When Might We Expect Television?

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 25, 3 January 1930, Page 3

When Might We Expect Television?

The Present Position Reviewed ,

(By

EDGAR H.

FELIX

The subject of television is one that constantly claims the attention of all who are interested in the progress of radio. From time to time reports appear stating that television is an accomplished fact, and in view of these, Mr. Edgar H. Felix, expert consultant enginger of the Radio Broadcasting Company, has conscientiously examined the claims made by various interests, and this article, the result of these investigations, can be -accepted' as an authentic review of television as it is. s

HE drama is so predominantly the portrayal of human emotions and conflicts that we rarely accredit the influence of. mechanical and electrical inventions their full share. Yet numerous devices of Science have affected the

prosress o©§ the drama no less significantly than our ever-increasing knowledges and experience with dramatic structure. As -competition undermines public support, the drama ipust inevitably slow down in artistic ‘Hence we may consider tT}. coming of television as a dangerous threat to the future of the legitimate stage. How will the stage withstand the competition of a synthetic drainatic performance delivered, by radio transmission into millions of homes? It is not difficult to foresee the destruc‘tion of the drama, the rivalling or superseding of the motion picture. and the complete alteration of human needs for group entertainment through the perfection of television! Already radio broadcasting has brought an element of the drama into the home. Radio suffers an obvious disadvantage because the visual element, so highly developed in modern drama, is totally lacking in home reproduction. The home motion picture which, conversely, offers the visual elements of dramatic perfornr bance without the aural, has progress: * ed slowly because of high cost and inconvenience. Home talking motionpicture reproducers, combining both the visual and aural’ elements, are already available, but these devices are even more costly and somewhat more complicated to opei..te than the home motion pictures without speech. All these devices, then, are either deficient in. performance or too costly to offer dramatic entertainment in the home directly competitive with that of the ‘theatre. But television promises to relieve us of all of these difficulties and imperfections. It will provide the missing visual element to the dramatic entertainment which already comes to us| through the radio. loudspeaker. It represents the delivery of a synthetic counterpart of every important mept of the drama ‘into the home: h an apparatus no more difficult operate than a broadcast receiver. Wiis, at least, is what the proponents oR that art would have us believe. pun effect of television on the drama depends’ largely upon the’ simplicity, economy, ° and technical perfection attainable in home reproduction. Only if the disparity between the realism of home reproduction and that attained~ at the average sound picture theatre, is really substantial, will television represent anything less than a complete revolution in the relation of the drama to the general: public. It is, therefore, relevant to inquire into the ‘capabilities of modern television devices and their prospective levelopment. I am glad to say at ait outset that such an investigation jeads us to take vastly ‘more \ hopeful view of the situation, for few would deny that the further undermining of tie economic position of the drama yrould ‘be little .short:: of .an. artistic catastrophe.

Recently I-had the pleasure of witnessing a demonstration of what I consider, after visits to the most famous television laboratories in all parts of the United States, the most highly-developed television apparatus in existence. This extraordinary device, developed by the Bell Telephone Laboratories, reproduces in full col-

ours, faithfully and. vividly, the scené enacted: at. the originating point. To add the element of- sound reproduction, perfectly and :automatically synchronised with this colour television, represents no technical problem at all; it is merely the application’ of existing devices in a perfectly conventional manner. The Bell system device was recently set up for public demonstration in the auditorium of -the Bell ‘Telephone Laboratories at West Street, New York City, in order that representatives of the Press might view its latest accomplishmenf, the reproduction of eolour. Dr. Frederick K. Ives, the presiding genius under whose direc, tion vast research facilities were marshalled to produce this device, invited me behind a dark curtain, arranged somewhat like that in a photographer’s developing room, I peered through a slit wide enough to enable ‘me to lool through with both eyes. Abgut two ‘feet ‘before me in-the -blackness stood out a brilliant image in a frame. about

two inches square, the- head and shoulders — of a young lady who smiled graciously, as if to a vast audience. All. the bright colours of her Spanish costume showed up vividly. In spite of the small size of the peephole image, she appeared life-like and animated. I watched her, fascinated, as she picked

up various brilliantly coloured objects at the command of Dr. Ives, who directed her through a telephone circuit. ‘It was not difficult to distinguish a red, white, and blue beach ball, a book, a magazine, an orange and a bouquet of flowers. ‘Two persons, standing closely side by side might even have been accommodated on the miniature screen, although the reproduction of persons in full length would undoubtedly have involved so much sacrifice of detail that the features, and expression of the faces would have been unrecognisable. Indeed, a marvellous creation of the laboratory, this television machine; to the engineer, a technical mavel; to the layman, an amazing curiosity, put with less entertainment value than the first penny peep Shows. Details of facial expression were difficult to observe; background ‘was quite indistinct; a slight but none the less annoying flicker was present; altogether it was a delieate device which required the constant. ‘and attentive nurture of the skilful en-

