178-409: The Smoking Room is a British television sitcom written by Brian Dooley , who won a BAFTA for the series in 2005. The first series, consisting of eight episodes, was originally transmitted on BBC Three between 29 June and 17 August 2004. The Christmas Special was first transmitted on 21 December 2004. A second series of eight episodes began airing on 26 July 2005. The first series, including
356-404: A Christmas pantomime, breaking Bob Carolgees ' hand, because he dared to ask her name. She also says that one man who criticised her had his tyres slashed, although she quickly, and unconvincingly, qualifies that she didn't slash them. She can be thoughtful at times, once agreeing to go to the pub with a lonely Janet, even though they have nothing in common, rather than disappoint her. Sharon
534-425: A martyr named Valentine , and through later folk traditions it has also become a significant cultural, religious and commercial celebration of romance and love in many regions of the world. There are a number of martyrdom stories associated with various Saint Valentines connected to February 14, including an account of the imprisonment of Saint Valentine of Rome for ministering to Christians persecuted under
712-458: A patent interference suit against Farnsworth. The U.S. Patent Office examiner disagreed in a 1935 decision, finding priority of invention for Farnsworth against Zworykin. Farnsworth claimed that Zworykin's 1923 system could not produce an electrical image of the type to challenge his patent. Zworykin received a patent in 1928 for a color transmission version of his 1923 patent application. He also divided his original application in 1931. Zworykin
890-423: A real emergency". Heidi debuts in episode five, when she returns from maternity leave. She is 35, married to Keith (previously married and somewhat older at 58; she virtually worships him) and mother to baby Dane (about whom she obsesses). Heidi is very 'mumsy' and constantly refers to her seemingly idyllic domestic situation, to the near-universal annoyance of the other characters. It is clear that her home life
1068-473: A resolution that is substantially higher. HDTV may be transmitted in different formats: 1080p , 1080i and 720p . Since 2010, with the invention of smart television , Internet television has increased the availability of television programs and movies via the Internet through streaming video services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video , iPlayer and Hulu . In 2013, 79% of the world's households owned
1246-600: A transistor -based UHF tuner . The first fully transistorized color television in the United States was the Quasar television introduced in 1967. These developments made watching color television a more flexible and convenient proposition. In 1972, sales of color sets finally surpassed sales of black-and-white sets. Color broadcasting in Europe was not standardized on the PAL format until
1424-467: A tuner for receiving and decoding broadcast signals. A visual display device that lacks a tuner is correctly called a video monitor rather than a television. The television broadcasts are mainly a simplex broadcast meaning that the transmitter cannot receive and the receiver cannot transmit. The word television comes from Ancient Greek τῆλε (tele) 'far' and Latin visio 'sight'. The first documented usage of
1602-410: A vegetarian (why she could never eat human flesh) and a devotee of ' boxercise '. She has little time for the nonsense the others talk, particularly Annie's new age interests. She quickly realises the truth behind Robin's preoccupation with Ben. Sally tends to speak her mind and isn't afraid of offending people. As a little girl she claims she punched the glove puppet Spit the dog in the face at
1780-855: A 16th-century English historian, and the Order of Carmelites state that Saint Valentine was buried in the Church of Saint Praxedes in Rome, located near the cemetery of Saint Hippolytus . This order says that according to legend, "Julia herself planted a pink-blossomed almond tree near his grave. Today, the almond tree remains a symbol of abiding love and friendship." Another embellishment suggests that Saint Valentine performed clandestine Christian weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry. The Roman Emperor Claudius II supposedly forbade this in order to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. However, George Monger writes that this marriage ban
1958-477: A 1925 demonstration, the image was dim, had low contrast and poor definition, and was stationary. Zworykin's imaging tube never got beyond the laboratory stage. However, RCA, which acquired the Westinghouse patent, asserted that the patent for Farnsworth's 1927 image dissector was written so broadly that it would exclude any other electronic imaging device. Thus, based on Zworykin's 1923 patent application, RCA filed
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#17330922359952136-403: A 2-inch-wide by 2.5-inch-high screen (5 by 6 cm). The large receiver had a screen 24 inches wide by 30 inches high (60 by 75 cm). Both sets could reproduce reasonably accurate, monochromatic, moving images. Along with the pictures, the sets received synchronized sound. The system transmitted images over two paths: first, a copper wire link from Washington to New York City, then
2314-460: A 4th-century tribune called Valentino, who donated land to build a church at a time when Julius was a Pope). The legend was picked up as fact by later martyrologies, starting with Bede 's martyrology in the 8th century. It was repeated in the 13th century, in The Golden Legend . There is an additional embellishment to The Golden Legend , which according to Henry Ansgar Kelly, was added in
2492-402: A TV system with a 40-line resolution that employed a CRT display. This was the first working example of a fully electronic television receiver and Takayanagi's team later made improvements to this system parallel to other television developments. Takayanagi did not apply for a patent. In the 1930s, Allen B. DuMont made the first CRTs to last 1,000 hours of use, one of the factors that led to
2670-665: A camera tube, using the CRT instead as a flying-spot scanner to scan slides and film. Ardenne achieved his first transmission of television pictures on 24 December 1933, followed by test runs for a public television service in 1934. The world's first electronically scanned television service then started in Berlin in 1935, the Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow , culminating in the live broadcast of the 1936 Summer Olympic Games from Berlin to public places all over Germany. Philo Farnsworth gave
2848-463: A cat, which she hasn't bothered to name and to which she only speaks to tell it to get off the sofa . Her cold exterior melts only once, when she is passionately kissed by a kissogram who is taking a break in the smoking room after visiting the woman he is actually there to see. She disappears 'stage left' after him, with Janet remarking, "That's not love – that's pure naked lust!" A career driven, dynamic woman whose only vice seemed to be smoking. She
3026-483: A character called "Jack" Valentine knocks on the rear door of houses, leaving sweets and presents for children. Although he was leaving treats, many children were scared of this mystical person. In Slovenia , Saint Valentine or Zdravko was one of the saints of spring, the saint of good health and the patron of beekeepers and pilgrims. A proverb says that "Saint Valentine brings the keys of roots". Plants and flowers start to grow on this day. It has been celebrated as
3204-609: A color television combining a traditional black-and-white display with a rotating colored disk. This device was very "deep" but was later improved with a mirror folding the light path into an entirely practical device resembling a large conventional console. However, Baird was unhappy with the design, and, as early as 1944, had commented to a British government committee that a fully electronic device would be better. In 1939, Hungarian engineer Peter Carl Goldmark introduced an electro-mechanical system while at CBS , which contained an Iconoscope sensor. The CBS field-sequential color system
3382-409: A communal viewing experience to a solitary viewing experience. By 1960, Sony had sold over 4 million portable television sets worldwide. The basic idea of using three monochrome images to produce a color image had been experimented with almost as soon as black-and-white televisions had first been built. Although he gave no practical details, among the earliest published proposals for television
3560-429: A crossword expert his answers are often ludicrous and Robin solves many of the (sometimes very easy) clues for him. Clint is the 23-year-old maintenance man. Although he genuinely loves his job, which he considers to be the most important one in the company, he spends most of his time thinking about other things, like whether or not dogs who have jobs get jealous of pets. He has a very relaxed approach to life, even to
3738-409: A date to Kew Gardens but Barry bungled the follow-up, waiting at West Ham tube station while Sharon waited, correctly, at West Hampstead . It is suggested that, in those early days, there might have been a chance of romance for the pair but the misunderstanding was never broached and now there is only antagonism. In episode nine we learn that most of her family are dead. Sharon now lives alone with
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#17330922359953916-544: A different origin. The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is believed to be in the Parliament of Fowls (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer , a dream vision portraying a parliament for birds to choose their mates. Honouring the first anniversary of the engagement of fifteen-year-old King Richard II of England to fifteen-year-old Anne of Bohemia , Chaucer wrote (in Middle English ): " For this
