Television Shows Full Size Images
MOVING television images on a screen 10 feet square, produced beautifully clear, perfectly defined, and possessing the illusion of depth, is the latest and most amazing step in the advance of television art. This new development, accomplished by Mr. U. A. Sanabria, a Chicago television expert, enables a large crowd of spectators to view a radio performance, and heralds the day of “television theatres.” Full size images are made possible chiefly by development of a new neon arc tube and a special scanning disk.

It Would Make A Swell Fan, Too

IT LOOKS like a new-fangled kind of windmill, or at least a trick water turbine—but don’t let appearances fool you. It’s an unusual aerial designed for W6XAO, the only television transmitting station in Los Angeles. The aerial is 60 feet high, and the paddle-like elements are intended to produce television pictures with better definition than former aerials have given. Made of duraluminum, it is being inspected by Harry Lubcke, its designer, and Thomas Lee, who owns the station.

TV camera gets power from battery pack

Using a new portable TV camera and battery pack, a telecaster no longer has to drag power cables behind him. All he needs for audio and video transmission to a booster unit a mile away is the five-pound camera in his hands and the 25-pound power pack on his back.

The Newschief system was modified, with the help of American Broadcasting Co. engineers, from Sylvania’s closed-circuit transistor apparatus. The back pack contains transmitter, broadcasting equipment, and a nickel-cadmium battery good for an hour. While it is being recharged, a new battery can be clipped on without loss of signal.

ABC-TV used the News-chief first to telecast the Olympics at Innsbruck, Austria, last winter, and will use it at the national conventions. RCA and NBC are developing a similar portable system.

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TELEVISION Advances ON MANY FRONTS

THOUGH the outdoor Olympic Games experiment was a “flop” and patent litigation has slowed development, television continues to advance on many fronts.

The Don Lee Broadcasting System has started daily experimental broadcasting from station W6XAO in Los Angeles under direction of Harry R. Lubcke. He offers plans for a home receiver to experimenters who send a stamped envelope. The W6XAO schedule is from 3 to 5 and 6:30 to 8:30 p. m., P. S. T.

Philo T. Farnsworth, Philadelphia television leader who explained his system in June MM, conducted a seven-mile experiment on August 11. The image and voice of Boake Carter were transmitted from the Philco laboratory to the home of William H. Grimditch, engineer. Philco claims to have eliminated flicker.

Radio Corporation of America engineers are transmitting from the Empire State Building to points 20 miles away in Westchester County and gave several summer demonstrations. A 10-kilowatt transmitter was used first on June 29.

Jefferson Hogue and Miss Sylvia Wayt were married August 15 at the Texas Centennial in what was believed to have been the first television wedding. The event attracted considerable attention.

Television exhibits featured the annual Berlin and London radio shows. In England, the British Broadcasting Co. has installed equipment in Alexandra Palace and plans extensive use beginning in November.

Aided by a 300,000 yen subsidy from the government, Japanese scientists are building a transmitting station which Dr. K. Takayanagi, one of the leading experimenters, hopes to have in operation this winter. Waseda University investigators are experimenting with natural color.

The Don Lee television division on Sept. 1 transmitted a newsreel, the sound portion over KHJ and the sight part via W6XAO, from the Don Lee Bldg, at 7th and Bixel Sts., to a home at 2441 W. Silver Drive, over three miles away and behind two hills.

Members of the Institute of Radio Engineers and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers witnessed the event.

TV’s Magic Lantern

TV’s latest miracle is the Scenescope, designed by Frank Caldwell, scene maker in Hollywood for 17 years.

The problem of costly sets is a perennial one in the movie capital and Caldwell had been trying to solve it. When TV came along he saw that the problem was even more acute in this field—and maybe a bit easier to solve. His magic lantern, shown here, the only model in existence, has cost $100,000 so far. It has three 4×5 slide holders, a 35mm slide projector, a 16mm movie projector and a live lens. The movies are projected before or behind live action. The slides project backgrounds and still material to be combined with live action.

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Colorvision’s Colorful Genius

Dr. Peter Goldmark, CBS’s engineering wizard, is always dreaming up a revolutionary invention—whether it’s color TV or 3 “mad” Russians.

By Leonard Reed

THE Columbia Broadcasting Company has on its payroll an amazing genius who could figure out a practical system of interplanetary travel—if he didn’t divert so much of his talent to plotting new practical jokes.

His colleagues give Dr. Peter C. Gold-mark, Columbia’s director of Engineering, Research and Development, sole credit for developing color television. A long-range problem, you think? Dr. Goldmark first began to think seriously about “colorvision” while he was watching the movie, Gone With the Wind. Before Rhett Butler finally had given Scarlett O’Hara the heave-ho, Goldmark had worked out the solution to color TV.

“But after all,” he says modestly, “it was a long picture.”

Exit Dr. Jekyll. Enter Mr. Hyde. Some Russian engineers (nobody was worrying about atom-bombing anybody in those days of happier international relations) were invited by CBS to look over Gold-mark’s invention. At the appointed time, three weird characters in flowing black beards, fur hats and colorful silk pants were ushered into the studio. Then, as the genuine guests were announced, these three “mad” Russians scurried for cover. In the rush a beard fell off—and revealed the shining countenance of the colorvision inventor himself.

Last summer 12,000 members of the American Medical Association, meeting in Atlantic City, were treated to a remarkable demonstration of Goldmark’s color television. Under the sponsorship of Smith, Kline and French, Philadelphia drug manufacturers, and, with the cooperation of the University of Pennsylvania’s medical staff, his color equipment was set up in Atlantic City Hospital and in the convention hall. For four days, surgical operations were color-televised from the hospital directly to the hall!

But while preparations for that event were going on, the tall, bespectacled inventor had been hard at work on less constructive ventures. Loosening door hinges, for instance. Once when an official came rushing into his office, both official and door fell most unofficially on the floor. Or carbonizing the earpieces of CBS telephones. Anybody from an office boy to vice president may [Continued on page 150] have been walking around CBS unaware of the black smudge, or “Goldmark earring,” he was wearing.

One day when he got bored with the black tie that a colleague constantly wore, Gold-mark organized a band of anti-black-tie vigilantes. Suddenly they pounced on their startled victim and pinned him down on the floor. Then they snipped off the offending tie just below the knot and replaced it with an enormous comic bow-tie. Before the victim could recover either his poise or a respectable neckpiece, Goldmark arranged to have him called immediately to the office of one of the company’s most solemn vice presidents.

Such shenanigans don’t keep the poker-faced physicist from driving his laboratory at top speed. One day in 1945, the CBS executives told Goldmark that people were complaining about phonograph records. The albums took up too much room, and there was an interruption every three or four minutes while the record was changed. They gave him their usual detailed instructions: “Do something!” ‘ Goldmark did something: He revolutionized the record industry. The concrete results appeared in 1948 in the form of Columbia’s Long-Playing Microgroove records. Gold-mark solved the interruption problem by providing 45 minutes of playing time on a single record. In terms of shelf space, he compressed eight feet of music into a little more than a foot. During the LP’s first eight months, the public snatched up more than 2,000,000 of these records.

During the war, Goldmark and his laboratory were shipped to England with orders to concoct a gimmick to jam enemy defense radar during bombing missions over Germany. The Third Reich offered a 5u,000-mark reward to the German scientist who could come up with effective counter-equipment against this jamming. But that rich prize went unclaimed throughout the war.

Of course, war or no war, Goldmark had to amuse himself. Just before a scheduled conference with Army and Navy brass, a member of Goldmark’s group bought himself a colorful pair of Bermuda shorts, then returned to his office to try them on. While he was inspecting his knobby knees, Goldmark gleefully rushed in and stole his trousers. The conference took place with an exposed pair of hairy legs fidgeting uncomfortably amidst gleaming British and American gold braid.

Fortunately, Goldmark doesn’t spend too much time rubbing limburger cheese on other people’s radiators or suspending water buckets over doorways. Recently, radio sponsors complained that by the time they received a Hooper, Nielsen or Crosley rating on their shows the news was a few weeks old. Goldmark and his team went to work. They came up with a system called Instantaneous Audience Measurement. This arrangement, based on a radar principle, lets a sponsor know at any given moment how many sets are tuned to his program. And still another Goldmarkian gizmo gives the listener a chance to “talk back”—via a series of buttons which register approval or disapproval.

