The Exhibitor (Jun-Oct 1939)

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VISIT OUR SHOWROOMS OR WRITE US VOIGT Designers Engineers-Manufacturers 1745 N. 12th Street. Phila, TELEVISION A monthly department of Better Management devoted to new developments in television science, presented and interpreted in the light of the Cinema. RCA Explains Details Regarding Television Sets At the same time as it announced its four models of television receivers (see elsewhere in this department), RCA-Victor pointed out the answers to some of the questions the interested public will be bound to ask sooner or later. Some of the details are given in the following paragraphs. TELEVISION RECEIVING ANTENNAS and their installations must conform to much higher standards than radio receiving antennas, because at the short wave lengths employed in television, intervening objects have a pronounced shielding effect, producing blurring of the television image; and because the picture signal is comprised of a very wide band of frequencies (each channel in band is 6,000 kilocycles — about five times the entire standard broadcast band!), all of which must be received with good efficiency if the image is to be satisfactory. To meet these problems, RCA has developed a di-pole type antenna for picture and sound reception on any one of the television bands between 44,000 and 90,000 kilocycles. In locations where serious problems of inter¬ ference or "reflection” of the television waves from near-by buildings, hills or other high ob¬ jects occur, there is another RCA development, known as a "reflector” which should be used in connection with the double di-pole antenna. This type of antenna may be used for radio reception in the international short wave and the standard broadcast bands with RCA receivers, making only one antenna installation necessary. There is also a "double V” type wire antenna available which is lower priced and simpler than the double di-pole and is capable of giving ex¬ cellent results in comparatively trouble free areas where signal intensity is good. All television antenna installations should be made by trained engineers. The KINESCOPE, the very heart of the tele¬ vision receiver, is a delicate, long glass tube en¬ larged at one end to accommodate a fluorescent screen on which the television immage is viewed. The fluorescent material is placed on the inside of the large end. An electron gun, located in the base of the tube and actuated by broadcast impulses from the television transmitter, sprays the fluorescent screen with electrons at incredible speed, reproducing complete images, a line at a time, at the rate of 30 a second. The size of the image is determined by the diameter of the tube, but is somewhat smaller because the image is rectangular while the tube is round. TELEVISION RECEIVER INSTALLATION. Purchasers of television receivers will not walk into dealers’ stores, order an instrument and ex¬ pect to have it installed the same day. Instead, they will make a down payment and then wait a day or two for the preliminaries of the installa¬ tion technician before the actual installation of the receiver can be made. This is necessary because of the problems caused by the line-of-sight route of the ultra-high frequency radio waves on which television must be transmitted. The installation expert will determine what type of antenna is necessary in each case, where and how it must be located to get the best results, and where the television receiver must be placed to get best results. But once installed, the television receiver is as easy to operate as a standard radio. No Retakes in Television Program Split-second co-ordination and timing of the actors, noiseless and swift shifting of scenery, adjustment of lights and camera angles are an absolute essential to satisfactory television studio programs, A. W. Protzman, of the National Broadcasting Company, told the Society of Mo¬ tion Picture Engineers recently. The television camera catches the action at the moment when it happens, Protzman said. There is no time for the film cutting, editing, retakes, and the day-to-day location shifts that are common to motion pictures; everything must click at once, or the television show is a failure. Protzman described a long series of experi¬ mental projects which NBC and RCA engineers have been carrying on to develop a suitable studio preparatory to the launching of highdefinition television service in the home. The television director, he said, must plan carefully ahead all of his camera angles, lighting effects, movements of characters, shifting of scenes, and the innumerable other factors that have made the motion picture the foremost entertainment medium for the masses. The whole technique of motion picture production, from which the young television art is borrowing, must be speeded up immeasurably, and radically changed in many respects, to meet the more exacting requirements of television transmission. The NBC engineer corrected erroneous im¬ pressions about television make-up which, instead of the gruesome effects ascribed to it, strives for naturalness. Dark red lipstick and human skin tints televise best on the high-definition all-electronic television systems, he said. Since television pictures are reproduced in black and white, studio sets are usually painted in different shades of gray, because color is relatively un¬ important. IN THE HOME. Here is the RCA Victor tele¬ vision receiver Model TRK-9 ($4 JO, f.o.b. Cam¬ den, New Jersey), having a nine-inch kinescope giving an image 5 Yz by 7V4 inches. Set embraces an all-wave radio receiver, a record player. May 17, 19)9