4094-786: A fellow of the Royal Society (UK), published a letter in the scientific journal Nature in which he described how "distant electric vision" could be achieved by using a cathode-ray tube, or Braun tube, as both a transmitting and receiving device, he expanded on his vision in a speech given in London in 1911 and reported in The Times and the Journal of the Röntgen Society. In a letter to Nature published in October 1926, Campbell-Swinton also announced
4272-423: A lensed disk scanner with a 48-line resolution. He was granted U.S. Patent No. 1,544,156 (Transmitting Pictures over Wireless) on 30 June 1925 (filed 13 March 1922). Herbert E. Ives and Frank Gray of Bell Telephone Laboratories gave a dramatic demonstration of mechanical television on 7 April 1927. Their reflected-light television system included both small and large viewing screens. The small receiver had
4450-657: A line of the image. Although he never built a working model of the system, variations of Nipkow's spinning-disk " image rasterizer " became exceedingly common. Constantin Perskyi had coined the word television in a paper read to the International Electricity Congress at the International World Fair in Paris on 24 August 1900. Perskyi's paper reviewed the existing electromechanical technologies, mentioning
4628-498: A lot in common with Whitney Houston (with whom Lilian shares a birthday). It is explained she spent much of the eighties as a dowdy, overweight mum who put all her energy into raising her daughters (Laura and Julia) and forgot about herself. She lives alone and since her divorce is enjoying a new lease of life. When she agrees to appear in the firm's Christmas pantomime , she chooses to sing Cher 's " Believe " and this could easily be her motto. Lilian dresses young and revealingly and
4806-515: A medium" dates from 1927. The term telly is more common in the UK. The slang term "the tube" or the "boob tube" derives from the bulky cathode-ray tube used on most TVs until the advent of flat-screen TVs . Another slang term for the TV is "idiot box." Facsimile transmission systems for still photographs pioneered methods of mechanical scanning of images in the early 19th century. Alexander Bain introduced
4984-470: A new boyfriend by the time Robin comes out. Sally is 27 and works in the graphics department with Annie. She claims to be Annie's best friend (and constantly beckons Annie with the phrase, "Come on, missus..."), although this statement may have been motivated by Annie having just won two tickets to 'DanceFest UK'. Normally, her relationship with Annie is bitchy and competitive. She often gossips about Annie behind her back, but she will always reluctantly provide
5162-424: A noise they began to make That earth and air and tree and every lake Was so full, that not easily was there space For me to stand—so full was all the place." Readers have uncritically assumed that Chaucer was referring to February 14 as Valentine's Day. Henry Ansgar Kelly has observed that Chaucer might have had in mind the feast day of St. Valentine of Genoa, an early bishop of Genoa who died around AD 307; it
5340-457: A passing fancy. She flirts outrageously with Janet's nephew, Dominic, in Episode Ten. Annie is always sponging cigarettes, change for the drinks machine and food from the other characters, occasionally using emotional blackmail to increase her chances of success. She is prepared to eat almost anything, including a half-eaten salad dusted with cigarette ash and a mauled unwrapped Toffo . Despite
5518-442: A phosphor plate. The phosphor was patterned so the electrons from the guns only fell on one side of the patterning or the other. Using cyan and magenta phosphors, a reasonable limited-color image could be obtained. He also demonstrated the same system using monochrome signals to produce a 3D image (called " stereoscopic " at the time). A demonstration on 16 August 1944 was the first example of a practical color television system. Work on
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5696-467: A production model was halted by the SCAP after World War II . Because only a limited number of holes could be made in the disks, and disks beyond a certain diameter became impractical, image resolution on mechanical television broadcasts was relatively low, ranging from about 30 lines up to 120 or so. Nevertheless, the image quality of 30-line transmissions steadily improved with technical advances, and by 1933
5874-502: A projection screen at London's Dominion Theatre . Mechanically scanned color television was also demonstrated by Bell Laboratories in June 1929 using three complete systems of photoelectric cells , amplifiers, glow-tubes, and color filters, with a series of mirrors to superimpose the red, green, and blue images into one full-color image. The first practical hybrid system was again pioneered by John Logie Baird. In 1940 he publicly demonstrated
6052-488: A purple amethyst ring, customarily worn on the hands of Christian bishops with an image of Cupid engraved in it, a recognizable symbol associated with love that was legal under the Roman Empire; Roman soldiers would recognize the ring and ask him to perform marriage for them. Probably due to the association with Saint Valentine, amethyst has become the birthstone of February, which is thought to attract love. While
6230-591: A radio link from Whippany, New Jersey . Comparing the two transmission methods, viewers noted no difference in quality. Subjects of the telecast included Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover . A flying-spot scanner beam illuminated these subjects. The scanner that produced the beam had a 50-aperture disk. The disc revolved at a rate of 18 frames per second, capturing one frame about every 56 milliseconds . (Today's systems typically transmit 30 or 60 frames per second, or one frame every 33.3 or 16.7 milliseconds, respectively.) Television historian Albert Abramson underscored
6408-592: A resolution that was not surpassed until May 1932 by RCA, with 120 lines. On 25 December 1926, Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated a television system with a 40-line resolution that employed a Nipkow disk scanner and CRT display at Hamamatsu Industrial High School in Japan. This prototype is still on display at the Takayanagi Memorial Museum in Shizuoka University , Hamamatsu Campus. His research in creating
6586-536: A shoulder for Annie to cry on. She seems to have the liveliest social life of all the smokers. She has a very bad hangover when we first meet her in Episode One and in Episode Eleven, when everyone is snowed in after work, is so determined to drink the bottle of vodka she has bought that she mixes it with the only thing available, a jar of pasta sauce. Despite her smoking and drinking, she is health conscious, being
6764-625: A signal reportedly to the 60th power or better and showed great promise in all fields of electronics. Unfortunately, an issue with the multipactor was that it wore out at an unsatisfactory rate. At the Berlin Radio Show in August 1931 in Berlin , Manfred von Ardenne gave a public demonstration of a television system using a CRT for both transmission and reception, the first completely electronic television transmission. However, Ardenne had not developed
6942-410: A static photocell. The thallium sulfide (Thalofide) cell, developed by Theodore Case in the U.S., detected the light reflected from the subject and converted it into a proportional electrical signal. This was transmitted by AM radio waves to a receiver unit, where the video signal was applied to a neon light behind a second Nipkow disk rotating synchronized with the first. The brightness of the neon lamp
7120-459: A system that used a mechanical mirror-drum scanner to transmit, in Zworykin's words, "very crude images" over wires to the " Braun tube" ( cathode-ray tube or "CRT") in the receiver. Moving images were not possible because, in the scanner: "the sensitivity was not enough and the selenium cell was very laggy". In 1921, Édouard Belin sent the first image via radio waves with his belinograph . By
7298-490: A television set. The replacement of earlier cathode-ray tube (CRT) screen displays with compact, energy-efficient, flat-panel alternative technologies such as LCDs (both fluorescent-backlit and LED ), OLED displays, and plasma displays was a hardware revolution that began with computer monitors in the late 1990s. Most television sets sold in the 2000s were still CRT , it was only in early 2010s that flat-screen TVs decisively overtook CRT. Major manufacturers announced
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7476-484: A television system using fully electronic scanning and display elements and employing the principle of "charge storage" within the scanning (or "camera") tube. The problem of low sensitivity to light resulting in low electrical output from transmitting or "camera" tubes would be solved with the introduction of charge-storage technology by Kálmán Tihanyi beginning in 1924. His solution was a camera tube that accumulated and stored electrical charges ("photoelectrons") within
7654-588: A thing. Also, the dates do not fit because at the time of Gelasius I, the feast was only celebrated in Jerusalem, and it was on February 14 only because Jerusalem placed the Nativity of Jesus (Christmas) on January 6. Although it was called "Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary", it also dealt with the presentation of Jesus at the temple. Jerusalem's Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary on February 14 became
7832-534: A third saint named Valentine who was mentioned in early martyrologies under date of February 14. He was martyred in Africa with a number of companions, but nothing more is known about him. February 14 is celebrated as Saint Valentine's Day in various Christian denominations ; it has, for example, the rank of "commemoration" in the calendar of saints in the Anglican Communion . The feast day of Saint Valentine
