FILM RESEARCH WORK

Taranaki Daily News, 26 August 1931, Page 6

FILM RESEARCH WORK

SUCCESS OF EXPERIMENTS. PROGRESS OF TELEVISION. ; Laboratories for scientific research are working at top speed in the United States investigating improved methods of sound film recording, according to Mr. J. H. Barker, of Sydney, managing director of the New Zealand and Australian branches of the Western Electric Company, who arrived at Auckland by the Niagara from Sydney on Monday. Research ie being conducted in the Western Electric laboratory to the perfection of television, which enables' pictures of distant events transmitted by wireless to be seen by people simultaneously ' with their happening. “We 1 are only at the' beginning of thio wonderful new; development,” said Mr. Barker, “but already we have produced very ■ satisfactory results -on;. a email screen about 2ft'by 3ft. So small a screen is obviously unsuitable for the theatre, however, and it is not likely to develop commercially until we have enlarged the screen, improved the tone Quality of the voice and the clarity of the image. Just as the talking picture tva’s perfected long* before it proved commercially' practicable, eo television will be possible in ‘the laboratory before it is given a ..widen application.. Even when perfected it is'doubtful- if it will be immediately introduced into theatres, as the expense attached to its installation is 'a serious problem.” Major attention in the laboratory was at present being concentrated on the improvement of the quality of the talking film, said Mr. Barker. The apparatus with which theatres were equipped in New Zealand and Australia was capable of taking a greatly superior 'form of film and-/11. tlie' improvements Recently made in tone quality'were the result of research'into the film basis rather than * the' reproducing machine. * i ;

" Good progress had been made with the wide screen device, blit, the opinion among exhibitors was that the enlargement of the' screen did’ not contain in itself (sufficient entertainment value to justify the expense of adapting theatres to its use. On the other hand, the use of colour was likely to be extended, and as a. result of experiment recent colour' films showed . appreciable advance in quality.