TELEVISION

Hokitika Guardian, 28 May 1936, Page 6

TELEVISION

IS.NEARING PERFECTION • Men who know, speak with confidence of the imminence of television. Even now research workers are perfecting apparatus to overcome , the minor difficulties that bar the way to complete success. Not only will this revolutionary invention he a great social success, giving valuable commercial contacts, it will give personals contacts of a sentimental nature.

As an example (if its possibilities, Sir Oswald • Stoll, prominent in the English world of entertainment, and a noted financier to boot, declares that he is convinced that in, ten years’ time the “pictures” as we know them, will have vanished. He says that very small theatres with first-class players will produce plays whic.h will be televised to suburban audiences. The etfeeb will be! stereoscopic, with everything moving as on the stage or in real life, and full colours will have replaced black and white pictures.

While television transmission is complicated, difficult and costly, reception is easy, and with the proper apparatus a child can do it. The proper apparatus will cost no more tjhan did radio-gramophones a year or so ago, and less than a really highclass radiogramophone costs to-day!

Imagine yourself at home. The television receiver, as made by tho. Baird Research Laboratories is ir the corner of tlie room and looks dike the

familiar , radio-gramophone. Raise the lid and a mirror is disclosed. 'ln this the pictures are reflected, ton wil hear sound as well as music, and the televisor is a home moving-pic-ture instrument with the difference

that-you do not have to buy or make Ifilms for it, and the pictures are fresh, e/ch time you switch' on. * Absolute darkness is not essential, though some darkness is desirable. But the pictures are so brightly lighted that they can be fairly well seen in the ordinary daylight of the living-room. They are about 13 inches wide and 11 inches high, and when viewed from your seat six feet away they look like a projection from a good home lantern. The latest tests at the Crystal Palace London, indicate that television for the putilic is going to be a success beyond the. dreams of the most optimistic a year ago.

Tuning is done by t,he sound part of the programme just as with the radio set. When the sound is “c-or-j rect,” the pictures will also come 'lff correctly except for small alterations to such personal taste in brilliance am| focus, made by touching two knobs; just as volume and tone are adjusted on your radio set.

I There is a transmiting station at the Alexandra Palace, London, which is sending out the experimental tele 7 vision signals this month. The 8.8. C. ' eagerly awaits the results so they can

plot the service area. The manufac-

turers of receiving sets also need the information, and the • Television Society is also interested. The new science needs a new type of wire, as the. ordinary cable will not carry it. It has just been announced in Lorn don that the type of aerial to be. used for television broadcasting has been so designated that it gives a radio beam akin to the visible beam from a lighthouse which is concen-

trated toward the horizon. The wire-; less beam will not, of course, revolvq but will be radiated equally in all directions. 1 I There will be two entirely separate; vision transmitters, one operated from! the Baird apparatus and the other by the Marconi-E.M.I. transmitter. Tlie; j sound transmitter will serve both, as' it is apparatus constructed with all the knowledge the 8.8. C. has accumulated since 1922. . ,\ Hitches are likely to occur as .the, ultra-short waves do not behave alto-' gether like light, as is proved by the reception; >of German television sig-t nals in England, whilst the 8.8. C. cxperimenta lstatioh at Tatsfield constantly reports conditions of tho ether which result in the reception of very short-wave signals from extraordinary distances.

The 8.8. C. had hoped that ultra-

short waves would remove "completely tlie difficulty of interference between the stations of various nations, bill, this does not seem likelv. This might be overcome by goodwil and arrangement. ;