ITT NOKIA 7181 PIP DIGIVISION BLACK - LINE / IFB-681 YEAR 1988

ITT NOKIA  7181 PIP  DIGIVISION  BLACK - LINE / IFB-681   A Top television set with top features from ITT.

Another DIGIVISION ITT technology set but with furthermore features, one in particular which is the PIP feature which is a Picture In Picture system on screen.

It has 3 Scart Input which are useful even for the PIP implementation.

The TV set of the future will use digital techniques for most, if not all, of its functions. The process of converting to digital design is 'anything but easy and the process is likely to be long drawn out. It has already started, with some amazing new designs in workshops, but it's unlikely we will see true digital TV before the twenty-first century........

As digital TV reception technology offers many unique benefits to manufacturers and users, its concept is increasingly accepted. From the manufacturer's point of view, the use of digital circuits can replace hundreds of components, thus greatly simplifying the debugging of the TV set, and only need to equip the production line with a robot to complete the debugging work. From the user's point of view, digital TVs have unique performance characteristics, such as ghost compensation, image set images, etc., which are unheard of in standard TV sets. This post introduces the development of digital integrated circuits of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT Semiconductor Division), pointing out the main features and simplicity of digital integrated circuit technology................

THE SMART MONEY was betting that by the early 1990s most of the TV sets sold around the world will have digital circuits. Everywhere engineers were racing to be the first to put out a completely digital design. And the electronics giants of Japan, Europe and the US were watching them carefully. There have been some successes already. In Europe the ITT subsidiary Intermetall has produced a kit of five VLSI chips that digitise the vision path between the demodulator and the output amplifier. According to ITT, this represents the integration of almost 300 000 transistor functions. Motorola had a similar set of chips it calls the System 4 that mixes digital and analogue functions on the chips. There has also been considerable progress towards a digital frame store (DFS). A DFS is a device that stores the whole picture (frame) as a series of digits in one set of memory. In Europe, Philips has unveiled the first primitive model and Sony in Japan seemed to be heading down the same track. TV designers have been quick to jump on these developments. Virtually all of them  have had prototype sets up and running that use digital chip sets. Sony had already released one in Japan and plans to release it here within the next two years after 1983. National, likewise, had released its first digital TV in Japan, using the ITT chip set, but there are no plans yet to release it in this country. Hitachi also claims to be working on one, but according to its Melbourne office, the details were still "confidential". The primary US contender is the Zenith Corporation, which had a prototype up and running.

Advantages: So, what's all the fuss about? Why digitise TV sets at all? Well, there are some fairly predictable answers: digital sets are claimed to offer greater immunity to noise and ghosting, better resolution, and ease of interfacing to other digital sources like personal computers and videotext systems. They also offer the designer the ability to do very sophisticated manipulations on the image data, manipulations that would be virtually impossible in a reasonably priced analogue set. Looking down the track just a little way, say within the next ten years, designers are looking at sets with 1250 non -interlaced lines, and flicker -free pictures of unparalleled clarity. They would be hardware independent of the transmission format, requiring only reprogramming of their DFS to handle any of the standards now in use, (or any that might originate in the future). Another facility that will be standard on most of these sets will be second source windows. These are small insets that can be made to show the output of a second source, like a VCR or video camera. The user will be able to select the size of the window and position it anywhere on the screen, as well as independently controlling brightness, colour etc, just as for the main screen.

History:Digital techniques were introduced to TV sets in the early 1960s when remote control equipment began to appear in top -of-the - line models. Microprocessor based systems followed quickly. Text information systems like Teletext and Viewdata began to. appear in the mid to late 1970s. They all require some digital processing before being video delivered amplifiers. to the analogue circuitry of the Until quite recently though, digital TV has taken a back seat in most research labs to high definition, wide bandwidth systems. The conventional wisdom has been that more gains could be made more quickly by developing analogue technology. Modern top-of-the -line analogue systems have superb definition. They can also be made very small. In November 1983 Philips unveiled a black and white set with all its essential functions on a single IC. Two chip colour sets have also been demonstrated. But even as this trend towards large scale integration has been goipg on there has been a slow but steady increase in the amount of digital design being included in the average circuit. Clive Sinclair (the flamboyant British designer of the ZX80/81 and Spectrum computers) has shown a compos ite digital/analogue chip set intended for use with his up and coming flat screen TV. While most of the signal path is conventional the deflection circuits are all digital. Motorola has also gone a long way down this track with its System 4 design. It also uses a composite analogue-digital design. At least part of the problem with developing digital  digital processing designs is conceptually has been that far easier while than analogue, it takes a lot more components to do the same job. This in turn implies a far more complex circuit, with associated manufacturing and servicing expenses. The only way to keep cost down and integration number up to quality. The of components problem up is with is that that the large need  to integration to be large and  integrated pushes the state of the art to the limit. So there was a certain amount of surprise in the industry when, in 1982, Intermetall announced the creation of a completely digital video and audio section called, with alarming originality, the 'Digivision' chip set. It was a five chip set with three of them handling the video signal: a coder/decoder (codec), a processor and deflection pro cessor. The audio was carried on the other two. In order to make the system run it also required a microprocessor, an EEPROM and a clock, giving an absolute minimum part count of eight ICs plus a few capacitors. The managing director of ITT Semiconductor, Lubo Micic , (Micic, Ljubomir Dipl-ing) has been quoted as saying that this represents just the first step in an advance that will see the creation of an entirely digital design on a single chip.

Digital Signal Processing DIGVISION ITT in Brief:

