Television Is Now Commercial Possibility

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 460, 15 September 1928, Page 26

Television Is Now Commercial Possibility

SEEING-IN SETS TO BE ON SALE THIS MONTH . . PHONOVISION RECORDS SCENES ON GRAMOPHONE PRINCIPLE! . . . NOCTOVISION—SEEING IN THE DARK . . .

A few weeks ago. when the Canard liner Berengaria was 1,500 miles out at sea, the chief wireless operator on board saio his fiancee talking with other people in a room in London. He had not known he was going to see her then, but he recognised her beyond a doubt as soon as her face appeared.

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lIS was no dream, although it may be said to be the fulfilment of a dream. The vision was real enough. It

was just an incident in in a demonstration of what a Baird Televisor could accomplish in carrying sight across thoussands of miles of space and through any intervening obstacle, enabling distant events to be witnessed, at the moment of their occurrence, as easily as distant sound is heard by means of wireless telephony. The Years of Experiment

For 50 years scientists and investigators in many parts of the world had been pursuing the idea of Television. It was left to the British inventor, John Logie Baird, to turn the dream into reality, to bring Television into the category of practical commercial propositions. The crown of complete success was placed upon his life’s work in January, 1926, when in his little attic laboratory in Soho he gave the first demonstration of a Baird Televisor before some 40 members of the Royal Institution, who to their amazement witnessed living and moving human images transmitted from one room to another.

Two more years were spent by Mr. Baird in developing and perfecting his invention. During that time he succeeded In transmitting vision over telephone lines between London and Glasgow, and by wireless between London and New York. The demonstration in the Berengaria provided a fitting and dramatic climax to these experimental labours. Now ihe day of mere experiment is passed, and Television has been brought within the reach of all. A Commercial Triumph

At the Radio Exhibition to be held at Olympia in September, the Baird Televisor will be on view, and arrangements are being made for holding public demonstrations in an adjoining building. From that time onwards anybody will be able to purchase a “seeing-in” set for probably as little as £25, and with it witness in his home moving images of events transmitted from a broadcasting station. A Baird Televisor will be purchasable either as a separate instrument or in combination with a listening-in set; and at one and the same moment the possessor will be able both to hear and see a performer at the broadcasting station. It should be mentioned that Television, which is an instantaneous

process, is not to be confused with photo-telegraphy, which does not transmit living and moving images, but merely makes by a comparatively slow process, mechanical copies of photographs and other records transmitted from a distance; such photo-

graphs having, of course, to be taken first in the ordinary tray by a camera. Progress in Other Lands In other countries, thanks to the activities of the Baird Television Development Company, commercial progress is even further advanced than It is in England, the home of the invention. In the United States, plans are now being completed for the establishment of Television broadcasting stations covering the whole of the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico, and some of these will come into operation very soon. The truth is that, without envisaging possibilities of the future, Mr. Baird has provided for our immediate assimilation as much as we can reasonably be called upon to digest. For allied with his discoveries in the realm of Television are several other achievements of at least an equally amazing character. Noctovision One of these is Noctovision, or the power of seeing in total darkness. At the summer meeting of the British Association last year, Mr. Baird demonstrated that with the aid of invisible rays it is possible to see a person seated in a room from which all light has been excluded. These rays will penetrate fog, and the use to which Noctovision can be put both in peace and in war will be readily appreciated. Another of Mr. Baird’s discoveries is known as Phonovision. By means of this invention, television signals can be recorded on gramophone records in such a way that they can be stored and reproduced at will. Thus from one and the same gramophone records it is possible to reproduce not only the voice of the singer or speaker but his living, moving image, cast upon a screen attached to the instrument. The great commercial possibilities of this invention will also be realised. Here, then, is a new industry on the threshold of its career —an industry of such importance and with such boundless prospects of development that in a short time Television and its allied achievements maywell become a strong commercial rival of the cinema, of wireless broadcasting, and of the gramophone, and even in its advance leave them far behind.