John Logie Baird (August 13 1888 – June 14 1946) was a Scottish engineer and inventor of the world's first working television system.
Although Baird's electromechanical system was eventually displaced by purely electronic
systems (such as those of Vladimir Zworykin and Philo Farnsworth), his early successes demonstrating working television
broadcasts and his colour and cinema television work earn him a prominent place in television's invention.
Baird was born in Helensburgh, Argyll, Scotland. He was educated at Larchfield School (now part of Lomond School), Helensburgh; the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College (which later became the
University of Strathclyde); and the University of Glasgow. His degree course was interrupted by World
War I and he never returned to graduate.
T.V. experiments
John Logie Baird with his "televisor", circa 1925.
The first known photograph of a moving image produced by Baird's "televisor", circa 1926.
Although the development of television was the result of work by many inventors, Baird is one of its foremost pioneers and
made major advances in the field. He is generally credited with being the first person to produce a live, moving television image
in halftones by reflected light. Baird achieved this, where other inventors had failed, by
obtaining a better photoelectric cell and improving the signal conditioning from the
photocell and the video amplifier.
In his first attempts to develop a working television system, Baird experimented with the Nipkow
disk, and in February 1924 demonstrated to the Radio Times that a semi-mechanical analogue television system was possible by transmitting moving silhouette images, such as his fingers
wiggling, in his London laboratory. Baird gave the first public demonstration of
moving silhouette images by television at Selfridges department store in London in a
three-week series of demonstrations beginning on March 25, 1925.
On October 2, 1925 Baird successfully transmitted in his
laboratory the first television picture with halftones: the head of a ventriloquist's dummy
nicknamed "Stooky Bill" in a 30-line vertically scanned image, at five pictures a
second.[1] Baird went downstairs and fetched an office
worker, 20-year-old William Edward Taynton, to see what a human face would look like, and Taynton became the first person to be
televised in full tonal range.[2]
First public demonstrations
On January 26, 1926 Baird repeated the transmission for
members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times in his laboratory at 22 Frith Street in the
Soho district of London. By this time he had improved the scan rate to 12.5 pictures a second. It
was the world's first demonstration of a true television system, one that could broadcast live moving images with tone
graduation.
He demonstrated the world's first colour transmission on July 3, 1928, using scanning discs at the transmitting and receiving ends with three spirals of apertures, each spiral with
a filter of a different primary colour; and three light sources at the receiving end, with a commutator to alternate their
illumination. That same year he also demonstrated stereoscopic television. In 1932 he was the first to demonstrate ultra-short
wave transmission.
Broadcasting
In 1927 Baird transmitted a long-distance television signal over 438 miles of telephone line between London and
Glasgow. He then set up the Baird Television Development Company Ltd, which in 1928 made the
first transatlantic television transmission, from London to Hartsdale,
New York, and the first television programme for the BBC. He
televised the first live transmission of the Epsom Derby in 1931. He demonstrated a theatre
television system, with a screen two feet by five feet, in 1930 at the London Coliseum,
Berlin, Paris, and Stockholm.[3] By 1939 he had improved
his theatre projection system to televise a boxing match on a screen 15 feet by 12 (4.6 by 3.7 m).
From 1929 to 1935, the BBC broadcast television programs using the 30-line Baird system. In late 1936 the BBC began
alternating Baird 240-line transmissions with EMI's electronic scanning system which had recently been improved to 405-lines
after a merger with Marconi. The BBC ceased broadcasts with the Baird system in early 1937.
Baird's television systems were replaced by the electronic television system developed by the newly formed company
EMI-Marconi under Isaac Shoenberg, which had
access to patents developed by Vladimir Zworykin and RCA.
Similarly, Philo T. Farnsworth's electronic "Image Dissector" camera was available to
Baird's company via a patent-sharing agreement. However, the Image Dissector camera was found to be lacking in light sensitivity,
requiring excessive levels of illumination.
Baird made many contributions to the field of electronic television after mechanical systems had taken a back seat. In 1939 he
showed colour television using a cathode ray tube in front of which revolved a disc fitted
with colour filters, a method taken up by CBS and RCA in the United States. On August 16, 1944 he gave the world's first demonstration of a fully electronic
colour television display. His 600-line colour system used triple interlacing, using six scans
to build each picture.[4] During 1944 he persuaded British
authorities to make plans to adopt his proposed 1000-line Telechrome electronic colour system as the new post-war broadcast
standard. The picture quality on this system would have been comparable to today's HDTV. The Hankey Committee's plan lost all
momentum partly due to the challenges of post-war reconstruction. The monochrome 405-line standard remained in place for three
decades until the introduction of the 625-line system in 1964 and (PAL) colour in 1967.
