Four Minutes of BBC TV from 1938

[@effyleven]

Good grief!! @ 0:28 That's Jasmine Bligh! I recognised her immediately! She was one of the Beeb's first three in-vision "hostess/announcers" at the time, and was still broadcasting when my family got a 12" TV set in 1951... and she later worked for ITV in daytime television, when that came along Check her out in Wikipedia. She was a lovely lady, with a most beautiful voice (RP) and we early viewers liked her a lot. UPDATE. After the cartoon, @ 2:40, That is the image of a contemporary test card. The text on the card reads:- (top line) BBC BOADCASTING (bottom line) TELEVISION SERVICE.

[@tv-dawniej]

nope, the inscription is 'FOR DEMONSTRATION OF REICEVER CONTROLS" I have found a better quality version of it, it's on my channel

[@effyleven]

@@tv-dawniej Yes. You are quite right. There was an announcement card just as you stated, and it was a test card format almost the same in appearance. But the one appearing first in this video is the BBC TELEVISION BROADCASTING SERVICE version, which morphs into the setup one. We are both right. Crossfading was the only method of changing the picture on-screen, in the early days. I know because I identified each letter individually, and so I actually READ it before committing myself. The alignment message is the one that appears second. Best wishes.

[@Londonfogey]

Slightly more watchable than 'Love Island'.

[@thatkaidonchannelcountryba3606]

🤮

[@leoneljace4650]

InstaBlaster

[@kkillerz6991]

True true 😂

[@JamieBoy-ij2ri]

You can say that again

[@TomSmith-jp1es]

Gammon

[@a1wireless1964]

How amazing is this? Live in 1938 traveling across the Atlantic and being picked up buy a set somewhere in New York and then to top it off someone had the genius idea to film it just think how much interesting program would have been saved if more items would have been filmed

[@ed9492]

I suspect this was part of some experiment.

[@waverider227]

Exactly right!

[@KofaOne]

How are these programs interesting if you can't understand anything

[@krashd]

@@KofaOne He's obviously talking about recording it inside the originating country and not from across an ocean.

[@a1wireless1964]

@@krashd Not quite this is a program that originated from england but somebody had the forethought to actually do a film of it in new york city those are the actual pictures coming across the ocean from england

[@mannysanguena7900]

At the end of analog tv broadcast in the US in 2009, only a few "nightlight" stations remained advising the end of analog broadcast. With the VHF television spectrum free, from central USA one could receive stations from Mexico and Canada. The nature of sporadic E transmission is that the signal follows an atmospheric duct for thousands of miles. This was likely the first observance of analog tv ducting in 1938 and I was fortunate to see and record the last in 2009. The images of this ducting effect are very similar in 1938 and 2009.

[@fungo6631]

This isn't E skip, this is F2 skip.

[@PhirePhlame]

May we see it?

[@Perririri]

* analogue

[@fungo6631]

@@Perririri Analog is also OK

[@lajosmolnar7631]

In 1938 not using anybody the VHF band. To televison transmission.This time the analog tv using the normal radio broadcast band "520-1640 khz"

[@brucebrewer36]

In 1991 or so, I was in college in Buffalo, NY. I came home from class and turned on the TV and started changing the channels (no cable) for something to watch. A station came in on a channel I was unfamiliar with, clear as a bell. It was a PBS station from Kansas. It lasted for a good hour or so before disappearing. The atmospheric conditions that day were obviously ideal for that type of anomaly.

[@redstickham6394]

I've had experiences like that too. I remember when I was a kid in the late 70s living in New Orleans, there was a channel 2 in the Baton Rouge that usually came in fuzzy but watchable. Over a period of weeks, I couldn't pick up that station at all, which didn't make sense. I started playing with the rabbit ears and got a picture from something totally different than what should have been on and the audio was in Spanish. It turned out it was a station in Monterrey, Mexico! They were showing an old movie then went into some old Sylvester and Tweety cartoons dubbed in Spanish. I have since learned the sunspots were pretty high around that time, which makes sense.

[@MrUnidyne]

Prior to Digital, people in Key West, Florida could often pick up TV signals from Cuba.

[@ThatsViews]

The first recorded example of DXTV! Thanks for sharing this. It looked like a period costume presentation, perhaps an opera, followed by a cartoon that looked like the work of Max Fleischer.

[@Martinroadsguy]

Hard to imagine transatlantic dxtv. Information I could find about it seems spotty, but apparently some of the earliest TV stations were broadcasting in frequencies as low as the medium wave band, which seems bizarre in our age of digital UHF TV channels broader than that entire band.

[@twittykins]

The cartoon was a Disney one called 'Mother Goose Melodies' from 1931. It's on youtube, and watching it will reveal that this recording from New York is actually being shown back to front.

