Television: An International History of the Formative Years
From the first notions of 'seeing by electricity' in 1878 through the period to Baird's demonstration of television in 1926 and up to 1940, when war brought the advance of the technology to a temporary halt, the development of TV gathered about it a tremendous history. In this meticulous and deeply researched book, Burns presents a balanced, thorough history of television to 1940, considering the factors technical, financial and social which influenced and led to the establishment of many of the world's high-definition TV broadcasting services. Highly illustrated throughout, this is a major book in the study of history of science, technology and media.
Inspec keywords: television broadcasting; history
Other keywords: high-definition television; international history; low-definition television
Subjects: Radio and television broadcasting
- Book DOI: 10.1049/PBHT022E
- Chapter DOI: 10.1049/PBHT022E
- ISBN: 9780852969144
- e-ISBN: 9781849194112
- Page count: 676
- Format: PDF
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Front Matter
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Part I: The era of speculation, 1877 to c. 1922
1 Images and society (c. 16th Century to c. mid-19th Century)
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This chapter reviews the history of the television. It features the major technological advances that led to the development of television broadcasting.
2 Images by wire, picture telegraphy (1843-c. 1900)
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The first proposal for transmitting facsimiles electrically from one place to another was contained in a British patent dated 27 November 1843. In this, Alexander Bain, a Scottish clock and instrument maker, described 'certain improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in electric timepieces and in electric printing and signal telegraphs'. His patent was comprehensive and he put forward seven different ideas for developments in electric telegraphy: the sixth of these related to his 'improvement for taking copies of surfaces, for instance the surface of printer's types at distant places'. The progress of still picture transmission proceeded in a rather erratic manner. Following Bain's and Bakewell's pioneering ideas on the subject in the 1840-50 decade, advances in the techniques of scanning and synchronisation occurred which enabled several practical schemes to be implemented in the 1865-75 period, only to lapse subsequently into disuse after a lack of commercial success. Then, in the first few years of the twentieth century, renewed interest in the subject emerged which led to equipments being developed by Korn (1907), Carbonelle (1907), Berjenneau (1907), Semat (1909), Belin (1907) and others. Again, although some of these schemes were capable of giving quite good results, their uneconomic viability consigned them to the warehouse of proven but unsuitable for the times inventions.
3 Seeing by electricity, the earliest notions (1878-1880)
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The 1873 discovery of the effects of light upon the resistance of a selenium bar is important historically, not so much for any practical value which selenium might have had for the purpose, but for the glut of schemes and proposals which were made for television systems in the years which followed. Selenium, which belongs to the sulphur and tellurium family, is a nonmetallic element and was first discovered by Berzelius in 1817 in a red deposit found at the bottom of sulphuric acid chambers when pyrites containing selenium was used. Like sulphur it exists in several modifications, being obtained as a dark red amorphous powder, as a brownish black glass mass, as red monclinic crystals or as a bluish grey, metal-like crystalline mass. In its natural state, selenium is almost a nonconductor of electricity, its specific conductivity being forty thousand million times smaller than that of copper, but Knox, in 1837, found that on being annealed it became a conductor having a large resistivity compared to that of copper. It was this property which led to its use in certain experiments by Willoughby Smith, and to the discovery which he reported a letter to Mr. Latimer Clark, then Vice-President of the Society of Telegraph Engineers.
4 Persistence of vision and moving images (1825-c. 1900)
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Persistence of vision is a sine qua non for any television system in which the scene being televised is analysed and the associated reconstituted image is synthesised by scanning beams of light or electrons. It is necessary that the rate at which the images are presented to an observer be sufficient to ensure that they do not appear as a series of still images. The rate must be such that the eye-brain combination fuses the individual images into a fiickerless picture.
5 Distant vision (1880-1920)
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The portrayal and the putative portrayal of illusions and images has always attracted the attention of magicians, charlatans and pseudoscientists. In the late 1800s, there seemed to be a popular demand for visual displays and exhibitions of the unexpected as part of the social fabric of living, a demand which can now be fulfilled by various media forms. Even great writers were not immune from referring to magical illusory effects.