The man behind these inventions comes by it naturally. For although he was born in Budapest 39 years ago, the Goldmark strain was making its contribution to America long before that. His great-uncle was the inventor of percussion caps, first used in rifles during the American Civil War. Goldmark’s rendezvous with television destiny began after he obtained his doctorate degree from the University of Vienna. He worked on the early British television experiments until the depression put an end to them. Then he followed TV to America. Hired by CBS, he quickly moved up to top man on TV’s totem pole.

In Goldmark, the New World obtained an amateur, as well as a professional, doodler. For doodling with mechanical gadgets is both a hobby and a living for the inventive wizard. His first purchase as a newcomer to this country was an electric razor which he immediately took apart, then put together again so that it worked much better than the original model. No ballpoint pen left alone in his vicinity has much chance of going through life in the form it began. Friends visiting Gold-mark’s home in New Canaan, Connecticut, have learned to play safe by leaving their cars a good distance from the house—out of range of their host’s penchant for prankish tinkering.

As a matter of fact, he made the air-conditioning unit in his house out of parts of an old Ford. His home is his sparetime laboratory. He chose the site only after he made sure that it afforded good television reception.

Across the lawn is strung a queer-looking contraption which he whipped up for his three children and named an “aero-rail.”

“It’s a train that runs suspended from a wire,” he explains. “It combines the speed of a plane and the safety of a train. It’s just a toy now, but some day. …”

Dr. Goldmark’s sentence drifts off. You can see that the colorvision genius’ active brain suddenly has become feverishly busy planning a revolutionary invention—or just another practical joke.

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TV HOUSE OF MAGIC

The TV camera often lies.

Magicians work props and special gadgets to fool their audience.

By H. W. Kellick

MISTER Peepers, a role played by bespectacled Wally Cox, was nonchalantly pecking away at his typewriter in his science schoolroom on NBC when suddenly there was an explosive noise and parts of the machine went flying all over the room. The “accident” drew hearty laughs from viewers and people wondered if this was one of Wally’s own tricks which he cooked up in his spare time. ‘ As a matter of fact, this gag was a gimmick concocted by a special-effects man who redesigned a standard typewriter and inserted a spring in the carriage which sent machine parts flying in the air on cue.

The special-effects man is not new in the realm of show business, but in tele- vision he works wonders with his bag of tricks, most of which are electronic. Really a TV magician, he works quietly behind the scenes in producing visual effects that heighten the drama of television programs. When a script calls for supernatural phenomena such as multiple images and distorted scenes, visual gags like exploding hats and collapsing cameras, the special effects man must produce it.

Not long ago, for instance, Harpo Marx on a show was chastised by a waiter for an untidy table. Glasses had been overturned, ash trays were full of cigarettes and dirty dishes were strewn around. A second later the abused Harpo pointed to the table and revealed an impeccable setting with clean dishes, sparkling glass- ware, filled wine bottles and a flower arrangement in the center.

Trick photography? No, sir! Once again the special effects man came to the fore with his magic. Here’s how it was done. The table was a two-sided affair, pivoted in the center, the top cut out along the pattern of the tablecloth. Glasses, dishware and silverware were fastened down. Harpo simply pushed down on one end of the tabel and the top flipped over revealing the other setting.

On another show a comedian fed nickels to a parking meter which registered a violation each time he turned his back. What the viewer didn’t see was a stagehand off-camera pulling a string releasing a pin that held down the indicating sign.

Ever wonder how Kate Smith gets the “moon over the mountain?” Gadgets and gimmicks perform the realistic effect.

When Kate Smith warbles her theme song, viewers actually are looking at a mountain scene painted on translucent plastic two .feet wide. Behind the plastic, unnoticed by the audience, a stagehand turns a crank which raises a medium-sized flashlight attached to a rod—and the moon comes over the mountain.

The special effects man, according to James Glenn of NBC Staging Services, is a gadgeteer, inventor, mechanic, scientist and man of imagination. His combination of skills applied behind the scenes is intended to fascinate the TV audience. Often he is called upon to become a television meteorologist and he must simulate such natural phenomena as rain, fog, smoke, snow and wind.

TV rain comes in three types: small, synthetic and wet. To produce the small size, a garden watering can is emptied just in front of the camera. Synthetic rain is made by a cellophane-like plastic woven into cloth. When it is attached to a drum and rapidly revolved, one camera shoots the actual scene, the other shoots the revolving plastic—and the superimposed images, oddly enough, make it rain. Wet rain is produced by a sprayer system installed above the scene to be televised. Water falls into a tank under the floor boards on which the actor stands and is re-circulated by an accoustically treated pumping unit.

Falling snow is produced several ways. A plastic spray is used in some scenes and in others confetti or powdered ice is used. Recently, experts developed a device that creates a synthetic snowfall which a viewer can’t tell from the real thing. For snow banks on window ledges, dairy salt is first piled to the desired form then lightly sprayed with water to give it a crusty, frozen look.

Close-ups of flames may look realistic to the viewer but are actually tricks conceived by special effects men. In fireplaces, for example, logs are made of stovepipes covered with plaster and asbestos. Shredded waste asbestos resting in trays under the logs is soaked with wood alcohol and ignited thus creating a controllable flame. For photographic effect the flame is colored by special chemicals.

For long shots of fires, lightweight silk or nylon gauze cut into flame shapes is attached to a diffusion chamber containing lights and a blower system. Even candle flames are simulated in this fashion with miniature mechanisms driven by flashlight batteries concealed in the candlesticks.

Another gimmick dreamed up by special effects men is the simulation of smoke. This is produced by special pellets dropped on electric hot-plates or by igniting tobacco in a tube to which is attached a hand syringe, acting as a pump. For smoky explosions, magician’s cotton or flash powder is set off by an electric charge.

NBC Staging Services department is justly proud of its fog-making machine that can be operated noiselessly within a few feet of the microphone. Mineral oil is sprayed onto a hot-plate where it is vaporized. The vapor passes through baskets of dry ice and is discharged under low pressure. The result is a hanging fog that will permit actors to walk through it. Before this development, TV fog was made with smoke candles which emitted an acrid vapor irritating to actors’ throats and it looked more like smoke than fog.

Watching Martin Kane, Private Eye, you will recall that the detective gets hit on the head at least once in each show. To put the audience in Kane’s predicament, the cameraman threw the camera in and out of focus. This was a relatively slow process.

As a result, the Flexitron, an electronic device which distorts images, was invented for the Kane show as well as other shows desiring supernatural effects. The distortion lens, when rotated, produces a dreamlike, out-of-the-world image. Prismatic lenses can turn images upside down or multiply them eight-fold.

In addition, the flexitron simulates underwater scenes, produces storms, tornadoes or the effect of an earthquake. It can also make an actor’s head pulsate. Other electronic devices can project an actor into a giant or cut him down to midget size.

Hardly a trick escapes the electronic wizardry of special effects. Recently ‘a comedian reached for a lamp post to lean upon. As he stretched out his arm to grasp it, it jumped out of his reach. On another show, chairs and tables waltzed about the stage as if they were human dancers. These stunts were not the result of trick photography. They were produced b> an electronic device called a Separatron which instantly separates picture elements. Almost any item can be made to move around in a silly fashion with this device.

Nothing seems to stump the Merlins of television. Often they surprise themselves with their results. For instance, special effects was handed a script of a mystery show in which a centipede crawls across a library floor, up the leg of a chair and then bites the hand of an actor.

For hours the effects people pondered the situation. Someone suggested that the scene be rewritten as there was little chance of producing the effect. Finally, after some fast experimentation, the boys solved the problem. A magnet was secreted underneath the rug. Then the plastic and metal centipede was drawn along by the magnet which was pulled on a wavy-line pattern by a hair-sized wire. Special pins protruding above the rug made the legs wiggle. The effect was weird, indeed, and looked life-like to the audience.

The next time there’s an unusual scene or “impossible” prop on your TV screen, remember to believe only half of what you see. The special effects men are geniuses and every day are scheming new ways to deceive you, their audience. They’re concocting new tricks and gadgets and hope you’ll agree with them that it’s fun to be fooled. •

First Signing by television of a legally binding contract was consummated above when executives of the Dumont Television Laboratories in New York and officials of the Chevrolet Motor Company, two hundred miles away in Washington, D. C, put their John Henry’s on the dotted line while watching each other in the television screen. This picture was snapped at the New York end. The screen shows what was going on in Washington.