Other inventions
Some of Baird's early inventions were not fully successful. In his twenties he tried to create diamonds by heating graphite and shorted out Glasgow's electricity supply. Not
long afterwards Baird perfected a glass razor; it was completely rust resistant, but it shattered. Inspired by pneumatic tires he
had a go at pneumatic shoes, but his prototype contained semi-inflated balloons which burst. He also invented a thermal undersock
(the Baird undersock), which was actually moderately successful. Baird suffered from cold feet, and after a number of trials, he
found that an extra layer of cotton inside the sock provided warmth. [5]
Baird's numerous other developments demonstrated his particular talent at invention. He was a visionary and began to dabble
with electricity. In 1928, he developed an early video recording device, which he dubbed
Phonovision. The system consisted of a Phonodisc, which was a 78rpm record that could play a
30-line video signal. His other developments were in fiber-optics, radio direction
finding, infrared night viewing and radar. There is discussion
about his exact contribution to the development of radar, for his wartime defence projects have never been officially
acknowledged by the British government. According to Malcolm Baird, his son, what is known is that in 1926 Baird filed a patent
for a device that formed images from reflected radio waves, a device remarkably similar to radar, and that he was in
correspondence with the British government at the time. Much of the information regarding Baird's work in this area is just
beginning to emerge.
He built what was to become the world's first working television set by purchasing an old hatbox and a pair of scissors, some
darning needles, a few bicycle light lenses, a used tea chest, and a great deal of sealing wax and glue. [5]
There is a working model of the Baird televisor in the London Science Museum.
Last years
From December 1944 until his death two years later, Baird lived at a house in Station Road, Bexhill On Sea, immediately north
of the station itself.[6] Baird died in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, England in June
of 1946 after a stroke in February of that year.
Legacy
TV now spans the globe and is the world's most popular form of entertainment, offering multiple channels covering all sorts of
subjects, though it has been suggested that Baird might not have altogether approved.
In the Channel 5 programme Don't Get Me Started, aired on 29 August 2006, presenter Selina Scott
complained about the falling standards of British TV with such shows as Big Brother and
other "reality" programmes. Malcolm Baird said in an interview that had his father known how TV would turn out in sixty years
time, he would have dropped it and turned to other inventions.
The Australian Television awards are named the Logies in his honour.
Notes
- ^ R. W. Burns, Television: An International History of the Formative
Years, p. 264.
- ^ Donald F. McLean, Restoring Baird's Image, p. 37. Looking for
publicity, Baird visited the Daily Express newspaper to promote his invention. The news editor was terrified: he was
quoted by one of his staff as saying: "For God's sake, go down to reception and get rid of a lunatic who's down there. He says
he's got a machine for seeing by wireless! Watch him — he may have a razor on him." [1]
- ^ J.L. Baird, Television in 1932.
- ^ The World's First High Definition Colour Television System. McLean, p. 196.
- ^ a b American Media History, Fellow, 278
- ^ Named "Baird Court", Rother District Council gave permission for this
property to be demolished and the land used for a modern block of flats in 2006, despite the efforts of many local residents who
believed that this property should be listed and preserved due to its historical importance.
See also
Further reading
- Baird, John Logie, Television and Me: The Memoirs of John Logie Baird. Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 2004. ISBN 1-84183-063-1
- Kamm, Antony, and Malcolm Baird, John Logie Baird: A Life. Edinburgh: NMS Publishing, 2002. ISBN 1-901663-76-0
- McArthur, Tom, and Peter Waddell, The Secret Life of John Logie Baird. London: Hutchinson, 1986. ISBN
0-09-158720-4.
- McLean, Donald F., Restoring Baird's Image. The Institute of Electrical Engineers, 2000. ISBN 0-85296-795-0.
- Rowland, John, The Television Man: The Story of John Logie Baird. New York: Roy Publishers, 1967.
- Tiltman, Ronald Frank, Baird of Television. New York: Arno Press, 1974. (Reprint of 1933 ed.) ISBN 0-405-06061-0.
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
