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

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

344 McCoy AND WARNER October While it is impossible to predict what evidence concerning color television will be presented to the FCC in the now scheduled hearings, and it is likewise impossible to foretell what action the FCC will take on color television, the motion picture industry obviously must consider color in connection with its planning concerning theater television. Not only must theater television interests be aware that broadcast television in color will be a much stronger competitor than black-andwhite television, but they must take into account that theater television in color may well be much more attractive to the public than either monochrome film or monochrome theater television. Theater television in color, therefore, deserves careful investigation by the theater television interests. Such an investigation may reveal that theater television in color holds sufficient promise of becoming a boxoffice attraction in its own right to justify the conclusion that the motion picture industry should enter the theater television field on a broad scale. From the technical viewpoint, color would require further development of the theater television equipment mentioned in this article, but it is not unreasonable to expect that color could be adapted to theater television with at least no greater difficulty than it could be applied to broadcast television. Theater television in color would also have its impact on the frequency-allocation problems now facing theater television. While it appears that broadcast color television, if sanctioned by the FCC, will be limited to a 6-megacycle bandwidth, the theater television interests will be forced to inquire whether they should limit their interests in color to a system of this bandwidth. The advantages of a wider bandwidth, including greater definition, greater frame rate, greater picture brightness, and less flicker, may well make it desirable for theater television to seek more than a 6-megacycle band for theater television relays. However, before a bandwidth wider than 6 megacycles is adopted for theater television it will be necessary to consider whether the existing common-carrier facilities for intercity relay of television programs could be adapted for such a wide-band video transmission. Color television faces many obstacles before it can be expected to take its place beside monochrome television. But the place it holds in the imagination of the public makes it a factor to be considered carefully by the motion picture industry.