Video camera tube
device that captures television images
Video camera tubes are devices based on the cathode-ray tube that were used in television cameras to capture television images, prior to the introduction of charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors in the 1980s. Several different types of tubes were in use from the early 1930s, and as late as the 1990s.
In these tubes, an electron beam is scanned across an image of the scene to be broadcast focused on a target. This generated a current that is dependent on the brightness of the image on the target at the scan point. The size of the striking ray is tiny compared to the size of the target, allowing 480–486 horizontal scan lines per image in the NTSC format, 576 lines in PAL, and as many as 1035 lines in Hi-Vision.
Cathode-ray tube
Any vacuum tube which operates using a focused beam of electrons, originally called a cathode ray, is known as a cathode-ray tube (CRT). These are usually seen as display devices as used in older (i.e., non–flat-panel) television receivers and computer displays. The camera pickup tubes described in this article are also CRTs, but they display no image.
Early research
In June 1908, the scientific journal Nature published a letter in which Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton, fellow of the Royal Society (UK), discussed how a fully electronic television system could be realized by using cathode-ray tubes (or "Braun" tubes, after their inventor, Karl Braun) as both imaging and display devices. He noted that the "real difficulties lie in devising an efficient transmitter", and that it was possible that "no photoelectric phenomenon at present known will provide what is required".
The public source identifies “Video camera tube” as device that captures television images. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Video, camera and tube.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18670447. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1035 and 1908.
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This entry incorporates text from “Video camera tube” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.