gineers and laboratory workers who had created it. Obviously the device is a predecessor, an opening wedge, revealing the promise of the future, but wholly impractical for use outside the | laboratory. I. will not attempt to describe the elements comprising this machine or combination of machines, The engineers who ‘developéd it have done that in a series of technical papers which appeared in the Bell System Technical Journal in October, 1927, a hundred pages of technical facts, diagrams, and illustrations. Since that tome was written, the element of colour now supplements the conventional home motion picture projector by a slight alteration of the projector. OULD you like one of these television reproducers in your home? Assuming that television broadcasts are available to you, then make‘room for a series of panels reaching from floor to eeiling, which comprise the control equipment for this marvel of science. As you watch a single person do his or her antics on the diminutive screen, a staff of two or three engineers will scurry about, watching meters, adjusting every element of this highly complex electrical maze. The installation Will be no.more incongruous in the quiet of your home, and no more costly to purchase or maintain, than a broadcasting trausmitter, an automatic cigarette making machine, or ‘a recording seismograph. ‘TELEVISION, like every system of wire or radio communication, whether of code signals, speech, or photographs, consists of breaking down the subject matter to be transmitted into a series of electrical impulses. The microphone of the telephone and radio converts sound waves into a succession of electrical impulses, counterparts of the sounds themselves. The telegraph operator . reduces the message © you write on the blank into a series of characters which have the significance of letters of the alphabet to the operator at the other end. With television, the visual subject matter, scenes or picture to be sent is broken down into a series of image areas arranged in an arbitrary order. A signal. or impulse sent through wires or by radio sucecessively describes the light or shading of each of these areas. The greater . the number of these image areas, the greater the detail and clarity attainable in the reproduction. . Reproduction consists of recénstruction of these vast numbers of impulses or impressions by using them to control a pattern of light arranged exactly like that analysed at the transmission end. To secure an image a little larger than two-inches square, such as I observed in the Bell Laboratories, no fewer than 44;250-impulses or shading impressions are electrically observed, transmitted and . reproduced every. single second! In ~ addition, synchronising signals are required to assure that each of these enormous numbers of light impressions are properly placed on the reproducing surface, When you. appreciate the marvellous

complexity of the operations involved, then you wonder that it has been so ‘simply accomplished. You might expect it to require a four-story building and a staff of twenty men instead of the corner of an auditorium no lenger than a, millionaire’s drawingroom, _ So long as we restrict our intetest to curiosity or scientific development, we are satisfied with a picture consisting of but 2500 image points which makes a recognisable image on a twoinch square scréen. But, for entertainment purposes, we wish both greater size of the reproduction and considerably greater detail. To secure the equivalent of a good magazine picture, three by four inches square, we must analyse and reproduce at least 120,000 points each sixteenth of a second or 1,920,000 instead of 44,250 impulses per second. We should then be able to derive the considerable entertainment of watching an animated image about half the size of a magazine page, created and controlled by a radio signal. ‘Three or four persons could then perform in a complete diminutive stage setting with reproduction sufficiently clear to make their individual facial expressions readily discernible. , This is indeed a modest specifica, tion, but to accomplish it required nothing less than fifty-fold the capabilities of the Bell system television machine, A reasonable request to the research engineer-to fifty-fold the speed of any operation! It is no less difficult than to build a family automobile able to travel along at a speed of 3500 miles per hour. Although certain elements of the television system, like the photo-electric cell and the neon tube, are capable of handling mililons of impulses per second, the problem of producing a commercial, fool-proof and economical device on the principles at present known .and_ understood is fairly comparable. with an assignmect to build the 3500-mile an hour automobile. ‘

