Television

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Braun HF 1, Germany, 1958
Casio TV-470 pocket color television (RadioShack Pocketvision 25 in the US)

Television is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term has come to refer to all the aspects of television from the television set to the programming and transmission. The word is derived from mixed Latin and Greek roots, meaning "far sight": Greek τῆλε "tele", far, and Latin visio-n, sight (from video, vis- to see).

The first television broadcasts with a modern level of definition (more than 240 lines) were made in England in 1936. So-called "System A" used 405 lines. The BBC made its inaugural broadcasts on a dual-system television system in November of 1936, alternating between the Baird system (which used film as an intermediary) and the all-electronic EMI system, which used Zworykin's tubes. The Baird system was eventually abandoned in favor of the EMI, but the outbreak of the Second World War caused the BBC service to be suspended on September 1, 1939. It did not resume until June 7, 1946.