6 A possible way forward (1900-1920)
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At the turn of the century, the principles which delineated the capture and reproduction of both static and moving images were well known. The science and the practice of photography were soundly based and photographs were a feature of everyday life. Cinematography had been established in the 1890s and was progressing rapidly. The Lumiere Brothers had become the first persons to give a public exhibition of moving pictures, at the Grand Cafe in Paris on 28 December 18951, at which an admission fee had been charged, and soon afterwards, on 20 February 1896, their films had been shown at the Royal Polytechnic Institution in London. Also in 1896, the first film production unit in the world had been founded by George Melies. His films were to be considered classics of cinematography. In one of these, the famous 'Journey to the Moon', trick photography was used for the first time. By the end of the century, many different cameras and projectors, using a variety of film gauges, were on the market and cinemas had opened in numerous large towns in several countries.
7 Developments of importance to television
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Undoubtedly, the growth of commercial radiotelephony and domestic broadcasting influenced the progress of television. Whereas only a few new schemes for seeing by electricity were put forward in the 1911-1920 period, during the next decade television was to become a reality.
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Part II: The era of low-definition television, 1926 to 1934
8 The breakthrough, J.L. Baird and television (the 1920s)
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Shortly after Guilieglmo Marconi's death in 1937, Professor Sir Ambrose Fleming, who had been a consultant for Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, wrote an appreciation of him. Fleming's eulogy could also have been applied almost word for word to Baird. The two inventors had much in common. Baird's plans for television were ambitious and extensive as were those of Marconi for marine wireless communications. Both inventors commenced their experiments in private houses and, initially, neither Baird nor Marconi had any substantially novel ideas to put forward for the solution of their problems. Moreover, after their early successes, both inventors, with their associates, endeavoured to establish a vigorous policy of commercial expansion. Companies were formed in the UK and overseas, and the two inventors encounted some criticism about their business dealings. Furthermore, both Marconi and Baird displayed, during the formative periods of their organisa tions, blind spots to progress.
9 The approaches of a lone inventor and a chief engineer (the 1920s)
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Television development in the USA commenced, in a practical way, in 1923 - the year in which J.L. Baird began his television activities - with the work of Charles Francis Jenkins. Jenkins was not Baird's contemporary in age, for he was born 21 years before Baird. Unlike the Scottish pioneer, the American inventor had been associated with the reproduction of moving images, by either picture telegraphy or cine film, from an early age.
10 Excellence in low-definition television (1925-1930)
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This chapter discusses the history of low-definition television in the 1920s and 1930s.
11 German and French developments (the 1920s and early 1930s)
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This chapter presents the development of television systems in Germany and France during the 1920s and early 1930s. Among the inventors who first studied the television project was Demes von Mihaly.
12 Some low-definition television broadcasting services, c. 1930
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The period 1928 to 1934 saw both the rise and the fall of low-definition television broadcasting not only in the UK but also in the USA, Germany and France. Initially, the impetous to establish the new form of entertainment came from the lone inventors. J.L, Baird applied to the British General Post Office for a licence on 4 January 1926, C.F. Jenkins was issued with the Federal Radio Communication's first television licence for station W3XK in 1927, and in 1929 the German Post Office allowed D. von Mihaly the use of the Witzleben transmitter for experimental transmissions with his system.
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Part III: The era of pre-war and high-definition television, 1934 to 1939
13 Large-screen television (1930-1935)
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Although Alexanderson's early ideas on large-screen projection television using multiple light sources were abandoned, GE continued throughout the late 1920s to be active in the field of theatre television. The company was not alone in pursuing this objective. During the late 1920s and the 1930s, several influential organisations engaged in the development of large-screen equipment, including Baird Television Ltd., Electric and Musical Industries Ltd. and Scophony Ltd. in the UK; Fernseh AG and Karolus-Telefunken in Germany; and de Forest, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and General Radio in the USA. There seemed to be a view that cinema television was an essential application of the new media form.
