yes Baird's transmisions from alexandra palace where on 240 lines. the baird company could have had a high definition tv service from 1935 but the government would not give him a licence

he started the worlds first TV service in 1928 the PO gave him the first ever licence for TV " 2TV" on 30 lines one of the reasons TV was limited to 30 lines was due to the post office refusing to allow Baird to broadcast with more bandwidth

in 1928 the first ever live TV broadcast from the UK to the US was achieved in 1988 I met Ben Clap the engineer involved in this using 30 lines via short wave

as you say alexandria palace 405 lines was received briefly in the US in 1937 due to freak atmospherics normally VHF the main Tx range is only about 35 miles

it is a myth that mechanical systems are only capable of low definition in 1939 scophony produced a mechanical 405 line TV using a mirror drum and projection screen which was far superior to any CRT TV at the time unfortunately the war put a stop to development

in 1976 the Viking Mars Lander used the mechanical system to broadcast 3D High definition TV @1000 lines from the surface of the planet Mars

and in 1982 during the Falklands war the BBC used the Baird system to scan and transmit 625line colour from the south Atlantic to the UK using telecinie equipment from RankCinetel ( descendent of the Baird Co)

"""""George's early long distance television reception experiments commenced back in 1956 at Williamstown, Melbourne, Australia. In 1957, George was the first Australian DXer to receive BBC chB1 England video and audio via multi-hop F2 propagation. George used a specially imported 405 line TV to watch the BBC TV programs. George even recorded the BBC pictures on silent movie film. The 41.5 MHz AM TV sound was also recorded on to open reel audio tape. One of the programs noted was the BBC news. It is also interesting to note that at certain times the BBC chB1 TV signals peaked from the north east, hence were likely via long-path F2.""""

http://home.iprimus.com.au/toddemsli...lmer_TVDX.html

Err....when talking about the falklands war I think they merely scanned film to transfer to video cassettes for shipping footage back home..with a 10 day delay. Thats hardly much to shout about when it comes to baird contribution, you are exagerating again.

The Television magazine sadly defunct used to cary a regular feature on DX TV reception. with the move to UHF and digital sadly this is no longer possible however on the south coast of England it is possible to get French digital TV

unfortunately could not get your link to work

Dx TV was a big thing back in the 60s and 70s before the advent of satellite TV

they used mechanical telecinie supplied by rank cinitel who bought out the Baird company to to scan and transmit pictures to the UK from the south atlantic there was no 10 day delay

mechanical telecinie was the only baird system which has been used to the present day as it was far superior to the marconi emi system of pointing a camera at a tv screen

Try again.

http://home.iprimus.com.au/toddemsli...lmer_TVDX.html

Try Google .. "george palmer" +melbourme

the government tried to censor coverage of the falklands war and delay news to the public , mrs thatcher claimed it was impossible to get live tv from the Falklands in 1982

But the Apollo astronauts used the Baird sequential colour system to send live TV from the moon at over 240,000 miles
I suppose you will be telling me this was dune in a TV studio and nothing to do with Baird either

in 1981 the voyager space craft transmitted television from Saturn at 10 AU distance

The MOD got TV back from the south Atlantic using the Baird process and controlled what you got to see and when

thanks got it thats very interesting


first TV broadcast to USA 1928 see-

http://www.bairdtelevision.com/1928.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_G...8researcher%29

err, pre satellite tv all international tv was heavily delayed, that they couldn't reproduce the moon landing for a war where they barely had enough ships and just managed to muster up an aircraft carrier was no conspiracy.

from the mid 1965? onwards broadcasters used satellite to supply live coverage of events like the Olympics the 1966 world cup was the first world cup to be broadcast live across the world , the Apollo moonwalks where shown live when NASA received the pictures they where beamed up to the syncom satellite the pictures being received via the satellite station at goonhilly down in Cornwall where the TV feed was passed to both BBC and ITV

it was not until the late 80s before domestic users had satellite TV at home

hmmm, we now seem to be well off topic .......

