EARLY 1940s RCA TELEVISION SYSTEM FILM ICONOSCOPE & KINESCOPE 42634

Presented by RCA, one of the pioneers in television technology, this 1939 film shows the new medium being demonstrated at the World's Fair. These early iconoscope TV systems are shown at the 1:10 mark, and the receiver known as the kinescope shown. Both of these early technologies would be replaced before television arrived in American homes after WWII. Interestingly however, television was used during the war on a variety of guided weapons including the TDR-1 torpedo drone (look it up).
At 2 minutes, the television antenna atop the Empire State Building is seen, capable of broadcasting TV signals to all of New York City to the line of sight.
At 2:57, mobile television units are seen deploying across Manhattan to broadcast a horse race.
At 5:03, studio broadcast of a concert is seen, with the iconoscope further explained, and a control room being used to direct the broadcast.
The Iconoscope was the first practical video camera tube to be used in early television cameras. The iconoscope produced a much stronger signal than earlier mechanical designs, and could be used under any well-lit conditions. This was the first fully electronic system to replace earlier cameras, which used special spotlights or spinning disks to capture light from a single very brightly lit spot.
Some of the principles of this apparatus were described when Vladimir Zworykin filed two patents for a Television system in 1923 and 1925. The German company Telefunken bought the rights from RCA and built the iconoscope camera used for the historical TV transmission at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.
In the United States the Iconoscope was the leading camera tube used for broadcasting from 1936 until 1946, when it was replaced by the image orthicon tube.
The Kinescope was the name given to the cathode ray tube that served as the receiver of the electrical image. This was the tube that decoded the transmitted electrical impulses back into an optical image that could be seen by the television viewer. This is the heart of the television set… the picture tube.
Vladimir Kosmich Zworykin (July 29, 1888 - July 29, 1982)was a Russian inventor, engineer, and pioneer of television technology. Educated in Russia and in France, he spent most of his life in the United States. Zworykin invented a television transmitting and receiving system employing cathode ray tubes. He played a role in the practical development of television from the early thirties, including charge storage-type tubes, infrared image tubes and the electron microscope.
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example like: "01:00:12:00 -- President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference."
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFilm.com

[@fromthesidelines]

Two versions of this short were released in 1939. One was RCA's- the other, "An RCA Presentation", waa distributed theatrically by RKO-Radio (which RCA owned a piece of). The opening credits listed Frederic Ullman, Jr. as producer, and Frank Donovan as supervisor.

[@SuperMikecarp]

It was interesting to see that the very early cameras had an optical viewfinder using a separate lens. Electronic viewfinders were still some way in the future.

[@Walkercolt1]

Only 3 years.

[@SuperMikecarp]

@@Walkercolt1 1942?

[@digitalmetadata1]

The announcer is Ben Grauer. He was the voice behind the announcement " this program is brought to you in living color by N-B-C".

[@richardspeziale]

thank you for that info!

[@KKAkuoku]

From the original (and musically better, in my opinion) version of the Peacock ident.

[@jscottupton]

New York City and the east coast would get a coaxial live feed of TV shows. The quality was better than what the rest of the country would get...which was kinescope recordings.

[@fromthesidelines]

That was achieved by early 1949. Live network programming originating from New York could be seen only as far as St. Louis, Missouri; the rest of the country would have to wait two weeks- or more- before seeing the same programs via 16mm kinescope film, transmitted by local stations. The same went for West Coast programs sent to the Eastern half of the United States. In September 1951, the coaxial cable linking East to West- and vice versa- was completed, and "coast-to-coast" telecasting began in earnest.

[@hulkhatepunybanner]

@@fromthesidelines *OMG! Two weeks to see my favorite NBC shows?*

[@fromthesidelines]

If you were living in an area with a TV channel- most likely the only one in the community- that didn't schedule "live"" programming from the networks between 1948 and 1951, kinescope film prints were the only way to see them, on a delayed basis. NBC used to show this disclaimer at the end of their kinnies through the 1960's: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHvFZHmZe6Zjpq8

[@D.G.M.]

So that's why we called the CRT of TV sets a "kinescope" in Bulgarian. In more formal context it's called an "electron-ray tube".

[@hulkhatepunybanner]

*Years of zero product marketing during the Soviet era prevented the name from being updated?*

[@xsc1000]

Kinescope is also used for CRT in russian.

[@richardspeziale]

4:24 this is not an actual image of the tv screen, but an "optical" film composite. pretty sure the image of the race is from film as well.

