Almost every home has one. They are maligned, lauded, criticized and praised, but mostly they are watched. Today's kids may be a bit more sophisticated, but the question of how television works remains a mystery to most people.
Television is both simple and complex.
The basic concepts are fairly simple, but the actual circuits that make up your average television set are quite complicated, having been refined over years of experience. Television started early on in the history of radio, but didn't really take off until the 1950's. When color became common in the early 60's, the stage was set for the explosive growth that followed. Let's take a look at how television works. No matter how you get the signal from one location to the other, be it radio waves, coaxial cable or fiber optics, the first thing to consider is the method used to convert images to electronic signals and back again.