Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1945)

Published in every fourth issue of Motion Picture Herald GEORGE SCHUTZ, Editor RAY GALLO, Advertising Manager rther Speculation on levision's Near Future I.CA's new "large-screen" home television iver was unveiled at the National Broading Studios in New York in March to an ience, mostly members of the press, that uded many a motion picture journalist fully alert to the competitive implications ;uch equipment — competitive, that is, be>e of the counter-attraction to showbusithat home entertainment represents. The • RCA receiver projects an image 21x16 les on a translucent screen, doing it with rors. Much larger than the direct-reion screen, it considerably extends the fortable limits of the audience, giving our er families a break, or allowing the rela[y well-off owner of a set (the price would bout $400) to ask his less fortunate neighi in for a show. i motion picture 21x16 inches is not very e, of course. But a sofa and house slip, and perhaps a bottle of beer, offer comiations. This is assuming that the image ultimately be sharper and have more picd values. That achieved in the demonstra— and transmission was entirely by wire ;ad of radio — supplied little more than imum delineation. For spot news events, ever, such quality would probably prove ptable — the idea of physical presence ild make up for much of the pictorial riency. tome television, it was pointed out in the ussion that followed the demonstration, is like radio, a medium for hourly, even y, entertainment. Washing the dishes or ing bridge while watching a television :ormance would severely limit efficiency in er function, to say nothing of its looking ully silly. When you watch a television jv you don't do anything else. It was jght that a few hours a week would be ugh of that for most people. Dm the Theatre Angle 'ompetitively, the theatre is not without a ;pon in television. Unlike sound-radio, vision has brought radio transmission, or least electronic reproduction of a remote ;inal, into the field of public entertainment, t how nobody yet knows, but in some way, bably several different ways, ome interesting explorations in this direc were made in a recent issue of Television Dr. Alfred N. Goldsmith, New York en:er whose interest in both the electronic and the techniques of the motion picture well known to the readers of these colls. In his regular department, "One n's Reflections," he referred to the petition he Society of Motion Picture Engineers to the Federal Communications Commission for experimental facilities for theatre television. "It is not certain whether theatre programs will be distributed by conductors or by radio," he went on to say, "but the Society's proposals indicated the line of thought of the motion picture engineers. They envisioned in each city a group of distributors of theatre television entertainment. Each of these distributors would have a television transmitting station from which the program would go to the receivers in a group of theatres within the service area of the transmitters. "The programs would come from three possible sources. They might originate at the transmitter studios as live talent performances, or even as film presentations. Alternatively, they might be outside events picked up by a mobile unit or two in the field and relayed to the main transmitting station. "Or as another method, they might reach the transmitting station by a nationwide wire or radio-relay system which would enable syndication of all programs throughout the country. This might mean that each distributor would thus require a group of frequencies. Since there might be quite a number of distributors in the larger cities, the need for frequencies would rise correspondingly. And since high-detail color television might ultimately be required, the channel width would be considerable — perhaps 40-60 megacycles or even more. "The sum total of the Society's request for allocations was therefore thousands of megacycles and, accordingly, such operations could be placed only on the frequencies of the order of 10,000 megacycles or more! Only a minor fraction of the frequencies were requested at present for experimental test, but the basic planning was clearly an ambitious and imaginative one." Declaring that theatre audiences have a different psychology from home audiences, Dr. Goldsmith said that home programs would be more intimate, while they would have to be differently timed. "Consequently," he pointed out, "theatre television to a large extent will need its own source of programming. Naturally outstanding events addressed to the home might find their way to the theatre screen, but this would account only for a relatively small percentage of theater programs. WOULD THEATRES "TIE UP" EVENTS? "There have been proposals that such events as racing, boxing and many other sports which will make top theatre television fare should be specially picked up for televiison. The question which must arise is whether theater interests will be able to tie up events exclusively for their use. There is also the possibility that the theatre television transmitter might thus partly replace the film projection rooms of the various theatres it services." An interesting point brought out by Dr. Goldsmith in his Television article was that if radio were used for the distribution of the theatre-television programs, some additional interesting problems would arise in connection with property rights in the program. "Perhaps such protection can be secured by Here is an auditorium with a stage entirely draped and curtained with glass. It is that of a school — Steuben High School, Chicago — but the conditions dealt with correspond to those of a theatre. The material is woven of fireproof Fiberglas in jade green. 7