[@dxerkin4]

@@Martinroadsguywhat are you saying lmao, they were broadcasting on low VHF, 45.0MHz to be precise

[@linmanfu913]

The audio for some of the early broadcasts used the BBC's mediumwave transmitters. And perhaps there is confusion here between 'AM' the modulation and 'AM' the American English term for the mediumwave broadcast band.

[@BNCA70]

We had an old TV set that behaved like that until about 1983

[@twiddlybobby]

It's amazing to think what was happening in Britain when this was broadcast. British Dance Bands and Al Bowlly reigned the dance halls supreme, Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister, World War 2 was on the horizon, my Grandmother had just had her 3rd child not realising that within a few years her husband would be killed in the RAF and her house would be destroyed in an air-raid like so many millions of other people. In her later years, she told my Mother that she took her two sons to an electrical shop as a treat to watch a television in 1938. One of the staff objected after a few minutes by rudely turning off the set and saying, ''If you want to see the rest of it, bleedin' well buy one !''

[@Tampo-tiger]

Extraordinary Tb. What a good thing we don't know what the future holds for us all. If I remember correctly this recording was made when very early television was broadcast to a few thousand rich Londoners on Short Wave, enabling it to travel for great distances as Short Wave allows, but with lots of that pesky interference we may recall from listening to Short Wave broadcasts back before the digital revolution made such things unnecessary. It was probably why 31 years later the pictures from the moon's surface were so dreadful. Although by then TV was broadcast on VHF it had to go by Short Wave from the Moon's surface in order to travel that great distance. They had a really early colour camera on the moon but quickly knackered it by looking directly at the Sun with it. It was able to video record colour largely by mechanical means, as was the early monochrome TV. You can't believe the advances made in such a short space of time since TV was invented.

[@Kennephone]

@@Tampo-tiger I don't think the BBC was using shortwave when they switched to electronic TV, there wouldn't have been enough bandwidth, I think they used the low end of the VHF spectrum.

[@richellebrittain2127]

​@Kennephone According to another comment the RCA engineers who received & recorded this signal were testing on old U.S. channel 1, which was just a few MHz above the line between shortwave & VHF. It's not unthinkable that ionospheric skip would have happened in that band in ways similar to shortwave.

[@caspence56]

Can you just imagine how awe inspiring and mind blowing this must have been for the individual viewing this in the U.S.? Does anyone know what kind of shows were broadcast on the BBC in the 1930's and how long a typical broadcast day would last? I would appreciate if someone could shed some light on this. Thank-you for an incredible piece of history.

[@PatrickWLondon]

The BBC has published its archive

[@MrDannyDetail]

At this time BBC Televison broadcast's aired as follows: Monday-Friday: 11am-12noon Test Transmissions, 15:00-16:00 Afternoon programming, 21:00-22:30 Evening programming Saturday: 15:00-16:00 Afternoon programming, 21:00-22:30 Evening programming Sunday: 21:00-22:30 Evening programming The test transmissions were for the retail and rental trade to use to demonstrate tv sets to prospective buyers/renters and for tv tuners to have something to actually tune in the service with. The afterrnoon programming seems to typically include a short cartoon film on most occasions. The evening programming tends towards variety or plays. Broadcasting hours weren't totally fixed to the above, but were approximately those slots.

[@carelesslygeneric]

"No Marty, Listen The pic was so clear it's like I was there!" -Someone in the 30's describing the broadcast

[@esmeephillips5888]

This is a freak of reception, but JL Baird achieved low-definition pictures across the Atlantic ten years earlier. The BBC's official standard in 1936 used VHF, which is basically line of sight with a max. range over land of about 70 miles. Its first transmitter was less well powered, with a reliable 30-mile radius, though enthusiasts got watchable pictures all over England (and in France) if the weather was right. Had the BBC stuck with Baird's short waves, trans-Atlantic TV would have been a thing more than 30 years before Early Bird and Telstar.

[@MrToradragon]

Perhaps due required bandwidth for both systems. When one is about double the number of lines of other, there will be some problems with bandwidth. BTW there were some enthusiasts in Czechoslovakia picking up the signal as well. It amazes me how the world was, if you knew the language, closer back then then it was just one or two decades later. Anyhow there is possibility that they used amplifier before TV itself. R.F. amplifier are easily doable with technology back then. It can be tuned or not tuned, but it is basically you just let signal from antenna directly to the G1 of any RF pentode, something like 6A7 or AF7, and then take signal from it's anode to the next stage. through some capacitor, but maybe they would use some RF transformer or something like that. Another problem for TV was WWII, quite recently I have seen some excerpt from very old radio magazine describing TV system to be build in Czechoslovakia, well, it was proposal for able TV some 5 to 10 years earlier than it happened in the USA. If it would not be for WWII then there is good chance that TV would have became thing by 1945.