8010-437: A thirty-minute episode. The occasional non-smoker also drops by the room. There is a general camaraderie between several of the smokers. Annie is 29 and works in the graphics department. She considers herself rather ' New Age ' and sometimes talks about past-life experiences. She will accept theories from anywhere, including a souvenir mug with a picture of Vishnu on it, and a self-help CD she listened to, but didn't buy, in
8188-617: Is All the Ayre is thy Diocese And all the chirping Queristers And other birds ar thy parishioners Thou marryest every yeare The Lyrick Lark, and the graue whispering Doue, The Sparrow that neglects his life for loue, The houshold bird with the redd stomacher Thou makst the Blackbird speede as soone, As doth the Goldfinch, or the Halcyon The Husband Cock lookes out and soone
8366-519: Is Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine. Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes, And dupp'd the chamber-door; Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more." John Donne used the legend of the marriage of the birds as the starting point for his epithalamion celebrating the marriage of Elizabeth , daughter of James I of England , and Frederick V, Elector Palatine , on Valentine's Day: "Hayle Bishop Valentine whose day this
8544-399: Is a non-smoker and her visits to the smoking room are motivated by her desire to tell everyone about the latest developments in her life, yet she takes very little interest in anyone else's, often having a smug, patronising air about her when she does interact in conversations with the others. However, she is desperate for friends and in episode ten we learn that her imaginary friend, Buttercup,
8722-777: Is an official feast day in the Anglican Communion and the Lutheran Church. Many parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church also celebrate Saint Valentine's Day on July 6 in honor of Roman presbyter Saint Valentine, and on July 30 in honor of Hieromartyr Valentine, the Bishop of Interamna (modern Terni ). Numerous early Christian martyrs were named Valentine . The Valentines honored on February 14 are Valentine of Rome ( Valentinus presb. m. Romae ) and Valentine of Terni ( Valentinus ep. Interamnensis m. Romae ). Valentine of Rome
8900-403: Is constantly put-upon by Sharon and is terrified of her (although she occasionally tries to stand up for herself). She normally enters the smoking room on company-related matters such as to inform the occupants of Sharon's latest diktat . She takes a very dim view of some of the other characters' slacking, herself being very diligent and obedient. However, she is not really interested in climbing
9078-405: Is drably decorated in a dull yellow with signs of water damage on one wall. Company related notices adorn the walls, and old furniture and office equipment is stacked in the corner. Only occasional glimpses of the outside world are seen through the room's misted glass. Although each episode contains a distinct storyline, the series is fundamentally character and dialogue driven. Each episode's story
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#17330922359959256-412: Is entirely set in the smoking room (Room B209, although, in the second series, the sign on one door says B211) in the basement of the offices of a fictitious company. Most of the people seen in the smoking room are workers in the building. Room B209 is L-shaped and contains office-style tables and chairs, and a hot drinks machine which often malfunctions. It has two doors that lead to the same corridor and
9434-630: Is exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin , Rome. Other relics are found at Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland. Valentine of Terni became bishop of Interamna (now Terni , in central Italy) and is said to have been martyred during the persecution under Emperor Aurelian in 273. He is buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location from Valentine of Rome. His relics are at
9612-550: Is generally self-contained although there are some ongoing story threads, such as the gradual revelation of Robin's sexuality to the other characters and his unrequited infatuation with Ben from the post room. The theme music for the programme is two different versions of " Close to Me " by The Cure , used without the vocals. This theme was not used in episodes screened in New Zealand and Australia on UK.TV There are ten main characters though not all appear in each episode. Most of
9790-611: Is given in the calendar of saints of the Lutheran Church . In the 1969 revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints , the feast day of Saint Valentine on February 14 was relegated from the General Roman Calendar to particular (local or even national) calendars for the following reason: "Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing
9968-406: Is keen for everyone to know that the temp, Miranda, was once his girlfriend. The truth is finally discussed openly in the final episode, where it is apparent all his fellow smokers long realised Robin was gay (apart from Barry, who doesn't understand how Robin can be gay when he's 'so good at crosswords') and had no problem with it. He misses out on a chance with Ben who it turns out is gay too but has
10146-526: Is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14." Therefore, as he remains within the Roman Martyrology , he may be recognised optionally during mass outside of Christmastide and Eastertide . The feast day is still celebrated in Balzan ( Malta ), where relics of the saint are claimed to be found, and also throughout the world by Traditionalist Catholics who follow
10324-434: Is no more Smoking Room ". England's smoking ban , which prohibits indoor smoking in workplaces, came into force on 1 July 2007, as a result of which internal smoking rooms, like the one in which the series is set, became illegal. At the time the series was made, smoking was prohibited in the offices of most British companies, but there was often a room in the building that smokers could use during work hours. The series
10502-512: Is not as perfect as she believes. She repeats highly critical comments Keith has made about her as though they were kindly although she occasionally seems doubtful about his more extreme political views. He hates foreigners, is homophobic , thinks the police should be armed with laser guns that can paralyse and believes Heidi is more than enough female influence for his son. He also encourages Heidi to act out his bizarre sexual fantasies to make their sex life more interesting for himself. Heidi
10680-573: Is not possible to ascertain which of the four may have influenced the others. The earliest description of February 14 as an annual celebration of love appears in the Charter of the Court of Love . The charter, allegedly issued by Charles VI of France at Mantes-la-Jolie in 1400, describes lavish festivities to be attended by several members of the royal court, including a feast, amorous song and poetry competitions, jousting and dancing. Amid these festivities,
10858-406: Is not very attentive to his job. He dislikes children – including his own nieces – and family life in general, and makes little attempt to hide this. He has nothing good to say about his first wife, Pamela, and whenever we hear of his attempts to seduce other women they are always failures. Barry is usually seen attempting to solve the day's crossword , and although he considers himself something of
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#173309223599511036-411: Is quite unreserved, fun-loving, optimistic and outspoken. She seems keen to find a man and will seize on virtually any suitable target. She is always bubbly and happy on the surface but this seems to mask a real sadness which she sometimes lets show, like when she admits she doesn't like living alone. She is a confirmed smoker, which is illustrated by her attempt to obtain an un-stubbed-out cigarette from
11214-400: Is spedd And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed. This day more cheerfully than ever shine This day which might inflame thy selfe old Valentine." The verse " Roses are red " echoes conventions traceable as far back as Edmund Spenser 's epic The Faerie Queene (1590): "She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew, And all the sweetest flowres [ sic ], that in
11392-891: Is the head of the branch, having worked her way up from being secretary , although she remains answerable to Head Office. Sharon is a cold, condescending, ladder-climbing career woman. She rates herself very highly and virtually everyone else as slacking, inadequate minions. Although a smoker, she spends much less time in the smoking room due to her attitude to work; the other characters feel nervous and intimidated whenever she enters. She constantly bullies Janet and relies on her for almost everything. She also appears to be unable to understand basic social behaviour, remarking once 'Why are there jokes? [Do they] make you feel happy and productive?' Sharon has probably achieved her position more from her tenacity, forceful personality and compatibility with management culture than her actual ability. For example, in episode two, she makes some shocking assumptions about
11570-471: Is the only one to comment on his constant swearing, which offends her prim nature – although on the one occasion when she's driven to strong language, in Episode Nine, he is quick to criticise her for it. Len can be extremely gullible; for example, he fails to realise that his superior Ranjit is stealing from him and is happy to accept Ranjit's outrageous explanations of how his property keeps disappearing. On
11748-427: Is to have a threesome before he is 25. He seems to later be dating Lucy Wu for most of the second series, and she has a pregnancy scare, where it is revealed that Clint's father ran away when he was born. We don't know if Clint stays with Lucy after the scare. Gordon debuts in episode six and features in a further four episodes. Initially a non-smoker who never knew the smoking room existed (even though he's worked for