TV Standards Converters were often electromechanical - the electronics being too complex - but again, no direct connection with Baird.

Famous example is the RCA scan converter used for Apollo 11, and the "lost" original tapes ....... (cue conspiracy theories) .........

We used quite simple standards solid state converters at BBC transmitting stations to feed the 405 line TXs from the incoming 625 line feed. They used lots of germanium transistors which used to fail regularly, They were replaced with digital converters.

The Baird telecine system was the basis for all modern telecine today. Baird as a tv manufacturing firm was usually Bush sets badged for them. Later on, they became a rentals badge for tvs and video recorders ( I think D.E.R, which was owned by Thorn, who made Ultra, Ferguson etc ).

Anything badged as a Baird nowadays is in the same m,arket as Alba, Bush, Hitachi etc.. sell-through cheap catalogue/ Argos type stuff.

Is this the mid-70s type chassis? If so, my Aunt has just skipped hers after 35 years ( working well, but tube soft )as shes got a freeview box now on her portable set.

Grundig's first fully transistorised, probably. Philips (1970) and Thorn (1967 ) had all transistor colour sets available.

Thorn B/W hybrids ( valve and transistor) were produced up until 1978, and sold into 1979, amazingly. There was also anothr hybrid available in the late 70s as well, an import ( Indesit?-I cant remember now).

Probably mid-late 70's?.

The Grundig manuals I have left (CUC series) don't have any dates on them - the older ones are up in the attic

But I suspect they won't have dates either?.

The Baird company manufactured televisions at there factory at the crystal palace it was seen that the real money in TV was the sale of the sets - see

http://www.thevalvepage.com/tvmanu/baird/baird.htm

Baird's facility's at the crystal palace where very impressive for the time see-

http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/baird/baird_itv.php

Syncs transmitted along with sound. How did that work in those primitive days without an annoying buzz?

If you're talking about the Baird mechanical system, it's because the picture and sound were broadcast one at a time, picture first for maybe 10 seconds. Then a black screen with the audio of the picture that had just been shown previously. I think the audio and video signals occupied the same frequency, with the sync signal being transmitted constantly on a different frequency. I think it was like this.

Jeremy Clarkson made a very interesting documentary on the race to invent TV between Baird and Farnsworth a few years ago.

Wish I hadn't taped it in LP on a faulty tape, it looks awful now :/

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Robert_Law, I think a little more clarification is needed here:

Baird did invent *one* means to record video, yes, but that was a primitive form of video*disc*. NOT video*tape*. When most of us mention "video", we mean "videotape".

By your logic, you'd think that Philips invented blu-ray (they invented the CD disc along with Sony, and the failed more modern videodisc, yes, but these were *predecessors* to DVD and B-R). Just because you invent something does not mean that you invent all inventions that stem from your invention, e.g. Videodisc+CD=DVD.

Please explain how you think it does. We could all do with a laugh.

Oh, and I'd like to reiterate, mechanical TV, like Baird's system, refers to if either the *camera* or the *TV set* converts the images to electronic signals or reproduces the image using a mechanical Nipkow disc.

I.e. it doesn't refer to the VCRs involved in broadcasting, nor does it refer to the DVDs or whatever. Baird happened to invent a form of videodisc. Doesn't mean that if it's connected to a modern TV that immediately makes it mechanical TV.

Mechanical or electronic TV refers to *just* the camera or the TV set. Nothing else.

If you open up a modern TV set or TV camera, there is not one mechanism inside either (no, zoom and focus mechanisms do not count, neither does the pneumatic pedestal, these are both detachable and interchangeable and thus are not "the camera"). Even though a camcorder or portable video or TV camera has focus and zoom mechanisms inside, the image is still converted using electronic devices (CCDs nowadays).

The sound and picture where both transmitted on the Baird system using 2 frequency's. when the Baird company started broadcasting the worlds first regular television service on the 4th of September 1928 vision was on 200meters and sound was on 250 metres.

