PHONE PICTURES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1005, 23 June 1930, Page 12

PHONE PICTURES

BIG TELEVISION PLAN IN UNITED STATES HIGH COST IS PROBLEM Efforts are being made to obtain tile approval o£ the United States Government to gigantic concessions and financial arrangements that will enable television to be put to everyday use. The consent of the United States Government is stated to be the only thing necessary to enable television to be brought to the masses. The concessionaires would require tbe right to control four wireless wave-lengths and to increase the power used in telephonic transmissions 30 times. It is stated that the American Telephone and Telegraph Company only awaits the settling of the legal questions to inaugurate a television service between principal cities to determine whether the public will make use of the system. THIRTY TIMES THE COST One problem is the high cost of running the televisors. It is estimated that a telephone plus television call will cost at least 30 times as much as a present-day telephone call. At present the American Telephone and Telegraph Company is stated to be concentrating purely on telephonic or telegraphic television, that is television over wires, and is leaving the problem of wireless television to the .Radio Corporation of America. At present, it is understood, wireless television is not so far advanced in technical detail as the other type. With telephonic television, it is proposed to project only the faces of ihe speakers. With wireless television, however, it would be possible to send out talking pictures over the ether. Such a development, it is thought, would not injure the cinemas or theatres, since the high cost of film making would set a prohibitive price upon the broadcasting of a picture which could take almost any sum in a series of runs at different theatres, but the whole cost of which would have to be met by the broadcasting company for a single performance.