system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How does my TV 'translate' the signal it receives into images and sounds?

Thanks for all the responses everyone! Looks like I have a lot of reading to do and videos to watch!
gpt
Back in the old days, CRT TVs would sweep an electron beam across the screen, line by line,, with the amplitude of the video signal translating to the intensity of the beam. Things got a little more complicated when colour was added, but it largely works in the same way. Just with a few more parts.

Digital video signals are a bit different in that they're a series of 1s and 0s. With a digital LCD or OLED display, you can control each individual sub pixel with precession, with an intensity value anywhere from 0 (off/black) to 256 (full intensity). By varying the intensity of each sub pixel, you can mix red, green, and blue to make various colours. Millions in fact. A computer inside your TV or monitor processes all this data. The video signal though may not actually contain all the information the TV needs, in order to save bandwidth. So the display does some fudging that exploits limitations with human vision.