Earliest VIDEO discs: 1920s-30s(!!)

[Cousin Hepcat]

Earliest VIDEO discs: 1920s-30s(!!) Is this wild or what: 1920s pioneers found a way to modulate a blurry video image into a high-pitched audio whine & cut onto metal phonograph discs (standard wax wasn't high-definition enough).

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I've passed up tons of metal-cut 1930's looking discs when I was 78 hunting in my school days, doggone it those may have been video discs! lol oh well

Here;s a site dedicated to the different developments with online video clips where you can actually see crude videos of 1920s chorus girls, singers, etc:
http://www.tvdawn.com/recordng.htm

Details of the mechanics:
http://www.tvdawn.com/tvprint.htm

Wow, 20s videodiscs, that's a mind bender... though, once saw this big old wooden radio-TV 1920s looking thing once in a thrift store with a light bulb, a screen, and two spinning metal disc with spaced slots in between... maybe that was part of one of the players?

Anyone have one of these or seen one in action?

Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat

 

[Rosie]

This is not completely related to what you've posted but, when I was a kid, I had a little video camera that used regular audio tapes and I would film with it, sound and all. I then used cables, connected it to the television and watched what I filmed. I think it was by fisher price, I don't remember what happened to it.

When you posted this, it made me think of it.

 

[Sefton]

I remember when my father spent $1000 for a laserdisc player in the 80s. It seemed like such a futuristic device! Only missed the mark by about 50 years! Great post,thanks!:eusa_clap

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've read Don McLean's book on the discovery and restoration of these 1920s-1930s discs, "Restoring Baird's Image," and it's really a fascinating story -- the technology for making the discs is actually quite simple, but it required sophisticated computer manipulation to get the images back.

There's a possibility such discs were recorded by hobbyists in the US as well -- there was an article in Radio News in 1928 talking about Baird's experiments, and showing exactly how the recordings were made. A number of television stations were on the air in the US during the 1928-35 period using a mechanical scanning process similar to the Baird system, and there's nothing to have prevented some American experimenter from making an aircheck or two.

So, 78 collectors -- if you come across an unusual shiny aluminum record with a sound on it like a sawtooth buzz, hold onto it -- you just might have something very special!

Cousin H -- you very likely saw an early "televisor." There were lots of kits on the market during the early thirties for building mechanical TV sets at home, some of them complete with fancy cabinets. There's even people today who build them, and create their own transmission equipment to use them! For example --
http://www.nbtv.wyenet.co.uk/
http://www.earlytelevision.org/yanczer.html

Fascinating stuff!

 

[Terry Lennox]

that was the fisher price pxl2000 pixelvision.

Very cool item. I had one too. Only b/w though. But very cool.

This is not completely related to what you've posted but, when I was a kid, I had a little video camera that used regular audio tapes and I would film with it, sound and all. I then used cables, connected it to the television and watched what I filmed. I think it was by fisher price, I don't remember what happened to it.

When you posted this, it made me think of it.

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

This is not completely related to what you've posted but, when I was a kid, I had a little video camera that used regular audio tapes and I would film with it, sound and all. I then used cables, connected it to the television and watched what I filmed. I think it was by fisher price, I don't remember what happened to it.

When you posted this, it made me think of it.

I remember that! Yes Fisher price, Blue plastic, $100, man I wanted one of those bad. But it came down to between that and a boom box so you can guess which I picked

Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

There's a possibility such discs were recorded by hobbyists in the US as well -- there was an article in Radio News in 1928 talking about Baird's experiments, and showing exactly how the recordings were made. A number of television stations were on the air in the US during the 1928-35 period using a mechanical scanning process similar to the Baird system, and there's nothing to have prevented some American experimenter from making an aircheck or two.

Fascinating. I thought the software that restores audio discs is amazing, imagine the complexity to do so with those TV discs.
I just showed this to folks in the office this Friday. That's too cool about the fellow who posted plans to build your own camera and tv.

Cousin H -- you very likely saw an early "televisor." There were lots of kits on the market during the early thirties for building mechanical TV sets at home, some of them complete with fancy cabinets.

Dangit! :eusa_doh: lol Oh well, Wouldn't have had room for it anyway...

Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat

 

[Jack Armstrong]

There were lots of kits on the market during the early thirties for building mechanical TV sets at home, some of them complete with fancy cabinets. There's even people today who build them, and create their own transmission equipment to use them! For example --
http://www.nbtv.wyenet.co.uk/
http://www.earlytelevision.org/yanczer.html

Well, I'll be damned -- people are actually building scanning-disk TV equipment again! When I was a kid and discovered the old scanning-disk system in a book somewhere, I was hot to give it a try myself. I never did, but apparently there are still people who have the same fascination with low-tech gadgetry.

I remember wondering if a Baird scanning-disk system could somehow be combined with the old CBS mechanical color-disk color system to give mechanical color television.