The development of the world's first, public, all-electronic, high-definition television system was a remarkable achievement. On 12th January 1934, N. Ashbridge, the chief engineer of the BBC, had been given a demonstration of EMIs latest 150-line television system, which used mechanical scanning of film images. Yet just over a year later, in the spring of 1935, 'a full-scale studio equipment answering the requirements for a [405-line] television service had been completed according to C.O. Browne, apart from a number of small improvements, essentially the same in fundamental design as the equipment installed at the London Television Station and in the mobile television scanning van which was subsequently constructed for outside broadcasts' . The all-electronic system was first mentioned in C.O. Browne's diary on 6th February 1935 and stemmed from the meeting, held one Sunday in November 1934, when Blumlein and a few of his colleagues drafted the specification of the 405-line waveform and planned the necessary circuits to implement their design. Blumlein's circuit and other contributions to the evolution of the final engineered system extended from the Emitron camera to the final stage of the main modulator. Dr. E.L.C. White, who worked closely with Blumlein from April 1933 until his death on 7th June 1942, has described the influence of Blumlein on the television R&D team.

Inspec keywords: electromagnetic interference; mobile television; television broadcasting; high definition television

Other keywords: EMI; television service; all-electronic television; Blumlein technical achievements; mobile television; London Television Station; Emitron camera; research and development; film images; television system; outside broadcast; studio equipment; mechanical scanning; high-definition television; Blumlein circuit

Subjects: High definition television and video