ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

441-line television system

Hey kiddo! So, have you ever seen a really old TV? The kind that your grandparents or great-grandparents might have had? Well, back in the day, those TVs used something called a 441-line television system.

Now, when we watch TV, we see pictures on the screen, right? Those pictures are made up of tiny little dots called pixels. The more pixels there are, the clearer and more detailed the picture will be.

Back in the days of the 441-line system, TVs could only show 441 lines of pixels on the screen at a time. That's not very many, compared to the high-definition TVs we have today that can show thousands of lines of pixels!

But, back then, people thought it was amazing that they could see moving pictures on their TVs at all. And actually, many shows and movies from that time still hold up pretty well today, even though they were made with far fewer pixels than what we're used to seeing now.

So, in short, the 441-line television system was a way for people to watch TV back in the day, but it didn't have as many pixels as what we have now.