 FOR several years now the use of digital techniques in television has been growing. A considerable impetus came initially from the need for high -quality Tv standards conversion. The IBA's DICE (Digital Intercontinental Conversion Equipment) standards converter came into operational use in 1972. It's success demonstrated convincingly the advantages of processing video signals in digital form - digital signals are neither phase nor level dependent. The trend since then has been towards the all - digital studio: digital effects generators have been in use for some time, and digital telecines were announced earlier this year. An earlier example of the application of digital techniques to television was the BBC's sound-in-syncs system, in which the sound signal is converted to digital form so that it can be added to the video signal for network distribution. The sound-in-syncs system first came into use in 1969, and is was  widely employed in pay tv systems alongside with video scrambling methods in the 80's.  Digital techniques have already appeared on the domestic TV scene. The teletext signals are digital, and require digital processing. In modern remote control systems the commands from the remote control transmitter are in digital form, and require digital decoding and digital - to -analogue conversion in the receiver before the required control action can be put into effect. Allied to this, digital techniques are used for the more sophisticated channel tuning systems. The basic TV receiver itself continues to use analogue techniques however. Are we about to see major changes here? 
ITT Semiconductors in W. Germany have been working on the application of digital techniques to basic TV receiver signal processing since 1977 with the supervision of the Engineer Micic Ljubomir, and at the recent Berlin Radio Show presented a set of digital chips for processing the video, audio and deflection signals in a TV receiver. The set consists of a' couple of l.s.i. and six v.l.s.i. chips - and by very large scale integration (v.l.s.i.) we're talking about chips that contain some more 200,000 transistors. What are the advantages? 
For the setmaker, there's reduction in the component count and simpler, automated receiver alignment - alignment data is simply fed into a programmable memory in the receiver, which then adjusts itself. Subsequently, the use of feedback enables the set to maintain its performance as it ages. From the user's viewpoint, the advantages are improved performance and the fact that extra features such as picture -within -a -picture (two pictures on the screen at the same time) and still pictures become relatively simple to incorporate. The disadvantage of course is the need for a lot of extra circuitry. Since the received signals remain in analogue form, analogue -to -digital conversion is required before signal processing is undertaken. As the c.r.t. requires analogue drive signals, digital -to -analogue conversion is required prior to the RGB output stages - the situation is somewhat different in the timebase and audio departments, since the line drive is basically digital anyway and class D amplifier techniques can be used in the field and audio output stages. In between the A -D conversion and the various output stages, handling the signals in digital form calls for much more elaborate circuitry - hence those chips with 200,000 or so transistors. The extra circuitry is all incorporated within a handful of chips of course, but the big question is if and when the use of these chips will become an economic proposition, taking into account reduced receiver assembly/setting up costs, compared to the use of the present analogue technology - after all, colour receiver component counts are already very low. With the present digital technology, it's not feasible to convert the signals to digital form at i.f. So conversion takes place following video and sound demodulation. Fig. 1 shows in simple block diagram form the basic video and deflection signal processing arrangement used in the system devised by ITT Semiconductors. Before going into detail, two basic points have to be considered - the rate at which the incoming analogue signals are sampled for conversion to digital form, and the number of digits required for signal coding. Consider the example shown in Fig. 2. At both (a) and (b) the signals are sampled at times Ti, T2 etc. In (a) the signal is changing at a much faster rate than the sampling rate. So very little of the signal information would be present in the samples. In (b) the rate at which the signal is changing is much slower, and since the sampling rate is the same the samples will contain the signal information accurately. In practice, the sampling rate has to be at least twice the bandwidth of the signal being sampled. Once you've got your samples, the next question is how many digits are required for adequate resolution of the signal, i.e. how many steps are required on the vertical (signal level) scale in Fig. 2 The use of a four -digit code, i.e. 0000, 0001 etc., gives 16 possible signal levels. Doubling the number of digits to eight gives 256 signal levels and so on. ITT's experience shows that the luminance signal requires 8 bits (digits), the colour -difference signals require 6 bits, the audio signal requires 12 bits (14 for hi-fi quality) while 13 bits are required for a linear horizontal scan on a 26inch tube. These digital signals are handled as parallel data streams in the subsequent signal processing. Returning to Fig. 1, the A -D and D -A conversion required in the video channel is carried out by a single chip which ITT call the video codec (coder/decoder). A clock pulse generator i.c. is required to produce the various pulse trains necessary for the digital signal processing, and a control i.c. is used to act as a computer for the whole digital system and also to provide interfacing to enable the external controls (brightness, volume, colour etc.) to produce the desired effects. In addition, the control i.c. incorporates the digital channel selection system. The video codec i.c. uses parallel A-D/D-A conversion, i.e. a string of voltage comparators connected in parallel. This system places a high premium on the number of bits used to code the signal in digital form, so ITT have devised a technique of biasing the converter to achieve 8 -bit resolution using only 7 bits (the viewer's eye does some averaging on alternate lines, as with Simple PAL, but this time averaging luminance levels). The A -D comparators provide grey -encoded outputs, so the first stage in the video processor i.c. is a grey -to -binary transcoder. As Fig. 3 shows, the processes carried out in the video processor i.c. then follow the normal practice, though everything's done in digital form. The key to this processing is the use of digital filters. These are clocked at rates up to 18MHz, and provide delays, addition and multiplication. The glass chroma delay line required for PAL decoding in a conventional analogue decoder consists of blocks of RAM (random-access memory) occupying only three square millimeters of chip area each. As an example of the ingenuity of the ITT design, the digital delay line used for chroma signal averaging/separation in the PAL system is used in the NTSC version of the chip as a luminance/chrominance signal separating comb filter. Fig. 4 shows the basic processes carried out in the deflection processor i.c. This employs the sorts of techniques we're becoming used to in the latest generation of sync processor i.c.s. Digital video goes in, and the main outputs consist of a horizontal drive pulse plus drives to the field output and EW modulator circuits. The latter are produced by a pulse -width modulator arrangement, i.e. the sort of thing employed with class D output stages. The necessary gating and blanking pulses are also provided. A further chip provides audio signal processing. One might wonder why the relatively simple audio department calls for this sort of treatment. The W. German networks are already equipping themselves for dual -channel sound however, and the audio processor i.c. contains the circuitry required to sort out the two -carrier sound signals. These chips represent a major step in digitalizing the domestic TV receiver. It seems likely that some enterprising setmaker will in due course announce a "digital TV set". The interesting point then will be whether the chip yields, and the chip prices as production increases, will eventually make it worthwhile for all setmakers to follow this path (in 1984).

A SCART Connector (which stands for Syndicat des Constructeurs d'Appareils Radiorécepteurs et Téléviseurs) is a standard for connecting audio-visual equipment together. The official standard for SCART is CENELEC document number EN 50049-1. SCART is also known as Péritel (especially in France) and Euroconnector but the name SCART will be used exclusively herein. The standard defines a 21-pin connector (herein after a SCART connector) for carrying analog television signals. Various pieces of equipment may be connected by cables having a plug fitting the SCART connectors. Television apparatuses commonly include one or more SCART connectors.

Although a SCART connector is bidirectional, the present invention is concerned with the use of a SCART connector as an input connector for receiving signals into a television apparatus. A SCART connector can receive input television signals either in an RGB format in which the red, green and blue signals are received on Pins 15, 11 and 7, respectively, or alternatively in an S-Video format in which the luminance (Y) and chroma (C) signals are received on Pins 20 and 15. As a result of the common usage of Pin 15 in accordance with the SCART standard, a SCART connector cannot receive input television signals in an RGB format and in an S-Video format at the same time.

Consequently many commercially available television apparatuses include a separate SCART connectors each dedicated to receive input television signals in one of an RGB format and an S-Video format. This limits the functionality of the SCART connectors. In practical terms, the number of SCART connectors which can be provided on a television apparatus is limited by cost and space considerations. However, different users wish the input a wide range of different combinations of formats of television signals, depending on the equipment they personally own and use. However, the provision of SCART connectors dedicated to input television signals in one of an RGB format and an S-Video format limits the overall connectivity of the television apparatus. Furthermore, for many users the different RGB format and S-Video format are confusing. Some users may not understand or may mistake the format of a television signal being supplied on a given cable from a given piece of equipment. This can result in the supply of input television signals of an inappropriate format for the SCART connector concerned.

This kind of connector is todays obsoleted !

And it has two external speakers boxes with two way frequency each one. The speakers boxes can be removed easyly.

ITT NOKIA  7181 PIP  DIGIVISION  BLACK - LINE / IFB-681     Colour television receiver or set , are known in which the majority of signal processing that takes place therein is carried out digitally. That is, a video or television signal is received in a conventional fashion using a known analog tuning circuit and then, following the tuning operation, the received analog television signal is converted into a digital signal and digitally processed before subsequently being converted back to an analog signal for display on a colour cathode ray tube.
In a conventional television receiver, all signals are analog-processed. Analog signal processing, however, has the problems at the video stage and thereafter. These problems stem from the general drawbacks of analog signal processing with regard to time-base operation, specifically, incomplete Y/C separation (which causes cross color and dot interference), various types of problems resulting in low picture quality, and low precision of synchronization. Furthermore, from the viewpoints of cost and ease of manufacturing the analog circuit, a hybrid configuration must be employed even if the main circuit comprises an IC. In addition to these disadvantages, many adjustments must be performed.