ONE of the greatest unsolved problems is to secure communication channels to handle this traffic barrage of signals. To transmit the detailed three-by-four moving picture by present known methods would require 100 wire circuits or, to do it by radio, ether channels equivalent to two broadcasting bands of 100 channels. each! The difficulties seem almost insurmountable, and to predict when this will be accomplished is a: guess which only a stock promoter would. hazard. So long as television requires the transmission of an impulse for every point of ‘the subject image with sufiit rapidity to repeat the process sixteen or twenty times a second, we are still navigating in the row-boat stage of the problem with an uncharted ocean before us, What we await is a radical and fundamental discovery which will completely change the nature of the process employed, Until that discovery is made, television will remain little more than a laboratory experiment appealing to the curio- © sity. of those seeking to peer into the future. Emphatically, it is not an entertainment device. Hveryone read some mouths ago of a drama broadcast from a station in Schnectady, the first television drama ever radiated. It was hailed through the press as a great achievement, and photographs of the artists broadcasting in the studio were freely distributed and published. But no one, to my knowledge, outside of the organisation which transmitted the programme is credited with successfully reproducing it. The publicity man can hardly be blamed for passing out a good and true story, if the newspapers will publish it. Give the television publicist his due; he distributed no misstatement when he announced the broadcasting of a' television drama for that, indeed, was accomplished. The fact that no one successfully received it, although a few capable experimenters tried, was a pardonable omission from the story. The whole incident and the publicity

it was given was unfortunate, however, for one important reason; unintentionally it gave a false. impression that practical home television is an immediate prospect, and that we may expect it to be herve’ to-morrow. Not many weeks after this publicity the executive in ¢harge of the broadcasting station involved testi- . fied before the Federal Radio Commission. After some six months of regular television. transmissions, he declared, such ‘transmissions were discontinued because of lack of interest, even on the part of amateur experimenters, and not a single complaint was received from anyone protesting the cessation of these television broadcasts. We have been told that thousands of experimenters are looking. in at television images which are being transmitted by various laboratories, particularly in the eastern part of the United States, but evidently they are not very serious about -it. Another station, in Chicago, which also transmitted television images for six months, stopped its transmissions and no looker-in protest resulted. The fact is, there were no _ lookers-in; many tried to assemble television receivers, but so few succeeded in obtaining any results, and those who did found them so unsatisfactory and lacking in entertainment value, that they soon tired of working patiently for hours to enjoy the thriil of viewing for a bare fraction of a second: the flickering and almost unrecognisable image of a human face. S I write these lines, I read a twocolumn story in the New York "Times," a dispatch from London, stating that ‘a much-publicised television inventor transmitted talking film by television "with a substantial measure of_ success" ar" that the "voice transmission" was ciearer than usually uttainable with sound pictures in the theatre. What crass imposition to declare the successful broadcasting of sound as a credit to-television! It is unfortunate that television has been seized upon as an opportunity for the stock promoter because it -encourages misleading publicity and diseredits legitimate experimental work. But there is a precedent for this premature exploitation of a halffinished invention. Millions of dollars were invested in worthless radio teiephone companies in the late nineties and the first years of the present century. These companies made bona fide demonstrations of radio telephony by methods long ago discarded because they were impractical, just as television can to-day be demonstrated. I do not hold that it is improper to. predict the ultimate perfection of television. I am convinced as any- | . one that it is coming, but the invention which will make it practical and commercially useful has simply not been announced, and has probably not yet been evolved. "We understand certain crude metiods of reproducing a moving image at a distance, but it is no more like the television which would threaten the drama than the flint and steel is like an are lamp. As a matter of fact, the principles used in the most advanced television devices of to-day are fundamentally like those which have been understood and demonstrated since the early 80’s. We have recently applied these fundamental principles with greater effectiveness by the use

7 of certain amplifiers and electrical de« vices used in radio broadcasting and: — telephone art. But, I repeat, the rpal% and fundamental discovery which WSL ~ reduce these complex processes to the point where they can be satisfactorily and economically carried on as home entertainment has not been made, I realise that what I have stated is at variance with the views which have appeared in the Press. Television is promised as just around the corner, That promise has been made for seyveral years. Laboratory staffs are scrambling feverishly with the problem and vast amounts of capital and research resources are marshalled to solve it. Television has intrigued the imagination of men from the beginning of invention. The past perfermance of our, scientists is such thatgmve would hesitate to describe any complishment as beyond their powers. The public appetite is clamouring for television and that demand must pe satisfied. So the refining process continues and, sooner or later, the magi¢ touchstone will be found which will convert ali the experience which has been gained into a practical utility. But whether that day is one year or twenty years hence is pure conjecture. The-essential invention, for all’ I know, may be announced iomorrow. POSSIBLY we can gain an insight into the facts by considering how long it has taken to develop aviation. Not so long ago we celebrated the twenty-fifth- anniversary of heavier-than-air flight. Intensive progress for a quarter of a century has brought — aviation to the point where somey 50,000 passengers were carried in a®© year. The fact- that one American in four thousand is now an air passenger once a year is an indication that we are on the threshold of contmercial development. The automobile, like wise, required a quarter. of a century of commercial development and use before it became a general utility of the American family. , It may be more than coincidence that . twenty-five years also elapsed between the first demonstrations of the radio telephone and its first widespread application, radio broadcasting. ‘ Television has been subjected to intensive research for not more than ten years, although it has engaged the thought of scientists for a somewhat longer period. Solely on the basis of logic and precedent, fifteen years m of development will be necessarygMo practical and widespread .use of tWpvision. Very probably, however, te#:vision will develop more rapidly ,#e--cause radio, the automobile and the aeroplane were handicapped by lack of resources, while television is richly * endowed. So, while fifteen more years of research and development would not be an unreasonable expectancy in the light of past performances of science, intensive progress may make it a matter of only five years. . Yet we must not forget that_we still await a revolutionary invention: That invention will make the course of television as clearly obvious as if we had unexpectedly focused a telescope upon a distant star for which we had beeyyg searching, That day will come. In deed, it may .be upon us. OW would its coming. effect the legitimate drama? If television (Concluded on page 9.) .

