Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (1930-1949)

TELEVISION FORUM DISCUSSION 125 wider frequency range may be transmitted to the television tube that is being photographed for transcription purposes, the time might arise when it would be desirable to go to 35-mm film for the negative, at least in order to get better definition. The footnote I should like to add is that at the present time in practice the lenses that are being used for this type of work by no means exhaust the resolution capabilities of the 16-mm film that is being used, and there are lenses available commercially at the present time from several manufacturers which would permit coming very much closer to the limits of the resolution. That they are not placed in service, I presume, is just one of the inevitable examples of technological lag that occur when many people are busy doing a job and do not have too much time to spend thinking about improving their apparatus. With reference to projection lenses, a similar situation exists, on what I believe to be reliable information, that in the majority of projectors which are used to throw the image on the film into the kinescope for broadcasting, the lens is the same lens that normally is supplied in the amateur trade, which is far from exhausting the detail possibilities of the picture, and here I will be specific. Lenses which will do that job are commercially available from at least two reputable manufacturers, Bausch and Lomb and Kollmorgen, and the fact that they are not put into use for the projectors in the television stations is one of those things that requires a little explanation. Likewise, with respect to our projection here, I think that it is unfortunate we cannot have a lens of that type on the projector used for the Society; however, I should like to make this comment about the film that we saw. From long experience of the idiosyncrasies of 16-mm films, it looked pretty obvious to me that the titles which were spliced into that reel were not on the same stock as the individual scenes, and the curl of the film in the gate was not the same; also that the projectionist was focusing on the title, and the picture was actually out of focus. It certainly was not doing justice to what was on the film. MR. W. H. OFFBNHAUSER: Recently we have seen some advertising of some of the newer receivers. The little Hallicrafter 7-inch tube receiver that has a tricky type of masking on it is one. I do not know what the rest of it may be, except I would rather expect it would limit the picture area to something like 40 or 50 per cent of the normal standard area. Has there been any trend as far as television receiver production is concerned, to guide that or limit it to meet the suggestions that have been placed in the SMPE booklet? DR. DEANE R. WHITE: It is on the agenda for our committee during the meeting. The question whether we should take it up has been subjected to some discussion by the officers of the Society, because it was not at all certain it was an engineering problem as much as it was a commercial problem. I do not know what action the Television Committee will take because it is fairly obvious if you are going to use them on television and throw them away on peculiar masking and receivers, things will not fit, but there are certain commercial aspects of the problem entirely separate from the engineering. I would not attempt to predict how they would fit into the picture. We can certainly enter into the engineering aspect and find out what is wrong and find out what has occurred and whether or not we can change them or exchange them. MR. PAUL J. LARSEN: I agree with Dr. White to a degree but not completely. I believe that it is an engineering organization's responsibility to at least