Television—The Modern Marvel

Hawera Star, Volume L, 25 October 1930, Page 9

Television—The Modern Marvel

Voice and Image Projected Through the Ether

How the Miracle is Worked

TN New York some weeks ago I met | a Mr Fowler face, to face, talked'l to him aa intimately as if be were sitting just across a table from me—and yet was not within a space of two miles of him. lie saw and' talked with me. Yet between us there was a forest of skyscrapers, a flock of streets and half a dozen subway stations, says the special correspondent of a Toronto newspaper. We had not 'known! each- other previously. We snail never meet again. It | was as if w r o were chance figures in '•each other’s dreams. Indeed I doubt if either would recognise, the other if we met. He wore glasses. He had a. small , moustache. He looked intelligent. ' That is all I know -about him. ! The. answer to this puzzle is _ twoway television. Perhaps a. dozen men, all strangers to one another, sat on a line, of chairs 1 at one end of the auditorium of the j great Bell Telephone laboratories- at ! -t63 West Street, New York, where j some 5000 research men and women I have worked out. many wizard things ' in, the, listening line, including an olee- ! trical ear that makes it possible to hear minute worms gnawing at the I heart of grape fruit. That seems even more 'wonderful than television, and | there are other things as marvellous. I We were gathered for the privilege i of a .two-minute glimpse of this- latest | of modern miracles which startle ! briefly and- then quickly become com- \ monplaccis of our practical lives, j This was one of the first test showings of a new magic to follow in the I wake of the telephone itself, the autoi mobile, the movies, radio and the j talkies. , Here we were in a big -room just I across from the Hudson docks. The other station with which each of us was shortly to be •c-onncctc-d, not merely vocally but visibly, was at 165 Broadway, in the financial district, a mere half dozen blocks above Wall 1 Street. Theoretically it might have been a -hundred miles -a-,way. We could -have heard and seen just as'well, with additional amplification, no doubt. It is just three years since the Bell laboratories demonstrated one-way I television. This was a big advance. ] Not on-lv could- the auditor at each end , of the wires see, but hear, in uddiI tion advances had been made in. equipI rnent and effects. j At last came my turn. I entered I the ante-room at the end. A young-

lady- asked me to .sit and wait until live booth was vacated. She , looked at her list. “Mr Griff-in,’’ she said, “you will be speaking to Mr Fowler. When you enter the booth you will find a chair facing left. Swing it round and face- the illuminated sign, ‘I-kono-phone. ’ This will vanish ana be replaced' by the -image. That will be Mr Fowler’s face. As soon as you see it, connection will have been established. You may begin talking. . . . All right, Mr Griffin, you might go in notv.”

I went into the sound-proof booth, a !lit-tlloi larger t-liam an ordinary telephono booth. I sat and swung right as directed. The “Ikonophone ” sign disappeared. The door behind mo -closed. I found myself in a dim orange, light to which the recording apparatus was insensitive.

1 Suddenly out of the pall in. front of me flashed ai point of blue light. And below it, -simultaneously., came a face that lived. It was about the size of a cabinet-size photograph, but it wag alive, and it talked.

It was a miniature moving picture done in brownish tones on a pinkish background. That, 1 had been given ro understand, was due to the colour of the -invisible neon tube whose flashing light viewed through the synchronised! scanning disc formed the image.

j We talked straight, without -having to hold- a telephone to the mouth, and heard, without a receiver to the ear. j The voice of Mr Fowler came ns clearly ias if he were in the room, in fact, : more clean cut, since the sound-proof j box cut icut all intrusion of other | sound.

! And the animated image of him. I j thought, was convincing, without -holing -startling. After all one saw and j apparently quite -clearly enough to re- , -cognise the features of a person one j knew. There was a slight suggestion of flicker as in- the early movies, but ’ otherwise the- image was 1 steady as- if I one peeped t hrough a slightly tinted ' wind'ew at someone inside.

The marvellous thing to me was not •that one saw a. face two miles away, | but that fact that one saw it so casui -ally, much more casually than one talks over the telephone since this involves dialling and a. certain amount, of mechanics, including the -consciousness of a receiver at the ear and a mouthpiece. But this system of conjuring up a face —and voice—was sheer I magic. All the electrical mechanics of the affair were hidden.

Yet. unseen, in around and back of this small sound-proof chamber were wonderfully sensitive electrical devices that, sent sound and vision back and forth across the two-way wires with a inn /.in" speed. Then t h ere was a fliirdi channel for synchronisation.

The only visible magic was the. mild beam of blue light, above, the image but in no way interfering, with it, which swept one’s face, unconsciously, IS times a second, and flashed its imago to the sensitive photo-electric cells alongside which caught if, translated it into electrical; fluid 1 , and delivered it for '.ransmission over the wires.

These mysterious cells —electrical eyes of the transmitter—capable of picking up the electrical impulses of olie’s family-lighted face in 5000 discreet points of detail, were invisible bm they surrounded one above and on each side.

Also hidden was the water.cooled neon tube which received, from the photo-electrical cells at. the other end, the distant face in electrical terms and translated it into the image which flashed in animation out of the- darkness.

And so it seems television, has arrived, although the 801 l officials insist not commercially.- 1: would cost, they said, as much to install and maintain a televisioni station as it would for :a 1000-watt radio broadcasting .station. Xor did they hold out any hope that it • would be commercially possible—on a basis like our ordinary house 'phones, I mean—for a long time, if ever. I do not know enough about, the affair technically to know whether they were, pulling their word or not, but. at least that is their official attitude. Ramsay ..MacDonald. British Prime Minister, is one man who enjoys television. He lra.s a televisor at 10 Down l ing Street and looks and Jistens-in. Just as- “talking” interjected a whole world of new values into the motion picture art and industry, so will ‘‘ sight” change over radio. it would give a new dimension to performances and would indeed mean the making over of equipment, and technique.

In fact, it looks as if it might affect the theatre, the movies, sport and ’every other form of entertainment as well —if vision be added to the present sound. Then, veritably could we receive our drama and our games right by our own firesides. Bur. meantime, that day is net. here just yet.