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Tracks That Violence Leaves

Are Americans becoming addicted to violence? And if so, does the violence that can be seen daily on television, for instance, contribute to the addiction? Dr. Victor Bailey Cline, a University of Utah clinical psychologist, has started a series of experiments which seem to him to point to a definite affirmative conclusion. In a one-seat theater in his Salt Lake City laboratory, Dr. Cline, left, and an associate, Dr. John Atzet, show motion pictures of kinds and degrees of violence to subjects hung with sensors that produce a physiograph (left) of their responses to what is appearing on the screen. Stylus tracings record, from top, respiration, skin moisture and two channels of heartbeat rate. Dr. Cline says that children who have watched television the most show the least response to episodes of violence. From this he has drawn some preliminary conclusions: we are creating violence addicts; the acts of violence the average child sees every 14 minutes in the 15 to 20 hours of TV he watches every week have already desensitized many of them. Beyond that, Dr. Cline believes these acts may become models which children will later imitate in real life. “I am convinced,” he says in this connection, “that any U.S. soldiers who shot down Vietnamese women and children at Mylai had been desensitized.”

Taking the test, Chris Cline, 9, one of Dr. Cline’s eight children, showed interest but little emotional response while watching a skiing short, greater reaction to a chase scene from W. C. Fields’s The Bank Dick, most of all to a brutal prizefight scene in which Kirk Douglas is battered in The Champion. Dr. Cline, who has a hard time finding non-TV-watching children for the control group he needs for his ongoing study, says that children should be limited in their TV watching (his are restricted to one hour a week) and that “General” movie ratings should be withheld for too much violence, not just for pornography.

Subscription TV
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Laser Holographic Color TV Tape Cartridges

A low-cost color TV tape player built around lasers and holography has been unveiled by RCA. Called SelectaVision, it will play full-color programs recorded on tapes made of the same clear, cheap plastic used to wrap meats and vegetables in supermarkets. This material costs about one-tenth as much as conventional films. The scratch- and dust-proof tapes will be able to run in slow motion or stopped to study individual frames, if desired, and can be replayed countless times.

Present plans call for mass production of SelectaVision players in 1972 with a target price of under $400. A library of 100 half-hour tapes, mainly sports events and popular entertainment features, will be available at $10 per tape.

The tapes are not made directly from life, but from movie films, video tapes, slides, or photographs. A color program originating from a color TV camera or color video tape player is recorded on movie film by means of an electron beam recorder. This film is then developed and converted by a laser to a series of holograms (optical interference patterns) which are recorded on a plastic tape coated with Photoresist, a material that hardens to varying degrees depending on the intensity of the light striking it.

Next: the tape is developed in a chemical solution that eats away the portions of Photoresist not hardened by the laser. The result is a relief map whose hills and valleys represent the original image in coded form. Called the hologram master, this tape is coated with nickel and stripped away, leaving a nickel tape with the holograms impressed on it like engravings. This nickel master is fed through a set of pressure rollers with vinyl tape of similar dimensions to print the final tapes.

Playback of such tape is accomplished by passing a very low-powered laser beam through it into a simple, low-cost TV camera. The camera sees the images reconstructed by laser directly. The playback mechanism, laser, and camera are all housed in the tape deck, which is attached to the antenna terminals of a standard TV set. The system is fully compatible and may be viewed on black-and-white sets, as is presently done with commercial color TV broadcasts

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Trash or Treasure

Take your heirloom to Rothschild. He’ll know if it’s worth dollars—or peanuts.

By Lester David

SOMETIMES, Sigmund Rothschild is a good man to know. Sometimes, he’s as welcome as a bill collector. It’s because the stolid Mr. Rothschild who has uncovered more hidden treasure than Black-beard, Jean Lafitte and the rest of the pirate mob combined, can make you a lot richer than you think you were. Or a lot poorer.

Mrs. Verner Alexanderson of Englewood, N. J., for example, was mighty pleased to make his acquaintance. She let him rummage through several baskets crammed with old papers dating back to Civil War days. They included six letters which Rothschild found were written by Abraham Lincoln’s wife, Mary, to one Abram Wakeman and the entire material was one of the biggest historical finds in decades.

Rothschild put a $100,000 valuation on the lot!

On the other hand, a woman from Closter, N. J., got a letdown of considerable proportions. She handed over an old dental instrument, a fearsome looking thing used ,to extract molars, which had been in the family many years. “The man who gave it to my father assured him it was worth a lot and we have been cherishing it,” she declared.

Thereupon Rothschild delivered his judgment. “This gadget was manufactured in Brooklyn in 1850,” he asserted. “It is worth . . .”

The woman leaned forward expectantly.

“. . . about $3,” finished Mr. Rothschild.

Rothschild, you see, is one of the country’s foremost appraisers of antiques. Currently, the balding little gentleman with the calm, efficient manner of a scientist is setting hoarders of odds and ends agog with an immensely popular television show called “Trash or Treasure” beamed Thursday evenings over the Du Mont TV network.

The program is devoted to a methodical appraisal of relics most everybody’s got stashed away in closet recesses, attics, old suitcases and garage corners or the heirlooms proudly displayed on mantel shelves. Rothschild, with clinical detachment, puts a price tag on everything anybody cares to bring in.

On the show as well as in his private appraisal work over the past 20 years he has told many thousands of persons their “trash” was worth cash. To balance things off, he’s also had to inform an awful lot of hopeful folks their “treasures” were just so much junk.

That’s how it is when people come to the studio with anything from old spitoons to umbrellas, great-grandma’s coffee grinder to mummified hound’s teeth, music boxes to a pair of red stockings worn by Napoleon. He examines them all and passes dollars-and-cents judgment.

When he does, the darndest things can happen. Not long ago Michael Mindlin, Jr., of New York City brought along a manuscript of Anna Christie, the Eugene O’Neill drama which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1922. Shortly before air time, Mindlin cornered Arnold Peyser, the show’s producer, and asked anxiously: “Have you gotten word on this thing yet?”

Peyser replied gravely: “Yes. I think he’ll say something like 20 bucks.” Mindlin’s face fell.

But it lifted again shortly after and stayed lifted when Rothschild announced it was the working script used for the rehearsals of the actual production of Anna Christie with revisions made in O’Neill’s own handwriting. It’s value ? A cool $1,200!

It was something else again for a New Jersey train conductor who arrived clutching a 1943 penny. Because of wartime metal shortages, no bronze cents were struck by the U. S. Mint that year. This one, however, was bronze. The trainman thought it was the find in a million. If it really was he could name his own price. As a matter of fact, he was so convinced of its value that he kept the coin in a vault.

Rothschild told him that his penny was worth exactly that. It was a wartime-issue cent upon which someone had put a coating of bronze to fool gullible collectors!

“About 90 per cent of the things people dig out from trunks and attics is trash,” declares Rothschild, “but the other ten per cent has cash value, sometimes far beyond anything the owner dreamed of.”

It is to the pursuit of this ten per cent that Rothschild has devoted his life. In addition to the television show he conducts a private appraisal business at his office, 119 West 57th St., New York City, and travels around the country looking in on antique fairs and exhibitions wherever he can find them.

To the office comes a steady stream of persons bearing ancient rocking chairs, statues, paintings, old letters and bric-a-brac of every size, shape and construction. Some leave happily, others sadly.

Happy, indeed, was the woman who learned that a batch of old Valentines from the 1880’s she had found in a drawer were worth $600. And the smile was broad on William Mathews’ face when he was told that a set of chessmen purchased at an auction long ago had been carved from ivory by Chinese craftsmen and were valued at $500.

Sorrowful was the aged South Carolina couple who had treasured through the years an old violin given them by a Civil War general. It was labeled Stradivarius and the old man and his wife had clung to it constantly as a guarantee against indigence. With the money they expected to realize from its sale, they were going to retire and travel.

But Rothschild had to tell them the violin was only a copy, one of many hundreds manufactured by a plant in Germany in the late 19th century and not a priceless creation of the famed violin maker of Cremona. It was worth only $65.

A woman came in with a painting which had been gathering dust in her attic for 38 years. It had cost only $105. Would Rothschild—who incidentally lists art restorations among his multiple talents—do a job on it? He did and presented the thunderstruck woman with a genuine Titian valued between $30,000 and $100,-000. It seems that the painting had been sold at an auction of the effects of the late Stanford White, the great architect and no one had realized its actual worth.

