SIGHTSEEING AT HOME

foreign good evening this is Ted Houston greeting you from station wrgv in Schenectady New York wonderful thing television is he really doing that of course Aunt Emily you mean attend a movie rubbish pets tonight instead of our usual team and quiz show wrgb will televise a motion picture on television itself television the very same medium of communication by which my image is coming to you now this film most of which was made in our own Studios was produced in response to many of your requests asking for information on television and how it works we hope you'll all know in a general way before the evening is over Fade Out one fade in three okay the movie's on the air see I told you the man said so himself it's a movie now yes but the movie's been televised is coming to us over the year like radio George Fulham let me smell your breath [Music] man is a curious prying creature since the very beginning of History he has been trying to peer into the Obscure creating the tools which permit him to Snoop more successfully for his knowledge and pleasure he wanted to find out about the stars and their movements so he invented the telescope he wanted to study the composition of materials to see The Germ in close-up so he developed the microscope he wanted to listen in on distant sounds to pass along information so he built more devices the telephone the telegraph the radio without budging more than a few blocks he wanted to see far-off places distant people in action so the motion picture camera made its appearance but these were not enough in spite of the fact that he could see and hear a duplication of something that had already happened elsewhere a talking picture of a past event in spite of the fact that in his own home he could hear words Sound and Music from great distances the very moment they were being produced still he was not satisfied he wanted to go sightseeing at home by his own Fireside he wanted to see as well as hear what is happening now someplace else Seoul television was devised aside from broadcasting sound television you know simply consists of taking pictures and sending those pictures out over the air at the same time as you might expect a camera is used for the photography just as in any other kind of picture taking only there's no film in the television camera developing film and printing pictures takes too long besides you can't broadcast paper pictures you can however broadcast electrical pictures and those are the kind that the television camera takes behind the lens of the camera is a special plate in a glass tube one of the great developments in the promising science of electronics this plate is a fascinating device it's completely covered with millions of tiny electric eyes which of course are sensitive to light when light strikes them they become charged with electricity and the amount of electricity they develop depends upon the amount of light striking them the more light the greater the electric charge now any scene is made up of various points of light and Shadow some sections are light some dark some are in between here for example the jackets are lighter than the trousers so naturally they create greater charges of electricity on the plate than the trousers do all the shading and details of a scene are reproduced the same way the electric eyes see the various differences in light levels and develop electric charges to match them combined these charges form electric pictures of the scene which are sent out immediately each picture does not go out all at once however as a snapshot might through the mail like a telegraph message it's sent bit by bit arriving at the receiver's piecemeal the charge in each electric eye becomes an electric impulse and dashes merrily away by itself the other impulses following in single file one after the other as they reach a receiver they strike the screen in order and are transformed back into points of light and Shadow of course the process is much faster than you see it here it has to be to keep you from noticing the mechanics of it to keep up with any action in the scene and to give the illusion of motion we've just slowed it down so you could see how it's done now we'll speed it up 30 complete pictures go out every second in the form of single electric impulses and every second four million impulses reach the receiver screen one after the other God it sounds unreasonable I know but it's quite true as the charges are removed from the plate the electric impulses Dash from the camera to the control room through a special cable here great pains are taken to keep them from getting muddled or out of proportion and to prevent any interference the impulses are very weak at this point so the engineers strengthen them through electronic tubes like the tubes in your radio to make them powerful enough to send over the air outside they Rush up a towering antenna and are released in the form of an extremely short radio wave aimed directly for the transmitter the transmitter which acts as a link between the studio and the television audience is always at a high altitude this is because the distance over which television programs can be received satisfactorily is usually limited to the area between the top of the transmitter and the Horizon the higher the transmitter the more distant The Horizon and the greater the area reached this site in the helderberg Hills a few miles from Albany New York is a particularly good one within the Horizon lies the entire New York state capitol District so it's easy for people in Albany Troy Schenectady and nearby towns and villages to tune in the programs so much for that now for a trip to the relay station a first and major step in the establishment of practical television networks because this station is at a still higher altitude and practically free from any noise or other interference it manages to receive programs which are broadcast from New York City 129 miles away even though it is somewhat below the Horizon as seen from the top of the Empire State Building as the station receives these programs from New York it relays them to a receiving antenna at the transmitter which as you will notice is within the Horizon as seen from the relay at the transmitter they are given greater power and rebroadcast all over the Capital District completing the network the first television network in history it is here in the transmitter while final checkups are being made that all programs from New York or otherwise are at last released to the various television home receivers in and around the district if you've never seen a television screen in the Raw this is what it looks like actually it's part of a large glass tube developed in the wondrous electronic Laboratories the end of the tube is frosted on the inside with a sensitive chemical the same type of chemical that is used in fluorescent lamps this chemical backing which forms the screen is unusually sensitive to electric charges and will glow in response to them so whenever television signals reach the tube the screen gives off light and the amount of light it gives off depends on the strength of the electric impulses striking the chemical screen in order the impulses are transformed back into the same points of light and Shadow that make up the scene in front of the camera and our electric pictures become visible the whole process from camera to receiver seems to take a lot of time and trouble doesn't it yet in spite of the complications in spite of the distance we see whatever is being televised almost instantaneously the television Studio itself is more like a motion picture Studio than a radio station at wrgb you will not only find air conditioning soundproof walls control rooms and the usual microphones but scenery cameras Furniture properties and a host of powerful lighting units these lights are all water cooled to eliminate unnecessary heat and maintain comfortable working conditions the ones in the ceiling were specially designed and are governed from a control desk at the flip of a switch each unit can be silently tipped or turned around to concentrate light exactly where it's needed one section of the building is devoted to movies since Studio programs require most of the detailed preparation needed for a stage play enough of them cannot be produced to fill all the scheduled time consequently movies are one of the three major program divisions doing for television what recordings or transcriptions do for radio this equipment is also used for still photographs maps and titles occasionally in the third division of programming televising special events lies a great future for it has all the merits of the motion picture newsreel and more everything from feeding the seals in the zoo to a complete World Series or the Kentucky Derby may be seen by our very own firesides while they're actually happening we can see the distant present not just a photographic record of the past a mobile unit like this is nothing more than a television station on Wheels after being driven to the scene of action and set up for the broadcast it relays both Sight and Sound directly to the transmitter from a collapsible antenna the method of broadcasting is the same as for any other type of program now let's return to the studio floor for a backstage glimpse of what goes on there during a program [Music] [Music] the sound of course is picked up by microphones and is being sent out along with the picture signals [Music] yeah [Music] and these monitors the director can see what each camera is picking up the center screen shows what is being sent out over the air [Music] the director decides which scene shall be sent out over the air okay one changing from One camera to another adds variety to the picture to further relieve any possible monotony both cameras are movable so that the show can be seen from various angles and distances [Music] of Josephine notice that the cameramen wear headphones to receive instructions from the program director [Music] the sets against the far wall were used in an earlier part of the program with such an arrangement it's possible to switch from an interior to an exterior setting in a few minutes the cameras and the lights have only to turn from one set to another [Music] year unlike the stage there is so to many need for intermission amazing isn't it that this same program is being watched and heard in hundreds of Homes at this very moment foreign [Music] hardly yes television is now a practical reality for many of us to enjoy and man's dream of sightseeing at home has at last come true [Music] and that concludes the program for today we'll be on the air again tomorrow evening at 8 15. this is Ted Houston and wrgb wishing you all good night foreign