Television over the Telephone Sends Images of Speakers (Oct, 1938)
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Oct, 1938
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Television over the Telephone Sends Images of Speakers
Television by telephone has been achieved in Germany. In a conversation over 400 miles of telephone line between Berlin and Munich the operators not only heard but saw each other. With this milestone passed, the technicians press on to the distant goal of making regular television service available to telephone subscribers. In the photograph, the microphone on the transmission cell held by the Berlin operator is not necessary on ordinary connections; the microphone and loudspeaker partly hidden beyond the operator transmit impulses between cities. On the wall is the picture received of the Munich operator; to the right, the round “eye” picks up the image of the Berlin speaker and sends it to Munich.
There are rumours according to which those “videophone-booth” called Fernsehsprechstellen in german had a sign saying “Sieh kurz” telling the user to keep the conversation short. I think somewhere I even have the rates. It was 1.20 Reichsmark I believe. That’s around 4.2 Euros today. I think those were minute rates.
Comment by Casandro — August 2, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
Ouch. Expensive. Still, though, here we are 70 years later. The technology to do a video phone still doesn’t seem to be anything that anyone really wants and yet they keep trying. You would almost expect them to give up after 70 years.
Comment by avatar28 — August 3, 2007 @ 4:47 pm
Well video-phones are still avaliable. In fact austrian 3G mobile providers are already advertising it. I guess the main problem is the way many people telephone. They just phone short messages they could as well do via instant messaging or e-mail. Few people do long elaborate phonecalls.
Comment by Casandro — August 3, 2007 @ 11:16 pm
slot debt consolidation…
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Trackback by slot debt consolidation — May 23, 2008 @ 8:33 am
I would love to see a video phone made of bakelite
The ultimate retro telephone, it would be something out of an old SciFi black and white film. What better advert for a modern 3G service.
Comment by Bakelite Gal — June 2, 2008 @ 3:15 pm