In order to solve the above problems, it is proposed to process all signals in a digital form from the video stage to the chrominance signal demodulation stage. In such a digital television receiver, various improvements in picture quality should result due to the advantages of digital signal processing.

Therefore digital television signal processing system introduced in 1984 by the Worldwide Semiconductor Group (Freiburg, West Germany) of International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation is described in an ITT Corporation publication titled "VLSI Digital TV System--DIGIT 2000."

In that system color video signals, after being processed in digital (binary) form, are converted to analog form by means of digital-to-analog converters before being coupled to an image displaying kinescope. The analog color video signals are coupled to the kinescope via analog buffer amplifiers and video output kinescope driver amplifiers which provide video output signals at a high level suitable for driving intensity control electrodes of the kinescope.

The  ITT NOKIA  7181 PIP  DIGIVISION  BLACK - LINE / IFB-681    Is a multistandard set and relates to a digital multistandard decoder for video signals and to a method for decoding video signals.
Colour video signals, so-called composite video, blanking and sync signals (CVBS) are essentially composed of a brightness signal or luminance component (Y), two colour difference signals or chrominance components (U, V or I, Q), vertical and horizontal sync signals (VS, HS) and a blanking signal (BL).
The different coding processes, e.g. NTSC, PAL and SECAM, introduced into the known colour television standards, differ in the nature of the chrominance transmission and in particular the different systems make use of different colour subcarrier frequencies and different line frequencies.
The following explanations relate to the PAL and NTSC systems, but correspondingly apply to video signals of other standards and non-standardized signals.
The colour subcarrier frequency (fsc) of a PAL system and a NTSC system is fsc(NTSC) = 3.58 MHz or fsc(PAL) = 4.43 MHz.
In addition, in PAL and NTSC systems the relationships of the colour subcarrier frequency (fsc) to the line frequency (fh) are given by fsc(NTSC) = 227.50 * fh or 4•fsc(NTSC) = 910 • fh fsc(PAL) = 283.75 * fh or 4•fsc(PAL) = 1135 • fh so that the phase of the colour subcarrier in the case of NTSC is changed by 180°/line and in PAL by 270°/line.
In the case of digital video signal processing and decoding the prior art fundamentally distinguishes between two system architectures. These are the burst-locked architecture and the line-locked architecture, i.e. systems which operate with sampling frequencies for the video signal, which are produced in phase-locked manner to the colour subcarrier frequency transmitted with the burst pulse or in phase-locked manner with the line frequency, respectively.

The principal advantage of the present invention is a color television receiver is provided having a fully digital color demodulator wherein the luminance signal and the chrominance signals are separated and digitally processed prior to being converted to analog signals in that the all-digital signal processing largely eliminates the need for nonintegratable circuit elements, i.e., particularly coils and capacitors, and that the subcircuits can be preferably implemented using integrated insulated-gate field-effect transistor circuits, i.e., so-called MOS technology. This technology is better suited for implementing digital circuits than the so-called bipolar technology.

The ITT NOKIA  7181 PIP  DIGIVISION  BLACK - LINE / IFB-681      is a multisound tv digital sound processing.

It has a  DTI.(dti digital transient improvement pertains to a circuit for steepening color-signal transitions in color television receivers or the like particularly in DIGIVISION DIGIT2000 . ) circuit arrangement  designed for use in digital color-television receivers or the like and contains for each of the two digital color-difference signals a slope detector to which both a digital signal defining an amplitude threshold value and a digital signal defining a time threshold value are applied. At least one intermediate value occurring during an edge to be steepened is stored, and at the same time value of the steepened edge, it is "inserted" into the latter.
The bandwidth of the color-difference channel is very small compared with the bandwidth of the luminance channel, namely only about 1/5 that of the luminance channel in the television standards now in use. This narrow bandwidth leads to blurred color transitions ("color edging") in case of sudden color-signal changes, e.g., at the edges of the usual color-bar test signal, because, compared with the associated luminance-signal transition, an approximately fivefold duration of the color-signal transition results from the narrow transmission bandwidth.
In the prior circuit arrangement, the relatively slowly rising color-signal edges are steepened by suitably delaying the color-difference signals and the luminance signal and steepening the edges of the color-difference signals at the end of the delay by suitable analog circuits. The color-difference signals and the luminance signal are present and processed in analog form as usual. This circuit arrangement is designed for use in digital color-television receivers or the like and contains for each of the two digital color-difference signals a slope detector to which both a digital signal defining an amplitude threshold value and a digital signal defining a time threshold value are applied. At least one intermediate value occurring during an edge to be steepened is stored, and at the same time value of the steepened edge, it is "inserted" into the latter. This is done by means of memories, switches, output registers, and a sequence controller.
ADVANTAGE - Increased picture sharpness and highly improved signal-to-noise ratio.

The set has a Teletext feature comprising a receiver of teletext transmissions, under the form of a plurality of pages, inserted in the television signal, and divided into groups, for each of which an index page is available, comprising means for receiving and demodulating a television signal, furthermore decoding means for detecting the associated teletext signal and selection means for selecting a chosen page from those transmitted, and memory means for memorising at least one of the chosen teletext pages.
Receivers of teletext transmissions having the above mentioned characteristics are known.
The most recent of such receivers, those according to the TOP system (Table Of Pages, note the European patent application 0 264 565 or "Rundfunktechnische Mitteilungen", vol. 31, no. 2, 30 April 1987, Gerhard Eitz et al., "TOP-Ein Verfahren zur vereinfachten Anwahl von Fernsehtext-Tafeln durch den Zuschauer" for example) present numerous improvements for aiding the user to refer to the teletext, an operation famous for not being very user friendly for various reasons.
However also in such modern receivers, the Italian user that is consulting a Televideo page (a name in which RAI refers to teletext), for example belonging to the group "football", that being page N° 229, in order to return to the "football" index i.e. to page N°201, must depress three keys in succession 2, 0, 1; it is supposed that the user remembers the index number; otherwise it is necessary to return to the general index (100); from this point to the sports index (200) and finally to the Football group index (201).
The invention is based on the knowledge of the above inconvenience that represents a drawback in the actual teletext system.
The object of the invention is to allow the user to display the index page to which the chosen page belongs without a waiting interval.
It relates to a receiver of teletext transmissions, under the form of a plurality of pages, inserted in the television signal, and divided into groups, for each of which an index page is available, comprising means for receiving and demodulating a television signal, furthermore decoding means for detecting the associated teletext signal and selection means for selecting a chosen page from those transmitted, and memory means for memorising at least one of the chosen teletext pages; the characterising principle of the invention consists in the fact that the receiver comprises additional means for allowing the direct selection of the group index page to which the chosen page belongs.On the screen you will see at first teltext function call the  message "Automatic Multipage Process"

This television ITT NOKIA  7181 PIP  DIGIVISION  BLACK - LINE / IFB-681    was called sometimes the Elephant telly because of the speakers on the side like Ears of the Elephant !!

Picture in Picture (PiP) is a feature of some television receivers and similar devices. One program (channel) is displayed on the full TV screen at the same time as one or more other programs are displayed in inset windows. Sound is usually from the main program only.
Picture in Picture requires two independent tuners or signal sources to supply the large and the small picture. Two-tuner PiP TVs have a second tuner built in, but a single-tuner PiP TV requires an external signal source, which may be an external tuner, VCR, DVD player, or a cable box. Picture in Picture is often used to watch one program while waiting for another to start, or advertisements to finish.