But a pair of red stockings formerly belonging on the legs of the Little Corporal himself, Napoleon Bonaparte, was valued at only $20. As a rule, Rothschild explained, old fabrics don’t have too much price appeal.

If you suspect that you may be harboring a gem, take it to a reliable local antique dealer. Or Rothschild may even give you an approximate valuation by mail order if you send him two or three clear photographs from several angles accompanied by as complete a description as possible and what you know of its historical background. For this he charges $5 per appraisal.

If you have something that might do for an appearance on the “Trash or Treasure” show, write a description and send it to the program, Du Mont Television Network, 515 Madison Ave., New York 22, N. Y. If it makes the grade, you will be invited to appear with it.

So go ahead and rummage. Remember that 10 per cent of the accumulated stuff in the nation’s attics is worth money, sometimes real big money.

Who wouldn’t take a flyer on a ten-to-one shot, particularly if the payoff may be a dollar sign followed by a numeral and lots of lovely zeros?*

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A PORTABLE COLOR RECORDER

Newest type of helical-scan video tape machine has been colorized

By JOE ROIZEN*

RECORDING COLOR TELEVISION SIGNALS on magnetic tape has been practical since 1958 when the first compatible color broadcast recorders went into service. These transverse studio machines use four heads which rotate at right angles to tape travel (see Fig. 1). The machines also contain very complex circuitry and time-base correction devices. The circuits are necessary to achieve studio-quality NTSC playbacks that meet FCC specifications for on-the-air transmission; such VTR’s (video tape recorders) range in price from $40,000 to $100,000.

The development of inexpensive helical videotape recorders (Fig. 2) for monochrome industrial and home applications, coupled with the current color boom, has led to investigations into relatively simple, inexpensive ways to colorize these recorders. The pilot-carrier principle has proved a suitable system. Modifications to a normal monochrome recorder (Ampex VR-7000) and a home color receiver make it possible to record and play back color programs with a fidelity approximately equal to off-air home reception.

The time-base problem The NTSC color signal is composed of interleaved monochrome and chrominance signals amplitude-modulated on an rf carrier. The monochrome portion of the video signal requires only that the horizontal sync coming from tape have less than a 0.15% per sec2 rate change for stable monitor images. This is a fairly large and easy-to-meet requirement for modern videotape recorders with head-drum servos. The chrominance portion, however, has a subcarrier signal of approximately 3.58 MHz. The instantaneous phase of this subcarrier determines hue in the reproduced image. One cycle of the subcarrier (360°) has a 0.279-usec period, and a 10° error in subcarrier phase will produce a noticeable hue shift. 10° represents only about 8 nsec. Allowing for the accumulation of record and playback errors, a time base of better than 4 nsec is needed to reproduce faithful color pictures. Such an extremely fine time base is not easy to attain.

Any rotating mechanism is subject to undesirable movement due to mechanical and electrical eccentricities, dynamic imbalance, walking bearings, etc. The head-drum assembly in a VTR will normally display such variations in angular velocity as a time-base displacement of the reproduced signal. A monochrome picture may exhibit slight jitter, which is usually masked by the flywheel effect of the horizontal sync circuit of the home receiver. But when color is added, the rotating-head displacements show up as constant changes in subcarrier phase and the image looks as though it has lost color synchronization.

The pilot-carrier principle The composite color signal used for recording in the VR-7000-A (the color version of the VR-7000) is also fed to a burst separator which phase-locks a crystal oscillator running at the color subcarrier frequency (see Fig. 3). The output of the crystal oscillator is divided by 7 in a tuned circuit that yields 511 kHz, as shown in Fig. 4. The 511 kHz is then multiplexed at a 5% level onto the FM signal applied to the recording head. The current through the head then has a 5% pilot-carrier content. The level must be high enough to be detectable in the playback circuits yet low enough to minimize interference visibility in the reproduced image.

In playback (Fig. 5) the 511-kHz signal is recovered at the head preamp output, and a bandpass filter isolates it from the FM signal carrying the video information. Two limiters amplify and clip the signal to a uniform level; the pulses now drive a Schmitt trigger whose square-wave output goes to a second bandpass filter centered at 3.58 MHz, the 7th harmonic of the 511-kHz pilot carrier. The 3.58 MHz is amplified and fed out of the recorder to the chrominance demodulation circuits of the modified home receiver. The set’s own quadrature circuits form the 0° and 90° signals to decode the color information.

Since the pilot-carrier signal is subject to the same time-base displacement errors that the composite video signal is experiencing, the time relationship be- tween the pilot carrier and the desired signal remains constant. Hence the color signal can be decoded with reasonable time-base accuracy. The local oscillator in the color receiver is temporarily deactivated during VTR playback.

Recorder operation The signal system of the VR-7000-A (Fig. 6) must be capable of handling a bandwidth of at least 4.2 MHz to not attenuate the color sidebands. To eliminate unwanted noise, spurious high-frequency signals, etc., the input is filtered by a phase-linear 4.5-MHz low-pass filter network.

A fast-switching multivibrator-type modulator converts the video signal to FM. The carrier and deviation frequencies are somewhat elevated from their monochrome counterparts to minimize intermodulation effects between the FM signals and the high-energy color sub-carrier (Fig. 7). The modulator operates between 5.5 MHz at sync tip to 6.6 MHz at peak white. A rising pre-emphasis going up to 14 dB at the color sub-carrier improves signal-to-noise ratio and differential gain and phase. The FM signal goes to a head-driver amplifier which provides a constant-current source to the recording head up to 15 MHz. A rotating transformer with an 8-to-l ratio transfers the amplifier output to the transducer. A 50-microinch head gap is employed.

In playback (Fig. a low-impedance preamp gives a flat frequency response. Aperture correction and equalization are applied to the FM signal before 50 dB of shunt limiters eliminate variations in signal amplitudes.

The output of the limiter is a constant-amplitude FM signal. A pulse-count detector and a 4.2-MHz phase-linear low-pass filter convert the signal back to video and remove residual carrier and deviation components. The output amplifier feeds two 75-ohm outputs, and the monitor (receiver) must be “jeeped” (rf and i.f. stages bypassed) to provide direct access to the video circuits.

Further development of a heterodyne signal-processing system will eliminate the need for modifying the home receiver. At that time it will be possible to modulate the composite video signal on a carrier and feed it into the set through the antenna terminals on an unused channel.

A color-kill circuit in the VR-7000-A detects the presence of bursts on the input signal and activates the pilot carrier in the record mode. If no burst is present, the pilot carrier is shut off so that the recording will not contain the 511-kHz signal. Under certain background conditions, faint vertical lines can be seen in the playback image due to interference from the pilot carrier. The level, however, is not high enough to be objectionable and with normal image conditions, is not noticeable.

The colorized VR-7000-A produces acceptable color pictures for most non-broadcast uses, such as educational, industrial and home applications.

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Here comes TV for everybody

The whole country, and not just a few metropolitan centers, will enjoy television when new ultra-high-frequency stations go on the air.

IF YOUR home is outside the TV areas today, it is almost sure to be inside one within a few years. If you now can get only one or two stations, you’ll have a wider choice pretty soon.

Right now a total of 108 television stations are on the air. They all use waves from four to 18 feet long in the very-high-frequency range, called VHF. In the VHF range, only a few hundred stations can be fitted without interfering with each other. That’s barely enough to whet the American TV appetite. Now television is about to invade a new region of radio waves so short that they act almost like radar. These tiny waves, already explored but unused at present, promise you TV shows no matter where you live.

Already 1,357 stations using 52 channels in this ultra-high-frequency range—UHF— have been tentatively allocated B the Federal Communications Commission. Nearly all are for cities with less than 50,000 population. In addition, many new stations are to be set up in the VHF range already in use for TV. The combination should provide 2,000 TV stations within a few years, predicts FCC Chairman Wayne Coy, extending television’s ringside seat on the world to practically every family in the U.S.

What’s the Difference?

Shorter waves allow more stations, but they also bring some complications. The pictures wont look any different, and they can be either color or black-and-white. But UHF does not travel so far—about 15 miles against the 40 miles covered by today’s VHF. (This is an advantage as well as disadvantage: stations can be closer together without interference.) And since UHF acts somewhat like radar, it is more easily blocked by buildings and even the leaves of m trees. On the credit side is a greater immunity to trouble from automobile ignition systems, neon signs and electrical machinery. Present TV receivers and antennas are made for VHF, not UHF. To pick up the UHF stations, they will have to be changed. Fortunately, the conversion job is simple. The cost is expected to range between $20 and $75.

