- According to television historian Tom Genova, CBS corporation created its first color television prototype in 1946. This prototype used the same basic idea that powers today's color televisions, but with much clunkier hardware. Instead of color-coded phosphors in the screen, the CBS prototype used spinning wheels with red, green and blue filters.
- Color televisions build their images using tiny pixels (picture elements) that, when viewed from a distance, create a cohesive picture. The human eye blends adjacent pixels and tricks the brain into believing that it sees continuous colors and tones.
- At any given moment, each pixel can be one of three colors: Red, green or blue. When viewed from a distance, these three primary colors mix to form the full color range. The eye adds one color to the next, and the brain perceives colors that are not actually there. This "additive color" concept is the same on TV screens, computer monitors, and the painter's canvas.
- Color televisions not only add pixels and colors to create images, they also add images to create motion. Still images, called frames, are presented in quick succession to give the illusion of motion. This works well for the most part, but sometimes presents interesting quirks: The occasional backwards-spinning car wheel is caused by a glitch in the sequencing of still images.
- While the theory behind color television is the same for all designs, manufacturers continue to improve upon the idea. Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) televisions are the traditional standard, utilizing an electron ray firing at colored phosphors through a vacuum tube. More modern televisions include Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and Plasma TVs that provide better color saturation and contrast in a smaller size. All designs build their images with pixels, use the three primary colors to create a full palate, and string still images together to create motion.
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