Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

Radio in 1946-47 PEACE AND PRODUCT/ON SEEN AS KEYS TO PROGRESS AND PROSPERITY—RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS CLEAR WAY FOR SIGNIFICANT ADVANCES IN TELEVISION By Brig. General David Sarnoff, President, Radio Corporation of America. PROGRESS and prosperity in 1947 depend upon greater inter- national cooperation for world peace and accelerated industrial production. In the achievement of these objectives, it is imperative that a free flow of information pre- vails throughout the world. It is also vital that scientific research be expanded to create new products, services and processes that continu- ally will lead to full employment and rising standards of living. The uncertainties, largely related to shortages of raw materials and other industrial deterrents, which cloud the horizon of the New Year, must be cleared without delay to avoid economic paralysis. If indus- trial unrest is ended and the flow of basic components is increased, 1947 holds promise of being Amer- ica's first major television year, for science has equipped that great new industry to move forward as a service to the public. Furthermore, trade estimates indicate a large re- placement market for radio sets and radio tubes which were in serv- ice throughout the war. In addition, a potential market for radio-phono- graphs and television receivers ex- ists in the 7 to 10 million new homes which may be built during the next ten years. Television in 1947 can make big strides in taking its place along- side the older arts, and in many instances visual communication can give them new and modern import. Although the television camera al- new mobile television "studios on wheels" carry cameras and micro- wave EQUIPMENT FOR PICKING UP AND TRANSMITTING NEWS, SPORTS AND OTHER OUTDOOR EVENTS. [RADIO AGE 3] ready has scanned national political conventions and presidential candi- dates, it will be ready to play its first big role in the 1948 campaign. That year will be to television what 1924 was to broadcasting, when Coolidge, Davis, Dawes, Cox, Bryan and other orators picked up the microphone for the first time in a national campaign and marveled at its ability to reach the people. Political techniques were vastly changed in that era of the head- phones and gooseneck loudspeaker horns. Similarly, in 1947, television will be studied as a new factor in politics as plans are laid for the '48 campaign of radio sound and sight. In 1948, it may be expected that in the United States there will be sev- eral hundred thousand television equipped homes. Increased activity among the broadcasters in television program- ming during 1946 revealed that the showmen are prepared to present an interesting variety of entertain- ment, newsreels and sports events. Their technique in the operation of new cameras has attested that they are on the mark and ready to go! They now have mobile camera- equipped television trucks to relay on-the-scene programs by short- waves to the main transmitters. New York is the television capital of the world—the center of this great new medium of entertain- ment, which will expand through networking across the country from city to city and from state to state —and finally nation-wide. All-Electronic Color Television On October 30, the men of science at RCA Laboratories demonstrated for the first time in history, clear, flickerless, all-electronic color tele- vision. And it was accomplished without the outmoded rotating disc or any other moving part. It was done ail-electronically by means of electron tubes and electron beams "painting" pictures in natural colors. The pictures were viewed on a 15 X 20-inch screen. The realization of this universal system of television, which trans- mits and receives both color and black-and-white pictures with equal quality, is as far-reaching as was the creation of an all-electronic television system which supplanted the mechanical discs used in black- and-white television when it first began. The realization of all-elec- tronic color is as significant in tele- vision as electronic recording over mechanical recording of phonograph records, or the present color movies over the early mechanical color on the screen. By this new advance in television, simtiltaneous color transmission, in- stead of sequential transmission, —1