Television as it Is Quan

(Continued from page 4.) were developed to-morrow and draMatic performances could be reproduced in the home through a simple, reliable and practical radio transmission .and reception process, would the theatre suffer as a result? Undoubtedly television would be built upon the same economic foundation as radio broadcasting, depending upon the goodwill support of adver‘tisers for meeting the costs of presentation and distribution. This method of paying the'cost is inherently a part of any broadcasting system unless special means are used to secure secrecy of transmission. "Freedom of the air" is too well established a principle in radio law and in the attitude of the American people to permit the. use of the ether for a medium of private toll or a secret system of television broadcasting. I‘urthermore, if such secrecy were attempted, the looker-in audience would be built up too slowly. to satisfy the television manufacturers. Therefore, for the same reasons that broadcasting is spread upon the thin air for anyone to reach out and enjoy without payment, television bréadeasting will be offered in the same way. That means advertising -sponsorship for television programmes, Advertising is hardly an auspicious framework for the development of a new dramatic art. The requirements of advertising sponsorship impose a limitation of the most serious character on artistic development.. We may expect television programmes of the same standard that apply to broadcasting programmes, and. that certainly represents no threas to the legitimate drama, But there is a further and more fundamental consideration which limits the entertainment value of synthetic drama. Drama without an audience is undramatie. The mass feeling of mass entertainment makes it doubly vivid and arouses the emotions as no special performance for a single individual or family group possibly can. Consider vour impressions when you sit in an empty theatre, watching. a motion picture or a play. There is a stilly emptiness about it all, a miser’s happiness, which is no entertainment at all. The ear responds to individual presentation; music stirs the soul. But the eye, witnessing a performance of men and women, wants the response of the mass. The new art of television, when it does come, will be synthetic and merely whet

the appetite for the real performance with live men and women upon the stage. Another limiting factor, which somewhat circumscribes the possibilities of the television drama, is the fact that it must be rendered for'a vast audience. The world is to be its theatre. Its artistic plané must, therefore, be made to conform with the tastes of the majority, It must play down to such a vast audience that the true followers of the drama will find television as unsatisfying as a roadhouse cabaret. The real field of television is in the broadcasting of events of news value. Here it will exert a tremendous influence, but that field in now way encroaches upon the. drama. But let us not be too consistent in belittling the effect of practical televi- » sion on the drama, Unquestionably the , very novelty of television will bring about a profound disturbance. ‘The magic of receiving, drama through the air, when first achieved, will be so extraordinary that it will, for a time at least, engage the attention of an enthusiastic public. Radio broadcasting, musical monstrosity that it was in its early days, seriously affected motion picture theatre receipts. The talking~ movie aroused the greatest public-at-tention while it laboured in embryonic imperfection. This novelty interest represents no destruction or permanent loss to the legitimate drama. On the contrary, television will open a vastly greater opportunity for creative talent, for both sound broadcasting and television will require a constant supply of fresh ideas for programme material. Features must be originated every hour of the day and night. This tremendous demand for dramatic novelties so created will provide a training ground for dramatic ingenuity that should develop real capabilities. The synthetic drama, furthermore, will be a valuable advertising adjunct, aiding in the stimulation of public interest in the legitimate drama. In that capacity, the help of. television will outweigh any.competition which it offers. When the microphone is.supplemented by the photo-electric cell, we shall witness the nationalisation and internationalisation . of Broadway through television and radio. Television will be a new ally to herald to the corners of the earth the possibilities and achievements of the drama. Its influence will be widespread and its contribution helpful. The drama will pervade the ether and find new friends in far corners. So, distant as the day of television eeems to be, perhaps not as measured in years but in progress required that day represents only a step forward to a happier and more prosperous drama.