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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Yay for early DRM. How long do you think it would have been before some Norwegian kid built themselves a Descrambling Card Simulation System (DeCSS) and gave the plans to all of their friends so they could view scrambled broadcasts on their non compatible European TVs?
Subscription TV
WOULD you like to see the opera, ballet, latest sports events, movies and Broadway plays on TV, sans commercials? If the FCC okays Skiatron, by merely inserting special program cards in a decoder unit attached to your set, you’ll view special programs at nominal fees.
Wow, RCA seems to have tried out every technology that could possibly compete with VCRs, slapped the SelectaVision name on it and saw if it would sell. Did these ever get released?
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.
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I wonder if the people from Antiques Roadshow thought they came up with this idea first.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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