14 Between low- and high-definition television (1930-1931)
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Until January 1931, it seemed to the general public of Great Britain that J.L. Baird had no effective competition from any other company in the UK. He had been active in television matters from the winter of 1922/23, had established, with others, several companies (Television Ltd., the Baird Television Development Company and the Baird International Company), had given many demonstrations of television based on his basic 30-line scanning system, had devised numerous variations of this scheme to show rudimentary colour television, stereoscopic television, noctovision, daylight television, long-distance television, inter alia and had secured much-needed publicity and finance thereby, but then, in January 1931, the Gramophone Company, or HMV (His Master's Voice) as the company was popularly called, showed equipment at the Physical and Optical Societies Exhibition in London which was to herald an ominous situation for Baird and his collaborators.
15 Early electronic camera tubes, and the work of Farnsworth (c. 1920-1935)
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An all-electronic television system uses special types of cathode-ray tubes as camera tubes and as display tubes at the transmitting and receiving ends of the system respectively. The manufacture of these tubes could only be accomplished after much research and development activity had been expended on thermionic and secondary emission of electrons, electron optics, photosensitive and fluorescent materials, and vacuum practice.
16 Zworykin and the kinescope (1923-1930)
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Of all the contributions made by individuals towards the realisation of an all-electronic television system in the USA, none were of greater importance than those of Dr. V.K. Zworykin. His invention and development of the iconoscope and development of the cathode-ray tube as a television display tube (which he called a kinescope) were outstanding in conception and execution. The tubes were essential components of RCA's high-definition television system of the 1930s, and the iconoscope was the forerunner of a family of electronic camera tubes manufactured by RCA.
17 RCA, Sarnoff and television (1919-1932)
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The Radio Corporation of America (RCA), prior to the commencement of the Second World War, played a vital and central role in the advancement of television. It was formed on 17 October 1919 to combat the growing influence of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph (MWT) Company in international communications. After the First World War, the USA had become increasingly aware of the importance of communications for military, commercial and public uses, but at that time the only nonmilitary source of such services available to the country was an organisation owned and controlled by foreign (British) interests, namely, the MWT Company of America. The possible complete dependence upon such a business was a matter of much concern, particularly to the US Navy Department, as it was probably the main user and advocate of long distance wireless communications. This apprehension was compounded when the USA's General Electric company, which held some fundamental and extremely vital patents covering the Alexanderson alternator, made it known that it was negotiating exclusive licensing rights to the alternator with the British company. The company wished to buy 24 Alexanderson alternators, 14 for the American Marconi company and the remainder for the British firm.
18 RCA and all-electronic television (1933-1935)
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With progress being made in the development of electronic scanners, it was to be expected that RCA's second field test would embrace an appreciation of the device. In the New York tests the major limitation to adequate television performance had been the studio scanning apparatus, since the lighting in the studio had been of too low an intensity to give a satisfactory signal-to-noise ratio; only when motion picture film was being scanned could a reasonable ratio be achieved. Fortunately, the sensitivity of the iconoscope was sufficient to allow of a further increase in the number of lines scanned per picture, in addition to permitting outdoor, as well as studio, scenes to be on television.
19 EMI, Shoenberg and television (1931-1934)
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EMI was formed in April 1931 to acquire the ownership of the Gramophone Company Ltd. and the Columbia Graphophone Company Ltd. On 4 February 1935, Mr. I. Shoenberg, the Director of Research of the Marconi-EMI company put forward to the Television Committee his company's proposals for an all-electronic television system. It was based on a specification of 405 lines per picture and 50 frames per second, interlaced to give 25 pictures per second, and incorporated electronic camera tubes called emitrons.