History

Adding a picture into an existing picture was done long before affordable PiP was available on consumer products. The first PiP was seen on the televised coverage of the 1976 Montreal Olympics where a Quantel digital framestore device was used to insert a close-up picture of the Olympic flame during the opening ceremony. In 1980, NEC introduced its "Popvision" television (CV-20T74P) [1] in Japan with a rudimentary picture-aside-picture feature: a separate 6" (15 cm) CRT and tuner complemented the set's main 20" (50 cm) screen. It was pricey: its ¥298,000 MSRP was equal to about $1,200 (at $1 = ¥250 [2]), and $1,200 in 1980 had the approximate buying power of $3,000 in 2007 [3].
An early consumer implementation of Picture-In-Picture was the Multivision set-top box; it was not a commercial success. Later PiP became available as a feature of advanced television receivers, Like the ITT NOKIA 7181 PIP DIGIVISION here in collection !!

This is the father of all the DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY applied to Video and Audio Processing for Television applications.

This ITT DIGIVISION DIGIT2000 it is an even today a superior example of the unique quality video and audio processing.

The ITT DIGIVISION DIGIT2000 System has the unique capabilty to process video signal without any kind of artifacts or pixeling or any noise impurity related to DIGITAL Signal Processing.

The video signal in the DIGITAL DOMAIN OF ITT DIGIVISION DIGIT2000 has NO RIVALS. The processing is ULTRA FAST and doesn't mix or produce any type of "additions" unrelated to Original picture, it's every time natural and not artificial.

Pictures produced by a ITT DIGIVISION DIGIT2000 Tellye have unsurpassed, even today, quality picture:

- High contrast bright, because of the digital processing, lot of more dinamic is gained.

- High precision detailed picture, because of the digital processing any particular of the picture even the little point is processed and improved.

- Super color dynamic, because of the digital processing, colors are gaining power and precision details but without producing any kind of no reality like many modern CRAPPY LCD & Co.
If someone don't believe anything about picture quality provided by this system then it's sufficient to carefully look at the edges of each element of the picture and in this way no more comments are needed.
The ITT DIGIT2000 chipset is the core of all Audio and Video processing. From the composite CVBS signal all processing is executed in the DIGIT2000 chipset board which improves signal quality and dynamic without needing any regulations or setup.

DIGITIZATION OF "TV FUNCTIONS"

The idea of digitization of TV functions is not new. The time some companies have started to work on it, silicon technology was not really adequate for the needed computing power so that the most effective solutions were full custom designs. This forced the block-oriented architecture where the digital functions introduced were the one to one replacement of an existing analog function. In Figure 2 there is a simplified representation of the general concept.

Fig.2: Block Diagram of first generation digital TV set

The natural separation of video and audio resulted in some incompatibilities and duplication of primary functions. The emitting principle is not changed, redundancy is a big handicap, for example the time a SECAM channel is running, the PAL functions are not in operation. New generations of digital TV systems should re-think the whole concept top down before VLSI system partitioning.

In today’s state-of-the-art solution one can recognize all the basic functions of the analog TV set with, however, a modularity in the concept, permitting additional features becomes possible, some special digital possibilities are exploited, e.g. storage and filtering techniques to improve signal reproduction (adaptive filtering, 100 Hz technology), to integrate special functions (picture-in-picture, zoom, still picture) or to receive digital broadcasting standards (MAC, NICAM). The Figure 3 shows the ITT Semiconductors solution which was the first on the market in 1983 !! !!

Fig.3: The DIGIT2000 TV receiver block diagram

Description:This invention relates generally to digital television receivers and, particularly, to digital television receivers arranged for economical interfacing with a plurality of auxiliary devices.

With the proliferation of low cost microprocessors and microprocessor controlled devices, television (TV) receivers are being designed to utilize digitized signals and controls. There are many advantages associated with digital TV receivers, including uniformity of product, precise control of signal parameters and operating conditions, elimination of mechanical switches and a potential for reliability that has been heretofore unknown. Digital television receivers include a high speed communication bus for interconnecting a central control unit microprocessor (CCU) with various TV function modules for processing a TV signal. These modules include a deflection processing unit (DPU), a video processing unit (VPU), an automatic phase control (APC), a video codec unit (VCU), an audio analog to digital converter (ADC) and an audio processing unit (APU). The CCU has associated with it a non-volatile memory, a hardware-generated clock signal source and a suitable interface circuit for enabling the CCU to control processing of the TV signal throughout the various TV function modules. The received TV signal is in analog form and suitable analog to digital (A/D) converters and digital to analog (D/A) converters are provided for converting the digital and analog signals for signal processing and for reconverting them after processing for driving a cathode ray tube (CRT) and suitable speakers. The CCU microprocessor is heavily burdened because of the high speed timing required to control the various TV function modules.
To further complicate matters, modern TV receivers are increasingly being used with auxiliary devices for other than simple processing of TV signals. For example, the video cassette recorder (VCR) has enabled so-called "time-shifting" of program material by recording TV signals for later, more convenient viewing. The VCR is also extensively used with prerecorded material and with programs produced by users having access to a video camera. Other auxiliary devices providing features such as "Space Phone" whereby the user is enabled to make and receive telephone calls through his TV receiver, are desirable options. Additionally, a source selector auxiliary device enables a host of different signal sources, such as cable, over-the-air antenna, video disk, video games, etc. to be connected for use with the signal processing circuitry of the TV. In addition, all of these many auxiliary devices are preferably controllable from a remote position. A great deal of flexibility is available since each of the above auxiliary devices includes a microprocessor for internally controlling functioning of the device.


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(To see the Internal Chassis Just click on Older Post Button on bottom page, that's simple !)

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Here is the Announcement article from DER SPIEGEL a GERMAN journal which was discussing the introducing marketing of the DIGIVISION ITT TECHNOLOGY:

(This article is in original GERMAN Language)

FERNSEHEN

Vorteil im Verborgenen

Die ersten computergesteuerten Fernseher kommen in die Geschäfte - für den Verbraucher bringen sie vorerst kaum Vorteile. *

Das Gerät sieht aus wie jeder andere Fernseh-Apparat, auch Bild und Ton sind keineswegs besser. Aber nach Ansicht der Ingenieure ist es ein "technologischer Meilenstein".
Gemeint ist das neueste Gerät der Standard Elektrik Lorenz (SEL) - ein computergesteuerter Fernseher namens Digivision. "Mit Freude und Stolz" hatte SEL-Vorstandschef Helmut Lohr seinen
Aktionären den Apparat auf der letzten Hauptversammlung präsentiert. Ende dieses Monats soll es nun den digitalen Fernseher zu kaufen geben.
Vorerst allerdings dürfte der rund 2700 Mark teure Apparat allein fortschrittshungrige Techniker begeistern. Es ist der erste Farbfernseher der Welt, der Bild- und Tonsignale digital, wie ein Computer, verarbeitet.

