Large Screen Possibilities

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 160, 24 July 1937, Page 15

Large Screen Possibilities

Television is being developed by tbe B.B.C. for home entertainment, as opposed to the mass entertainment given in cinema theatres. This is because the methods of reception used up to now have not been capable of giving a picture much bigger than ten by eight inches. With large pictures, however, the possibilities are very much greater and of far wider appeal. For years the search for some method of producing really big television pictures on the reeedving screen has been proceeding; but so far only one method has been found capable of giving pictures of the required clarity and brilliance to satisfy an audience educated to the standards of tho cinema. This is due to two young Englishmen, G. W. Walton and J. H. Jeffree. These pictures are 5ft. by 4ft., suffieient for an audience of 300 to 400. They are as brilliant, and contain almost as much detail, as an ordinary cinema pieture of the same size. What do these large pictures mean to the future of entertainment and instruction? As part of the whole cinema business television will be an enormous asset. Thc industrv will doubtles? nssii wilate it and set up its oira transmil-

ters. It is hardly likely to" consent to receive the programmes of the B.B.C., even if it were allowed to do so, Tn any case, the B.B.C. programmes are suited only to the home, With their own transmittei®, all kinds of possibilities aTe open to the cinema circudts. They could feel any number of their theatres with actflal stage plays and performances of all kinds being given i,n some central thea-' •tre or studio. .. ! They could use a central transmitter and feed them with films changed every night, without the trouble of distributing the films to each hall. They could put on mixed vardety and film showa without the expense of hiring separate variety turns for each of their halls. Events of national importance as they are happening could be seen by thousands. If such a service were po»* 6ible now the cinema theatres would be packed to the doors on Coronation day* Big screen television must have a profound effect on the cinema; but the ehanges dt will make will be gradual. Its possibilities have to be experimented with before they can be understood. Tn a few months London will see Ihe first of these c.xperimenta.