20 Progress in the UK and abroad (1934-1935)
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As part of the Television Committee's brief was to advised the Postmaster General (PMG) on the relative merits of the several systems of television, it was necessary for the committee to consider not only British television developments but also those of other countries. Hence, on 18 May 1934, letters were sent to the Telegraph Administrations of France, Germany, Italy and to the Federal Radio Commission, US, requesting infor mation on a number of questions regarding their country's television schemes. Since the responses to these questions were made by the heads of the appropriate government departments it may be assumed that their replies were factually correct and not subject to the exaggerations and distortions which sometimes coloured the statements and views of inventors and newspaper reporters. For this reason, and to provide an overview of the position of television in the summer of 1934, in the USA, Germany, France and Italy, details from the responses are presented in this chapter.
21 The London station and foreign developments (1935-1938)
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This chapter presents the specification of the television apparatus and the location of the first London television station at Alexandra Palace.
22 Television in the US (1935-1941)
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Some rivalry, perhaps jealousy, seems to have been engendered by the report of the Television Committee and Marconi-EMI's subsequent, February 1935, choice of the 405-line standard. In the USA, Sarnoff, President of RCA, in a statement delivered at the May 1935 annual meeting of RCA shareholders presented his opinion as to which country was foremost in television development: 'The results attained by RCA in laboratory experiments go beyond the standards accepted for the inauguration of experimental television service in Europe. We believe we are further advanced scientifically in this field than any other country in the world.' Sarnoff was in a dilemma. On the one hand, he wished to extend RCA's position in high-definition television vis-a-vis that of its competitors; on the other hand, he did not want to upset the sales boom in radio receivers which might result if a television service were introduced.
23 The world's first, regular, public, high-definition service (1936-1939)
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Following the inauguration of the London television station at Alexandra Palace and the adoption of the 405-line standard, there were many problems which had to be resolved by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Television Advisory Committee (TAC) before a national (UK) service having a wide popular appeal could be established. Much innovative effort had to be expended by the BBC's producers to determine the type and the form of programmes which would prove attractive to viewers; means had to be devised to enable major outdoor sporting and national events to be televised and the signals relayed to Alexandra Palace; steps had to be taken to stimulate the purchase of sets which were likely to cost several weeks' wages for the average person; the effect of ignition and diathermy interference had to be determined and possible legislation introduced to minimise the detrimental character of spurious radiations; the question of whether to utilise radio links or cable links for transmitting, to the provinces, the video signals generated at the London station had to be most carefully considered since large capital costs would be involved; and the length of time the 405-line standard remained in force before a move to a higher line standard was introduced had to be considered. All these matters fell within the remit of the TAC.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: The charge storage principle
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The essential feature of the charge storage principle is that, during part at least of a picture frame period, the photoelectric emission due to the incident light falling on a mosaic of photoelectric cells is stored as a charge on the mosaic, each of the cells of which is associated with a capacitor. The capacitors are then discharged in sequence by a switching mechanism, such as a beam of electrons: the resulting train of electrical pulses constitutes the picture signal.
Appendix 2: Some patents on scanning, 1889-1933
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This appendix list 185 patents from 1884 to 1933 on cathode-ray tube and television scanning mechanisms.
Appendix 3: Characteristics of mechanical optical scanning systems
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This appendix details the characteristics of various mechanical optical scanning systems.
Appendix 4: Brief survey of the present television situation
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Prior to engaging in television development, the Gramophone Company carried out a survey of the patents which related to television, and made assessments of the systems which were then being engineered. The company's conclusions influenced its future television policy and led to its work on zone television. Extracts from the 'Brief Survey of the Present Television Situation' are given at length, since the unpublished survey is unique and has some historical importance. The document highlights the 1930 patent position, the limitations of the various existing low-definition television systems and the need for a 'picture of at least 150 lines'.
Appendix 5: Comparison of intensity and velocity modulation
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This appendix compares various aspect of intensity and velocity modulation in television systems.
Appendix 6: Estimated cost of a television service from London and four regional stations
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This appendix presents the estimated cost of a television service from London and four regional stations.
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Back Matter
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