As you would expect, Baird’s first colour TV transmission was of the mechanical variety, using a trio of Nipkow discs with each a different primary colour. 10 years later, Baird was at it again with the world’s first colour broadcast.

But it wasn’t until the 1940s that colour TV became a real focus for the medium. In 1940, US TV network CBS began experimenting with colour-enabled electro-mechanical systems. Because these displays weren’t viewable on the black and white TVs in American’s homes, the demonstrations were restricted to employees and limited press.

In 1944, John Logie Baird continued to place his mark on the development of TV by giving the first demonstration of a fully electronic picture tube, and in 1947 RCA showed off the first fully electronic colour TV.

But as with any new technology, you need to have the content to back up the hardware. It wasn’t until 1950 that CBS started showing regular colour broadcasts, with an hour of programming every Saturday. But it was a case of not enough hardware, with a lack of compatible TV sets meaning that CBS decided to stop broadcasting colour in 1951.

In 1954, RCA released the CT-100 colour television, which was the turning point for colour, despite limited sales, average performance and a high price. By 1959, NBC – which was owned by RCA – had increased its colour broadcast offering so dramatically that in 1965 almost all their primetime schedule was broadcast in colour.

History of TV is Giz AU’s month-long look back at the development of the world-changing medium and its influence on our daily lives.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. The first TV transmission in Australia reportedly happened in 1934, but it wasn’t axactly something people could tune into.

Of course, there was a little thing called World War II in the 1940s, which put a bit of a dampener on officially launching television in this country. But on September 16, 1956, TCN (now Channel 9) began regular broadcasting in Sydney. The broadcast was introduced by Bruce Gyngall’s immortal words, “This is television”.

Since then, both the content broadcast on TV and the TVs we actually used have changed radically. But that’s a post for another day…

History of TV is Giz AU’s month-long look back at the development of the world-changing medium and its influence on our daily lives.

[Pic from Wikipedia]

Honestly, nothing else changes. Although I’m certain that someone will end up asking me whether the TiVo device will now get more channels because it says the word Freeview. The answer, of course, is no. There is absolutely no consumer benefit to buying Freeview badged equipment. But of course, you guys know that already anyway…

Any TiVo owners out there want to comment on having their UI changed in such a basic and minor way?

• CBS Audience Network: Featuring a variety of shows from CBS Primetime, Daytime, Extras, and TV Classics, including full-length episodes of current TV shows, CBS Classics TV shows, short clips, and Web originals.
• Full Zune Video Podcast Library: Thousands of hours of entertainment with full TV episodes, webisodes, clips, and videos from providers including ABC News, CBS News, CNBC, CNET TV, Comedy Central, Current TV, The Discovery Channel, Fox, G4 TV, HBO, MSNBC, NBC, Showtime, and Revision 3, along with some of the best user-generated videos on the Web. Some video podcasts are also available in HD.
• MSN and msnbc.com: Clips as well as full length episodes from TV shows such as Arrested Development, news and weather from MSNBC, editor picks and most popular videos, five day weather forecasts, news, video playlists, music videos, movie trailers and more.

If you haven’t already noticed the upgrades in your Windows 7 Media centre menu, you can manually update by going into Tasks >>Settings >> General >> Automatic Download Options.

The thing I like most about the BeoVision 10 is not the 40-inch LCD panel or the big integrated speaker system or the brushed aluminium frame. The thing I like most about the BeoVision 10 is that it can be hanged on the wall, and then it can automagically rotate on one of its sides to fit your angle of vision. So I would be able to see it in the living room and in bed. This is how it works:

Yes, naff, but cool anyway. [epn.dk via Engadget]

Freeview just sent through this announcement:

FREEVIEW HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH DViCO

14 October, 2009
Freeview today stated that it has no association with manufacturer DViCO and its PVR product or the Australian distributor Also Technology.
The DViCO TViX M-6600N PVR launched yesterday featuring the Freeview logo on its product and promotional material. DViCO is not Freeview endorsed and the company or its Australian distributor has not contacted Freeview regarding endorsement.
Freeview’s legal team has contacted the manufacturer to ask for clarification and to ensure DViCO discontinues the association.
“This company is not Freeview compliant. All our endorsed product manufacturers are listed on our website at www.freeview.com.au,” Freeview CEO Robin Parkes said.