11926-459: Is very fond of her family, who include an aunt who suffered from a cerebral aneurysm , a sister, Nicola, an epileptic brother, Stuart, and her nephew Dominic, whom we meet in episode ten. We also learn that Janet was a 'late baby' whose mother always told her she was a 'mistake'. Len is a security guard , is 59 and is widowed. He used to be in the armed forces , although it isn't specified which branch, and only took his current job because of
12104-511: The 1939 New York World's Fair . On the other hand, in 1934, Zworykin shared some patent rights with the German licensee company Telefunken. The "image iconoscope" ("Superikonoskop" in Germany) was produced as a result of the collaboration. This tube is essentially identical to the super-Emitron. The production and commercialization of the super-Emitron and image iconoscope in Europe were not affected by
12282-724: The EMI engineering team led by Isaac Shoenberg applied in 1932 for a patent for a new device they called "the Emitron", which formed the heart of the cameras they designed for the BBC. On 2 November 1936, a 405-line broadcasting service employing the Emitron began at studios in Alexandra Palace and transmitted from a specially built mast atop one of the Victorian building's towers. It alternated briefly with Baird's mechanical system in adjoining studios but
12460-657: The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple on February 2 as it was introduced to Rome and other places in the sixth century, after Gelasius I's time. Alban Butler in his The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints (1756–1759) claimed without proof that boys and girls in Lupercalia drew names from a jar to make couples, and that modern Valentine's letters originated from this custom. In reality, this practice originated in
12638-474: The patent war between Zworykin and Farnsworth because Dieckmann and Hell had priority in Germany for the invention of the image dissector, having submitted a patent application for their Lichtelektrische Bildzerlegerröhre für Fernseher ( Photoelectric Image Dissector Tube for Television ) in Germany in 1925, two years before Farnsworth did the same in the United States. The image iconoscope (Superikonoskop) became
12816-404: The "Iconoscope" by Zworykin, the new tube had a light sensitivity of about 75,000 lux , and thus was claimed to be much more sensitive than Farnsworth's image dissector. However, Farnsworth had overcome his power issues with his Image Dissector through the invention of a completely unique " Multipactor " device that he began work on in 1930, and demonstrated in 1931. This small tube could amplify
12994-649: The 14th century, some seven hundred years after celebration of Lupercalia is believed to have ceased. Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa , meaning "Juno the purifier" or "the chaste Juno", was celebrated on February 13–14. Although the Pope Gelasius I (492–496) article in the Catholic Encyclopedia says that he abolished Lupercalia, theologian and Methodist minister Bruce Forbes wrote that "no evidence" has been demonstrated to link Saint Valentine's Day and
13172-452: The 18th century and widely repeated. On the evening before Valentine was to be executed , he is supposed to have written the first "valentine" card himself, addressed to the daughter of his jailer Asterius, who was no longer blind, signing as "Your Valentine." The expression "From your Valentine" was later adopted by modern Valentine letters. This legend has been published by both American Greetings and The History Channel . John Foxe ,
13350-476: The 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers. After World War II , an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion . In
13528-653: The 1920s, when amplification made television practical, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird employed the Nipkow disk in his prototype video systems. On 25 March 1925, Baird gave the first public demonstration of televised silhouette images in motion at Selfridges 's department store in London . Since human faces had inadequate contrast to show up on his primitive system, he televised a ventriloquist's dummy named "Stooky Bill," whose painted face had higher contrast, talking and moving. By 26 January 1926, he had demonstrated before members of
13706-421: The 1960s, and broadcasts did not start until 1967. By this point, many of the technical issues in the early sets had been worked out, and the spread of color sets in Europe was fairly rapid. By the mid-1970s, the only stations broadcasting in black-and-white were a few high-numbered UHF stations in small markets and a handful of low-power repeater stations in even smaller markets such as vacation spots. By 1979, even
13884-451: The 8th-century Gelasian Sacramentary . In Ancient Rome , Lupercalia was observed February 13–15 on behalf of Pan and Juno , pagan gods of love, marriage and fertility. It was a rite connected to purification and health, and had only slight connection to fertility (as a part of health) and none to love. The celebration of Saint Valentine is not known to have had any romantic connotations until Chaucer 's poetry about "Valentine's Day" in
14062-500: The Basilica of Saint Valentine in Terni ( Basilica di San Valentino ). Professor Jack B. Oruch of the University of Kansas notes that "abstracts of the acts of the two saints were in nearly every church and monastery of Europe." A relic claimed to be Saint Valentine of Terni's head was preserved in the abbey of New Minster, Winchester , and venerated. The Catholic Encyclopedia speaks of
14240-599: The Christmas Special, was released on DVD by the BBC on 6 February 2006 and on CD in a four-disc set on 4 April 2005 (without the Christmas Special). The second series was released on 16 October 2006; a boxed set containing both series was released on the same date. A third series was not commissioned; in an interview for the BBC News website on 30 November 2006, Robert Webb (who played Robin) said in passing, "...there
14418-664: The Dutch company Philips produced and commercialized the image iconoscope and multicon from 1952 to 1958. U.S. television broadcasting, at the time, consisted of a variety of markets in a wide range of sizes, each competing for programming and dominance with separate technology until deals were made and standards agreed upon in 1941. RCA, for example, used only Iconoscopes in the New York area, but Farnsworth Image Dissectors in Philadelphia and San Francisco. In September 1939, RCA agreed to pay
14596-569: The European folk traditions connected with Saint Valentine and Saint Valentine's Day have become marginalized by modern customs connecting the day with romantic love , there are still some connections with the advent of spring . While the custom of sending cards, flowers, chocolates and other gifts originated in the UK , Valentine's Day still remains connected with various regional customs in England. In Norfolk ,
14774-631: The Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation royalties over the next ten years for access to Farnsworth's patents. With this historic agreement in place, RCA integrated much of what was best about the Farnsworth Technology into their systems. In 1941, the United States implemented 525-line television. Electrical engineer Benjamin Adler played a prominent role in the development of television. The world's first 625-line television standard
14952-492: The Middle Ages, with no link to Lupercalia, with boys drawing the names of girls at random to couple with them. This custom was combated by priests, for example by Frances de Sales around 1600, apparently by replacing it with a religious custom of girls drawing the names of apostles from the altar . However, this religious custom is recorded as early as the 13th century in the life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary , so it could have
15130-469: The Roman Lupercalia has been accepted uncritically and repeated, in various forms, up to the present". Three other authors who made poems about birds mating on St. Valentine's Day around the same years: Otton de Grandson from Savoy, John Gower from England, and a knight called Pardo from Valencia. Chaucer most probably predated all of them; but due to the difficulty of dating medieval works, it
15308-469: The Roman Empire in the third century. According to an early tradition, Saint Valentine restored sight to the blind daughter of his jailer. Numerous later additions to the legend have better related it to the theme of love: tradition maintains that Saint Valentine performed weddings for Christian soldiers who were forbidden to marry by the Roman emperor; an 18th-century embellishment to the legend claims he wrote
15486-462: The Royal Institution the transmission of an image of a face in motion by radio. This is widely regarded as the world's first true public television demonstration, exhibiting light, shade, and detail. Baird's system used the Nipkow disk for both scanning the image and displaying it. A brightly illuminated subject was placed in front of a spinning Nipkow disk set with lenses that swept images across
15664-553: The Science Museum, South Kensington. In 1928, Baird's company (Baird Television Development Company/Cinema Television) broadcast the first transatlantic television signal between London and New York and the first shore-to-ship transmission. In 1929, he became involved in the first experimental mechanical television service in Germany. In November of the same year, Baird and Bernard Natan of Pathé established France's first television company, Télévision- Baird -Natan. In 1931, he made
15842-459: The Telechrome continued, and plans were made to introduce a three-gun version for full color. However, Baird's untimely death in 1946 ended the development of the Telechrome system. Similar concepts were common through the 1940s and 1950s, differing primarily in the way they re-combined the colors generated by the three guns. The Geer tube was similar to Baird's concept but used small pyramids with
