Progress of Television

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 52, 12 July 1929, Page 39

Progress of Television

Emerging from Laboratory "THERE has been’ but little news of late concerning the foreign interests of the Baird Company (states the "Television Journal’), so with a view to ascertaining what really is going on our representative interviewed one of the Baird Company’s officials. It would appear that our inquiries were somewhat too premature, for the official concerned explained that he was unable at the moment to give us more than a bare outline of the position. We learned, however, sufficient to convince us that the Baird Company at the present time is extremely active abroad. Franee.-Our readers: are already familiar with the progress that has been made in France. We hear all goes well and that some extremely interestiug information will shortly be released to the public. Germany.-As our readers know, the Baird Company’s engineers have been over in Germany for some weeks. Some very satisfactory tests have been made through a German broadcasting station before officials of the Government, and the Germans seem determined that their country shall be the first to broadcast regular television programmes. Australia-tThe Baird Australian group is making considerable progress with the Australian Government. The Baird contingent is headed by Major Maculich, who formerly represented the Dunlop Company’s interests in Australia. : Canada.-On JFebruary 4 last Sir John Aird, chairman of the Canadian Royal Commission on. Radio Investigation (which was over here to study European. broadcasting conditions), witnessed a demonstration of the Baird system of television, as a result of which he reported on his return to Canada that "Wngland has advanced further than even the Americans in television."

South Africa.-We understand that South Africa is to be given an opportunity of witnessing demonstrations of the Baird system of television in July | next. , Czecho-Slovakia.-Interest in the wireless world is at present centred on Prague, where a conference of the Union Internationale de Radiophonie is being held to settle the question of the international allocation of broadcast wave-lengths. M. Braillard, chairman of the Technical Committee of the conference, came especially to London for a demonstration of the Baird system of television, and he expressed himself as being immensely impressed. Judging from his remarks, we expect he will advocate the allocation of certain wave-lengths for television broadcasting purposes. BLEVISION, the present major. interest as an expansion of the entertainment phase of radio, would seem to be not very far around the corner, states "Radio News." Presented and ex- . ploited in a "half-baked" state, before it had outgrown its laboratory swadd-ling-clothes, this legitimate offspring of radio arose like a rocket and came down like a stick. It is beginning to overcome that handicap, however-just > as so many incubator babies later overcome the handicap of premature birth. |!

The conservative Radio Corporation of America, through one of its experimental stations, is actually transmitting television on a regular schedule, and there are rumours of an impending R.O.A. television receiver. The Jenkins laboratories have been transmitting for some time, from Washington and from Jersey City, and even go so far as to promise a reasonably-priced home television receiver, to be. on..the market before cold weather sets in. As yet, the size of the reproduced image is disappointingly small, and detail far from satisfactory; but laboratory’ results show promise of some rather startling improvements in practical transmission in the very near future. Meanwhile, if we are to take at face value a photograph recently received from Germany, that country is by no means behind us in the development of television, The iliustration of this most recent German combination of television and voice receiver shows a screen, which would imply that the received image is of a size far beyond anything so far considered practical in this country up to the present time. For the present, we shall consider this as being in the nature of a "news flash," subject to later vonfirmation ‘and possible elabor- ation. An application of television principles that would seem to have fascinating possibilities, is the so-called radio television eye, with which C. Francis Jenkins is now undertaking experiments. It involves the use of a television set installed in an aeroplane, picking up and transmitting what the camera records of action on the ground below the plane. While these experiments are being conducted with emphasis on the military value of such a device, it requires little imagination to predict what it would mean in peacetime, in connection with major spectacles end sports events.