Television at CBS...in 1931

[Fletch]

From the blog Modern Mechanix, a look inside CBS television experiment station W2XAB, on the air from 1931 to 1933.

W2XAB operated on the early-day low-resolution mechanical scanning system, which is explained in the article. This was an abortive technology killed off by the Depression and the development of all-electronic TV as we know it today.

CBS was a pioneer in developing programming, which was seldom tried then because of the need to improve picture quality. Mostly, close-up and medium-close-up shots, bold charcoal drawings, and magic lanterns were used. Programs included live in-studio boxing, 1932 election returns, and The Television Ghost, a 15-minute monologue that's considered the first dramatic TV series.

The TV audience of the day consisted of several thousand home tinkerers and amateur broadcasters. W2XAB broadcast over the shortwave band and could be seen and heard through much of the continental U.S. "Lookers-in" wrote letters to CBS, as detailed in an interesting 1932 New York Times feature.

 

[LizzieMaine]

This is great stuff -- thanks for digging it up!

What I find most interesting about CBS mechanical television is how much of the equipment was repurposed: the arc light was obviously liberated from a theatre projection booth somewhere, and the shortwave transmitter and the amplifiers were retuned audio gear. Only the photocell array was built especially for television.

NBC, on the other hand, seemed to have the approach that everything had to be purpose-built from scratch, and spent most of their time with mechancial TV working out the kinks in technology -- finally coming to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the trouble.

Mechanical TV was little more than a novelty in the US, but it reached a very high level of development in Britain, where John Logie Baird continued refining the process well into the mid-thirties. Those interested in this subject ought to look up Donald F. McLean's definitive book "Restoring Baird's Image," which documents just how sophisticated British mechanical TV became before the system was abandoned in 1936.

 

[Flivver]

Early television is a fascinating topic. Thanks for posting this Fletch.

I think if it weren't for the Depression, scanning disc TV might have taken off here in the US in the early 1930s. Lots of work was going on in the 1920s, and by 1927, there were already two magazines devoted to the subject...Television and Television News; not to mention lots of coverage on television in the radio and scientific magazines of the day.

Has anyone here tried to build a scanning disc TV system? It's not that difficult since, as Lizzie pointed out above, most of the equipment needed was repurposed (except the photo tube). I have seen demonstrations of scanning disc TV at several old radio meets I have attended. Since then, I've had the idea to build one for myself, but there always seem to be more projects than available time.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Thanks very much for this!! Very interesting.

 

[Fletch]

This is great stuff -- thanks for digging it up!

What I find most interesting about CBS mechanical television is how much of the equipment was repurposed: the arc light was obviously liberated from a theatre projection booth somewhere, and the shortwave transmitter and the amplifiers were retuned audio gear. Only the photocell array was built especially for television.

IIRC, they purchased that and some other equipment (such as a receiver set) from RCA. As a non-OEM with a very small research staff, they really had no choice.

Indeed, if CBS had not hired Peter Goldmark to start a color TV lab later on in the 30s, they would not have been allowed to experiment in TV at all. FCC regulations by then had been changed to exclude those whose interest was purely in receivers or programming. You had to be working on a complete TV system, and have something to contribute to the continuing drive for a technical standard. Ie: you had to be a fairly major player in the industry or you lost your ticket.

But I digress, slightly.

NBC, on the other hand, seemed to have the approach that everything had to be purpose-built from scratch, and spent most of their time with mechancial TV working out the kinks in technology -- finally coming to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the trouble.

Yes, that happened in about 1933, when the RCA Camden labs finally developed a workable CRT camera. There are cites in the literature that RCA purposely did not try any program technique in the scanner era, and even sent garbled pictures to discourage interest from amateurs. Well into the CRT era, RCA-NBC was very much against outsiders looking in. As late as 1938, when DuMont started offering sets for sale in NYC, NBC (then the only station on the air) actually went dark for several weeks to discourage the sale of even a few sets until RCA felt ready to enter the market.

It's amazing that the University of Iowa kept experimenting with scanner TV right into the late 30s, broadcasting educational chalk-talks and such to a scattering of obsolete sets in the Midwest (one owned by a small oil well building firm that later became the Halliburton Co.). I believe there was some loosening of the FCC regs here, to leave the door open for shortwave low-def educational programs in case the CRT TV industry failed to develop.

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

Fascinating article, thanks.

Ran across what appeared to be a depression-era floor radio with a large edge-perforated metal disc inside as a kid at a local thrift store once; had no idea what it was till much later.

Interesting to see how the foice was carried by telephone to a separate transmitter station 15 mi away.

Some more pics from an old thread of storage of some early TV signals on disc...

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=9969

 

[dhermann1]

I've read somewhere that as soon as Baird saw a demo of the electronic system he realized his technology was a dead duck.
Semi-off the subject: Did anyone ever see the hilarious Bela Lugosi flic "Murder by Television" from 1933? Also, in movies of the era, the idea of the camera being in a fixed spot wasn't too clear to people. Films showing "future television" have images cascading down from all over. Pretty funny.
Also semi-off the subject: Didn't Burr Tillstrom (of Kukla, Fran and Ollie fame) get his start doing hand puppets on TV at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair?

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Did anyone ever see the hilarious Bela Lugosi flic "Murder by Television" from 1933?

I've heard of it, but haven't seen it. I *have* seen Lyle Talbot and Mary Astor in a 1936 flick called Trapped By Television, though I liked it -- the television was so big and bulky!!!!

 

[Fletch]

I have Murder by Television on VHS. I was let down by the very brief and sketchy scenes involving TV. The rest of the pic is just dull drawing-room interrogation.

The movie is supposedly downloadable here, if a solid hour of Lugosi muttering unintelligibly and never changing facial expressions is your idea of a good time.