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Post by T Morgan on Apr 20, 2021 17:50:08 GMT
I believe that sound and vision couldn't be transmitted at the same time, so one went first (probably vision) with the other (sound) following - I wonder if there were any complaints about repeats! Are you sure? It'd be useless listening to them seperately. It gives two different frequencies, 356.3m vision, 261.3m sound. From looking at that I'd have assumed that you'd watch the pictures on your tv set (tuned to 356.3m) while simultaneously tuning a radio to 261.3m. That reminds me of the time when I was a kid, we had a b&w tv until the mid 70's, and one time after we'd had the tv repair man out to repair the colour one which was always having faults he'd forgot to reconnect something so the picture was now fixed but there was no sound! I saved the day be suggesting we could plug in an old b&w portable that we had and have the picture from one set and the sound from the other, so we could watch tv that evening. Ingenious. I wonder if there's ever been a TV 'experiment' in which viewers are invited to listen to BBC radio while watching BBC TV. Sounds like the kind of thing they'd have done. Reminds me of hearing about synchronised 'talkie' films, in which I believe gramophone records were played alongside the film to give it sound.
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Apr 20, 2021 18:38:31 GMT
Are you sure? It'd be useless listening to them seperately. It gives two different frequencies, 356.3m vision, 261.3m sound. From looking at that I'd have assumed that you'd watch the pictures on your tv set (tuned to 356.3m) while simultaneously tuning a radio to 261.3m. That reminds me of the time when I was a kid, we had a b&w tv until the mid 70's, and one time after we'd had the tv repair man out to repair the colour one which was always having faults he'd forgot to reconnect something so the picture was now fixed but there was no sound! I saved the day be suggesting we could plug in an old b&w portable that we had and have the picture from one set and the sound from the other, so we could watch tv that evening. Ingenious. I wonder if there's ever been a TV 'experiment' in which viewers are invited to listen to BBC radio while watching BBC TV. Sounds like the kind of thing they'd have done. Reminds me of hearing about synchronised 'talkie' films, in which I believe gramophone records were played alongside the film to give it sound. Vitaphone. Initially superior to optical sound. Operator on the same motor as the film projector to keep it all synched.
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Post by T Morgan on Apr 20, 2021 18:47:16 GMT
I'm sure I had read it somewhere, but I must have mis-remembered as checking A Concise History of British Television (by Tony Currie) and available from radiotimesbacknumbers.com: "Early in 1930, the BBC introduced its revolutionary National and Regional scheme for radio, which meant that they now had more medium wave transmitters at their disposal. Reluctantly, half an hour a day on both the London and Midland Regional wavelengths was handed over to Baird, and so what we might today consider the first television programmes, with synchronised sound and vision, were first shown at the end of March 1930." Just catching up on the posts here, so I think you've answered my question already there. It was around that time in which the Pearsons' performing career was getting off the ground, and I think I ascertained that's when they would have broadcast. Alf did say it was from Long Acre, which might help date it. I'll have to see if I can find out more. If they were hiring professional singers (even if they were fairly new to the scene), they wouldn't bother showing them without sound. Unless they really did show the silent images first, followed by sound without images! So the BBC launched TV service on 22 August 1932, but essentially as an untitled broadcast. 11.00-11.30pm on the National Service (radio), shown in Radio Times here: "Television Transmission by the Baird Process". (261.3 m. Vision; 398.9 m. Sound). There's a couple of relevant blog posts about that at the Genome listing. There's a link to the first experimental broadcast in Radio Times from 1929 here. 11-11.30am on 2LO and Daventry. Then at midnight: Experimental Transmission of Still Pictures by the Fultograph Process. So it does seem feasible that the Pearsons could have broadcast in synchronised sound and vision from Long Acre studios, between 1930 and 1932. Then it seems that production moved to Broadcasting House, then 16 Langham Place. Quote from the blog post by Andrew Martin: So they did attempt what I had suggested, though in theory only those with two radio sets could watch it with both sound and vision simultaneously?
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Post by T Morgan on Apr 20, 2021 18:49:31 GMT
Ingenious. I wonder if there's ever been a TV 'experiment' in which viewers are invited to listen to BBC radio while watching BBC TV. Sounds like the kind of thing they'd have done. Reminds me of hearing about synchronised 'talkie' films, in which I believe gramophone records were played alongside the film to give it sound. Vitaphone. Initially superior to optical sound. Operator on the same motor as the film projector to keep it all synched. Ah yes. Sounds familiar, but it wasn't done for very long before the talkies came in properly, I believe.
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Apr 20, 2021 19:40:25 GMT
Vitaphone. Initially superior to optical sound. Operator on the same motor as the film projector to keep it all synched. Ah yes. Sounds familiar, but it wasn't done for very long before the talkies came in properly, I believe. No, it was somewhat shortlived, although the discs were still supplied for some time afterwards for theaters that had upgraded to disc sound but hadn't moved on yet. Today, some sound discs have no film anymore and vice versa. It looks bad if you see it in Singing in the rain, but the idea wasn't necessarily stupid. From the 1990s onward some movie theatres had "DTS" sound which was special audio CDs as well. They were synchronised by a signal on the film.
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Post by richardwoods on Apr 21, 2021 12:53:40 GMT
Ah, TV on Medium Wave. I remember my father telling me how you could hear the broadcasts on a standard AM Wireless. He must have been around a fairly long time ago? Would that have been in the early 1930s? Yup, he was born in 1921 & his father was very interested in the technological developments of the time, television included. Also interesting was that he remembered TV being demonstrated in Birmingham presumably in 1949 when Sutton Coldfield was being opened and later on the demonstration of the experimental 405 line colour TV broadcasts, I’m not sure where these demonstrations actually were held other than in Birmingham.
