TELEVISION

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 109, 15 November 1928, Page 21

TELEVISION

'•AX-IMPRESSED BEHOLDER' Very differing opinions exist as to the real position which lias been reached in connection with television. Most careful commentators are very guarded in their statements. They admit thnt within tbescvero limitations which are obviously in force at the present time tho results are impressive. It is impossible to produce pictures more tlism about three inches square, uiosHy they iiro much smaller. It is impossible, they admit, to reproduce fine detail, except at enormous cost and. with.grave interference over a large band of frequencies The pictures are not. brilliant. On "tho other hand, one occasionally finds a real enthusiast, as tho following shows. The matter, received from lho Post's" London correspondent, is re. produced with the comment that it should not be regarded as more than a striking personal impression:—_ _ Mr. Baird, the inventor of television, seems to have gone forward in his researches. For some months he has kept his secret closely guarded, but a. special correspondent of the "Morning Post" had the privilege this week ot: witnessing a demonstration of the process, and ho is satisfied that television has come to stay. In his account of the experiment he says: — The "televised" people were sitting in a studio three-quarters of a mile away from the little house near Olympia where I saw tho performance^ I was taken to what looked like a. fairly larce vertical radio-set, with a screen iv the centre. The operator then tuned the picture iv—turning a knob, just as one does in ordinary tuning-in—and gradually from n blur came up the image of a man,who was seated. As the picture was tuned in, so did tho man's features become clearer mid sharper, until his hair, his eyebrows, and eyelashes and the curves of his mouth wore easily discernible. lie opened his mouth and said, "Good af ternobn." The voice sent over the ether by wireless was clear, and ono would have believed the speaker to be in the room. Quito easily, and quite naturally he began talking about the weather and what lie intended to do. At my side was a telephone connected with the studio in which, he was sitting. "If you want to talk to him, speak into the telephone," the operator at my side said to inc. • "I can hardly believe t'is is true," I said. "Sing me a song." Without n, moment's hesitation 1 heard the reply. "Sure, I. will sing you a song. What would you like?" I looked at tho man and ho passed his hand over his forehead as if think-' ing of a tune, and then, with a pleased expression, he said: "I know," and began a. negro song. That song had none of the disadvantages of tho "talking" tilni, where tho voice sounds as it! it was passing through a husky gramophone. Imagine listening to the 8.8.C. when atmospherics arc absent, and you will know how clear it was. And I could see him all the time. I noticed tho way he turned up his eyes when trying to look pathetic, and I had to smile with him when he suddenly ended and broke iuto a hearty laugh. He must have guessed this, for he added: "I did laugh, did I not? Tou must have Jaughed, too." ~~ ''"; r-"-The best way of describing what the picturo looked like is to compare it with a cinema film taken some ten years ago. Now and agaiu there was a, flicker—small lines would run up and down tho glass and little pin pricks would appear, and the whole was slightly red in colour like tho first proof of a studio photograph—but from beginning to end the face was always clear and the features easy to reeog. nise. The performances had taken place in semi-darkness, although the performers were in daylight. I asked permission to pull fhe curtains aside and expose the .screen to the light. This I was allowed to do, but the picture remained just as clear. "Has distance any effect on reception?" I asked Mr. Baird. "None at all," he answered. "This experiment at three-quarters of a mile distant could just as easil}- be done across the Atlantic. Of course, if there was much atmospheric, the voice would bo affected in precisely the same way as any radio voice thrown across the Atlantic would be affected." It wag a. memorable afternoon. I had taken part in a performance which is probably to be the forerunner of an achievement that will soon take its plasf in our everyday lives.