Die Idee stammt von dem jugoslawischen Ingenieur Ljubomir Micic. Der hatte bereits vor zehn Jahren bei der Firma Intermetall in Freiburg, einer Tochter des amerikanischen ITT-Konzerns, zu dem auch SEL gehört, die Grundlage für Digivision entwickelt.
Mikroprozessoren, so schlug Micic vor, sollten die von den Sendern kommenden Fernsehsignale in Zahlencodes verwandeln. Um eine optimale Bildqualität zu erreichen, müßte eine andere Rechnereinheit die in digitale Codes verwandelten Signale überprüfen und, falls nötig, korrigieren. Die so aufbereiteten Signale würden dann wieder in ihre ursprüngliche Wellenform gebracht und das Fernsehbild produzieren.
Doch vor zehn Jahren wußten die Techniker die nahezu unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten der neuen Mikroprozessoren noch nicht recht zu nutzen. Die fingernagelgroßen Chips, die alle zentralen Funktionen eines großen Computers übernahmen, waren gerade erst zwei Jahre auf dem Markt.
Inzwischen hat Intermetall mehr als 40 Millionen Mark investiert, um Chips zu entwickeln, die ohne Zeitverzögerung die wellenförmigen Fernsehsignale in digitale Codes umwandeln. Und weitere Millionen sind erforderlich, damit auch der Verbraucher die Wunder der neuen Technik nutzen kann. So soll der Digital-Fernseher
eines Tages Bildstörungen wie Flimmern oder Streifen auf der Mattscheibe automatisch beseitigen. Der Zuschauer soll auch Standbilder oder vergrößerte Bildausschnitte wählen können.
Doch dazu müssen die digitalen Fernsehsignale durch einen elektronischen Speicher geschickt werden, der etwa die gewünschten Standbilder später wieder hergibt. Ein solcher Speicher aber ist bislang in keinem der jetzt käuflichen Geräte eingebaut.
Das Problem ist die unvorstellbare Menge an Daten, die ein solcher Speicher aufnehmen müßte. Um das Standbild zu liefern, muß der Speicher alle für das Fernsehbild notwendigen Informationen festhalten können. Bei einem Farbbild sind das rund vier Millionen digitaler Informationen (bits) pro Sekunde.
Diese Datenflut läßt sich mit den heute verfügbaren Speichern auf dem engen Raum eines Fernsehgeräts kaum verarbeiten. Mehr als 250 der heute üblichen Chips wären erforderlich. Der Preis für das Gerät stiege dadurch um mindestens 1500 Mark.
Frühestens in zwei Jahren, so rechnen die Experten, wird es möglich sein, die Zahl der für den Datenspeicher notwendigen Chips drastisch zu reduzieren. Dann könnten störungsfrei arbeitende Fernseher mit Standbild und Ausschnittvergrößerung als Luxusmodelle mit etwa 600 Mark Aufpreis angeboten werden.
Bislang wirken sich die Vorzüge des neuen Fernsehers vor allem für die Hersteller aus: Die Chips machen den Fernseher computergerecht. Zum Beispiel die Einstellung von Helligkeit und Bildschärfe sowie die Endkontrolle im Werk können von einem Rechner übernommen werden.
Die Folge: Die Geräte kommen noch schneller vom Band. Seit Mitte der siebziger Jahre fiel die Produktionszeit für einen Fernseher bereits von acht auf zwei Stunden. Mit Hilfe der Digitaltechnik läßt sich nun noch einmal mindestens eine halbe Stunde einsparen.
Solche Rationalisierungsvorteile weckten das Interesse der Konkurrenz. Bereits 18 Gerätehersteller aus aller Welt, darunter Sony, Grundig und Blaupunkt, verhandeln mit Intermetall. Die für 1983 vorgesehene Produktion von 200 000 der neuen Chips ist bereits verkauft. Im kommenden Jahr soll die zehnfache Menge produziert werden.
Der ITT-Konzern hat schon jetzt 60 Millionen Mark in die Fabrikation der Chips gesteckt. Bis 1987 will der US-Multi noch einmal 350 Millionen Mark investieren. "Wir sind", so ein Intermetall-Manager, "vielleicht ein halbes Jahr weiter als die Konkurrenz, und diesen Vorsprung müssen wir nutzen."
In der Tat ziehen die Konkurrenten nach. Halbleiter-Produzenten wie Siemens, Texas Instruments oder Motorola sehen ebenfalls eine Chance, ihr Bauteile-Geschäft auszuweiten. Immerhin werden jährlich weltweit rund 50 Millionen Fernseher gebaut - für die Chips-Hersteller tut sich da ein ganz neuer Markt auf.
Für den Verbraucher dagegen, der sich ein neues Fernsehgerät anschafft, liegen die Vorteile der Digital-Technik eher noch im Verborgenen: Im Gerät ist weniger drin - sechs Mikrochips ersetzen rund 300 von etwa tausend herkömmlichen Bauteilen.
Im Gebrauch muß deshalb ein solcher Apparat zuverlässiger sein: Was nicht drin ist, so ein alter Techniker-Schnack, kann auch nicht kaputtgehen. _(Sechs Chips einer ITT-Leiterplatte ) _(ersetzen rund 300 konventionelle ) _(Bauteile. )

Sechs Chips einer ITT-Leiterplatte ersetzen rund 300 konventionelle Bauteile.

DER SPIEGEL 41/1983
Alle Rechte vorbehalten
Vervielfältigung nur mit Genehmigung der SPIEGEL-Verlag Rudolf Augstein GmbH & Co. KG.

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In 1980 Ljubomir  Micic has taken the position  of  managing  director  of the itt  semiconductors and  he was responsible WorldWide company's activities, for  which  encompassed 3,500 employees and   five plants in the US, France and West Germany.

  Ljubomir  Micic joined  ITT in 1959, after graduating from Belgrade University.
  His   first positiont was quality control engineer  at intermelall, and in 1967 he became   manager of its application laboratory,
 
  Between 1968 and 1974 he was production manager responsible for new product  development and introduction.
  From 1974 to 1978 he managed all ITT   Semiconductor's  sales marketing in  Europe as director,
 
  In 1978, Ljubomir  Micic was appointed director of marketing and business development for ITT Semiconductors  World Wide, assuming the added res ponsibility of director for Intermetall  In 1979.

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One more comment about digital in 2000..............

Over the years we have learnt that one of the most important things in video/ TV technology is selecting the best system to use. We have also seen how difficult this can be. Prior to the start of the colour TV era in Europe there was an great to-do about the best system to adopt. The US NTSC system seemed an obvious choice to start with. It had been proved in use, and refine- ments had been devised. But alternative, better solutions were proposed - PAL and Secam. PAL proved to be a great success, in fact a good choice. 

The French Secam system seems to have worked just as well. Apart from the video tape battles of the Seventies, the next really big debate concerned digital TV. When it came to digital terrestrial TV (DTT), Europe and the USA again adopted different standards. 

One major difference is the modulation system used for transmission. Coded orthogonal frequency   division multiplexing (COFDM) was selected for the European DVB system, while in the USA a system called 8VSB was adopted. COFDM uses quadrature amplitude modulation of a number of orthogonal carriers that are spread across the channel bandwidth. Because of their number, each carrier has a relatively low bit rate. 

The main advantage of the system is its excellent behaviour under multipath reception conditions. 8VSB represents a rather older,  pre phase modulation technoogy: eight  state amplitude modulation of a single carrier, with a vestigial sideband. The decision on the US system was assigned to the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), reporting to the FCC. The system it proposed was approved by the FCC on December 26th, 1996. The curious date might suggest that there had been a certain amount of politicking. In fact there had been an almighty row between the TV and computer industries about the video standard to adopt, the two fearing that one or other would gain an advantage as the technologies converged. It was 'resolved' by adopting a sort of   "open standard"  we are talking about resolution and scanning standards here - the idea apparently being that the technology would somehow sort itself out.

