Talking Films by Television

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 27, 17 January 1930, Page 11

Talking Films by Television

An Invention with Important Possibilities

ME. J. L. BAIRD, the British tele- . vision inventor, recently gave the first public demonstration of the transmission by television of: talking films. Mr. Baird himself, experimented successfully with the transmission of ordinary silent films some years ago, and since then one or two foreign experimenters notably ©. F. Jenkins, in America, have conducted successful experimental transmissions of specially made silhouette films. In the recent Baird experiments ordinary standard talking films were used. The Baird Company found that the transmissions of kinematograph films, although simpler than television, had very little interest, and concentrated their attention upon television proper, but lately a new advance has been made in the Baird laboratories, which has brought tele-kinema into the position where it will form a valuable adjunct to television. By using a speaking film, and combining the broadcasting of the sound with the broadcasting of the film image, the Baird Company have been able to broadcast speaking The public demonstration was in every way a success. .The film shown was a head and shoulders view of George Robey giving a monologue. It was not a silhouette film; normal shading and detail were clearly visible, and one got the impression of looking at a small amateur film on a miniature screen. The reproduction of the voice was excellent. The tele-talking film, or to give it, the name which has been coined for it by Baird, "Tele-talkie,"’ has an interest value of its own. By this means films such as are used by the big speaking film corporations can be sent out over the ether in the same way as’ television, and received on the standard "televisor," so that programmes may be alternated-the actual person being seen and heard for one turn, and a "tele-talkie"’ for another turn... The importance of sending speech

with vision is immensely accentuated where "tele-talkies" are concerned, because, owing to the fact that only a 9-kilocycle broadcast waveband can be used, both television and tele-talkies are at -present limited to somewhat restricted scenes (if fine detail is to be given) such as one or two persons speaking or singing and such subjects when seen only, without their accompanying sounds, have very little interest compared with a combination of vision and sound, as shown by the "tele-

talkie." The sound helps the vision, and vision helps the sound, and the combination is infinitely superior to one or the other separately.