Experiment til Converters Made Nearly all manufacturers have made experimental attachments that will enable standard television receivers to pick up UHF stations. Most of them work by changing the UHF to a frequency now used for one of the VHF channels* The standard set then handles this reduced frequency just as if it were tuned to that VHF channel: Crosley, General Electric and RCA, among others, have demonstrated converter attachments that look like table-model radios. They are wired to the inside of the standard set. To operate one, you simply flip a switch and turn the converter dial to the UHF channel you want. The converter covers all UHF channels. Probable cost: $30 to $50. With the UHF switch off, the standard set works as it always did for the VHF stations. Eventually, when a sizable number of UHF stations are on the air, such converters will undoubtedly be standard equipment, built inside sets.

Other manufacturers—Zenith and Admiral for example—plan an even simpler method of converting their sets. Their present models use “turret tuners”: connected to the station-selector knob is a drum made up of 12 metal strips, each strip containing the electronic parts needed to tune in one of today’s 12 VHF channels. While the drum comes equipped with 12 timing strips, no more than seven are used in any one locality because no more than seven VHF channels are allocated to one area. That means the unused VHF strips can be replaced with strips that will tune in UHF channels.

The tuning-strip system has the advantage of low cost—a UHF strip should cost about $10. And it is simple—nothing shows outside the regular set, there are no extra switches or dials, and installation is a 10-minute job that requires no tools.

Antenna Change Simpler Yet Since UHF waves are so much shorter than VHF, you will need a special antenna to catch them. But it will be small and inexpensive. It would be mounted on top of the mast holding the VHF elements.

Several designs for antennas have already come from experiments with UHF (notably RCA’s in Bridgeport, Conn., PS, Aug. ‘50, p. 111). They range from the tiny and cheap “bow tie,” which works best five or six miles from the transmitter, through the efficient “stacked vee” and highly directive, almost ghostproof “rhombic,” to the very sensitive “parabolic” and “corner reflector.”

Technically, UHF is here. But actually, only a few experimental stations are operating. The FCC’s allocations are tentative and will not be made final until public hearings are completed. So it is bound to be a year or so before the first commercial UHF telecasts begin, and several years before you can settle down in your own favorite chair in towns from Ajo, Ariz., to Millinocket, Me.—towns that never had television before—to watch the Rose Bowl game being played thousands of miles away.

TV MIRRORS “SEE” ONLY ONE COLOR

IF YOU would like a mirror that reflects your favorite color and no other, the men to see are the color-television specialists of the Westinghouse Research Laboratories. By depositing ultrathin layers of metallic compounds on clear glass they are able to produce mirrors that reflect only one color—either red, green or blue.

The mirrors are used at both the transmitting and receiving ends of their color-television system. At the transmitting end they pick up the color picture and break it down into its three basic colors — red, blue and green — which are sent in the proper sequence. At the receiving end another set of mirrors “gather” the colors for the picture.

To make one-color mirrors, a clear sheet of glass, photo A, is placed in a big glass-jar “oven” surrounded by a wire cage. This is lowered as shown in photo B, sealed, and evacuated of air. Special metal compounds are heated until they evaporate, and as the vapors rise in the jar they strike the glass sheet to apply a smooth, even coaling. The thickness and number of layers deposited on the glass determine which color the mirror reflects.

The research scientist in photo C is studying how colors change under the influence of electricity. The telescope-like device can produce all colors of the rainbow by changing the voltage applied to a light beam.

Two-for-One Camera
TELEVISION’S fascinating forward march resulted in another development recently when Du Mont Laboratories, Inc., Clifton, N. J., announced the Electronicam, an amazing new two-for-one camera which enables standard black-and-white TV programs to be broadcast while a high-quality film of the same program is simultaneously recorded in black-and-white or color. The system will adapt to all film types and sizes, including wide screen, and is expected to result in greatly lowered film and production costs.

Television in Three Dimensions

A DEVICE which can produce a 360 degree picture by television through a stereoscope scanner has been invented by Leslie Gould, a radio engineer of Bridgeport, Connecticut. With Mr. Gould’s television system it is possible to televise a boxing match, a play, an orchestra, or any other spectacle whose scene of action can be compressed into a reasonable space.

The new invention makes use of neon tubes of various sizes and colors, depending upon

the magnitude of the image. The spot on which the television subject is located is scanned by beams from two rotating arms, as shown in the drawing above. At the extremity of each arm is a scanning drum containing a photo electric cell, which picks up the images to be televised.

The scene which is going to be televised must be flooded with a great quantity of strong light. Each electric eye catches the light reflected through the apertures in the revolving drums from the light portions of the body, and flashes to the transmitter the electric impulses set up by the variations in light.

TOTS Try Toys

Before trying to sell a new product toy maker Oliver Garfield (Toy Development Co.) tests child reactions to them.

Garfield and physicist Arthur Pinker-ton assemble Geniac, a toy electronic brain that flashes replies to queries.

TV WHIZ KID

Steve Allen, 13, with color TV he designed and built. Atherton, Calif., boy has been an electrical prodigy since the age of two.

Steve, whose color set was among first 100 in San Francisco area, made over $1000 last year repairing sets in his neighborhood.

PORTABLE TELEVISION

A 31-pound set steals a march on the industry

The gentleman shown above luxuriously sprawled in his bathtub is enjoying the newest thing in television—a portable set. (He also is risking electrocution because either a radio or TV set can kill a wet bather if he so much as touches it.) His set, made by the Sentinel Radio Corporation, has a small collapsible antenna, a 7-inch screen, and sells for $206.90 complete. It is easily transportable (below), needs only a socket with alternating current to operate both indoors and out, provides excellent reception which is comparable to that of much more expensive receivers. However at the rate Sentinel is turning out its sets (4,000 a month), it will be some time before the customers can walk into the store and buy them without delay. Another portable set, made by the Pilot Radio Corporation, has a tiny 3-inch screen, sells for only $99.50.

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TV Goes to the CONVENTIONS

ACCORDING to estimates, about 60 million people, or 40 percent of the nation’s population, will watch the political conventions this summer on more than 16 million TV sets. The largest concentration of television equipment ever assembled will beam the convention to the nation. These four pages of drawings show how it will be done. One entire wing of Chicago’s Amphitheatre will be given over to television and radio studios and equipment. Cable is being laid to every vantage point in the building and live pickups will be made at the entrances. An antenna on the roof will pick up remote broadcasts from hotels and rail terminals. Cameras on special pedestals will televise the convention proceedings from several points inside the vast main hall of the Amphitheatre.

Big wing of the building is split into five similar sections—four for the major television networks and one to be used jointly as a TV pool which also will serve the independents. The area in white shows the floor plan for one network. The cutaway drawing shows how this section will be split into studios and control rooms. Each of the rooms with colored walls and ceilings will be soundproofed. The remaining rooms will be built with temporary partitions. Studios permit interviews and comments whenever there is a lull in the convention proceedings. Telecasts from various parts of the building and from several strategic spots in Chicago’s Loop will be funneled into the control room. There technicians will be able to choose the most interesting picture to transmit to viewers watching video screens across the nation.

In addition to the studios, other rooms in the layout will be used for film editing and storage, headquarters for TV and radio newsmen, lounges, conference rooms, a scenery room and a complete kitchen. Teletypes will bring in the latest news and reactions from other parts of the country. Although this drawing shows only one of the four network areas, the others will have similar layouts. For the first time a large segment of the American voters actually will be able to see their candidate as he is chosen in the convention.

Telecasting facilities in addition to those shown here will be used widely. Crews of technicians with mobile transmitters will be on hand, ready to rush to any spot where news is being made. NBC hopes by convention time to perfect its latest TV marvel — a miniature back-pack camera that is carried and operated by one man.

Related posts

• The NATION Sits in on National Conventions (Jun, 1952)
• TELEVISION AND THE ELECTION (Jun, 1952)
• Postage Stamps as Propaganda (Jun, 1952)
• Political Spellbinding by Radio (Jun, 1952)
• Mechanical Ballot to Elect Next President (Jun, 1952)

LOOK AND LISTEN

Toshiba revs up LVR

A new video-cassette recorder with one-third the parts of conventional helical-scan VCR’s was demonstrated by Toshiba at Chicago’s summer Consumer Electronics Show. The prototype machine (photo) differs in appearance from the deck Toshiba may begin marketing in a year or so— perhaps at half the price of today’s more mechanically complex machines.