 There seems to have been rather less concern about the modulation standard. 8VSB was adopted because it was assumed to be able to provide a larger service area than the alternatives, including COFDM, for a given transmitter power. Well, the USA is a very large place! But the US TV industry, or at least some parts of it, is now having second thoughts. Once the FCC had made its decision, there was pressure to get on with digital TV. In early 1998 there were announce- ments about the start of transmissions and broadcasters assured the FCC that DTT would be available in the ten areas of greatest population concentration by May 1999. Rapid advances were expected, with an anticipated analogue TV switch -off in 2006. So far however things have not gone like that. At the end of 1999 some seventy DTI' transmitters were in operation, but Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association estimates suggest that only some 50,000 sets and 5,000 STBs had been sold.

 There have been many reports of technical problems, in particular with reception in urban and hilly areas and the use of indoor aerials, also with video/audio sync and other matters. Poor reception with indoor aerials in urban conditions is of particular concern: that's how much of the population receives its TV. The UK was the first European country to start DTI', in late 1998 - at much the same time as in the USA. The contrast is striking. ONdigital had signed up well over 500,000 subscribers by the end of 1999, a much higher proportion of viewers than in the USA. Free STBs have played a part of course, but it's notable that DTT 's reception in the UK has been relatively hassle -free. In making this comparison it should also be remembered that the main aim of DTT technology differs in Europe and the USA. 

The main concern in Europe has been to provide additional channels. In the USA it has been to move to HDTV, in particular to provide a successor the NTSC system. There have been plenty of channels in the USA for many a year. For example the DirecTV satellite service started in mid 1994 and offers some 200 channels. Internationally, various countries have been comparing the US and European digital systems. They have overwhelmingly come down in favour of the DVB system. There have been some very damaging assessments of the ATSC standard. The present concern in the US TV industry results from this poor domestic take up and lack of international success. Did the FCC make a boob, in particular in the choice of 8VSB? Following compara- tive tests carried out by Sinclair Broadcasting Group Inc., the company has petitioned the FCC to adopt COFDM as an option in the ATSC standard. Not only did its tests confirm poor reception with indoor aerials: they also established that the greater coverage predicted for 8VSB failed to materialise in practice. Could the USA have two DTT transmission standards? It seems unlikely. It would involve dual standard receivers and non  standardisation of transmitters. In the all important business of system selection, it looks as if the FCC got it wrong.

              ....................................   It is obviously wasteful to duplicate terrestrial TV transmissions in analogue and digital form. Sooner or later transmissions will all be digital, since this is a more efficient use of spectrum space. The question is when? It would suit some to switch off the analogue transmitters as soon as possible. 2006 has been suggested as a time to start, with ana- logue transmissions finally ending in 2010. All very neat and tidy. Whether it will work out in that way is another matter. Strong doubts are already beginning to be aired. 

 The government has, quite properly, laid down conditions to be met before the switch off occurs. Basically that the digital signal coverage should equal that achieved for analogue TV, currently 99.4 per cent of the population, and that digital receiving equipment should be available at an affordable price. The real problem is that there is a difference between a coverage of 99.4 per cent and 99.4 per cent of the population actually having digital receiving equipment. Why should those who are interested in only free - to -air channels go out and buy/rent a digital receiver? It is already becoming evident that this represents a fair chunk of the population. 

The ITC has warned the government that the 2006-2010 timetable is in jeopardy. Peter Rogers, the ITC's chief executive, has said "we need to persuade people only interested in watching free -to -air television to switch to digital. "

Unless we do, there will be no switch - over." Well not quite, because the analogue receivers will eventually wear out and have to be replaced. But that could take a long, long time. Meanwhile many people will expect to be able to continue to watch their usual TV fare using their existing analogue receivers. 

Research carried out by Culture Secretary Chris Smith's department has established that between forty and fifty per cent of the population expects the BBC licence to cover their TV viewing, which means what they get at present in analogue form. A substantial percentage of the population simply isn't interested in going digital. In fact take up of integrated receiver -decoders, as opposed to the free digital set -top boxes, has so far been very slow. 

Of five million TV sets sold in the UK year 1999 , only 10,000 were digital. There are important factors apart from overall coverage and how many people have sets. There is the extension of coverage, which becomes more difficult to achieve eco- nomically as the number of those not covered decreases. There is the problem of reception quality. And there is the question of domestic arrangements and convenience. Extending coverage to the last ten fifteen per cent of the population by means of conventional terrestrial transmitters will be expensive. Mr Smith's department seems to have conceded that other methods of signal delivery may have to be adopted - by satellite, by microwave links or by cable. The latter has of course never been economic where few households are involved. 

The frequency planners have been trying to find ways of increasing coverage even to well populated areas. There are so many areas where problems of one sort or another make the provision of DTT difficult. Satellite TV is the obvious solution. 

The time may well come when it is wondered why anyone bothered with DTT. Signal quality is becoming an increasingly important factor as the digital roll out continues. In areas where the signal is marginal, viewers could experience the extreme irritation of picture break up or complete loss like even todays. This is quite apart from the actual quality of the channel, which depends on the number of bits per second used. There is a maximum number of bits per multiplex, the total being shared by several channels. The fewer the bits, the poorer the picture in terms of definition and rendering. 

There have already been complaints about poor quality. The question of domestic arrangements is one that has not so far received adequate public attention. Most households 2000 nowadays don't have just one TV set that the family watches. They have a main one, probably, almost certainly one or more VCRs, and several other sets around the house to serve various purposes. What 'the percentage of households that have digital TV' should really mean is the percentage willing to replace all this equipment. It will be expensive, and people would not be happy if they were told to throw away their other equipment when they get a single nice new all  singing all dancing widescreen digital TV set. It fact there would be uproar. The move from analogue to digital is not like that from 405 to 625 lines, which went fairly smoothly.

In those days few people had video equipment or a multitude of sets. The transition to digital is not going to be smooth, and the suggestion of a switch off during 2006-2010 already looks totally unrealistic. Unless the government subsidises or gives away digital TV sets - and why should it? - people will expect their existing equipment to continue to be usable.  

So it's likely that analogue TV will be with us for many years yet. But that would be the end of analogue too. 

.............................Indeed...............................