[@fromthesidelines]

There was no way to accurately capture TV images on motion picture film at the time. Sound film is projected at 24 frames per second. TV images were flashed at 30 frames per second. That meant you would have seen lines and "flutter" across the image when a camera was aimed at a TV set or monitor. In 1947, RCA- and DuMont- perfected the "kinescope" film camera process which was adjusted to film TV images from a monitor- so there was no distorted picture. At the same time, Hubert Chain had his own method of recording TV images on film, and filmed excerpts from various TV programs during 1947 and early 1948: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z3awZWmZptiYe9k

[@CoolCademMAnimates-fz1ui]

@@fromthesidelinesactually, any number that can multiply into the frame rate (29.97) including the actual frame rate can get a perfect picture.

[@foyevision]

Very interesting.

[@RRaquello]

The summer before this, television covered one of its earliest live, on-the-spot news stories. It was the suicide of John Warde, who jumped off the ledge of the 17th floor of the Hotel Gotham, which was conveniently located right around the corner from RCA & NBC's headquarters at Rockefeller Center. Warde's was the famous case where he stood out on the ledge for about 12 hours while police and relatives tried to coax him back in. Much of it was shown on live TV, and they later made a movie about it.

[@trivet1970]

Fourteen Hours (1951)

[@hulkhatepunybanner]

*Twelve hours? Death by sleep deprivation.*

[@CoolCademMAnimates-fz1ui]

@@hulkhatepunybanneractually an officer had just convinced him to come back inside but one of the NBC cameramen burst into the room and started filming so he ran back out and jumped.

[@PhillipJames100]

"where television will go is any man's guess".....hmmm 9:06

[@loveanarchy8488]

The future will bring within a generation, television being called the idiot box.

[@hulkhatepunybanner]

*Economic perspective:* A $200 and $600 in 1940 was $4,413 and $13,240 in 2023, respectively. Only the very wealthy could have purchased a television set in 1940... one year after the end of the [Great] Depression of 1929. Talk about a weird time to market high end electronics.

[@TheWarped45]

I have heard that voice being imitated by south park not sure wish episode.

[@kainhall]

having had a 42 inch CRT...or a 1440x900 monitor (im 1080 now thank god)...for most of my life...this is..jsut wow. i thought i had wack ass, outdated at launch tech...just wow. a mirror? why have that 2nd step? why not jsut have the screen....

[@PeriscopeFilm]

I think the mirror likely enlarged the image, which was on a very small screen. But I'm not 100% sure. According to the EarlyTelevision.org website, "A television receiver had to look much like the console radio of the day and a lift top mirror displaying a reflected image was thought to be the solution. Also, room light reflection on the CRT was considered to be problematic while it was believed that the mirror provided a wider audience view."

[@aquarius580]

The reason for the mirror was that the first CRT tubes were very long. So the choice was made to install them vertically in the box, from bottom to top, and to use a mirror. Otherwise, the box would have to be made exceptionally "deep", from the screen to the wall.

[@jamesslick4790]

@@aquarius580 Yep!

[@Walkercolt1]

@@PeriscopeFilm Yes, it did. The original RCA CRT's were only 5" in diameter, and the screen in the sample looks to be about 8" or maybe 9" tops. I have a good friend and Ham operator with his father's RCA Model 3 8" COLOR TV! It works (with 40+ tubes inside) and of course the CRT uses VERY dim color sulfides (no rare-earth phosphors yet!) for the images.(Turn off the lights!) He has two spare CRT's for it and a "cheater box" to convert ATSC to NTSC TV standard. It has the original crank tuner instead of being retro-fitted with a "clunk-clunk" type.

[@Walkercolt1]

@@aquarius580 Well, the CRT for the RCA Model 3 color TV was MUCH longer than the oscilloscope tubes used in the earliest TV's. About 46" front-to-back for an 8" (round) screen. The 21" round TV's of the 60's were three feet deep. Our 21" Westinghouse B&W TV from 1953 (my sister's birthday present, and so was I!) was 40"+ deep. A 1974 Blondell-Wilkerson 25" studio monitor weighed about 150 lbs and was 3 feet deep. Until plasma/LED TV's came out, the B&W was THE broadcast engineer's color and picture quality standard. I built a 21" Heathkit color TV in 1969 for my parents. A Zenith tv, upgraded to Heathkit's specs. Lasted 24 years and 3 months. Not bad for "only" a $600 color TV!

[@luisreyes1963]

It would at least be another 10 years for the Japanese to out pace the U.S. in video technology. 📺

[@SarahRWilson]

Sony was running along with other Japanese manufacturers through the sixties. Their claim to fame then was the small battery operated TV sets they produced. In 1968 their Trinitron CRT was displayed, after that, the door from Japan was burst wide open. After purchasing the Quasar brand from Motorola in the early seventies, Matsushita (Panasonic/National) embarked on a program of dumping their products into the United States. They were able to do this and still turn a profit because they had grossly inflated the prices of sets for their domestic Japanese market. PBS did an expose on this several years ago. Eventually the Sony Trinitron monitor (PVM) overtook the RCA and Conrac monitors in the broadcast studio, becoming the defacto standard.

[@thomashowe855]

About 25 years, probably