Kenjirō Takayanagi

was a Japanese engineer and a pioneer in the development of television and video tape recorders. Although he failed to gain much recognition in the West, he built the world's first all-electronic television receiver, and is referred to as "the father of Japanese television".

Career

In 1925, Takayanagi began research on television after reading about the new technology in a French magazine. He developed a system similar to that of John Logie Baird, using a Nipkow disk to scan the subject and generate electrical signals. Unlike Baird's display method, Takayanagi used a cathode ray tube to display the received signal, thereby demonstrating electronic image reception. On December 25, 1926, Takayanagi successfully demonstrated his system at Hamamatsu Industrial High School, where he was teaching at the time (the school is now the Faculty of Engineering at Shizuoka University). The first picture he transmitted was of the Japanese katakana character イ made up of 40 scan lines. In the late 1950s, he developed a two-head, helical scan video tape recorder. He was also involved in the development of color television. In 1984, he created his own foundation for the study of electronics.

Honours From the corresponding article in the Japanese Wikipedia

Medal of Honour with Purple Ribbon – 29 April 1955 Person of Cultural Merit – 3 November 1980 Order of Culture – 3 November 1981 SMPTE Honorary member – October 1988