Pictures I saw from a one-hour endless-loop cassette ["Look and Listen," July] were viewable, but contained more glitches and noise than conventional VCR’s. But the so-called longitudinal video recorder (LVR) is being refined.

“In fact, we must take several more developmental steps to complete the system as it now stands,” said Dr. Norikazu Sawazaki, inventor of both helical-scan and Toshiba’s LVR system. “However, because of its many mechanical and technological advantages, we expect this unit to become the most advanced and least expensive VCR available,” Sawazaki said.

In conventional helical-scan decks, a re- cording head spins at high speed as the tape moves slowly past it. In this way, the high-density video information is recorded on slow-moving tape. In LVR’s, the video head remains stationary. The tape is an endless loop, 334.4 feet long. It zooms past the head at 236 inches per second in Toshiba’s prototype. Thus it takes just 17 seconds for the tape to go around once. But the head can move up slightly, and it does—each time the tape goes around. Thus it can play back 220 separate linear tracks on the tape, each of which lasts for just 17 seconds, for a total playing time of just over an hour. This stepping ability on parallel tracks gives an interesting feature I watched being demonstrated: random track access. A man from Toshiba tapped in a number on the front panel. A few seconds later, the track he had selected appeared on the screen. With a one-hour tape, any track can be accessed in a maximum of 17 seconds, making the system suitable for information retrieval.

Toshiba may offer LVR machines in several versions. In addition to slimming down the 17.6-lb. prototype, it is also working on a much smaller machine that could be packaged with a color-TV camera in a unit no bigger than a super 8 movie camera. This mini-LVR uses 1/8-inch-wide tape for 20-minute recordings. Another firm, BASF, has also slated a showing of its LVR in Europe this year. One major advantage to the upcoming LVR machines is that prerecorded tapes can be made in a few minutes, cutting costs for mass-production; helical-scan prerecorded tapes made in real time can take two hours.

Reversible cartridges

If you’re an owner of an 8-track cartridge player or recorder, there have probably been occasions when you wanted to replay a selection you’d just heard or recorded without “forwarding” through the entire cartridge. Unlike cassettes, which have two tape reels, cartridges—all 300 million sold each year—have one reel and go in one direction only.

Now someone’s come up with a solution. “Lots of people have tried to figure this one out,” says K. Rey Smith, a Princeton-trained engineer who invented a reversible 8-track cartridge called REV8 (photo). His solution was two reels instead of one. “With traditional 8-track systems, the tape loop feeds out of the middle of a single reel,” Smith says. “Everyone was trying to stuff the tape back into the hub, somehow, to make it rewind, and that just won’t work.” In the REV8, specially calibrated springs spread out like spokes from the center of the outer, take-up reel. Wind the tape loop around these springs and they collapse, adjusting themselves to the diameter of a smaller, inner reel. Because the two reels maintain approximately the same diameter, the tape loop can glide easily in either direction.

A dozen or so turns with your finger can reverse a cartridge enough to replay a music selection. Also, according to KRS Magnetics (One First St., Los Altos, Calif. 94022), which is marketing the REV8, firms are being lined up to make machines with a reverse control included.

Sidewalk Chats Are Televised
Passers-by in New-York City recently were interviewed on their tastes in television programs, while experimenters at sight-and-sound receivers watched them and heard their comments. A television camera was set up on the sidewalk for the experiment. N. B. C. engineers called the test the first scheduled outdoor program in their current series of experimental television broadcasts from the tower of the Empire State Building.

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Portable VCR’s

—new lightwights tape off the air or on the go Go-anywhere machines have convenience features that make recording easy

By JOHN FREE

Miniaturization, the inevitable in consumer electronics, has already caught up with portable video-cassette recorders (VCR’s) introduced just last year [PS, Nov. 78]. Lightweight portables from RCA and Akai are some five pounds lighter and about 45 percent smaller than previous models. New color TV cameras with advanced integrated circuitry are about half the weight of last year’s models.

Teamed with a battery-operated color camera, a portable VCR can capture your vacation on tape, help you improve your tennis or golf swings, record action family “albums,” make you a TV-movie director, and serve dozens of other at-home, business, or educational functions.

Add an optional tuner/timer module to a portable VCR, and you can tape programs off the air. A second tuner (besides the one in your TV) means you can tape one show while watching another. The combination-portable VCR, color camera, and tuner/timer—costs some $2300. But you’ll save $500 or more over the cost of buying both a portable VCR and a separate AC-only model for home use. Portable VCR’s cost about $1200, tuner/timers about $350, color cameras range from $750 to $1400, and black-and-white cameras are $225 or less. Discounters shave these prices.

While portables and tuner/timer modules offer features also available on home (AC-only) VCR’s [PS, Feb.]-freeze-frame, variable speed, programmability demonstrations I have seen of these models also emphasized some limitations. More on that later.

Tape versus film Akai America calls its lightweight camera and portable VCR the ActiVideo system. “We strongly believe that the coming decade will see video emerge as the principal format for home movies,” says Jerry Astor, Akai director of video marketing.

“With the lightweight color camera and the completely portable ActiVideo recorder, the consumer has all the advantages of a Super 8 film format without any of the disadvantages,” Astor said.

One disadvantage with film is that shooting and processing two hours of Super 8 may cost you about $330. A two-hour video-cassette tape, however, costs less than $17. And if you buy a costlier color TV camera with an electronic viewfinder (a miniature picture tube), you can review what you’ve just taped on the spot, erase, and retape the scene if necessary.

Akai has been marketing portable video recorders for some time, but ActiVideo is its first VHS-tape-format hardware. One survey indicates that nearly three-quarters of the VCR’s in homes are VHS. The other format, Beta, has been available longer, but RCA’s two-year push of VHS decks that record four hours on a single tape (compared to Beta’s initial two-hour limit) largely accounts for VHS’ success. Firms offering these two formats have now extended record/play time still further (see box).

Akai’s ActiVideo bristles with so many new features that a fast-paced demo, like one I saw at an electronics show, is amazing. The VP-7300 ($1125) portable deck has double- and variable-speed playback. There’s also still- and single-frame advance, or still advance at four times normal speed to quickly locate scenes.

“Sports fans can play back the action at slow, normal, or fast speeds, or stop completely and freeze the action to determine the moment of truth,” said Chuck Phillips, Akai’s general manager.

The deck weighs 15 lbs., and is 11.5 in. wide, 4.8 in. high, and 11.9 in. deep. One drawback is a single tape speed (1.32 ips), so that two hours is the maximum recording time. Longer-playing VHS cassettes that would boost record time may be introduced. A battery charge provides one hour of portable recording.

Portables at home Paired with the VU-7300 tuner/timer, the deck can record off the air.

The 7300 is also programmable, but unlike some tuner/timer modules that automatically change channels, it’s limited to two programs on one channel each day for one week. One unusual feature is that the battery can take over during brief power failures. Programmed selections won’t be lost and will still be recorded on time.

Another new lightweight portable deck with a tuner/timer option is being offered by RCA. Hitachi makes the equipment in Japan, and will market its own slightly altered version, too. RCA’s VHS deck has an LP-mode switch to halve tape speed so you can record four hours on one cassette.

The portable RCA VDP150 weighs only 14.3 lbs.; it’s 4.5 in. high, 10V4 in. wide, and 11% in. deep. The VDP150 records 1-1/2 hours on a battery charge. RCA’s matching TDP1000 tuner/timer can only be set to record a program 24 hours ahead of time. But new accessory components are being introduced so rapidly that, by the time you read this, a programmable tuner/timer module may be available.

Most of the other portable VCR’s on the market at this writing are somewhat heavier and bulkier than the Akai and RCA models. Including the battery, most portables weigh 19 to 21 lbs. and are about 12V& in. wide, 5Vz in. high, and 12Vfe to 14 in. deep. The extra weight and bulk shouldn’t be any problem if you carry a machine short distances, or tape from a vehicle with a power adapter plugged into a cigarette lighter. But lugging 21 lbs. plus a TV camera any great distance can be a strain.