Which means you may be able to skip through ads and enjoy real PVR functionality. We’ll know more once we test out the device soon.

According to TechCrunch, UK company ICQ is developing the full-out Spotify phone for telecommunications provider Telia. And with recent news that Spotify service is expanding to television (in Sweden), the handset would be a notable multimedia force — even if the iPhone app makes an easier upsell.

So theoretically, if Spotify made its way to the US, and if the Spotify phone made its way to the US, every American would have Spotify phones. [TechCrunch and TechCrunch UK and image]

In fact, while the 10 biggest cable operators have deployed 16.7 settop boxes with integrated CableCards to date, they’ve only issued 443,000 standalone CableCards. And during the last two years, full CableCard devices have been installed 38x more often than CableCards alone.

(I’m also betting that the percentage of population that orders more than one CableCard for dual/quad tuning is greater than the percentage of population who orders more than one cable box, which means the CableCard-exclusive population may be even smaller than it seems…but I could be wrong.)

It’s tough to tell why CableCards haven’t been more popular. Then again, limited VoD options and a lack of consumer education might both have something to do with it. [Multichannel News via EngadgetHD]

That’s right folks, pressing on this resistance gadget for just minutes a day will miraculously redefine your bone structure to build a chin where there was no chin before. [Neckline Slimmer]

Amazingly enough, people continue to be duped by the Flowbee vacuum hair cutting system some 20 odd years after its initial release. [Flowbee]

If you have ever seen vintage footage of some flabby flapper girl strapped on a vibrating belt machine, you already have a pretty good grasp of the Hawaii Chair. A 2800 rpm motor rotates the chair seat to simulate a Hula motion with the hips. Theoretically, this will help to slim down your waistline while you sit on your arse doing nothing. [Hawaii Chair]

Are you tired of rolling meat into little round balls? Sweet baby Jesus…yes, YES I AM! If only there was some sort of magic press that would allow me to make uniform-sized meatballs in only 4 steps. [Best of As Seen On TV]

Ironically, the Amish are probably the only group of people in the world that would need a gadget that melts down the tops of old candles to expose the wick. [Taylor Gifts via Link]

Just because you don’t have a problem walking around looking like a monk doesn’t mean your dog feels the same way. [Snuggie for Dogs]

It’s a jump rope…without the rope! One easy payment of $US29.99 plus SH gets you the Cardio Jump workout system. But wait, there’s more! For a limited time, we will throw in a one-page instructional leaflet teaching you how to jump in place absolutely free!

Last but not least, I give you the infamous Tiddy Bear: the most absurd product ever promoted on television. It’s supposed to be a cute and cuddly way to prevent seat belts from digging into the skin—but it ends up being an endless source of “tiddy” jokes. [Tiddy Bear]

But first, the extender: The Moxi Mate is a small $US399 ($199 for now) extender box that plays back recordings from your Moxi HD from afar, over your home networked. It’s not all that feature-rich—no wi-fi built in, no scheduling of recordings, no support for more than one Moxi Mate at a time—but if your goal is to stream your Moxi library around the house, at least you now have a way to do it.

Anyway, about that library. Although the hardware on the main box hasn’t changed, Moxi’s software update, which should seed tonight, gives your box the gumption it needs to take onboard much larger drives via the e-SATA port, as well as a new optional browsing interface called Grid Guide, which gives users a more familiar, cable-guide-like experience than Moxi’s novel—but good—regular UI. Another, smaller update is Switched Digital Video support by way of an adaptor, if your cable company’s into that kind of thing.

At any rate, the core offering hasn’t changed, it’s just grown an extender: the whole system has the same strengths—a strong interface, good performance, and clear superiority over cableco boxes—as well as the same weaknesses—dependency on PlayOn for online streaming, the learning curve— so unless Moxi Mate tips the scales for you, or you’ve got $US1000+ to drop on storage to build an absurdly large video bank, your current impressions probably still stand.