[@martinnoyes8507]

The EMI system proved itself to be far suprior to the Baird system.The pictures for transmission were excellent, the cameras were mobile, the studio bright and airy.There was supposed to be a 12 month trial between the two systems, Baird week followed by EMI .It is noteable that the BBC booking acts through theatre agents, found that performers were available for EMI week but not Baird week.In February 1937, the BBC decided on performance to go with the EMI system and the Baird studio was converted to EMI use.

[@deepfreezevideo]

No television used shortwave, which is actually the low end of HF, not VHF, which begins at about 48 mHz. And even HAD they used HF, the signal might travel thousands of miles but due to the atmospheric fluctuations, the picture and sound would have been well nigh unusable, like what you see on the clip.

[@KeithE4]

​@@deepfreezevideo -- There was TV on MF and HF in the late 1920s and early '30s. It was very low definition (24-48 lines at a low frame rate), used mechanical Nipkow disks, and was made obsolete by higher-definition electronic cameras in the mid 1930s. There is some experimentation on the HF ham bands using those old devices today, mostly in the UK and Australia.

[@fungo6631]

If you aren't blind you can see many examples of F2 skip reception suffering from very strong multipath distortion which, while not a problem at audio frequenceis that reach 10 KHz max on those bands, is very much problematic when we're talking about frequencies in the MHz range. F2 skip signals are actually stronger than double hop E Skip signals, but are plagued by multipath. Oddly enough, digital TV using OFDM modulation would fare much better with a high enough MUF, as it is more resistant to multipath.

[@robicenco1]

I echo Derek's comment. What an experience it would be to see the early television broadcasts once again. I live in hope that somewhere there exists a film capture of some of it. We should be grateful that this remarkable recording exists. It would be great if there were more, though.

[@WeeKelpie]

There is only one other known off-screen cine film recording of pre-war BBC television. It was shot by Mr. J. E. Davies of the Marconi International Marine Communication Co, and it's of the 1937 Coronation ceremony. It was borrowed by the BBC for use in 1953, and then returned to the owner, although the current location of the film is unknown. If any other cine films exist, nobody knows about them.

[@mpwheatley]

@@Thelaretus Those aren't the pictures from the television camera, they filmed the scenes with a movie camera at the same time or shortly after for promotional purposes & that is what you see there. The holy grail is film camera footage of a television set receiving a live broadcast. Video recording did not exist so an 'off-screen' movie capture was the only way to obtain a permanent recording but alas no-one seems to have done this apart from a couple of examples.

[@debranchelowtone]

@@mpwheatley Vidéo recording existed, but only in very low definition, a few recordings still exists.

[@g4obb]

If you could travel faster than light itself you could outrun the signal ( which still exists ) a see it.....remember energy cannot be destroyed.

[@robicenco1]

@@WeeKelpie Thanks - I knew that there was virtually nothing in existence, but I wasn't aware of that detail. I hope wherever the Davies film is, it is being looked after.

[@97channel]

It feels very ghostly. Haunted. When you see very old footage in good quality, you kind of take it for granted and don't think much of it. But this really makes you think about how you're watching a past world, like it's a manifestation of the long departed souls.

[@ronaldwilliamson7963]

Most people look at and listen to dead people everyday.

[@mattjames1978]

Remarkable due to distance travelled (skip if you will) via the ionosphere. The ghosting is due, I`m assuming, to the phase being shifted as the signal bounces round like a ping-pong ball, partially reflected back, and the cycle repeating over 3000 miles (and frames are "echoing" off each other - how it fades out and comes back - rather like a torch beam bouncing off a mirror onto another mirror onto yet another 3000 mirrors etc) rather than different standards (50hz / 60hz scanning). Good they managed to capture it a that exact time. For VHF to bounce over this distance is remarkable to say the least.

[@1L6E6VHF]

misterpikey Close enough. The ghosting occurs when more than one ionization "cloud" refracted/reflected the signal back to Earth. The picture gets distorted when the darkest part of the picture ceases to be the synchronization bar - EMI 405 video was especially susceptible as it used positive video modulation. White is peak power and the sync bar is zero power (USA. Continental Europe, and UHF UK did the reverse) The transatlantic reception was make possible by Alexandra Palace's low frequency (41.5 MHz sound, 45 MHz picture) and the fact that 1938 was a high-sunspot year.

[@jonrk2]

I love DXing, and I think this video is just so cool. You can't imagine what the signals have to go through to get to the other end of the skip. I got Cuba this year from my house in Pennsylvania, and that was the coolest thing. Same effects shown as this video

[@fungo6631]

Well some Aussie guy received Dubai TV in Sydney in 1991. Another Aussie somewhere in Western Australia received ARD in 1992.

[@WHHFDT]

This kinescope film was shot by RCA engineers. The RCA lab was located in Riverhead, NY. RCA was experimenting with 343 and 441 line television. BBC 405 line TV would have been suitable for RCA receivers working on VHF channel 1 in those days. Check the link in the description for additional information.

