Phonovision, the 1928 Videodisc
By Robbie Rhodes
Member/brother Doug Rhodes sent me the following letters. Author Peter Wellburn is possibly the same as our new subscriber from UK.
Hmmm... I've forgotten - what's the Nipkow disk?
Robbie Rhodes
- - - - - - - - -
Howdy:
I culled the following thread from the 78-l listserv (record collectors) that I indulge in. Thought you might find it interesting.
Cheers
Doug
FORWARDED STUFF FOLLOWS:
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Date: Tue, 29 Oct 96 9:09:59 GMT
Reply-To: 78-l@cornell.edu
Sender: owner-78-l@cornell.edu
From: Peter Wellburn <pe231pw@admin.nls.uk>
To: 78 RPM Records <78-l@cornell.edu>
Subject: Phonovision
Greetings fellow 78 enthusiasts
You probably all pressed the delete button - after all what does vision have to do with 78 records? Well last night over here on BBC television there was a programme about some 78 records from the 1920s and 1930s. Nothing special eh? Except that the information coded on them was in the form of images instead of sound.
They dated from the experimental broadcasts of John Logie Baird with television. One disc played was from 1928 and showed images of Baird's secretary talking, the other was a bit more risque and showed a troupe of girls dancing, recorded in 1933. There didn't appear to be any sound although the presenter 'talked over' the records.
Apparently Baird invented this very early system of videorecording his transmissions - but failed to invent a system of playing them back! This has now been done after much painstaking research. I recorded the programme (on my ultra-modern Taiwanese) VCR so if anyone wants more details I may be able to provide them. The system is to go on show at the National Museum of Film and Photography in Bradford (Yorkshire) - a bit off the tourist track but well worth a visit!
The programme was part of the BBC's 'Tomorrow's World@ series. Maybe one of your US networks screens it. Thought you might want to look out for it.
Peter Wellburn
p.wellburn@nls.uk
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Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 16:06:21 -0800 (PST)
Reply-To: 78-l@cornell.edu
From: David Breneman <david.breneman@attws.com>
To: 78 RPM Records <78-l@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: Phonovision
Peter Wellburn SEZ -
(With deletions...)
>
> Apparently Baird invented this very early system of videorecording his
> transmissions - but failed to invent a system of playing them back!
Hmmmm... I thought Baird produced a player with the turntable mechanically coupled to the Nipkow disk so as to keep the record and disk in sync. One of the problems with using a phonograph record to record video is bandwidth - I'm sure he used this system with his 30-line signal, but much beyond this you start generating signals that are too high-frequency for a phonograph record (especially of the 20s) to record.
--
David Breneman More than just phones,
Senior Unix System Administrator A cool round logo, too.
AT&T Wireless Services, Inc.
david.breneman@attws.com Ph: +1-206-803-7362 Fx: +1-206-803-7410
*****************************************
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 12:05:01 +0100
Reply-To: 78-l@cornell.edu
Sender: owner-78-l@cornell.edu
From: LIB3ROGERI@ntu.ac.uk (IAN ROGERS)
To: 78 RPM Records <78-l@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: Phonovision
Dear All
I was just reading about this subject in "New Scientist". If you have
access to this journal - there is a short article on p.22 of the 26th
October edition. Very interesting!
Best wishes,
Ian
Ian Rogers
Nottingham
UK
lib3rogeri@ntu.ac.uk |
(Message sent Sun 3 Nov 1996, 03:01:36 GMT, from time zone GMT-0800.) |
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