TVHist2013

Note: This is a past event.

There and Back Again: The Long Road to High-Fidelity Video Displays

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Open to all, food provided

The SID Mid-Atlantic Chapter and the New York Section of the IEEE EDS-SSCS is hosting Dr. Alex Magoun of the IEEE History Center.

Abstract:

In 1879 George du Maurier drew a cartoon for Punch's Almanack that showed an English couple communicating by large-screen videophone with a daughter half a world away. It was only six years after the discovery of the photoelectric effect, but Edison and Bell's more recent inventions in sound transmission and reproduction must have equally inspired the artist. Over the next 125 years, inventors, entrepreneurs, and consumers around the world drove the development of television and video systems that included ever-larger, sharper, and more colorful displays. This presentation reviews the histories of various approaches to video displays and explains the reasons for commercial and technical success or failure at points in time. The technologies include cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), Nipkow discs, projectors, plasma displays, and LCDs. If it moves members of the audience to commit their own experiences in this major global industry to posterity, then it will have achieved its goal.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Magoun is an outreach historian for the IEEE History Center, where he has spent the last year editing contributions to the IEEE Global History Network, teaching classes at Rutgers University, and writing articles for IEEE publications. Prior to joining the center, he directed the David Sarnoff Library, a museum, archives, and website dedicated to the understanding and promotion of innovation at RCA. Magoun has written two books, on the history of television and the RCA Laboratories. He received the Ph.D. in American history from the University of Maryland, College Park, with his dissertation on phonograph record innovation and the rise of high fidelity. His interest in high-resolution displays probably began with the contrast between the 70mm roadshow edition of 2001: A Space Odyssey on a curved screen at the Lawrence, Massachusetts, Showcase in 1968 and a friend's new color television console that Christmas.

When:

Thrusday, March 7, 2013 - 6:00pm for dinner, 7:00pm for presentation

Where:

Columbia University - Schapiro/CEPSR 530 W120th Street, New York, NY

Room 414