[@FarNoGaming]

For some reason this made me tear up. I love looking at past technology and just seeing how far we have come. So cool that they managed to pick up this decades old transmission.

[@titanictotired]

If I remember correctly, there does exist a version that is in much higher quality and doesn't exist on youtube as of yet. The BBC's archives definitely have it and it's probably somewhere on the internet.

[@peterwilson2080]

Freak reception conditions allowed this amazing catch. Great that the New York receiver was able to be filmed.

[@fastertrackcreative]

Interesting and super spooky. The bad image quality makes the faces looks ghostly combined with the lack of sound so mouthing wordlessly.

[@jtukko]

Remember, it looked way better locally and with your own eyes instead of other side of the globe and trough a camera.

[@newuk26]

1938 and the BBC can broadcast a signal so strong it travels thousands of miles across the globe. 2021 and I can’t even get a decent signal from a DAB transmitter 3 miles away

[@almostfm]

This was due to a freak atmospheric condition. TV signals are normally line of sight, which is why the towers tend to be up pretty high.

[@fungo6631]

Don't worry, with an outdoor antenna you'll get a decent signal. Outside I can get DAB+ signals from 200+ km away.

[@spmoran4703]

Or a deacent watchable programme.

[@JazzFunkNobby1964]

That's because I don't pay for a TV Licence. Terribly sorry Old Chap.

[@HBC101TVStudios]

@@almostfm And VHF is commonly affected by sporadic E and F2 propagation, unlike DAB is which only affected by Tropo

[@roberthorwat6747]

As near to time travel as I'll ever get. Seismic experience! Feels as though I've somehow experienced the impossible in the unique and exclusive wonder and excitement of those (very few) original television viewers.

[@angelsaltamontes7336]

You have. Glenn Miller, Lauren Bacall, and Benny Mussolini say hello, and Eleanor Roosevelt asks what channel YOU'RE on.

[@roberthorwat6747]

@@angelsaltamontes7336 greetings from 2017. Unfortunately you may not get this reply untill 1947. There seems to be a lag. I was going to warn you about that Hitler dude but by the time you read this, he will be history. By the way, (keep this to yourself) ... you might want to make a little wager on the Cleveland Indians for the 1948 World Series. Don't say I didn't tell you so...

[@oshvision]

this is similar to how I was able to receive S4C from wales in Somerset

[@GoodOlGranite]

Except this tv footage was able to cross the North Atlantic while the S4C feed only managed to cross the River Severn.

[@arthurvasey]

Funnily enough, I used to live on the Quantocks - my portable telly could only receive signals from Wales!

[@a.m11558]

My grandfather was born two years before in 1936 and is still very healthy to this day

[@pegasusactua2985]

My grandmother was born in 1933 and turns 92 next month. She's blind as shit but is otherwise doing well.

[@trevordance5181]

For those that are interested, in 1986 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of BBC television, the BBC broadcast a drama documentary entitled 'The Fools On The Hill'. Although the story is fictitious it was based on fact and it did show in some detail how the fledging tv service came into being and as faithfully as they could they reconstructed some of the first broadcssts. It also illustrated the difference between the two competing systems being trialled, ie Baird versus EMI/Marconi, and also the thinking of some of the senior people at the BBC who at that time thought television was a passing fad and somewhat vulgar. The complete programme, 'The Fools On The Hill' is as I post this message available to watch on KZbin.

[@JoshBernhard]

Thanks for the rec!

[@trevordance5181]

@@JoshBernhard No problem Josh. I hope you find it of interest. The "hill" in the title refers to the location of the BBC's first tv studio complex and transmitter at Alexandra Palace, a big Victorian building not far from central London built on top of a big hill. Ideal for siting the first tv transmitter in regards to serving a large area.

[@dmrr7739]

I keep hoping social media is a passing fad and somewhat vulgar. I think I will be similarly disappointed.

[@waverider227]

This is beyond amazing this was done before satellites and even before video tape recorders even existed and in 1936 even before WW2 and via a rare form of Atmospheric skip Known as F2 layer skip caused by high sunspot activity just amazing !

[@robertfoster6070]

Somewhat incredible that the signal could travel so far without a satellite.

[@freddieflintstone4694]

many many than thanks for sharing this Josh. I found it fascinating as well as amzing that this footage exisits that someone was able to film it and years later you uploaded it. I've done some work at Ally Pally

[@samsum3738]

How strange to think it is just possible that somebody , born during the reign of king george the 4th 1830 to 1837 saw this broadcast .

[@simonjones7727]

Looks far better than anything that is on now. This I would watch.

[@charliepark1122]

Wow its got more clarity than a modern cctv camera.

[@chetpomeroy1399]

This broadcast was likely on a range of frequencies that are subject to ionospheric skip signals. In my area, Seattle, old Channel 2 was vacant, but at times during the summer, I could watch programming from a TV station in Flagstaff, Arizona 1,400 miles away.