16020-560: The UK broadcasts using the Baird system were remarkably clear. A few systems ranging into the 200-line region also went on the air. Two of these were the 180-line system that Compagnie des Compteurs (CDC) installed in Paris in 1935 and the 180-line system that Peck Television Corp. started in 1935 at station VE9AK in Montreal . The advancement of all-electronic television (including image dissectors and other camera tubes and cathode-ray tubes for
16198-461: The analog and channel-separated signals used by analog television . Due to data compression , digital television can support more than one program in the same channel bandwidth. It is an innovative service that represents the most significant evolution in television broadcast technology since color television emerged in the 1950s. Digital television's roots have been tied very closely to the availability of inexpensive, high performance computers . It
16376-476: The attending ladies would hear and rule on disputes from lovers. No other record of the court exists, and none of those named in the charter were present at Mantes except Charles's queen, Isabeau of Bavaria , who may well have imagined it all while waiting out a plague. The earliest surviving valentine is a 15th-century rondeau written by Charles, Duke of Orléans to his wife, which commences. " Je suis desja d'amour tanné Ma tres doulce Valentinée... " At
16554-409: The career ladder, her stated goal being, '...to find a nice man, and settle down'. Little is mentioned of her love life; in episode six, she says that she has a date and is reluctant to go out into the driving rain and fetch Sharon's lunch in case it messes up her new hairdo. She later mentions having met a new man at church, followed by her sudden announcement of her engagement to boyfriend Noel. She
16732-417: The characters are somewhat disaffected with their lives and jobs. The smoking room is an oasis where they can relax, indulge and shut out the rest of the world. Due to a rule devised by Clint, discussion of work-related matters ("shop talk") is forbidden in the smoking room, though there are some brief work-related discussions. Some characters spend long stretches in the room, with some present for most or all of
16910-399: The company as a graduate of Oxford Polytechnic and that Sharon was his secretary. They had a tentative romance which foundered when Barry got the venue of a date wrong; it takes them twenty years to discuss the misunderstanding. Sharon and Barry remain barbed and confrontational with each other. Barry blames circumstance and others for his lack of career progression, but there is evidence he
17088-404: The company for about twenty years) he is an unwelcome and disliked colleague prone to be lecherous, aggressive, insecure and overly-ambitious. Gordon's unpopularity is exemplified when his health takes a turn for the worse in the penultimate episode and his colleagues generally react with indifference, self-interest and a dithering lack of concern, as demonstrated by Sally; "God knows what we'd do in
17266-462: The convenience of remote retrieval, the storage of television and video programming now also occurs on the cloud (such as the video-on-demand service by Netflix ). At the beginning of the 2010s, digital television transmissions greatly increased in popularity. Another development was the move from standard-definition television (SDTV) ( 576i , with 576 interlaced lines of resolution and 480i ) to high-definition television (HDTV), which provides
17444-553: The date now called February 23, a time when some birds have started mating and nesting in England. Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls refers to a supposedly established tradition, but there is no record of such a tradition before Chaucer. The speculative derivation of sentimental customs from the distant past began with 18th-century antiquaries , notably Alban Butler , the author of Butler's Lives of Saints , and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars. Most notably, "the idea that Valentine's Day customs perpetuated those of
17622-421: The day when the first work in the vineyards and in the fields commences. It is also said that birds propose to each other or marry on that day. Another proverb says "Valentin – prvi spomladin" ('Valentine – the first spring saint'), as in some places (especially White Carniola ), Saint Valentine marks the beginning of spring. Valentine's Day has only recently been celebrated as the day of love. The day of love
17800-498: The design of RCA 's " iconoscope " in 1931, the U.S. patent for Tihanyi's transmitting tube would not be granted until May 1939. The patent for his receiving tube had been granted the previous October. Both patents had been purchased by RCA prior to their approval. Charge storage remains a basic principle in the design of imaging devices for television to the present day. On 25 December 1926, at Hamamatsu Industrial High School in Japan, Japanese inventor Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated
17978-514: The development of HDTV technology, the MUSE analog format proposed by NHK , a Japanese company, was seen as a pacesetter that threatened to eclipse U.S. electronics companies' technologies. Until June 1990, the Japanese MUSE standard, based on an analog system, was the front-runner among the more than 23 other technical concepts under consideration. Then, a U.S. company, General Instrument, demonstrated
18156-535: The discontinuation of CRT, Digital Light Processing (DLP), plasma, and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by the mid-2010s. LEDs are being gradually replaced by OLEDs. Also, major manufacturers have started increasingly producing smart TVs in the mid-2010s. Smart TVs with integrated Internet and Web 2.0 functions became the dominant form of television by the late 2010s. Television signals were initially distributed only as terrestrial television using high-powered radio-frequency television transmitters to broadcast
18334-603: The door whenever she enters. He is obviously intelligent although not particularly ambitious. He is generally cynical and a little melancholy . The happiest we usually see him is when he encounters or talks about Ben from the Post Room. His sexuality and attitude towards Ben (from the Post Room) is the subject of an ongoing story thread. There are many hints that Robin is gay and infatuated with Ben, but no outright admission on his part. Robin seems uncomfortable with his sexuality and
18512-399: The drinks machine and has consequently become highly emotional in his dealings with it. On one occasion it is fixed easily by Monique by removing a squashed cup from the mechanism. He often uses street slang and does an Ali G -style 'snap' when something amuses or impresses him. He is a fan of conspiracy theories as well as admitting to smoking marijuana . He is generally concerned for
18690-421: The extra information in the signal and produce a limited-resolution color display. The higher-resolution black-and-white and lower-resolution color images combine in the brain to produce a seemingly high-resolution color image. The NTSC standard represented a significant technical achievement. The first color broadcast (the first episode of the live program The Marriage ) occurred on 8 July 1954. However, during
18868-401: The face. He raised his two sons on his own following the early death of his beloved wife, Diana, and is very fond of his grandsons. He remains devoted to Diana's memory. He mentions her whenever he can and never shows any interest in other women. In episode twelve we learn that her death hit him so hard that the only thing which could cheer him up was to get a perm. He can be soft and caring to
19046-468: The facsimile machine between 1843 and 1846. Frederick Bakewell demonstrated a working laboratory version in 1851. Willoughby Smith discovered the photoconductivity of the element selenium in 1873. As a 23-year-old German university student, Paul Julius Gottlieb Nipkow proposed and patented the Nipkow disk in 1884 in Berlin . This was a spinning disk with a spiral pattern of holes, so each hole scanned
19224-407: The fact that she smokes somebody's cigarettes in every episode, usually Sally's, she doesn't regard herself as a smoker. She considers herself to be an artist and, although she says that she became a graphic designer because she likes designing posters, she finds her job unfulfilling. In Episode Ten she arrives with a collection of homemade ashtrays which she tries to sell to her colleagues, despite
19402-404: The fact that the paint is highly flammable . Barry is divorced and approaching 40. He is neurotic and obsessive (to the point of hoarding used matches), suffering from many phobias some verging on the ridiculous, although he is oddly unfazed by a real crisis. He seems bumbling and insecure, though his portrait from 1987 shows him as somewhat fashionable and confident. We learn that he joined
19580-440: The first outdoor remote broadcast of The Derby . In 1932, he demonstrated ultra-short wave television. Baird's mechanical system reached a peak of 240 lines of resolution on BBC telecasts in 1936, though the mechanical system did not scan the televised scene directly. Instead, a 17.5 mm film was shot, rapidly developed, and then scanned while the film was still wet. A U.S. inventor, Charles Francis Jenkins , also pioneered
19758-431: The following ten years, most network broadcasts and nearly all local programming continued to be black-and-white. It was not until the mid-1960s that color sets started selling in large numbers, due in part to the color transition of 1965, in which it was announced that over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color that fall. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later. In 1972,
