Sony Televisions - Television Sets With an Emmy

Sony Television technology pushed the state of the art many times. Major improvements include clear color picture, and transistor televisions.

Sony televisions were the first television sets to win an Emmy award. Sony launched its first Trinitron color television in October of 1968. Trinitron was ground breaking technology, for which Sony got the Emmy, because until then color televisions were expensive and suffered from dark unclear pictures.

The Trinitron Sony television technology employs a single electron bean gun, and not three as were used in other color televisions of the time. It also uses an aperture grille instead of a shadow mask. A shadow mask is a metal panel with small holes that separate the television screen's pixels both vertically and horizontally. An aperture grille relies on closely spaced vertical wires to separate the pixels horizontally, and the electron beam's scan lines to separate them vertically. Sony's Trinitron system produces bright sharp images and continues to be a leading CRT technology.

Sony also pioneered all-transistor (no vacuum tube) televisions manufacture. In 1960 it started marketing the TV8-301, the world's first transistor television, which was designed as a small portable model. The TV8-301 television gained Sony worldwide recognition, but was not a major financial success because it was expensive enough to be considered a luxury item, and also broke down often.

Sony was established in 1946 by engineer Masaru Ibuka in war damaged Tokyo. Ibuka opened a small factory in a section of the Shirokiya Department Store building, which had survived the war without major damage. The company was first named Tokyo Tsushin Kenkyujo or Tokyo Telecommunications Research Institute, and changed its name to Sony Corporation in 1958.

Ibuka's factory started doing business by repairing war-damaged radios and fixing those which had their short-wave units disconnected by the Japanese military police, to prevent citizens from listening to enemy propaganda broadcasts. The factory also made short-wave adapters that converted regular medium wave radios into all-wave receivers and attracted much public attention. Following the success of the short-wave adapters, Ibuka's close friend, Akio Morita joined him to co-found what is the Sony Corporation of today.

Early work at Sony also included much research into magnetic tape voice recordings, and it introduced its first tape recorders in 1949. In 1975 Sony was the first company to market a home videotape recorder. Though Sony's Beta videotape standard for the home market was later replaced by VHS, which was introduced by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA).

In 1960 Sony instituted the Sony Corporation of America in New York City, and also launched operations in Switzerland. And in 1961 it became the first Japanese company to be traded on the US stock market.

In 1988 Sony acquired CBS Records and in 1989 it acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment, thus becoming a major player in the music, film, and television production industries.