[@sandysexton6570]

It’s like watching TV in the 1960s, when you couldn’t pick up the signal from the antenna.

[@jackwalker4744]

The UK video PAL format was always incompatible with USA NTSC format. So this scenario as described does not make sense, unless these respective analog combinations of scan lines, pixels, and refresh rates were somehow not in effect yet. Please clarify.

[@krashd]

The enthusiast in New York was using a British-made PAL television set.

[@jackwalker4744]

@@krashd Thanks for the technical clarification. But I will never understand why anyone in North America would be trying to receive UK television, especially since this one occurrence was some sort of atmospheric fluke.

[@dailyflash]

This is eerie and ghostly. Thanks!

[@davidnewton190]

We owe a big thanks to all the early television pioneers.

[@pinedelgado4743]

Outstanding for the late 1930s--before the War that changed EVERYTHING. :-(

[@trev8932]

Amazing indeed. To think that those TV receivers with insensitive front ends were actually capable of receiving the signal at all is remarkable. The other thing was the old story of being in the right place at the right time. Before analogue TV was switched off and using Band 1 DX TV was common with reception over thousands of miles possible when the conditions allowed it. Brilliant piece of history.

[@Citrusautomaton]

The sheer INSANITY of coincidences that unfolded here are ludicrous. You have someone in the 1930s who had enough money to afford a television (a good 20 years before they were common place) AND just so happened to have a film-grade camera just lying around for them to record this. Absolutely brilliant.

[@geoffarcher6085]

Not at all. The signal was picked up by the New York RCA lab, which was experimenting with TV and had the equipment to receive and film the broadcast.

[@johnhanserud6952]

That's amazing where I live we did not have regular television until 1958 and full service until 1960!

[@NigelDixon1952]

Thank you so much for enlightening us to this true TV history.

[@sapphire817]

This looks like footage that would be included in a horror movie.

[@tortysoft]

Incredible. Deep respect !

[@OMGYasuke]

Holy shit! The quality is amazing! Great job dude, I can see everything clear!

[@snxperrl6185]

it was 1938

[@glennjohnson8170]

Glenn Johnson WOW.Real early live TV captured.Surreal,for sure.

[@somebodyelseful]

When we can travel faster than the speed of light, then we will start catching up on radio and tv transmissions, overhauling them in microscopic increments.

[@RWBHere]

Three minutes of fascinating history. Thanks!

[@vonzigle]

Thank God that things have improved!

[@numbersnumbers]

Been looking for this clip for a while. I remembered seeing it on a lost media youtuber’s video, and then forgetting all about it.

[@manebull6291]

I love this type of stuff, and its amazing it was found throughout all these years. it's both creepy and amazing to look at😀💛!

[@marcoantoniodasilvabatista7203]

2:39 BBC tuning signals

[@crixtj]

yet still better than UFO footages.

[@robertfoster6070]

And BBC America remains a firm favourite in the US to this day.

[@facundobresan1009]

Valioso video! evidentemente falla la mala señal de antena. Saludos desde Buenos Aires Argentina.

[@Tampo-tiger]

I wonder how this was organised? In those days it may have been by post as I don't know if there was a transatlantic telephone link. It makes your hair stand on end to imagine that somebody broadcast this from the only country that had a scheduled TV service (or so I read - I wasn't there at the time!), via short wave radio - a remarkable feat in itself for the time - and somebody at the other end knew the exact time and frequency to tune into. I can't imagine how exciting that must have been. Did they think it possible that somehow a more powerful amplifier would send an appreciably better picture, and sound too? Imagine how this could have helped in the war effort, transmitting facts across Europe with pictures to back them up? I'm completely blown away.

[@tailsprowerfan2729]

Still looks better then secretly cameras

[@twitchygiraffe4636]

Unbelievable! Didn’t know they could do that in 1938?!

[@justinellison4214]

This is much better than whats on tv now!

[@ianwilmoth]

haunting...

[@cobrag0318]

Chances of restoration. I mean, you can't expect miracles. But clean it up a bit, adjust out brightness and contrast and stabilize. As well as stabilize the image framing and speed. They've got AI that'll do some of that, maybe even colorize, though I doubt there's enough left for that. Did wonders with that film of the train arriving in france. Maybe some work can be done here.

[@jnielson1121]

Wonderful! I wonder whether we know what it was from the scheduling? Would be lovely to work out who the performers are. And what that snippet of animation was from...

[@almostfm]

I recognize the clip at 1:22 coming from a play that I've actually seen much of on another video, and it features two aristocrats and a woman. I can't for the life of me remember the name, but I do know the play achieved some fame in the theater world because the last act was written while the play was being performed on opening night. If someone can come up with the title from that sketchy information I have, it should be possible to figure out the broadcast date from when the section of the play was shown.