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Post by richardwoods on Apr 21, 2021 12:55:52 GMT
Not quite true - this is a random entry from 1932: genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/0000dc1695f747259c6704b59bf50ab9It was still experimental at this time, and it wasn't the only experimental service to be transmitted either. The service proper (i.e. non-experimental) started on the 22nd August 1932. I believe that sound and vision couldn't be transmitted at the same time, so one went first (probably vision) with the other (sound) following - I wonder if there were any complaints about repeats! There is a book being published later this year by Kaleidoscope, written by Andrew Martin (not sure if the link will work unless you are a member of the KAL fb group: www.facebook.com/groups/kaleidoscopearchive/permalink/10161104661515198). The cover states 1929-1939 and although it is mainly Ally Pally, it does say "(and from some other places)" so may include the early Baird stuff. That Genome entry is a good find, thanks. I did of course mean that "the earliest Pearson TV appearance in Genome is Cabaret from 1937". What exactly happened with sound and vision being broadcast separately? Sounds like it wasn't simultaneous, but apparently the BBC were able to do it from March 1930. I can't imagine a musical double act like the Pearsons being broadcast with no sound. From the interview with Tony Bridgewater, it appears that they couldn't broadcast sound and vision at the same time because only one transmitter was available. So some images were shown, then sound on the experimental TV? Presumably the TV had a blank screen when the sound part was broadcast. I tried that link, but I'm not on FB, so it didn't open for me. Not meaning to be a pedant but analog sound & vision were technically always transmitted separately on different frequencies
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Post by T Morgan on Apr 21, 2021 14:48:09 GMT
I think if anywhere is the place for pedantry, it's here Plus I readily admit I'm a novice for the most part when it comes to the technicalities of broadcasting.
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Post by Dan S on Apr 23, 2021 0:28:15 GMT
Ingenious. I wonder if there's ever been a TV 'experiment' in which viewers are invited to listen to BBC radio while watching BBC TV. Sounds like the kind of thing they'd have done. This is exactly how the early stereo tests were done in the late 50's. One channel (audio only) was broadcast on TV, the other channel was broadcast simultaneously on the Third Programme. (search for 'Stereophony' on Genome to find listings for these.) For example... genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/be9908e2bd2049688fc50beb1064258f
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Post by petercheck on Apr 23, 2021 7:18:35 GMT
Ingenious. I wonder if there's ever been a TV 'experiment' in which viewers are invited to listen to BBC radio while watching BBC TV. Sounds like the kind of thing they'd have done. This is exactly how the early stereo tests were done in the late 50's. One channel (audio only) was broadcast on TV, the other channel was broadcast simultaneously on the Third Programme. (search for 'Stereophony' on Genome to find listings for these.) For example... genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/be9908e2bd2049688fc50beb1064258fThis was also broadcast that way:
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Post by Dan S on Apr 23, 2021 19:29:32 GMT
Ah! Nice to know they have both channels of the Stones broadcast --- years ago I was told they only had a copy of one of the channels not both, glad that's not the case!
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Post by Paul Hayes on Apr 27, 2021 8:52:55 GMT
What I'm getting at is whether there is any TV footage from the 1930s which survives as originally broadcast. If it was filmed by another camera, that wouldn't be exactly the same as the footage intended for use on a TV broadcast. Whether the BBC were filming any of its programming output at the time is a pertinent question. If so, maybe that material could have been used as inserts. Others who know more about it can correct me, but I'm pretty sure the BBC Film Unit wasn't established until after the war, so they didn't have any inserts of their own pre-1940s. I'm not, therefore, sure who actually *made* Television Comes to London - perhaps they, as we'd phrase it these days, commissioned an indie to do it...? As for what survives from the 30s as originally broadcast... I think the closest are those two off-screen film clips I mentioned before, although obviously they're very poor quality and don't have any sound. But they do show what was shown on the screen.
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Post by T Morgan on Apr 28, 2021 13:08:17 GMT
The History of the BBC website seems to describe such footage as being shot by the "BBC newsreel cameras". Couldn't it just have been the latter day equivalent of BBC News filming things like "Magic Rays of Light"?
Maybe the earliest surviving original BBC TV programmes (rather than demonstration films) are those listed on the first page here, from 1946: 25th July G.B. Shaw (90th Birthday interview) 9th November Lord Mayor’s Show
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Post by Paul Hayes on Apr 28, 2021 21:05:30 GMT
The History of the BBC website seems to describe such footage as being shot by the "BBC newsreel cameras". Couldn't it just have been the latter day equivalent of BBC News filming things like "Magic Rays of Light"? That's definitely the wrong description, I would say - Television Newsreel definitely didn't start until January 1948. As I mentioned, the Film Unit didn't exist until after the war, which is why you don't get existing film programmes like the Shaw interview you mentioned until then.
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Post by brianfretwell on May 1, 2021 8:02:31 GMT
Ah yes. Sounds familiar, but it wasn't done for very long before the talkies came in properly, I believe. No, it was somewhat shortlived, although the discs were still supplied for some time afterwards for theaters that had upgraded to disc sound but hadn't moved on yet. Today, some sound discs have no film anymore and vice versa. It looks bad if you see it in Singing in the rain, but the idea wasn't necessarily stupid. From the 1990s onward some movie theatres had "DTS" sound which was special audio CDs as well. They were synchronised by a signal on the film. I'm sure I read that the discs played from the centre out as with CDs DVDs etc, but that they had a short life and wore out long before the films did due to the heavy needle pressure. At least DTS solved the problems of wear and broken film spliced together thus losing frames causing loss of synchronization.
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