19936-427: The heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid . In the 19th century, handmade cards gave way to mass-produced greetings. In Italy, Saint Valentine's keys are given to lovers "as a romantic symbol and an invitation to unlock the giver's heart", as well as to children to ward off epilepsy (called Saint Valentine's Malady). Saint Valentine's Day is not a public holiday in any country, although it
20114-417: The iconoscope (or Emitron) produced an electronic signal and concluded that its real efficiency was only about 5% of the theoretical maximum. They solved this problem by developing and patenting in 1934 two new camera tubes dubbed super-Emitron and CPS Emitron . The super-Emitron was between ten and fifteen times more sensitive than the original Emitron and iconoscope tubes, and, in some cases, this ratio
20292-618: The industrial standard for public broadcasting in Europe from 1936 until 1960, when it was replaced by the vidicon and plumbicon tubes. Indeed, it represented the European tradition in electronic tubes competing against the American tradition represented by the image orthicon. The German company Heimann produced the Superikonoskop for the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, later Heimann also produced and commercialized it from 1940 to 1955; finally
20470-437: The invention of the first working transistor at Bell Labs , Sony founder Masaru Ibuka predicted in 1952 that the transition to electronic circuits made of transistors would lead to smaller and more portable television sets. The first fully transistorized, portable solid-state television set was the 8-inch Sony TV8-301 , developed in 1959 and released in 1960. This began the transformation of television viewership from
20648-692: The jailer's daughter a letter signed "Your Valentine" as a farewell before his execution. The 8th-century Gelasian Sacramentary recorded the celebration of the Feast of Saint Valentine on February 14. The day became associated with romantic love in the 14th and 15th centuries, when notions of courtly love flourished, apparently by association with the " lovebirds " of early spring. In 18th-century England, it grew into an occasion for couples to express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines"). Valentine's Day symbols that are used today include
20826-401: The last holdout among daytime network programs converted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season. Early color sets were either floor-standing console models or tabletop versions nearly as bulky and heavy, so in practice they remained firmly anchored in one place. GE 's relatively compact and lightweight Porta-Color set was introduced in the spring of 1966. It used
21004-464: The last of these had converted to color. By the early 1980s, B&W sets had been pushed into niche markets, notably low-power uses, small portable sets, or for use as video monitor screens in lower-cost consumer equipment. By the late 1980s, even these last holdout niche B&W environments had inevitably shifted to color sets. Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of audio and video by digitally processed and multiplexed signals, in contrast to
21182-673: The male police officer who directed the Fred West case). She seems to have the busiest sex life of anyone in the room but hasn't managed to find love. Her choice of men is misguided. One married man she dated sent private photographs he took of her to a pornographic magazine; it is implied that Barry saw these pictures. She had a liaison with Clint at Lucy Wu's party, which we learn about in Episode Three, and in Episode Five she buys him some chocolates for Valentine's Day , but this appears to be
21360-486: The mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the U.S. and most other developed countries. The availability of various types of archival storage media such as Betamax and VHS tapes, LaserDiscs , high-capacity hard disk drives , CDs , DVDs , flash drives , high-definition HD DVDs and Blu-ray Discs , and cloud digital video recorders has enabled viewers to watch pre-recorded material—such as movies—at home on their own time schedule. For many reasons, especially
21538-432: The middle of HMV . She can be very overemotional and attention-seeking and is always telling dramatic stories about herself which seem unlikely, although when Sally challenges her about her claim to have been trapped in a photo booth for three hours Annie is easily able to provide photographic evidence. She is constantly looking for a boyfriend and is prepared to go to extreme lengths to retain one (including dressing as
21716-554: The older, pre- Second Vatican Council calendar (see General Roman Calendar of 1960 ). In the Eastern Orthodox Church , Saint Valentine is recognized on July 6 , on which Saint Valentine , the Roman presbyter, is honoured; in addition, the Eastern Orthodox Church observes the feast of Hieromartyr Valentine, Bishop of Interamna, on July 30 . J.C. Cooper, in The Dictionary of Christianity , writes that Saint Valentine
21894-466: The original Campbell-Swinton's selenium-coated plate. Although others had experimented with using a cathode-ray tube as a receiver, the concept of using one as a transmitter was novel. The first cathode-ray tube to use a hot cathode was developed by John B. Johnson (who gave his name to the term Johnson noise ) and Harry Weiner Weinhart of Western Electric , and became a commercial product in 1922. In 1926, Hungarian engineer Kálmán Tihanyi designed
22072-419: The other characters express their joy at her news when they realise it will mean another lengthy maternity absence. Janet is 34 and the personal assistant to Sharon. She is very prudish, dresses old for her age, rarely swears and does not smoke. Once she takes a drag of Robin's cigarette, only to immediately extinguish it in a cup of coffee, thereby depriving Robin and Clint of their only means of ignition. She
22250-476: The other characters' well-being, often telling them to 'chill' or hugging them when something bad happens. He is the friendliest towards Sharon of all the smokers, even calling her 'Shazza'. He tends to see the good in everyone, to the extent that he was once sexually molested in a park and believed the man's story that he was holding his penis in order to tell his fortune. Clint slept with Annie once, sent Lucy Wu into spasms by kissing her, and his biggest ambition
22428-509: The other hand, he can be very incisive and worldly-wise, such as in Episode Two when he muses about the brevity of life. Age is becoming a source of concern for him. He is upset to see a picture of his younger self in episode twelve and complains that he is now falling apart. Lilian is 53 and divorced. Her ex-husband, Greg, was an alcoholic and there are suggestions that their marriage was unhappy. She thinks her terrible taste in men means she has
22606-518: The others on occasion too. He is the one who hurries to comfort Annie when she is crying in episode two and is the only one who is concerned that Lilian should enjoy her birthday in episode eight. He and Lilian have a good friendship, having worked together for so long, but there is never any suggestion of romance between them. Len swears constantly, even in the middle of words. The other smokers tolerate his quirks, not even batting an eye when he becomes high on glue and hallucinates in episode ten. Janet
22784-456: The phosphors deposited on their outside faces instead of Baird's 3D patterning on a flat surface. The Penetron used three layers of phosphor on top of each other and increased the power of the beam to reach the upper layers when drawing those colors. The Chromatron used a set of focusing wires to select the colored phosphors arranged in vertical stripes on the tube. One of the great technical challenges of introducing color broadcast television
22962-421: The point of suspending his attempt to repair a lift full of people in order to smoke a roll-up. He doesn't seem to be much good at his job when he does get around to it. He has a tendency to lose ladders, one of which trips up and nearly kills someone. We also learn that his neglect of a loose floor tile in the smoking room has put one of his colleagues into a coma . He is constantly thwarted in his attempts to fix
23140-521: The points on his driving licence which meant he couldn't become a taxi driver . He has a cantankerous personality but is soft beneath the gruff exterior. He has a strange love for the works of Walt Disney , being overjoyed at the thought of holidaying in Walt Disney World in episode seven, although he isn't keen on Minnie Mouse , whom he describes as 'that bitch'. He is also afraid of ducks, claiming he accidentally provoked one into "biting" him on
23318-509: The poorly written words in Martin's letter thanking the company for his retirement party, insisting the word 'party' is 'pasty'. She is obviously focused and ambitious. It is only when photographs from the company brochure of 1987 are found that we learn that she joined the firm as Barry's secretary. They were firm friends then, according to Barry, but Sharon insists it was only because the other workers all were freaks. They even went on what sounds like
23496-515: The possibility of a digital television signal. This breakthrough was of such significance that the FCC was persuaded to delay its decision on an ATV standard until a digitally-based standard could be developed. Valentine%27s Day Valentine's Day , also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine , is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring
23674-507: The public at this time, viewing of the color field tests was restricted to RCA and CBS engineers and the invited press. The War Production Board halted the manufacture of television and radio equipment for civilian use from 22 April 1942 to 20 August 1945, limiting any opportunity to introduce color television to the general public. As early as 1940, Baird had started work on a fully electronic system he called Telechrome . Early Telechrome devices used two electron guns aimed at either side of