I think you must be referring to Bairds first experimental tests using the Daventry transmitter he asked the BBC for use of 2 transmitters but they only allowed him the use of one so sound and vision where transmitted one after the other


Blueray is basically the modern equivalent of phonovision basicly a record player that plays video from a disc

same thing just more advanced instead of a needle you have a laser the record is smaller and the picture has 1080 lines instead of 30 lines there's no valves its all solid state

I never said that Baird invented blueray , what I have being trying to say we still use mechanical systems for playback of TV images 80 years later both BBC and ITV still use part of the Baird system every time you watch a film

mechanical systems are still used in the space program

and also the mechanical system duse not just use the nipko disc a process Baird abandoned in the 30s

for the mirror drum scanner it amazes me how most people have not got a clue about early TV history , which is shocking in the country that invented the television

It's not and here's why:
1) The disc is much smaller
2) It is made out of entirely different materials
3) The data is stored digitally instead of using analogue encoding


Yes, they have the same very basic principles, but all similarities end with it being a disc with data stored on it, and their application of use. All similarities end there. It can hardly be the same thing when the most important aspects of it (i.e. using a laser, storing digital information etc) are different.


Yes, we use mechanisms in VCRs and DVD players, but that hardly constitutes mechanical TV. Mechanical TV is if a *Nipkow disc* is used in either the *TV set* or *camera*. A blue-ray player is not a TV camera or set, neither does it use a Nipkow disc. So it is not mechanical TV as in the system that Baird used. It is a device for electronic TV that happens to use a mechanism to function. I hope this finally breaks this link you seem to obsess over between Baird and Blue-Ray/DVD/VHS or whatever.


Doesn't matter whether they didn't just use the Nipkow disc, they still used discs with lenses to scan and reproduce the image.


And how many of those are used in the electronic TV system? Not many may be a little optimistic.


Probably because except us TV buffs and current or ex service engineers, most people couldn't give a damn, as long as the TV works, which is the most important thing to them.


No it's not, most of us in the know or wanting to be in the know (like myself) are used to dealing with customers who have little or no understanding of the technology within the TV.

Plus, many countries claim to invent the TV, and you have been proven wrong on a number of occasions.

Just because something is known in popular culture doesn't mean it's true, so just because everyone in Britain says that Baird invented the TV, that doesn't mean that he did invent it.

I personally believe that Baird didn't invent what we call TV. he invented *a form of* TV that was fatally flawed and could be beaten quite effectively by the electronic rivals being cooked up by genuine electronics engineers elsewhere in the world (Baird, as it has been said, was not a qualified electronic engineer, probably the reason why his system failed. He wasn't fully qualified to understand and build electronic circuits.)

Sorry to say it like that, but you really are exaggerating more than a tiny bit.

Well no, just how much of the 1966 olympics was shown live, do tell. It was a special occasion type thing at expense. Nasa had nasa budget and preperation/infrastructure for a single event, ground antennas for early satellites were huge, you think they should have built some on the falklands under fire for tv?. Widespread satellite tv cheap did not come until far later.

You discredit yourself entirely when you say things like this. Its like claiming that since airplanes have wheels the inventor of the car gets credit for airplanes. Its an extreme exagerration based on the most superficial of similarities. The entire theory and impimentation of bluray has nothing to do with bairds inventions. If you are going to the level where you are stetching credit for the very vague and general idea of recording information on a disc then that predates baird by quite a bit, and so he gets no credit regardless. As said, you might as well give thomas edison the credit for bluray and tv by that standard.

Broadcasters like the BBC used satellite for TV they would say we are going live via satellite for news items which where then shown on terrestrial television the first satellite pictures shown live on TV was from telstar in the early 60s

I think you are getting totally confused by mixing up DTH satellite which only started in the 80s with broadcast satellite which has being used by the BBC and ITV since the 1960s
yes satellite feeds where very and are still expensive for the BBC and ITV to use