TV IDEA PATENTED

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30961, 18 January 1966, Page 9

TV IDEA PATENTED

Two Pictures On One Set (N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Jan. 17. A young television serviceman has patented an idea for “split image” vision which could enable the family set to produce two different programmes at the same time. Whiie a father is watching Rugby, the rest of the household could be laughing at cartoons, says the inventor, Mr M. L. Dean, of Taihape. The idea is not as odd as it sounds. A senior engineer of the New Zealand Broadcasting Company agreed that it would work. Mr Dean will ask th 3 corporation to examine his theory and try it on special test sets.

He believes it would help the corporation to solve its problem of providing a second service and do so without any great cost.

The corporation would need little in the way of extra equipment, but set owners would have to spend about £lO on conversion.

The idea incorporates two screens fixed over the set face. They would be at an angle to each other so that the picture appearing on one would not be distracting to the person watching the other.

Mr Dean says the N.Z.B.C. could transmit two programmes simultaneously using one camera and one transmitter. Split sound signals could also be transmitted—one being heard from the set’s normal loudspeaker, and the other on headphones. Alternatively, the two screens could be used to receive just one picture, giving if a “cinemascope” breadth.