23852-512: The receiver, a type of Kerr cell modulated the light, and a series of differently angled mirrors attached to the edge of a rotating disc scanned the modulated beam onto the display screen. A separate circuit regulated synchronization. The 8x8 pixel resolution in this proof-of-concept demonstration was just sufficient to clearly transmit individual letters of the alphabet. An updated image was transmitted "several times" each second. In 1911, Boris Rosing and his student Vladimir Zworykin created
24030-415: The reproducer) marked the start of the end for mechanical systems as the dominant form of television. Mechanical television, despite its inferior image quality and generally smaller picture, would remain the primary television technology until the 1930s. The last mechanical telecasts ended in 1939 at stations run by a lot of public universities in the United States. In 1897, English physicist J. J. Thomson
24208-561: The resolution of the color information to conserve bandwidth. As black-and-white televisions could receive the same transmission and display it in black-and-white, the color system adopted is [backwards] "compatible." ("Compatible Color," featured in RCA advertisements of the period, is mentioned in the song " America ," of West Side Story , 1957.) The brightness image remained compatible with existing black-and-white television sets at slightly reduced resolution. In contrast, color televisions could decode
24386-558: The results of some "not very successful experiments" he had conducted with G. M. Minchin and J. C. M. Stanton. They had attempted to generate an electrical signal by projecting an image onto a selenium-coated metal plate that was simultaneously scanned by a cathode ray beam. These experiments were conducted before March 1914, when Minchin died, but they were later repeated by two different teams in 1937, by H. Miller and J. W. Strange from EMI , and by H. Iams and A. Rose from RCA . Both teams successfully transmitted "very faint" images with
24564-456: The rites of the ancient Roman purification festival of Lupercalia , despite claims by many authors to the contrary. Some researchers have theorized that Gelasius I replaced Lupercalia with the celebration of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and claim a connection to the 14th century's connotations of romantic love, but there is no historical indication that he ever intended such
24742-564: The series to appear more than once, yet not belonging to the core ten actors. Television Television ( TV ) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission . Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports. The medium is capable of more than " radio broadcasting ," which refers to an audio signal sent to radio receivers . Television became available in crude experimental forms in
24920-436: The series' central character and is present in the smoking room for almost all of every episode. He is in his early thirties. His job is never specified but he says he works in an office on his own, which he describes as ' solitary confinement ' and that his tasks include filing old photographs for the company brochure. He attempts to give Sharon the impression he is hard-working, usually stubbing out his cigarette and making for
25098-449: The signal to individual television receivers. Alternatively, television signals are distributed by coaxial cable or optical fiber , satellite systems, and, since the 2000s, via the Internet. Until the early 2000s, these were transmitted as analog signals, but a transition to digital television was expected to be completed worldwide by the late 2010s. A standard television set consists of multiple internal electronic circuits , including
25276-576: The significance of the Bell Labs demonstration: "It was, in fact, the best demonstration of a mechanical television system ever made to this time. It would be several years before any other system could even begin to compare with it in picture quality." In 1928, WRGB , then W2XB, was started as the world's first television station. It broadcast from the General Electric facility in Schenectady, NY . It
25454-634: The spectrum of colors at the transmitting end and could not have worked as he described it. Another inventor, Hovannes Adamian , also experimented with color television as early as 1907. The first color television project is claimed by him, and was patented in Germany on 31 March 1908, patent No. 197183, then in Britain, on 1 April 1908, patent No. 7219, in France (patent No. 390326) and in Russia in 1910 (patent No. 17912). Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated
25632-457: The street outside and her near-revulsion when she thinks that Barry is giving up. At the Cigzowt conference, designed to help the smokers quit, she tells how cigarettes have supported her through all the highs and lows in her life and have been her only constant companion. Sadly, the fact that she smokes wrecks any chance of a new romance with the Cigzowt representative, Derek. Robin is the closest to
25810-546: The system was improved further by eliminating a motor generator so that his television system had no mechanical parts. That year, Farnsworth transmitted the first live human images with his system, including a three and a half-inch image of his wife Elma ("Pem") with her eyes closed (possibly due to the bright lighting required). Meanwhile, Vladimir Zworykin also experimented with the cathode-ray tube to create and show images. While working for Westinghouse Electric in 1923, he began to develop an electronic camera tube. However, in
25988-625: The television. He published an article on "Motion Pictures by Wireless" in 1913, transmitted moving silhouette images for witnesses in December 1923, and on 13 June 1925, publicly demonstrated synchronized transmission of silhouette pictures. In 1925, Jenkins used the Nipkow disk and transmitted the silhouette image of a toy windmill in motion over a distance of 5 miles (8 km), from a naval radio station in Maryland to his laboratory in Washington, D.C., using
26166-537: The term dates back to 1900, when the Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi used it in a paper that he presented in French at the first International Congress of Electricity, which ran from 18 to 25 August 1900 during the International World Fair in Paris. The anglicized version of the term is first attested in 1907, when it was still "...a theoretical system to transmit moving images over telegraph or telephone wires ". It
26344-690: The time, the duke was being held in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt , 1415. The earliest surviving valentines in English appear to be those in the Paston Letters , written in 1477 by Margery Brewes to her future husband John Paston "my right well-beloved Valentine". Valentine's Day is mentioned ruefully by Ophelia in William Shakespeare 's Hamlet (1600–1601): "To-morrow
26522-561: The tube throughout each scanning cycle. The device was first described in a patent application he filed in Hungary in March 1926 for a television system he called "Radioskop". After further refinements included in a 1928 patent application, Tihanyi's patent was declared void in Great Britain in 1930, so he applied for patents in the United States. Although his breakthrough would be incorporated into
26700-513: The use of a CRT as a display device. The Braun tube became the foundation of 20th century television. In 1906 the Germans Max Dieckmann and Gustav Glage produced raster images for the first time in a CRT. In 1907, Russian scientist Boris Rosing used a CRT in the receiving end of an experimental video signal to form a picture. He managed to display simple geometric shapes onto the screen. In 1908, Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton ,
26878-487: The widespread adoption of television. On 7 September 1927, U.S. inventor Philo Farnsworth 's image dissector camera tube transmitted its first image, a simple straight line, at his laboratory at 202 Green Street in San Francisco. By 3 September 1928, Farnsworth had developed the system sufficiently to hold a demonstration for the press. This is widely regarded as the first electronic television demonstration. In 1929,
27056-430: The work of Nipkow and others. However, it was not until 1907 that developments in amplification tube technology by Lee de Forest and Arthur Korn , among others, made the design practical. The first demonstration of the live transmission of images was by Georges Rignoux and A. Fournier in Paris in 1909. A matrix of 64 selenium cells, individually wired to a mechanical commutator , served as an electronic retina . In
27234-457: The world's first color transmission on 3 July 1928, using scanning discs at the transmitting and receiving ends with three spirals of apertures, each spiral with filters of a different primary color, and three light sources at the receiving end, with a commutator to alternate their illumination. Baird also made the world's first color broadcast on 4 February 1938, sending a mechanically scanned 120-line image from Baird's Crystal Palace studios to
27412-541: The world's first public demonstration of an all-electronic television system, using a live camera, at the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia on 25 August 1934 and for ten days afterward. Mexican inventor Guillermo González Camarena also played an important role in early television. His experiments with television (known as telectroescopía at first) began in 1931 and led to a patent for the "trichromatic field sequential system" color television in 1940. In Britain,
27590-408: Was "...formed in English or borrowed from French télévision ." In the 19th century and early 20th century, other "...proposals for the name of a then-hypothetical technology for sending pictures over distance were telephote (1880) and televista (1904)." The abbreviation TV is from 1948. The use of the term to mean "a television set " dates from 1941. The use of the term to mean "television as