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HISTORY OF Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG IN GERMAN:

Die Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG (heute Alcatel-Lucent Deutschland AG) ist ein Unternehmen der Nachrichtentechnik (früherer Slogan: SEL – Die ganze Nachrichtentechnik) mit Hauptsitz in Stuttgart. Zur Nachrichtentechnik zählen auch Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik, Telekommunikationstechnik (SEL war für die Röchelschaltung bekannt) und früher Fernmeldetechnik oder Schwachstromtechnik. Einen weiteren Geschäftsbereich hatte das Unternehmen in der Bahnsicherungstechnik, so wurden für die Deutsche Bundesbahn Relaisstellwerke und elektronische Stellwerke mit den dazugehörigen Außenanlagen (Signale, Gleisfreimeldeanlagen, Weichenantriebe) sowie die Linienzugbeeinflussung entwickelt und gebaut, welche auch bei ausländischen Bahnen Abnehmer fanden. Der Bereich gehört seit 2007 als Thales Transportation Systems GmbH (seit 02.2011 vorher Thales Rail Signalling Solutions GmbH) zum Thales-Konzern. Die bereits 1998 ausgegliederten Bereiche Alcatel Air Navigation Systems und SEL Verteidigungssysteme sind ebenfalls heute in Thales Deutschland beheimatet.
Fernseher Illustraphon 743 von 1957
„Goldsuper Stereo 20“ (1961)
Das Flaggschiff der erfolgreichen Schaub-Lorenz Kofferradios der sechziger Jahre: Touring 70 Universal
Erster Digitalfernseher der Welt (1983)

Bis 1987 gehörte SEL zusammen mit anderen auf dem Sektor Telekommunikation in anderen Ländern tätigen Schwesterfirmen zum US-amerikanischen Mischkonzern International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT). ITT verkaufte die Aktien-Mehrheit an den ITT-Telekommunikationsfirmen an die französische Compagnie Générale d’Electricité (CGE), die nach der Zusammenfassung mit den eigenen Telekommunikationsaktivitäten daraus die Alcatel N.V. bildete.

Die Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG wurde 1993 in Alcatel SEL AG umbenannt. Die Aktienmehrheit liegt mit über 99 % bei der Alcatel. Mit der Fusion von Alcatel und Lucent zu Alcatel-Lucent am 1. Dezember 2006 und der Neu-Firmierung beider Unternehmen in Deutschland zur Alcatel-Lucent Deutschland AG entfiel der Zusatz SEL.


Geschichte

Die beiden Stammfirmen des Unternehmens, die Mix & Genest AG und die Telegraphenbauanstalt von C. Lorenz, wurden 1879 bzw. 1880 gegründet. Das erste Patent von Mix & Genest datiert von 1883, das erste Patent von C. Lorenz ist aus dem Jahr 1902.

Das Unternehmen Mix & Genest war wesentlicher Teil der Standard Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (SEG), in die auch die Süddeutsche Apparatefabrik (SAF), die 1875 von F. Heller als "Friedrich Heller, Fabrik Elektrotechnischer Apparate" gegründet wurde, integriert wurde. Der technische Schwerpunkt von Mix & Genest bzw. SEG sowie der C. Lorenz AG war der klassischen Fernmelde- bzw. Funktechnik zuzuordnen. Die C. Lorenz AG baute in den 1920er und 1930er Jahren Großsender für den neu gegründeten Rundfunk.

1930 übernahm die International Telephone and Telegraph Company (ITT) die Aktienmehrheit der Mix & Genest AG und der C. Lorenz AG.

Die C. Lorenz AG positionierte sich mit der Übernahme der G. Schaub Apparatebau-Gesellschaft mbH im Jahr 1940 in der Entwicklung und Herstellung von Rundfunkempfängern. Ab dem Jahr 1950 wurden alle Geräte bei Schaub in Pforzheim gefertigt. 1952 wurde das Typenprogramm beider Unternehmen verschmolzen und der Lorenz-Radio-Vertrieb in die Firma Schaub integriert. Ab 1955 wurden die Geräte unter dem Namen Schaub-Lorenz vertrieben.

1956 wurde das Unternehmen SEG in Standard Elektrik AG umbenannt. Ebenfalls 1956 wurde ein Kabelwerk gegründet. Wesentlicher Motor für das 1957 gegründete Informatikwerk war Karl Steinbuch, der von 1948–1958 dem Unternehmen, zuletzt als Technischer Direktor und Leiter der Zentralen Forschung, angehörte.

1958 erfolgte die Vereinigung der Standard Elektrik AG mit der C. Lorenz AG zur Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG (SEL).

Die Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG übernahm 1961 die Graetz KG. Die Firmenteile Schaub-Lorenz und Graetz waren zusammen mit einem Bildröhrenwerk Bestandteil der Unternehmensgruppe Audio Video der SEL AG, die 1979 als Audio-Video-Elektronik in die ITT ausgegliedert wurde. Die Produkte, die unter anderem Fernsehgeräte, Radios, Autoradios, Kassettenrecorder, Weltempfänger und Lautsprecherboxen umfassen, wurden fortan unter dem Namen ITT Schaub-Lorenz vertrieben.

Versuche, auf dem neuen Gebiet der Raumfahrt-Elektronik Fuß zu fassen, waren auf folgende Produkte beschränkt:

* AZUR: Telemetrie/Telekommandogeräte
* Spacelab: Datenerfassung/Kommandoterminal.

SEL entwickelte zu Beginn der 1970er Jahre das Präzisionsanflugverfahren SETAC. Dieser Unternehmensbereich wurde im Jahre 1987 von der finnischen Firma Nokia übernommen.

1976 hatte SEL ein Grundkapital von 357 Mio. DM bei 33.000 Beschäftigten und einem Umsatz von 2,6 Mrd. DM.

1983 stellte SEL auf der Internationalen Funkausstellung Berlin 1983 mit dem ITT Digivision den weltweit ersten Fernseher mit digitaler Signalverarbeitung vor.

2003 wurden die Markenrechte am Namen Schaub Lorenz an die italienische General Trading SpA verkauft. Die neugegründete Schaub Lorenz International GmbH vertreibt seitdem unter dem alten Markennamen Schaub-Lorenz importierte Konsumelektronik aus dem unteren Preisbereich.













ITT Corporation (NYSE: ITT) is a global diversified manufacturing company with 2008 revenues of $11.7 billion. ITT participates in global markets including water and fluids management, defense and security, and motion and flow control. Forbes.com named ITT Corporation to its list of "America's Best Managed Companies" for 2008, and awarded the company the top spot in the conglomerates category.

,ITT's water business is the world's largest supplier of pumps and systems to transport, treat and control water, and other fluids. The company's defense electronics and services business is one of the ten largest US defense contractors providing defense and security systems, advanced technologies and operational services for military and civilian customers. ITT's motion and flow control business manufactures specialty components for aerospace, transportation and industrial markets.

In 2008, ITT was named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World) for the tenth time in recognition of the company's economic, environmental and social performance. ITT is one of the few companies to be included on the list every year since its inception in 1999.

The company was founded in 1920 as International Telephone & Telegraph. During the 1960s and 1970s, under the leadership of its CEO Harold Geneen the company rose to prominence as the archetypal conglomerate, deriving its growth from hundreds of acquisitions in diversified industries. ITT divested its telecommunications assets in 1986, and in 1995 spun off its non-manufacturing divisions, later to be purchased by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide.

In 1996, the company became ITT Industries, Inc., but changed its name back to ITT Corporation in 2006.


History

ITT was formed in 1920, created from the Puerto Rico Telephone Company co-founded by Sosthenes Behn.[1] Its first major expansion was in 1923 when it consolidated the Spanish Telecoms market into what is now Telefónica.[2] From 1922 to 1925 it purchased a number of European telephone companies. In 1925 it purchased the Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company of Brussels, Belgium, which was formerly affiliated with AT&T, and manufactured rotary system switching equipment. In the 1930s, ITT grew through purchasing German electronic companies Standard Elektrizitaetsgesellschaft (SEG) and Mix & Genest, both of which were internationally active companies. Its only serious rival was the Theodore Gary & Company conglomerate, which operated a subsidiary, Associated Telephone and Telegraph, with manufacturing plants in Europe.