Some of these bigger models, such as the Panasonic PV2100, PV2200, and similar Quasar models, record only 30 minutes on a battery charge.

Magnavox says its portable can record up to 80 minutes, since its TV camera has a separate built-in battery. For use at home with an optional tuner/timer, one advantage some of these bigger models have is seven-day-programming capability. Several modules are available with either mechanical or varactor (all-electronic) tuners. J.C. Penney and Magnavox are two firms offering programmable modules that can automatically tune in and record different channels you preset up to a week ahead. The modules are paired with two/four-hour VHS portable decks.

Trim color cameras Shrinking more and more recorder-circuit functions onto tiny microcircuits not only helps miniaturize portables, but it makes color TV more compact—almost like small Super 8 film cameras. JVC, for example, has two models (see photo) that weigh only 3.1 and 3.3 lbs. The heart of these cameras is a %-in. Vidicon tube that has a built-in color-stripe filter. By putting 90 percent of the electronic functions into integrated circuits, JVC cut the number of components to less than half that in most single-tube color-TV cameras.

Both of JVC’s lightweights have through-the-lens optical viewfinders, as does the 3.2-lb. model Akai introduced with its new portable deck. You’ll have to take along a portable TV if you want to review what you’ve taped in the field. All three models also have zoom lenses and automatic iris control. Video and audio output signals are compatible between VCR brands, but cable connections may not be. Cameras have a pistol-grip push-button control to start or stop (pause) camera operation; this is one of several input connections that can differ between VCR decks.

New ultrasensitive color cameras will operate with only 10 foot-candles. You’ll first have to set a camera switch for color temperature: indoors, outdoors, or low light (morning or evening). Then put your portable VCR in RECORD, press the camera-start button, and tape as long as you like-without worrying about costly film development.

Sidebar

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Home VCR’s get new features. Video-cassette recorders equipped for home use (AC only) are evolving with incredible speed. The latest models, equipped with microprocessor-based convenience features and extra-long play, trim tape cost per hour and simplify recording.

JVC, which has stuck with single-speed (1.31 ips) VHS recorders capable of two-hour recording, now offers the HR-6700U. This new deck has a second speed (0.43 ips) that captures six hours of programming on a two-hour T-120 cassette. JVC uses separate sets of recording heads for each speed to maintain high picture quality. The deck’s microcomputer-controlled programmable timer lets you automatically record six different programs on different channels while you’re away for a week. A remote control can select playback at double speed, slow motion, or freeze frame.

Sharp’s new $1395 VC-6800 can also tape up to six hours with a two-hour VHS cassette. Its computerized tuner can be set for seven channels and programs over seven days. A backup battery takes over timing functions if AC power fails. Sharp’s Automatic Program Locate Device (APLD) puts signals on the tape so up to 99 locations can be quickly spotted by fast scanning in either forward or reverse.

Several Beta-format decks, until now limited to three hours maximum recording with L-750’s, now have a slower speed that permits 4-1/2 hours on these cassettes, and five hours on the L-830 cassette planned for introduction.

BetaScan is a new feature added to Sony’s SL-5400 and SL-5600 recorders. It allows you to locate sections by viewing pictures as the deck runs the tape rapidly in forward or reverse.

Sanyo’s $1495 VCR5500 is another Beta-format deck that now has 4-1/2-hour recording capability. It also features seven-day preprogramming (five shows), and remote control for fast search in forward or reverse, variable-speed slow motion, and stop action.

Panasonic and Quasar have also updated their two/four-hour VHS machines to the newer two/six-hour format.

Although the VHS and Beta tape formats seem to be firmly established, other systems are on the way [see "Look and Listen," this issue].

TV Set Has Chairside Control
This new RCA Victor projection-type television set features a remote-control box that lets you adjust brightness and contrast without leaving your chair. Usually available in the past only as custom equipment, the unit, with its connecting cord, permits continual adjustment of these controls from up to 25 feet from the set.

Television Set in New York Picks Up London Programs

TELEVISION programs broadcast from Alexandra Palace, London, and from Rome, Italy, have been seen many times this year in the mirror of a special cathode ray television receiver located in Riverhead, Long Island (just outside of New York City). Since television signals of this nature can ordinarily be picked up only within about 60 miles of a transmitter, this transoceanic reception over a distance of more than 3400 miles is truly remarkable.

Television Picture Attachment Uses Any A.C. Set for Sound
Utilizing the chassis and loud speaker of any a.c.-operated radio for accompanying sound, this table-model attachment reproduces television images for direct viewing. It plugs into your regular receiver in the same manner that you would connect a record player. The picture is 3-3/8 in. by 4-3/8 in. Five television receiving channels are provided.

Instant pix from tiny TV tube

Shown here actual size, these two photos are part of a picture sequence made by contact printing quick-copy photographic paper (in a perforated roll) with a new and remarkable TV tube. Made by Panasonic, the 1.5-inch miniature cathode-ray tube has a fiber-optics face plate and a high-resolution electron gun, yielding pictures of 300-350 lines resolution. To print ordinary TV pictures, silver halide paper in contact with the fiber-optics tube face is exposed to light from the screen phosphors during the scanning period of a single frame— 1/30 second. The processing time is about 15 seconds. Video printer will be used to make pictures from closed-circuit TV (as here), broadcast TV, computer outputs, and specialized sources.

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Where TELEVISION Stands Today

by DAVID SARNOFF

President, Radio Corporation of America What progress is being made in television? How far has it advanced today? What new developments lie in the immediate future? These pressing questions, about which the vast public waiting for television is wondering, are answered in this unusual article by Mr. Sarnoff, whose eminence in the field enables him to speak with unquestioned authority.

IMPORTANT strides are being made with television. In our development work now proceeding at Camden, N. J., we are seeking to perfect television to a point where it is capable of rendering real service before offering it to the public.

While the public was willing, and even eager, to experiment with radio in the early stages of broadcast development, it seems to us that it will desire a comparatively more advanced television receiver than the early crystal radios.

There was no precedent for the taking of sound and music out of space, but the public has been educated by the motion picture industry to expect picture transmission of a high quality, and it is doubtful whether interest can be sustained by inferior television images.

The progress we have made so far has given us the belief that ultimately a great service of television can and will be made available. I do not believe that television will supersede sound broadcasting by radio. It will be a correlated industry.

The present status of television might be likened to the condition of radio in the immediate pre-broadcasting era, when amateurs were beginning to hear faint sounds through the air.

Voices and music were passing through space in those early days of radio; comparably, there are actually some images passing through the air today. They are being received by established experimental stations and by amateur operators in various sections of the United States.

The next stage should find television comparable to the ear-phone stage of radio. Then, television should attain the same degree of development as did radio sound broadcasting in the early period of the crystal set.

This does not mean that the actual physical structure of the first television receiver will be similar in any way to the crystal receiver.

Before television reaches the practical stage of service it is necessary that several experimental stations for the transmission of sight by radio be established. Through the operation of these experimental stations, we expect to obtain exact information and practical field experience which are required before definite plans can be developed for a television Service of nationwide scope.

The effect of television upon the present established radio industry will be beneficial. There will be no interference between the broadcasting of sound and of sight. These services will supplement each other and complete the impression upon the human mind by reaching it through both the eye and the ear.

Television broadcasting stations will operate on wave lengths different from those now used for the broadcasting of sound. An entirely different receiver will be necessary. In the practical sense of the term, television must develop to the stage where broadcasting stations will be able to broadcast regularly visual objects in the studio, or scenes occurring in other places through remote control.

Reception devices must be developed that will make these objects and scenes discernible in millions of homes.

Devices must be built upon a principle that will eliminate rotary scanning discs, delicate hand controls and movable parts. Research must make possible the utilization of wave lengths for sight transmission that will not interfere with the use of the already over-crowded channels in space.

The potential audience of television in its ultimate development may reasonably be expected to be limited only by the population of the earth itself.

This vast increase in the entertainment audience has been made possible by the introduction of modern science into the older arts. And now television will come to open new channels, to provide new opportunities for art and the artist and to create new services for the audiences of all the world. Potentially speaking, tele- vision can be utilized by 26,000,000 homes in this country alone.

The instantaneous projection through space of light images produced directly from objects in the studio or the scene brought to the studio by remote control involves many problems.

Special types of distribution networks, new forms of stagecraft, and a development of studio equipment and technique will be required. With these must come a new and greater service of broadcasting, both of sight and sound. A new world of cultural and educational opportunities will be opened to the home.

