Customer Reviews

The History of Television, 1942 to 2000

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The history before 1965-1970 is fairly complete but the author fills up too much space with matter-of-fact product announcements. The real history of television is why the industry developed these new products, who used them, and how they changed television.

The pages are also a jumbled mess of unrelated developments. He didn't collect announcements of competing products together so the reader can see what directions the industry was going in. He wrote a paragraph about a new camera, followed by one about a improved video recording system, followed by another about yet another new camera. Apparently that's the order he found the information and felt no need to organize it.

There is virtually no information on the development of video distribution (satellites, microwave links) which made television the national media it is today. You would think modern television is only camera and video recording technology.

Abramson follows his superb The History of Television 1880 - 1941 with a disappointing sequel. The book is chock full of information pertinent to the last 60 odd years of television technology. However, the way the author skips from cameras to video tape to receivers, ad nauseum, keeps this reader wondering what is going to be covered next. There is no doubt that with the tremendous volume of equipment and advances covered, the material would be difficult to organize. A chapter devoted to only video tape recorders and their progressive improvements, even if the several manufacturers were mixed together would be much easier to follow. Similarly, camera technology could have been given its own chapter, along with a chapter on receivers and the transmitter technology. When he combines all the facets of television technology into one, chronological stream, the reader is left confused and frustrated. Now, having thrown several big rocks at the project, I would like to add that the coverage of the early days of video tape recording by Ampex is riveting. His several swipes at the dishonesty of RCA also helped balance out the many untrue tales of RCA's technological superiority. Sarnoff was Sarnoff, win at any price was his credo. All in all, a good review of a great deal of equipment and the people who created it. With all its warts, I still recommend this book.