Dicky Howett rummages through the Radio Times
Via the delights of eBay, I acquired recently, the first 26 editions (from Jan. 8th 1937) of the Radio Times special ’Television’ supplement.
Continue reading “Pre-War OBs and Other Things”
Interlacing – the hidden story of 1920s video compression technology
By Paul Marshall
Pick-up any worthwhile book on the history of television and turn to the index to look up the word ‘interlace’ or ‘interlacing’. Look at the referenced pages and somewhere you will find an established ‘fact’ that Randall Ballard of RCA invented the ‘clever’ technique of interlacing in 1932. It doesn’t matter whether the book is American, British, German, French or Russian – Randall Ballard invented interlacing. Is this ‘fact’ completely sound though? As with so many issues in the history of the technological development of television the rights to precedence have become distorted over the years by manipulations of corporate image, tweaking for reasons of national pride or just plain acceptance of the status quo.
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One Hundred Years of All-Electronic Television
By Paul Marshall
As one grows older, anniversaries seem to come around ever more frequently. Perhaps in an uncertain and ever faster moving world we crave stability, points of reference and solid ground. 2008 is, as is any year, an anniversary for many things and many people, but to anyone who professes an interest in the history of television it is a significant date.
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The Life and Times of Studio ‘S’
Dicky Howett delves into the engineering logs of BBCtv Southampton.
Hollywood on TV
Tv technology collector Dicky Howett reports in 1999 on a trip to the USA and finds an American television communicopia.
Colourful Times
Dicky Howett charts a few colour tv experiments and returns to the fervid days of early British colour tv.