Television

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 47, 8 June 1928, Page 2

Television

| THE PUBLIC MUST WAIT SHADOWGRAPH OUTFIT Press dispatches, published in the United States, from London announce that Selfridge’s (the big London company) is selling Baird television outfits at a price of thirty-two dollars (about £6 5s.) per set. Investigation reveals, howeyer, that this equipment consists only of the parts for building a shadowgraph transmitting outfit. The amateur transmitting enthusiast ean send, at his home, a moving hand or a shadow made by a cardboard figure held before the outfit. The cost of the receiver parts, to be marked later, will be approximately the same. The shadowgraph offers a field for entertaining home experiments and it should promote interest in the problems of television. Five Years, Yet. As to the commercialization of teleyision in the United States, a statement made by David Sarnoff of the Radio Corporation of America, before the New York Electrical League, is Significant. He is quoted in the Press as saying: "We will hear much more about these developments within the | next year. My guess is that, within five years, they (television receivers) will be as mueh a part of our life as gound broadcasting is now." Only Experimental. ‘An unnamed representative of the R.C.A. is quoted in the New York "Times," when questioned as to how soon the Alexanderson still picture transmission apparatus will be placed on th. market, as follows: "Oh, it will de a long time. Look at the apparatus. It is too cumbersome. It is only in experimental form," Considering the great number of years that photo transmission has becn the subject of experiment, both in U.S.A. and elsewhere, and the success obtained by such pioneers as Korn, Jenkins and Baird, and the recent suceesses of the Bell Laboratories and Alexanderson, it is surprising that picture broadcasting is so slow in becoming a supplement to tone broadcasting.