Television as a technology

Television is a widely used telecommunication medium for broadcasting and receiving live, moving greyscale or color images with sound. The term may also be used to refer specifically to a television set, programming or television transmission. The word is derived from mixed Latin and Greek roots, meaning "far sight": Greek tele (τῆλε), far, and Latin vision, sight (from video, vis- to see, or to view in the first person).

Commercially available since the late 1930s, the television set has become a common household communications device in homes and institutions, particularly as a source of entertainment and news. Since the 1970s, video recordings on tape and later, digital playback systems such as DVDs, have enabled the television to be used to view recorded movies and other programs.
A television system may be made up of multiple components, so a screen which lacks an internal tuner to receive the broadcast signals is called a monitor rather than a television. A television may be built to receive different broadcast or video formats, such as high-definition television, commonly referred to as HDTV.