[@twittykins]

The animation was from a cartoon called Mother Goose Melodies (1931). It should be on KZbin still, and if you do happen to watch it, you'll see that the film in this clip is actually flipped over.

[@jnielson1121]

@@twittykins I found it! Thank you - it's amazing what the internet can do :)

[@MrDannyDetail]

Just to add that I think the man at 2:00 with the distinctive moustache is the mystic Rahman Bey, who was part of the Eastern Cabaret on 12th December 1938, which would make that the day of recording, unless recordings were made over multiple days. The full line-up for that Eastern Cabaret, according to Radio Times, was as follows: Galli-Galli, conjuror; Rahman Bey, Indian fakir; Ayala, Indian dancer; Stromboli, fire-eater; Five Sherry Brothers, dancers; Wilbur Hall and Rene Fields, in comedy; Bob Bromley and his puppets. Compere, Cyril Fletcher. Presentation by Harry Pringle. Note: The listings published in the Daily Herald on 12th December 1938, and in the Daily News on 17th December 1938 (the date of either a repeat or remount of Eastern Cabaret), state 'Bob Dyer, comedian' in the sixth line, instead of 'Wilbur Hall and Rene Fields, in comedy', so probably Hall and Fields pulled out after Radio Times was published, or they and Dyer had their appearance dates switched round by the BBC at short notice for some reason.

[@timmy9003]

Amazing

[@gustavoceballos5327]

2:39: BBC Television Service Logo

[@fcubeboy4959]

16k video looking fire

[@fcubeboy4959]

Me from 3 years ago is mad funny

[@Witzlaw]

It was mentioned in the description that it was the oldest recording of live British television, but might this be the earliest surviving film of a TV broadcast…anywhere?

[@kreuner11]

Possibly first footage ever of a Television DX?

[@MrQuijibo]

Some aliens right now are watching Love Island with similar quality and are charging up their lasers.

[@s4dreamland671]

We are only receiving what is called Fantasy Island, and are very much intrigued by the small one they call Tattoo...

[@Mrshoujo]

Back when everyone had the same video system and no NTSC / PAL / SECAM.

[@LarryWaldbillig]

That was the very first thing I thought; Was this PAL, SECAM or NTSC?

[@arturomonsalve]

@@LarryWaldbilligSECAM, PAL, NTSC are color system; this system was called A (405i - 50Hz). A example NTSC - M (M = 525i 60Hz ). Although there were attemps to add color to this system in SECAM, PAL and NTSC (SECAM -A, PAL - A, NTSC - A) but never was released.

[@LarryWaldbillig]

@@arturomonsalve Thanks for clearing that up. I'm more radio-oriented, but I've always been fascinated by early TV tech although I'm a little green on some of the hard details.

[@krashd]

Actually the US system had not gone live yet and would have used an incompatible 441-line system, this was captured using a 405-line TV set that was brought to the US just for the purpose of taking advantage of the phenomenon and seeing if it would work.

[@SouthwesternEagle]

@@krashd How would they have known about the solar storm ahead of time? Where did you read this because that's fascinating!

[@TheAutisticKeybladeWielder]

It's like watching the midnight channel...

[@joebaumgart1146]

How did this even get recorded? There wasn't live video recording technology in the same way as it existed in the 60's. Unless a millionaire with a video camera happened to decide to record a random broadcast, I don't see how this could have happened.

[@lutello3012]

16mm film probably

[@krashd]

Cameras were cheaper than TVs back then because the TV was brand new but handheld cameras had been around for 40 years and anyone with a projector would have owned one.

[@monkeytennis7477]

"OOooh, there's a penguin on the telly!"

[@joannegray5138]

Halfway though that film, it looked like the broadcast was hacked by a couple of Martians. I know they were probably puppets or a cartoon of some sort and the picture quality is lousy at best, but I feel a bit uneasy :)

[@HBC101TVStudios]

F2 skip propagation was making the quality so lousy, and ghosty / smeary video are one of signs of F2 skip.

[@joshgellis3292]

There's ONLY one advantage over analog signal that digital does not have: Analog keeps showing objects AND audio in REAL TIME, despite the occasional signal quality drop! LOL! Digital TV signals (at least early into existing:) THE IMAGE and SOUND freezes UP like IF you've put a BADLY programmed / dirty S/NES video game and expect it to somehow work.

[@jozefbubez6116]

Not bad! for a 45MHz (mega-cycles per second) transmission and these guys must have had a good idea of what they were doing! When the Alexandra Palace transmitter came back on the air in 1946, I think in the "Practical Wireless" magazine of that time, there is a report of someone receiving sound in South Africa. Good stuff!

[@mekon1971]

In 1938 they could broadcast across the Atlantic, and my rabbit ears can't pick up the tower that I can see from my back yard.

[@JoshBernhard]

Less interference then!

