Toshiba presented Japans first full transistor TV in 1959, and its first color Toshiba TV using integrated circuits (ICs) in 1970. The year 1972 saw the company release the first CRT with a built-in, contrast-enhancing "Black Stripe" around the screen. It's been possible to buy a Toshiba TV in Europe since 1975 - but like all suppliers from outside of the EU, Toshiba was initially limited to selling small screen-sizes because of various patents and trade-protection agreements favoring European suppliers.

CRT screens are long since history in the Toshiba TV world - and the firm has now even given up production of LCDs. IPS Alpha, the former joint LCD factory of Hitachi, Panasonic, and Toshiba now belongs entirely to Panasonic.

For a while, Toshiba and Canon tried to establish a new type of screen, called a Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display (SED). The technology involved in SED is like a flattened CRT that has thousands of electron sources instead of just three. Sony had also experimented - unsuccessfully - with a similar principle.

In 2004 and 2005, Canon and Toshiba were optimistic that they'd be able to begin series-production of the displays by 2007. But LCDs and plasmas became cheap and effective much quicker than expected, meaning the theoretical advantages of SED no longer justified its significantly higher price to most customers. On top of that, Toshiba ran into patent disputes - and eventually decided to call off the project. Canon continues to experiment with SED, and the results are yet to be seen.

The modern face of Toshiba: this 46-inch model from the ZV 635 series was released in May 2009.

A new Toshiba TV won't therefore be using a home-made screen; instead, the manufacturer buys panels in from outside suppliers. Given the current surplus of these panels on the market, Toshiba is in a strong position: It can select the best model for each performance and price class. For a closer look at the models available from Toshiba, check out our overview of Toshiba LCD TVs.

Toshiba - consumer electronics
At the current time, Toshiba's range of consumer electronics is extremely thin: Besides the various Toshiba TV models, all the manufacturer makes are a few DVD players (also portable versions), DVD recorders, and digital photo frames. Toshiba fought against the Blu-ray disc for years, sticking rigidly to its own HD-DVD format, which it developed with partner NEC - according to newspaper reports, this adventure cost the manufacturer a billion US dollars. Shortly before this article was produced, Toshiba announced that it would stop producing video projectors.

In the glory days of HiFi - from the late 1970s until the mid 1980s - Toshiba's product selection was much bigger: Not only did the company have a high-quality HiFi range named "Aurex" in its repertoire, but it was also wealthy enough to build up a second, independent HiFi brand - Onkyo.

The Japanese company attracted attention with its unusual products: For example, back in the time of vinyl, they made a pickup that used neither moving magnets nor coils - instead, it used light. The groove on the LP deflected the needle of the pickup, which in turn varied the size of an aperture. The light shining through the aperture was therefore modulated with the signal, and went on to illuminate a phototransistor. The resulting signal was significantly stronger and more reliable than that of the traditional pickup. As many Japanese companies did at the time, Toshiba had its own noise-reduction system for cassette decks, known as "Adres".

Other Toshiba products

A high-capacity SD card from Toshiba - just one of the company's many other products.

Toshiba is active in many areas. The company offers office appliances - copiers and fax machines, for example - as well as telephone installations and mobile phones. Cash register systems and barcode printers can also be obtained from Toshiba.

Besides complete mobile PCs, Toshiba is also an important manufacturer of computer hard disks, and produces DVD burners in a joint factory with Samsung ("TSST"). The manufacturer also offers specialized microchips - the most famous of these is probably the "Cell processor", which it developed together with IBM and Sony for the PlayStation 3. Toshiba also makes SD and USB storage media using flash memory.

The company's portfolio also includes medical technology - as well as air-conditioning and lamps based on LEDs. Toshiba built the fastest elevators in the world for (until 2007) the tallest building in the world, the Taipei Financial Center. The elevators run at a speed of one kilometer per minute - and, according to the manufacturer, are free of noise and vibrations. Toshiba even makes industrial robots, and hydroelectric, steam, and nuclear power plants.

Toshiba's corporate history
Today's Toshiba company has two roots: Hisashige Tanaka founded Japan's first telegraph-equipment factory, "Tanaka Seizo-sho" (Tanaka engineering works) in 1875. Under the name Shibaura Seisaku-sho (Shibaura engineering works), the firm became the country's largest electronics manufacturer - comparable with the likes of Siemens at the time.

Second in the Toshiba alliance came Hakunetsu-sha & Co., Japan's first light-bulb factory, which was founded in 1890 by Ichisuke Fujioka and Shoichi Miyoshi. Over the years, the company extended its product range, renaming itself Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric) in 1899.

Both firms became market leaders in their fields during the first half of the 20th century, before the two merged in 1939 - the name of the new combined company was Tokyo Shibaura Denki (Tokyo Shibaura Electric). "Tokyo Shibaura" quickly became "Toshiba", but it wasn't until 1978 that the manufacturer adopted this name officially.

As early as 1915, it produced its first electronic components (X-ray tubes), and in 1919 it produced its first radio-transmitter tubes. The year 1924 saw the company begin producing radios and - on a trial basis - cathode ray tubes. Toshiba built Japan's first radar in 1942 and Japan's first TV transmitter in 1952. The first transistor-based Toshiba TV was built in 1959, the same year that Toshiba produced prototypes of video recorders based on the helical scan recording method, which had been patented by Eduard Schüller of the German radio and television company Telefunken in 1953.

Toshiba's moment of glory in the consumer electronics sector came in the mid 1990s: During the process of fixing the specifications for DVD, the Japanese company was able to include many of its ideas in the final standard. Toshiba became an important member of the DVD Forum and profited for a few years from the patents used in DVD.

In the year 2000, Toshiba celebrated its 125th company anniversary. Currently, it employs around 199,000 people worldwide. The company's European headquarters for computers, office communication, and consumer electronics has been in Neuss, Germany, since May 1, 2009.

The following were involved in producing this article on Toshiba and Toshiba TVs:

Author(s): Karl-Gerhard Haas
Editor in Chief: Florian Friedrich
Photos: Manufacturer and AV T.O.P. Messtechnik GmbH
Last updated: October 2009