Talking pictures : how they are made, how to appreciate them (c. 1937)

The Road Ahead problems arc solved. But because it has so stirred the minds and the imaginations of thousands, television stands by itself for popular interest in any discussions of the future of the motion picture. It is provocative and alluring and this book would not be complete without a simplified discussion of it. Television in 1937 is still quite experimental, though it has been developed a great deal since the earliest public demonstrations. The best systems are now capable of producing an image about eight by ten inches, having details similar to a small newspaper photograph seen through a reading glass. The receivers used under these conditions cost several hundred dollars. Under good conditions this image can be transmitted by very short wave radio for a distance of twenty to fifty miles. This is roughly the distance we could see if we stood where the transmitting apparatus is placed, usually on a hill or a high building. This is true because the very short radio waves behave very much as light rays behave. They do not bend around corners, or around the earth to the degree of the longer radio waves ordinarily used for broadcasting. The reason for using the very short radio waves rather than the longer ones will be clear as we see the method by which the image is transmitted. The principle of television is neither mysterious nor new. It is merely an elaborate form of ordinary telegraphy, which, instead of being able to send only four or five hundred telegraph dots each minute, is capable of sending several million each second. Imagine that we wish to transmit the contents of a [ 279 J