Alec Bray
Simon Vaughan recently emailed about two programmes on early television broadcast on BBC 4 (safely downloaded) and he mentioned a book “Magic Rays of Light” about the pre -war days of BBC Television. On the strength of his mention, I bought a paperback copy of the book – which arrived 19th Jan.
20% of the book comprises notes, references and index.
Some items of interest (I hop!!). Some of you will surely be ahead of me!
Bush radios
Bush Radio’s initial design and production base was in Shepherd’s Bush, from which led to the Bush name. Bush Radio sold a Baird mechanical Televisor.
Lime Grove
In June 1932, Gaumont-British opened the rebuilt Gainsborough Studios in Lime Grove and started making feature films and documentaries. (Gaumont British was owned by Isidore Ostrer, who owned Bush Radio.) The BBC bought Lime Grove Studios in 1949 and started broadcasting from LG in 1950.
In May 1932, the BBC had moved into Broadcasting House (from Savoy Hill). On Monday 22nd August 1932 the BBC began transmission of TV pictures on Baird’s 30-line system from Studio BB in Broadcasting House. By this time Isidore Ostrer had control of the Baird company.
The problem was getting suitable material for television transmission,
From February 1935 the BBC started discussion with Gaumont-British about supplying films and newsreels. So there is a very tenuous link (perhaps stretched to breaking point!) to suggest that productions from Lime Grove were seen on the BBC for some years of TV before 1950!
Something (someone?) of a link here?
“The Camera as an Actor in the Drama”
George More O’Ferrall – an early producer (query director query) in an article “The Televising of Drama” in Radio Times for 19 March 1937 writes:
“…I believe Television drama is a medium of its own and that it is a mistake just to try and copy films. We should regard fine acting as our chief asset and use the cameras to show it to its best advantage and, where possible, to heighten its effect [The producer should have] a real knowledge of the theatre. To his sense of
tempo and rhythm in acting he must add correct tempo and rhythm in the tracking and panning of his cameras and a faculty for deciding in a split second the exact moment to mix to another camera in order to give greater dramatic value ”
That’s what Tech Ops tried to do in the 1940s through to the 1980s with the theatrical-style multi-camera live (or as-live) television productions that we worked on.
Alan Taylor
Interesting stuff, but I did raise an eyebrow at this extract –
…and a faculty for deciding in a split second the exact moment to mix to another camera in order to give greater dramatic value…
In the early days of 405 line broadcasting from AP, for reasons which I have never had properly explained but assume it’s to do with sync pulses, cuts between cameras were not practical. Instead an eight second cross fade was used, which hardly counts as a split second decision.
As far as Baird is concerned, I’ve never been a fan of his. Yes of course he was the first to demonstrate a television system of sorts, but it was a dead end technology with immense limitations, while electronic television was already on the way. What he invented had little in common with television as we now know it. By contrast, many other early inventions ( telephone, gramophone, steam train, light bulbs, motor cars, etc ) had a much more obvious linkage to the versions which became mainstream one or two decades later.
Chris Woolf
I’ve only scanned through the BBC4 programme briefly but I’m glad that J L Baird got a decent panning for being somewhat jumped up and not particularly gifted as an inventor. He’s never deserved the accolades about “first”, and it is amazing the BBC continued so long bothering to trial an obviously flawed and limited system.
Alec Bray
The BBC never made any long-term commitment to mechanical television and right from the start was interested in the EMI electronic system.
But just think! Until recently, sound for domestic use has been a mechanical system from the year dot, and Vinyl is now ! a comeback. Turntables and hills and valleys and grooves and all that!!
Hugh Sheppard
‘Hills & valleys’ or ‘Hill and Vale’ recordings date back to Edison, but were surely superseded by lateral techniques before the war!
To my shame, the only examples I had – found with a huge and too expensive Edison gramophone – were ruined by trying to play with a standard soundbox & stylus. Ouch!
Roger Long
Flying spot TK is JLB’s contribution to television, and that is some. Blumlein was working for EMI on 405 electronic tv with help from RCA. Farnsworth was hovering in the background
The Berlin Olympics were mechanical tele A whirlpool of ideas
Logie Baird had a viable intermediate flyable system for the French Photo reconnaissance Bonkers….
Alan Taylor
Electronic television came about by combining the work of multiple people. It would be unreasonable to claim that any one individual invented 405 line television.
However Alan Blumlein stands out as being responsible for an impressively wide range of inventions and developments which made broadcasting possible.
He measured the characteristics of human hearing and designed the first weighting networks to shape frequency response according to how the ear responds. He also designed equalisation networks for sending audio over long distance lines, essentially the same systems continued in use until digital systems replaced analogue lines.
He developed a moving coil disc cutter head for records, enabling higher quality recordings
He was half of the team who developed the HB1B microphone used by the BBC in the early days of Alexandra Palace.
HiFi enthusiasts may recognise the term “ultra linear amplifier”. A way of using feedback to greatly improve the audio quality – invented by Blumlein.
Similarly the long tailed pair is a circuit configuration which became an important part of operational amplifiers, a key element of sound desks and they are built into the analogue inputs of many integrated circuits.
He is best known in connection with stereo audio. It had previously been noted that binaural audio ( two spaced microphones fed to headphones ) produced a convincing stereo image, but it didn’t work so well on loudspeakers. The Blumlein pair is a crossed pair of cardioid microphones which solved that problem. It has remains a fundamental part of stereo recording and still bears his name.
He also developed stereo disc cutters with each groove at 45° to the vertical. M-S stereo is also down to him. The S signal is the mono component, while the S signal, the difference signal is simply added or subtracted to the M signal to create the left or right channel. M-S stereo was the underlying principle behind FM stereo broadcasting.
Then he became a key part of the team developing the waveforms used for 404 line television. He came up with a number of brilliant ideas. Anybody who has been to Wood Norton will have been told about the black level clamp. An elegantly simple circuit created by Blumlein.
Radar and television engineering share many characteristics. Inevitably Blumlein worked on pioneering radar systems during the war. His line type pulse modulator enabled high power pulsed radar and the principle is still used today.
He was killed in an air crash while testing a new radar system. The number one priority in the aftermath of that crash was to recover the highly secret magnetron. A task given to a team led by Bernard Lovell ( of radio telescope fame ).
In America, Edison is celebrated as having invented any number of things. Blumlein also patented any number of inventions over an impressively wide range of technologies, but is virtually unknown by the public. He deserves much more recognition.
