The talking machine world (July-Dec 1928)

58 The Talking Machine World, New York, December, 1928 Louis B. F. Raycroft Discusses Television at NEMA Meeting Radio Division Vice-President Says That Premature Public Enthusiasm Is Misleading and Dangerous to the Progress of Radio — Many Obstacles to Be Overcome Louis B. F. Raycroft, vice-president of National Electrical Manufacturers' Association in charge of the Radio Division, in an address at the Fall meeting at Briarcliff Lodge, Briarcliff Manor, N. Y., said in part: "A new factor is entering the situation threatening new complications. The public is expecting another kind of broadcasting service popularly known as television. The Federal Radio Commission is even now considering the formulation of regulations to govern this field of endeavor so the public will benefit most. "The great public interest in television is Dyn amic ; ; Unless you've heard a Stevens you don't know what that means! Stevens Dynamique DY-110 Featuring, as do all Stevens Speakers, the famous Burtex diaphragm. Stevens Dynamique Speakers offer distributors and dealers a real opportunity for bigger and more satisfactory business. Not only the Dynamique, but also Stevens Magnetic Speakers are now being exploited in an extensive consumer advertising campaign. Write for trade information Stewns "The Speaker that tells its own story" STEVENS MANUFACTURING CORP. I 46-48 E. Houston Street New York, N. Y. J founded upon exaggerated newspaper reports of brilliant laboratory demonstrations rather than upon the actual practical status of this virgin field, which is as yet entirely unprepared for commercial development. A diligent study of the subject leads to the inevitable conclusion that the premature stimulation of public enthusiasm in television is misleading and dangerous to the progress of radio, because there is no means of satisfying the demand for reliable home television equipment. Television remains a laboratory experiment with a number of major and vital problems still unsolved. There are certain specific technical obstacles to practical television which cannot be overcome unless a fundamental and original invention or inventions are made and no technically qualified observer will predict whether they will be made within twenty-five, ten or five years or less. "The process of transmitting television images is a matter of reflecting a ray of light from the subject to a photo-electric cell and sending an electrical impression of the reflected energy point by point; this process is continued in a progressive and predetermined manner until the entire subject has been subjected to an immense number of electrical observations. An electrical impulse is radiated for each point so examined or scanned. Thousands of these 'intensity impressions' are required to send one complete image or subject. The amount of detail and realism attainable at the receiving point is proportionate to the number of impressions to which the subject is resolved. "In the reception of still pictures, these electrical intensity impressions are converted to light and collected on sensitive photographic paper so that several minutes may be used to assemble a single picture consisting of hundreds of thousands of separate image impressions. In television, as with motion pictures, to give the impression of motion, however, the entire scanning of the subject must be repeated each sixteenth of a second. This rigorous requirement of television is fundamental and imposes an obstacle, to this time insuperable, to sending anything other than the crudest and simplest kind of image. The ability to send a television subject of one thousand image impressions has led the public to expect that to one hundred-fold the detail is a relatively simple matter. Such an improvement would make a television reproduction of eight or ten square inches of average magazine quality possible, far short of the layman's conception of television. Hundred-folding the speed of any process, whether it be a man's walking pace from four to four hundred miles an hour or an automobile from 70 to 7,000 miles an hour, is a tremendously ambitious scientific evolution. "In appraising the commercial future of television we must not overlook the fact that we are still limited to sending crude subjects consisting of a few hundred image points. Building more elaborate transmitters is quite feasible, but this involves the utilization of enormously increased frequency bands for the transmission of the resultant signal. If every broadcast station were shut down and the entire radio broadcast band given over to a single television service, the 1,000,000 cycle ether space thus made available could accommodate the transmission of an image equivalent to that obtained with a home motion picture projector, and the cost of the experiment would stagger human imagination. "I do not wish to imply in any sense of the word that television will never be accomplished or that its numerous problems are beyond the ingenuity of the American inventor. Only Louis B. F. Raycroft when we learn to combine visual impressions in the same manner that sound impressions are molded into a single audio frequency, permitting us to abandon the method of sending an electrical impression successively for every point of the transmitted image each sixteenth of a second, an entirely new phase of the situation will be entered upon. In the absence of some such invention which effects the essential conservation in carrier channels necessary to make television practical, it is an injustice to the public at large to encourage it to expect television in the immediate future and a duty to warn it that, rapid as has been recent progress, television is now only in the status of development of aviation in 1910 and the motor car in 1905. StewartW arner Earnings Net earnings of the Stewart Warner Speedometer Corp. and subsidiary companies for the quarter ended on September 30 were $1,863,639, after all charges and Federal taxes, equivalent to $3.10 a share on 599,996 outstanding shares. For the first nine months of this year net earnings amounted to $5,476,974, equivalent to $9.12 a share, as compared with $6.99 a share for the same period last year. Finds Canvassing Pays A. Fancher, cashier in the Bank of Carrollton, Carrollton, Miss., a town of 515 population, has sold fifteen Majestic radio receivers within eight weeks. He has no shop but takes a model 72 around in his car and gives demonstrations. In INew Post M. P. Zoeller has been placed in charge of the radio department of the San Antonio Music Co., 316 West Commerce street, San Antonio, Tex. The RCA, Majestic and Crosley lines are carried as well as other leading makes. Visit Federal Plant Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Getke were recent visitors to the Federal Radio Corp. at Buffalo. Mr. Getke is president of the Metropolitan Electrical Supply Co., Chicago, Federal Orthosonic wholesaler. Expands Store The Belmont Radio Store, 5459 Belmont avenue, Chicago, 111., has enlarged its floor space to twice the original size and has added the Brunswick record line.