The true video camera, as we know it today, began to take shape in the 1920s and 1930s. One of the most pivotal inventions in this development was the iconoscope, an electronic scanning device that allowed images to be transmitted electronically. This groundbreaking technology was developed by Russian-American engineer Vladimir Zworykin, who is often referred to as the “father of television.”
In 1929, Zworykin filed a patent for the iconoscope, which led to the first practical video camera. Around the same time, Philo Farnsworth, another American inventor, independently developed the first fully electronic television system, including a camera. Farnsworth’s invention was able to scan images and convert them into electrical signals, which could then be broadcast over the airwaves.
Both Zworykin and Farnsworth made significant contributions to the video camera’s development, but it was Farnsworth’s work that would lead to the first commercial video cameras used for television broadcasting.
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