WIRELESS PICTURES

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 58, Issue 89, 17 May 1929, Page 4

WIRELESS PICTURES

TELEV1SION PROGRESS. "Still" wireless pictures by the "Fultograpli" process are now being transnntted dailv, Sundays excepted, by tbe B.B.C. fiom 5XX Daventry. The transmissions are out of ordinarv programme houis, eitlier just bcfore or after lunch, or after niidnight, and last from 15 to 30 minutes Otliers of about the same length are made dailv iroin Berlin and Vienna so liritish 'enthusiasts with long range receivers have plenty to occii py_ theiu. It is reported that Radio-Paris and other Continentai stations will soon be joining in, and that the B.B.O. contemplates giving up a little of lts regular programme timo to pictures. To judge by reproductions in tlie English technical press, most of the pictures- .sent out are toplcal photograplis and caricatures in pen and ink. They do not appear to have any special informative value, and once the novelty has worn oif there should not he much entertaniment in the process. Perhaps some day, if news pictures canhe broadcast from rcnlly clis.tant coun'-: tries, it may have more to offer, but probably by that time the daily press will also be receiving long-rnnge pictures by wireless in much better detail thaii any home apparatus can give. Still, whatever lts future, the whoie thing is an entertaining novelty. So far as television is concerned, the B.B.C. , after holding out for a long wliile against the efforts of Mr Baird and his commercial associates to get it on to the programmes, has at last unbent a little. Early in March the Postmaster-General, Sir William Mit-chell-Thonipson, the cliairman of the B.B.C., the Earl of Clevedon, and others witnessed a private demonstration, but by agreement no one present gave any eomment to the press, It is gnderstood that the B.B.C. is carrying out further tests in order to see whether the Baird system has undergone any improvement which would make it more acceptable, from a technical point of view. for broadcasting purpcses. - In the United States televisiontransmissions are allowed tentatively on tlie broa:dcast band bv the Federal Radio Commission, which prohibited' theni for a time becaiise the bands -needecf— are"_comparatively wide. Tlie General Electric Company, which has done an enormous aniount of research nnd is said to have made rather more jrogress tlinn l\fr Baird. still decline= to troat television as a commercial proposition in its present stage of dcvelopmenk