[@mactheknife7049]

Technical question: how much transmitter wattage would have been necessary to have that signal transmit, even by ionospheric bounce, from (presumably) London to New York?

[@g4obb]

If sunspot activity was high at that time ( and i think it must have been ) Then not much power is required. We Radio hams can, in the correct conditions, communicate worldwide with less that a single watt of power.

[@Martinroadsguy]

Yeah, not that much really. The ionospheric conditions are a lot more important than the power of the transmission in a situation like this. You could be blasting the signal out at at 2kw, but if the conditions aren't right it's just going to be absorbed by the atmosphere or escape into space, but in the right conditions a 100 watt signal can skip about for hundreds or thousands of miles. If I'm correct this was broadcast at about 45mhz, which is considered VHF and generally line of sight, but sometimes skips more like HF does when the sun is going crazy with spots. The distortion in this video is likely because the the signal is much broader than extremely narrow morse code or audio transmissions in the HF bands and the higher and lower ends of the transmission are taking different paths on their way bouncing around the ionosphere and arriving milliseconds apart.

[@tandy5811]

whats with the cartoon at the end?

[@miketaylor5577]

How did the signal follow the curve of the earth?

[@twittykins]

It 'bounced' in an up and down zigzag pattern like this: /\/\/\/\/\.

[@miketaylor5577]

@@twittykins lol

[@krashd]

@@miketaylor5577 They aren't joking, read the description. This was caused by an atmospheric phenomenon that kept the signal inside the atmosphere so that it could bounce across the Atlantic.

[@dtox2331]

It doesn't seem to have the horizontal line constantly scanning through it which always seemed to be evident in television broadcasts captured on cine film .

[@Mhel2023]

Reception looks like watching WHT, our first cable service in NYC, late '70's. They would play pornos at night and us kids would sneak it on and try to decipher what was going on despite the scrambled channel 🤣🧐

[@geoffsullivan4063]

This should have been called 3 Minutes & 18 seconds of BBC TV from 1938..

[@weegie3343]

security cameras still look worse than a 1938 test transmission

[@justincase2281]

Imagine seeing television for the very first time in those days. Incredible!! Better than most of the crap on TV today!! TV is much like music today. The technology is amazing, but the content sucks!!!

[@Proxinem]

There's some incredible music nowadays, you're just not looking hard enough.

[@justincase2281]

@@Proxinem Meh. The popular stuff for mass consumption is crap. I've heard a few things that are passable, in my opinion. But most of the great stuff is all in the past. Starting in the 80s and that androgynous, Culture Club, Duran Duran, Kaja GooGoo shit was bad enough. You could cherry pick some decent stuff from the more classic artists. But the cherry picking got slimmer and slimmer as the decades passed, to the point where now what's played on radio is stomach turning. I've listened to everything from Big Band stuff of my parent's generation and the great singers of that time, heard tons of Doo Wop, jazz singers and rockers of the 50s, grew up during the 60s and 70s where there was everything from Motown to Hard Rock, The British Invasion, Country and the list goes on. I was a musician myself so I know a bit about music and know GREAT players and singers who will never be known. But the trash today can't hold a candle to any of what came before. Maroon 5, Taylor Swift, Coldplay, and the like?!! 🤮 Sickening.

[@johnabbott9526]

If anybody knows on what date these recordings were made it should be possible to access information as to what programmes were broadcast on that day.

[@MauriatOttolink]

John Abbott 1938. archive.org/details/BbcTelevisionReceivedInNewYork-1938

[@angelrogo]

Maybe the first and largest DX reception in TV history?

[@joseppuig925]

This is what I call "High Un-Definition" or HUD at -1080p

[@davidk6271]

I keep hitting the iPad but the picture doesn’t improve

[@StudioZ7]

I wonder what was going on in the segment that starts at 2:26. Looks like a floating monster with sharp teeth zooming up to the camera, then zooming back and jumping around.

[@hihosheffieldwednesday]

It was an animation. A short American cartoon they played.

[@StudioZ7]

@@hihosheffieldwednesday Thanks for the info.

[@Kaden-q5r]

@@StudioZ7 It was called Mother Goose Melodies - a 1931 Disney Silly Symphony short.

[@StudioZ7]

@@Kaden-q5r Thanks for the info. Just watched a clean copy.

[@TIMBOWERMAN]

How did you do this? BBC used 405 lines, the US settled on 525 lines for their TV which started in 1939

[@twittykins]

From what I remember reading some years back, the engineers in New York were conducting experiments with a British tv set when it picked up this BBC signal.

[@kargaroc386]

Also, RCA was still experimenting with 441 lines at the time, 525 came alittle bit later.

[@krashd]

This was captured on an imported British set.

[@kaysmith8992]

I didn't know TV existed already at the time. Who would have been watching it then? I thought most people only watched TV from the 1950s.

