SPECIAL!! EARLY TELEVISION SURPRISES, Part 1 of 3
SURPRISE #1. If you always thought those were spotlights mounted in the black frame, you (and I) are wrong. They are actually quite the opposite of lights.
SURPRISE #2. If you always thought the contraption shooting through the opening was a camera, you (and I) were wrong. It actually quite the opposite of a camera.
SURPRISE #3. The things we thought were lights, are actually what make the images…those are photo electric cells.
SURPRISE #4. The thing we thought was the camera is actually projecting light, through a spinning disc, on the subject.
Such are the days of early television, but more precisely mechanical television.
By the way, the Felix photo was taken at RCA’s 411 5th Avenue transmitter testing location, a few blocks south of the RCA HQ at 711 5th Ave., and later, Felix and W2XBS testing moved to the Roof Garden Theater at the New Amsterdam Theater and finally to the 85th floor of the Empire State Building. The manikin (not a man) with the camera is most likely at 411 5th Ave.
Bobby, do you know of a link that gives a more technical explanation of how this system was configured and worked?
Yes, this was a form of scanning the subject directly. Today’s electronic television works as you’ve always expected it to. But mechanical television worked best by scanning the subject. It would be impractical for actual TV production but served well for experimentation.
A Queen’s Messenger, the very first made-for-TV dramatic special on earth, used three cameras (that weren’t cameras) for cuts and even cross-fades. Although perfect sync between all three is dubious, the cutting was simple as can be: they switched the light sources. The photo receptors were set up in positions where lights would ordinarily be and the signal from all of them went out simultaneously–but only the subjects being lit by whichever scanning projector was on would go out over the air. The year was 1928!