In the United States, ITT acquired the various companies of the Mackay Companies in 1928 through a specially organized subsidiary corporation, Postal Telegraph & Cable. These companies included the Commercial Cable Company, the Commercial Pacific Cable Company, Postal Telegraph, and the Federal Telegraph Company.


International telecommunications

International telecommunications manufacturing subsidiaries included STC in Australia and Britain, SEL in Germany, BTM in Belgium, and CGCT and LMT in France. Alec Reeves invented Pulse-code modulation (PCM), upon which future digital voice communication was based. These companies manufactured equipment according to ITT designs including the (1960s) Pentaconta crossbar switch and (1970s) Metaconta D, L and 10c Stored Program Control exchanges, mostly for sale to their respective national telephone administrations. This equipment was also produced under license in Poznań (Poland), and in Yugoslavia, and elsewhere. ITT was the largest owner of the LM Ericsson company in Sweden but sold out in 1960.

1989 breakup

In 1989 ITT sold its international telecommunications product businesses to Alcatel, now Alcatel-Lucent. ITT Kellogg was also part of the 1989 sale to Alcatel. The company was then sold to private investors in the U.S. and went by the name Cortelco Kellogg. Today the company is known as Cortelco (Corinth Telecommunications Corporation, named for Corinth, MS headquarters). ITT Educational Services, Inc. (ESI) was spun off through an IPO in 1994, with ITT as an 83% shareholder. ITT merged its long distance division with Metromedia Long Distance, creating Metromedia-ITT. Metromedia-ITT would eventually be acquired by Long Distance Discount Services, Inc. (LDDS) in 1993. LDDS would later change its name to Worldcom in 1995.

In 1995, ITT Corporation split into 3 separate public companies:

* ITT Corp. — In 1997, ITT Corp. completed a merger with Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, selling off its non-hotel and resorts business. By 1999, ITT completely divested from ITT/ESI; however, the schools still operate as ITT Technical Institute using the ITT name under license.[1] Also in 1999, ITT Corp. dropped the ITT name in favor of Starwood.[7]
* ITT Hartford (insurance) — Today ITT Hartford is still a major insurance company although it has dropped the ITT from its name altogether. The company is now known as The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.
* ITT Industries — ITT operated under this name until 2006 and is a major manufacturing and defense contractor business.
o On July 1, 2006, ITT Industries changed its name to ITT Corporation as a result of its shareholders vote on May 9, 2006.


Purchase of International Motion Control (IMC)

An agreement was reached on June 26, 2007 for ITT to acquire privately held International Motion Control (IMC) for $395 million. The deal was closed and finalized in September 2007. An announcement was made September 14, 2010, to close the Cleveland site.
Purchase of EDO

An agreement was reached September 18, 2007 for ITT to buy EDO Corporation for $1.7 billion.[12] After EDO shareholders' approval, the deal was closed and finalized on December 20, 2007.


Purchase of Laing

On April 16, 2009, ITT announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Laing GmbH of Germany, a privately held leading producer of energy-efficient circulator pumps primarily used in residential and commercial plumbing and heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.

 ITT'S KEY WEST GERMAN UNIT:

 April 29, 1985;

 When Standard Elektrik Lorenz A.G., the West German electrical company, abandoned devastated Berlin for this trim south German city after World War II, the only space available, company officials recall, was the underground assembly plants of a defunct aircraft manufacturer.

Ever since, Standard Elektrik, a $1.5 billion operation that is the largest European unit of the ITT Corporation, has been struggling for a place in the sun.

ITT took over most of the operations that today form Standard Elektrik in 1925, when it acquired all the manufacturing and research units that Western Electric owned outside North America. It now owns an 85.9 percent stake.

In recent years, Standard Elektrik has tried to define itself in a big market dominated by such giants as Germany's Siemens A.G. and the Netherlands' NV Philips, and within ITT's far-flung international business.

ITT Asset Divestment:
While not exactly suffering from an identity crisis, the German company seemed to be doing some reassessing when ITT announced in January that it planned to divest itself of $1.7 billion in assets this year and next, including shares of European subsidiaries.

It was after that announcement that Helmut Lohr, Standard Elektrik's fiercely independent chief executive, mused in a magazine interview that ''someday, the time will come'' when chunks of ITT companies would be spun off to shareholders ''through further emissions in Germany.''

Such remarks irk ITT officials in New York. ITT, which earns about half its operating income in Europe, believes the future of Standard Elektrik is crucial.

The 55-year-old Mr. Lohr said more recently in an interview that the issue was ''not yet ripe,'' but some people see Mr. Lohr's remarks as an indication that Standard chafes under the ITT yoke, and that its German management wants to wean it from the United States parent.

Dwindling Operating Income:
ITT's operating income from its mainstay European business has dwindled for several years, declining to $387 million last year on sales of $5.28 billion, from $633 million in 1982 on sales of $7.02 billion.

Daniel P. Weadock, executive vice president of ITT and president of ITT Europe Inc. in Brussels, said this was ''partly the result of the strong United States dollar,'' which depresses the value of earnings in local currencies; of new product start-up costs, and of higher outlays for research, development and restructuring.

Despite the decline, ITT has been working to improve the European subsidiaries and has made some major structural changes. There are plans to sell minority stakes in a number of companies to raise cash, appraise their value and open them wider for Government contracts by putting ownership partly in the hands of local citizens.

Last year, ITT announced it would spend $4.8 billion on research and capital investment in Europe in the next five years. More than $2 billion of that is set aside for West Germany, mainly to increase technological development in microelectronics, communications and motor vehicle components.

Standard Elektrik, with products such as its Digivision digital television system, is responsible for ITT's worldwide entertainment electronics business. Digital television uses chips to replace conventional components to simplify the set, make it easier and cheaper to build, and improve the quality of reception.

Four research centers - for microcomputers, telecommunications, television and automotive systems - are a major part of ITT's research effort, and spearheaded the $700 million effort that spawned the company's lucrative System 12 digital telephone exchange. System 12 has greater programming capabilities than other digital telephone systems.

Company Employs 27,000

Standard Elektrik had total sales equivalent to more than $1.5 billion last year. Its net income in 1984 amounted to $30 million, roughly the same amount as in 1983. The company employs 27,000 people, most of them in West Germany.

By all accounts, the breakthrough for Standard Elektrik came in 1982, when it beat giant Siemens to the market with a digital telephone exchange, forcing German postal authorities to crack Siemens's monopoly and award Standard Elektrik contracts for about 30 percent to 40 percent of the country's new digital switching technology.

There have been successes with the German military, too, including a $33 million stake in a consortium, headed by Standard Elektrik, to build a new digital communications network for the German armed forces.

Expectations about the telecommunications business, according to Gerhard Zeidler, Standard Elektrik's director of technology, center on linking ''text, data and pictures'' in complex new office systems in which the company sees a central role for its digital telephone and terminal technology.

But the odds are going up in the market for telecommunications and office equipment, where Standard Elektrik hopes to make its deepest mark. The company faces stiff competition, analysts say, from such big new alliances as the venture between Italy's Olivetti and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and from industry stalwarts, such as the International Business Machines Corporation.

A version of this article appears in print on April 29, 1985, on Page D00008 of the National edition with the headline: ITT'S KEY WEST GERMAN UNIT

2011 breakup

On January 12, 2011, ITT announced a transformation to separate the company into 3, stand-alone, publicly-traded, and independent companies.


References:
 

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