But even more appealing to the individual is the hope that television may, at least in a measure, enable man to keep pace with his thoughts. The human being has been created with a mind that can encompass the whole world within the fraction of a second. Yet his physical senses lag woefully behind. With his feet he can walk only a limited distance. With his hands he can touch only what is within reach. His eyes can see at a limited range and his ears are useful at a short distance only.

When television has fulfilled its ultimate destiny, a man’s sense of physical limitation will be swept away, and his boundaries of sight and hearing will be the limits of the earth itself.

Editor’s Note : In connection with the predictions made above by Mr. Sarnoff, engineers expect the development of television will follow along the lines of one of three outstanding systems now being employed. A tense but silent battle is now being waged between these systems—the Baird system, developed by John Logie Baird, of England; the well-known scanning disc system; and the cathode ray tube system, which has a great advantage in that it employs no moving parts.

The Baird system promises to open a new field of television movies, both in the theatre and in the home. With the perfection of this system, which is illustrated in an accompanying drawing, we may be able to sit comfortably in our home or in the theatre and watch the performance of plays being transmitted from a master theatre, much in the manner of present chain broadcasting.

This future development of television was foreshadowed in a demonstration conducted recently in London. For a period of some thirty minutes the audience was treated to visual and aural entertainment by several well-known British artists performing in a distant studio. The images were declared by spectators to have a brightness and definition comparable to the usual motion picture performance.

The images were produced on the screen, measuring 2 by 5 feet, by a bank of 2,100 small tungsten filament lamps, each of which was set in a small compartment. The 2,100 compartments formed a huge honeycomb, thus building up the image in small squares. To diffuse the image and thus eliminate to a great extent the “square effect,” an opaque screen of ground glass was placed before the “honeycomb.”

The battery of lamps is switched on and off to form the image by a special commutator machine having 2,100 segments, each of which is connected to a lamp in the “honeycomb.” A rotary contact arm, or selector revolving at a speed of 750 R.P.M., sweeps over the aforementioned segments, delivering current to the lamps at a rate of over 25,000 contacts every second!

The majority of engineers at present are striving to develop a home television receiver which eliminates the cumbersome scanning disc. What is sought is a receiver which is quiet in operation, practically fool-proof, and which has a minimum of moving parts to get out of kilter.

The cathode ray tube possesses many of the qualities necessary to fill the bill. Forming an almost self-contained unit, save for the amplifier, the cathode ray tube is primarily a projector, with a glass screen covered with a fluorescent material. The filament of the tube emits a stream of moving electric particles which are transformed into a pencil point of light when they impinge on the fluorescent screen.

Controlling this electron stream are two sets of deflecting plates swinging the stream of particles back and forth to correspond with the motion of the scanning instrument at the transmitter. The result is a complete scanning of the fluorescent screen on the end of the tube, building up the image as it sweeps back and forth.

The system which has found most widespread use at present, particularly in the United States, makes use of the well-known scanning disc. Credit for the most outstanding development with this system to date goes to Ulysses Sanabria, young Chicago investor, who has perfected equipment which can project an image of remarkable brilliance and definition on a 10-foot screen.

At a demonstration conducted recently in a New York theatre, 2,000 people witnessed a television program which drew such comments as from “pretty good” to “extremely creditable.”

What distinguishes the Sanabria system is the new high power lamp which projects the flying spot on the screen, and the specially designed transmitting and receiving scanning discs. The receiving disc has 45 holes in all, arranged in three sets of spirals, each covering 120 degrees of the disc. With such an arrangement one-third of the entire surface of the subject is scanned in one-third of a revolution of the disc, which rotates at 900 R.P.M.

It is the unusual design of the projector which makes possible the almost movie-size images. The disc, 3-1/2 ft. in diameter, instead of having mere holes is fitted with 45 lenses, each two inches in diameter.

Directly behind this disc is a Taylor projector lamp, designed by Mr. Sanabria, who is keeping its construction a secret. The screen on which the image is formed is set 18 feet in front of the projector. The translucent material of the screen permits the image to be thrown against it from the rear, while the audience views the performance from the front.

Most of the current television programs are being broadcast on wavelengths around 150 meters. Signals transmitted over a distance of more than 150 miles, however, tend to show “ghost” images on the viewing screen, as illustrated in an accompanying drawing.

To eliminate this defect, engineers are designing transmitters to operate on wavelengths around 5 meters. The waves are transmitted directly to the receiving antennae, so that reflection of secondary waves from the heaviside layer to the receiver is avoided.

Regular television service from station W6XAO, in Los Angeles, was opened recently, broadcasting on a wavelength of 6% meters, or 44,500 kilocycles. At the present time signals are being sent out between six and seven P. M. (P. S. T.). Eighty lines are used and the image is repeated fifteen times per second.

There are practically no mechanical features to the system in use at W6XAO, as the system employs cathode ray beam at both transmitter and receiver, instead of motors and scanning discs. The receiving area extends approximately forty miles from the point of projection. Reception is also weakened by intervening hills.

The early part of the year of 1932 will see the inauguration in New York City of a new low-wave television broadcasting system operating down on 4 meters. The antenna is now in process of construction on the tip of the mooring mast of the world’s tallest structure, the Empire State Building.

The station is expected to serve only an area within 15 to 25 miles of the tower, as the waves are limited to visible distances. In this area, however, an audience of ten million can be served.

Despite the present status to which tele- vision has advanced, it still labors under many serious difficulties. Chief among these are a lack of definition (poor detail) and brilliancy.

With the few lines now utilized the images do not receive a thorough scanning, particularly where scenes covering a wide area are involved. Increasing the number of lines will bring clearer pictures, making it possible to televise such spectacular events as football games and boxing matches.

For images lacking brilliancy, insufficient signal strength, and particularly, the present inadequacies of the neon lamps now available are largely responsible. Television will not arrive at perfection until a lamp is developed which can respond brilliantly to weak signal currents.

When engineers have vanquished the difficulty of perfect synchronization they will have made a noteworthy advance. When the scanning disc of the receiver gets out of step with the transmitter, strange things happen to the televised picture. As illustrated in an accompanying drawing, the image rises and falls on the screen, sways from one side to the other, or shifts dizzily back and forth till it becomes unrecognizable.

Camera Worn Like Wrist Watch Loads Thirty Six Pictures

Latest in the line of miniature cameras is a tiny affair worn like a wrist watch. Sighted easily by raising the wrist to eye level, it carries a load of thirty-six exposures despite its diminutive size. It has an f4.5 lens and a focusing scale graduating from one foot to infinity.

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RADIO Movies in Color

By ALFRED ALBELLI

Television in color is now an accomplished mechanical fact. Mr. Albelli, in this article, tells how the broadcasting device works and points out the possibilities of color radio movies for everybody.

RADIO movies loom as a strong possibility now that color television has been reached.

The man who forecasts motion pictures by radio is none other than Dr. Herbert Ives, research engineer at the Bell Laboratories in New York City.

In the display of colored television by Dr. Ives the hues of the American flag were flashed on a screen a hundred feet away from the transmitter, revealing the achievement of the research engineers for the first time.

Next the man at the transmitter picked up a piece of watermelon. It was readily identified on the television screen. The red of the melon, the black seeds and the green rind were plainly discerned.

Then came a pineapple, a bouquet of roses and the image of a girl in a colored dress, to show that the latest radio “eye” is sensitive to any color. Dr. Ives pointed out that the person or object whose image is to be transmitted is rapidly scanned by a beam of flickering bright light, while three sets of electric eyes, known as photo-electric cells, are arranged so as to transmit current corresponding to the amount of a primary color, red, blue or green.

At the receiver three tubes form images corresponding in brightness and color to what the electrical eyes at the sending machine see. A system of mirrors combines the three images to form the one color image on the receiving screen.

“The outstanding contributions that have made color television possible,” said Dr. Ives, “are a new photo-electric cell, new gas cells for reproducing the image and the instruments associated directly with them.

“Each of the three sets of photo-electric cells used is provided with color filters or sheets of colored gelatine. One set has filters of an orange-red color, which makes the ‘eyes’ see things as the red sensitive nerves of the retina see them; another set has yellow-green filters to give the green effect and the third has green-blue filters for the blue constituent of vision.

“I do not think the day distant when radio movies will be flashed in color on a large screen, though for some time the process will be rather expensive,”