCA stole the relevant technologies from the actual inventor, Philo T. Farnsworth. It took years of litigation before the courts recognized Farnsworth's claims. RCA's dishonesty would be repeated when it launched a campaign of falsehoods to discredit the CBS color system, which produced color pictures far superior to the RCA system. David Sarnoff was a duplicitous, nasty piece of work. Of course, RCA doesn't exist anymore and NBC is the least-watched TV network---so maybe there's…

★ · Sarnoff's History of Television · KeenanP · 2024-04-04

Sarnoff is deliberately ignoring both John Logie Baird and Philo Farnsworth. Baird invented the first television system, called mechanical television, which used spinning disks to carve up an image and to recreate the image on a screen. Farnsworth created the electrical system which stayed as the basis of television at least till the digital age, but influenced how our digital televisions work.