What Baird saw , was , that to tackle a task, that is reproduce a whole picture for our eyes , an approach similar to calculus...break down the subject into small , miniscule parts , then find a way to reintegrate.
That's an over-simplification. Electromechanical methods would be used in television for decades after Baird's death. The NASA moon landings transmitted pictures using scanning-wheel cameras. Related technology included video tape recording, telecine, floppy and hard disks in computers. The advances in quietness of operation and machine tools permitted very fine tolerances in mass production of moving parts. Meanwhile the solid state principles behind Marconi-EMI's system failed to evolve (remember 'wafer scale integration'?) and the memory capacity of cards and chips was much smaller. Moreover, the BBC's preferred system could not scan film and it had to buy Baird telecine. Had the BBC adopted Intermediate Film it would have had permanent records of its output for repeating, plus early access to Farnsworth's electronic camera- superior to the Iconoscope- for live broadcasts. The decision to go with Marconi-EMI turned out to be short-sighted, as the Hankey Report implicitly acknowledged when it recommended moving towards Baird's high-definition 3D and color model after the war. And when Marconi-EMI tried to market 405 lines and b&w to the world, it got no takers. Had Baird lived, his standards might have dominated the world market.
Thankyou for your well informed comments, they are much appreciated. Too often Baird’s development of film scanning and associated technologies is overlooked. Also overlooked is the work JL Baird and Philo Farnsworth undertook in London together in 1936 as they sought to improve the sensitivity of the Image Dissector Tube.
What Baird saw , was , that to tackle a task, that is reproduce a whole picture for our eyes , an approach similar to calculus...break down the subject into small , miniscule parts , then find a way to reintegrate.
That's an over-simplification. Electromechanical methods would be used in television for decades after Baird's death. The NASA moon landings transmitted pictures using scanning-wheel cameras. Related technology included video tape recording, telecine, floppy and hard disks in computers. The advances in quietness of operation and machine tools permitted very fine tolerances in mass production of moving parts.
Meanwhile the solid state principles behind Marconi-EMI's system failed to evolve (remember 'wafer scale integration'?) and the memory capacity of cards and chips was much smaller. Moreover, the BBC's preferred system could not scan film and it had to buy Baird telecine.
Had the BBC adopted Intermediate Film it would have had permanent records of its output for repeating, plus early access to Farnsworth's electronic camera- superior to the Iconoscope- for live broadcasts. The decision to go with Marconi-EMI turned out to be short-sighted, as the Hankey Report implicitly acknowledged when it recommended moving towards Baird's high-definition 3D and color model after the war. And when Marconi-EMI tried to market 405 lines and b&w to the world, it got no takers. Had Baird lived, his standards might have dominated the world market.
Thankyou for your well informed comments, they are much appreciated. Too often Baird’s development of film scanning and associated technologies is overlooked. Also overlooked is the work JL Baird and Philo Farnsworth undertook in London together in 1936 as they sought to improve the sensitivity of the Image Dissector Tube.
Baird was a brilliant man, but if he could really see the future, he would’ve seen that mechanical TV was a dead end and had no future.
And that is probably why he invented the Telecrome color television system - the worlds first fully electronic color TV system.
Walker John Thompson Charles Thomas Kimberly