[@MrPillowStudios]

Laws would maybe even allow mechanical television brodcasting today.

[@kelstersbreeze4714]

We're not for WWII, the 1940s would have been when television took off around the world, however, technology would have been much slower in its development.

[@bob23301]

I hear the other 26 mins if this was all adverts.

[@wieyabuggaman]

So for the three years, until the outbreak of war, absolutely no one in the UK pointed a cine camera at the TV, not even the BBC? Not even that very first broadcast on the first day of transmission? I find myself desperately wanting to see at the very least fifteen minutes of the first ever BBC TV broadcast. I'm very much aware that there were very few sets available at the time, but, it would be great to see nonetheless.

[@tornadomimicyclone6707]

Maybe someone can have it for sale on eBay in 2085.

[@michaelterry1000]

Here is a question along those same lines that I have always had. In 1969 the BBC televised a documentary on the Royal Family. It has never aired since. Except for a few minutes, that can be seen on youtube, none of this footage is available because the royals will not allow it. Like your question, I realize the limitations of the technology of the time but in 1969 NO ONE in all of Britain made a recording of the broadcast?

[@ThatsViews]

Home video recording was not a thing in 1969.

[@esmeephillips5888]

Remember 16mm cine cameras for domestic use were expensive and not commonly owned until some years after WW2. When George Gershwin filmed shooting of 'Shall We Dance' in Hollywood in 1937 it aroused a lot of curiosity, especially since he used the newly introduced Kodachrome color. The Baird Intermediate Film process trialed in 1936-37 (in BBC Television's early high-def days) made a record on 17.5mm gauge celluloid of all transmissions, but none of it seems to have survived.

[@mpwheatley]

Technically lots of the first three months of BBC TV were recorded by a film camera; on alternating weeks the Baird mechanical and Marconi electronic systems were used. The Baird mechanical system did not use regular television cameras, instead the scenes in the TV studio were recorded on 17.5mm film with a film camera and the film was developed ultra quickly in a chemical bath (in about two minutes) and this still wet film was telecinied and the telecine was broadcast electronically. The only way the Baird system could broadcast actual live footage (as opposed to two minute old telecinied footage) was by using a thing called a spotlight studio, where you had to sit in front of a mechanical Nipkow disk scanning you and you had to wear yellow and blue make-up for it to work. Only good for continuity announcements or one person doing something like juggling or singing directly in front of the scanner. Bright lights would have directly surrounded your face. Hopelessly cumbersome and out of date even in 1936, which is why the competing Marconi electronic 405 line system using real TV cameras replaced it after three months and the BBC used this system until 1985 (alongside higher definition PAL 625 line from the mid sixties onwards). Unfortunately, even though 50% of TV was filmed in the first three months it seems they didn't keep any of the film! Such a shame. If you want to see a recreation of an experimental 30 line Baird Nipkow Disc scanned play broadcast in 1930 check this out kzbin.info/www/bejne/oXLadXyshr2sabM.

[@ericktorres9826]

2:25 What cartoon is it?

[@Aeonterbor]

Might be a Silly Symphony

[@D.G.M.]

After some frantic searching, I found it: Mother Goose Melodies, from1931. Not surprising, as I've read that their last broadcast before the war was a Mickey Mouse cartoon.

[@esmeephillips5888]

@@D.G.M. It was: 'Mickey's Gala Premiere'. An order came from the Defence Ministry to close the service at once so it could not be used as a navigational aide by Luftwaffe bombers. When BBC Television resumed in June 1946, the cartoon was among the first items transmitted.

[@nickallen4127]

@@D.G.M. What kind of program is this at 2:10?

[@markhillier1190]

Is there any information about the TV receiver?

[@twittykins]

I believe the engineers in New York were experimenting with a British tv set when they picked this up.

[@TheRetroMediaZone]

Wow this is history man *plays history music"

[@johnabbott9526]

The cartoon is likelier to be one of the cartoons Walt Disney offered to the BBC which were very useful in buying turn-around time with only two studios. The woman talking to camera is probably Jasmine Bligh. If it is known what date the film was made the BBC have set up a website where you can consult the Radio Times for that date.

[@samsum3738]

I believe the last programme shown on british tv , before war was declared in 1939 was a donald duck cartoon .After the war , churchill was reported to say BACK TO THE DUCK ...

[@esmeephillips5888]

@@samsum3738 No, it was 'Mickey's Gala Premiere' with the Mouse. The plug was pulled without warning and that was the end of BBC TV for almost seven years.

[@samsum3738]

@@esmeephillips5888 correct .

[@twittykins]

This snippet of animation is from Mother Goose Melodies (1931). Unfortunately, many of the tv listings for 1938 simply say 'Cartoon', and Mother Goose isn't mentioned.

[@tortysoft]

Bravo ! if only they had a sound recorder too !

[@darkknight3816]

Amazing.