27768-406: Was "a priest of Rome who was imprisoned for succouring persecuted Christians." Contemporary records of Saint Valentine were most probably destroyed during this Diocletianic Persecution in the early 4th century. In the 5th or 6th century, a work called Passio Marii et Marthae published a story of martyrdom for Saint Valentine of Rome, perhaps by borrowing tortures that happened to other saints, as
27946-488: Was a priest in Rome who was martyred in 269 and was buried on the Via Flaminia . The relics of Saint Valentine were kept in the Church and Catacombs of San Valentino in Rome, which "remained an important pilgrim site throughout the Middle Ages until the relics of Saint Valentine were transferred to the church of Santa Prassede during the pontificate of Nicholas IV [1288–1292]". The flower-crowned skull of Saint Valentine
28124-454: Was able, in his three well-known experiments, to deflect cathode rays, a fundamental function of the modern cathode-ray tube (CRT). The earliest version of the CRT was invented by the German physicist Ferdinand Braun in 1897 and is also known as the "Braun" tube. It was a cold-cathode diode , a modification of the Crookes tube , with a phosphor -coated screen. Braun was the first to conceive
28302-414: Was condescending to Barry. In the final episode, Monique is mentioned to have been poached and leaving for another firm in New York, which only confirms Barry's suspicions that she was a disloyal ladder-climber. Monique would not be considered a main character as she only appeared physically in two episodes. However, she could not be classified as 'unseen,' therefore existing as one of the rare characters in
28480-509: Was considerably greater. It was used for outside broadcasting by the BBC, for the first time, on Armistice Day 1937, when the general public could watch on a television set as the King laid a wreath at the Cenotaph. This was the first time that anyone had broadcast a live street scene from cameras installed on the roof of neighboring buildings because neither Farnsworth nor RCA would do the same until
28658-507: Was cruel to her and soon went off to be imaginary friends with another child. Heidi didn't have the imagination to invent another one. This early disappointment might explain why she is oblivious to the rudeness of others and why she is determined to have company at any cost. In episode seventeen, she reveals that she is pregnant with her second child, to the slight annoyance of Janet (because it overshadowed her announcement of her engagement) and Sharon (because of her maternity rights), although
28836-637: Was designed in the Soviet Union in 1944 and became a national standard in 1946. The first broadcast in 625-line standard occurred in Moscow in 1948. The concept of 625 lines per frame was subsequently implemented in the European CCIR standard. In 1936, Kálmán Tihanyi described the principle of plasma display , the first flat-panel display system. Early electronic television sets were large and bulky, with analog circuits made of vacuum tubes . Following
29014-451: Was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing Julia, the blind daughter of his jailer Asterius. The jailer's daughter and his forty-six member household , family members and servants, came to believe in Jesus and were baptized . A later Passio repeated the legend, adding that Pope Julius I built a church over his sepulchre (it is a confusion with
29192-413: Was introduced in episode one as an external candidate for manager, in competition with Barry. Monique was chosen over Barry and was shown to be good at 'the game,' interacting with Sharon seemingly as equals. Her aptitude frightened Barry when she fixed the coffee machine following Clint's failed attempt. Monique's only other appearance was in episode eight at Lilian's birthday party, where she confused and
29370-411: Was more reliable and visibly superior. This was the world's first regular "high-definition" television service. The original U.S. iconoscope was noisy, had a high ratio of interference to signal, and ultimately gave disappointing results, especially compared to the high-definition mechanical scanning systems that became available. The EMI team, under the supervision of Isaac Shoenberg , analyzed how
29548-494: Was never issued and that Claudius II told his soldiers to take two or three women for themselves after his victory over the Goths . According to legend, in order "to remind these men of their vows and God's love, Saint Valentine is said to have cut hearts from parchment", giving them to these soldiers and persecuted Christians , a possible origin of the widespread use of hearts on Saint Valentine's Day. Saint Valentine supposedly wore
29726-408: Was not until the 1990s that digital television became possible. Digital television was previously not practically possible due to the impractically high bandwidth requirements of uncompressed digital video , requiring around 200 Mbit/s for a standard-definition television (SDTV) signal, and over 1 Gbit/s for high-definition television (HDTV). A digital television service
29904-461: Was on seynt Valentynes day Whan every foul cometh there to chese his make Of every kynde that men thynke may And that so huge a noyse gan they make That erthe, and eyr, and tre, and every lake So ful was, that unethe was there space For me to stonde, so ful was al the place. " In modern English: "For this was on Saint Valentine's Day When every bird comes there to choose his match Of every kind that men may think of And that so huge
30082-410: Was one by Maurice Le Blanc in 1880 for a color system, including the first mentions in television literature of line and frame scanning. Polish inventor Jan Szczepanik patented a color television system in 1897, using a selenium photoelectric cell at the transmitter and an electromagnet controlling an oscillating mirror and a moving prism at the receiver. But his system contained no means of analyzing
30260-842: Was partly mechanical, with a disc made of red, blue, and green filters spinning inside the television camera at 1,200 rpm and a similar disc spinning in synchronization in front of the cathode-ray tube inside the receiver set. The system was first demonstrated to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on 29 August 1940 and shown to the press on 4 September. CBS began experimental color field tests using film as early as 28 August 1940 and live cameras by 12 November. NBC (owned by RCA) made its first field test of color television on 20 February 1941. CBS began daily color field tests on 1 June 1941. These color systems were not compatible with existing black-and-white television sets , and, as no color television sets were available to
30438-518: Was popularly known as " WGY Television." Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union , Leon Theremin had been developing a mirror drum-based television, starting with 16 lines resolution in 1925, then 32 lines, and eventually 64 using interlacing in 1926. As part of his thesis, on 7 May 1926, he electrically transmitted and then projected near-simultaneous moving images on a 5-square-foot (0.46 m ) screen. By 1927 Theremin had achieved an image of 100 lines,
30616-542: Was probably celebrated on May 3. A treaty providing for Richard II and Anne's marriage, the subject of the poem, was signed on May 2, 1381. Jack B. Oruch notes that the date on which spring begins has changed since Chaucer's time because of the precession of the equinoxes and the introduction of the more accurate Gregorian calendar only in 1582. On the Julian calendar in use in Chaucer's time, February 14 would have fallen on
30794-512: Was proposed in 1986 by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunication (MPT) in Japan, where there were plans to develop an "Integrated Network System" service. However, it was not possible to implement such a digital television service practically until the adoption of DCT video compression technology made it possible in the early 1990s. In the mid-1980s, as Japanese consumer electronics firms forged ahead with
30972-500: Was the desire to conserve bandwidth , potentially three times that of the existing black-and-white standards, and not use an excessive amount of radio spectrum . In the United States, after considerable research, the National Television Systems Committee approved an all-electronic system developed by RCA , which encoded the color information separately from the brightness information and significantly reduced
31150-593: Was traditionally March 12, Saint Gregory 's day, or February 22, Saint Vincent's Day . The patron of love was Saint Anthony , whose day has been celebrated on June 13. The "Feast" ( Latin : in natali , lit. ' on the birthday ' ) of Saint Valentine originated in Christendom and has been marked by the Western Church of Christendom in honour of one of the Christian martyrs named Valentine, as recorded in
31328-500: Was unable or unwilling to introduce evidence of a working model of his tube that was based on his 1923 patent application. In September 1939, after losing an appeal in the courts and being determined to go forward with the commercial manufacturing of television equipment, RCA agreed to pay Farnsworth US$ 1 million over ten years, in addition to license payments, to use his patents. In 1933, RCA introduced an improved camera tube that relied on Tihanyi's charge storage principle. Called
31506-548: Was usual in the literature of that period. The same events are found in Bede's Martyrology , which was compiled in the 8th century. It states that Saint Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he
31684-419: Was varied in proportion to the brightness of each spot on the image. As each hole in the disk passed by, one scan line of the image was reproduced. Baird's disk had 30 holes, producing an image with only 30 scan lines, just enough to recognize a human face. In 1927, Baird transmitted a signal over 438 miles (705 km) of telephone line between London and Glasgow . Baird's original 'televisor' now resides in
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