Mechanical Television: Incredibly simple, yet entirely bonkers

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John Logie Baird is often considered to be the inventor of television, but not of television as we know it. His mechanical television is a remarkable invention for its simplicity, but as you'll soon see, it would never have been all that practical.
Link to the video on Analog TV:
• Lines of Light: How An...
Links to various not-crap mechanical TVs:
• Televisor 3 - Mechanic...
• Mechanical TV Demo
And a video of a much larger, color mechanical television using mirrors:
• Mechanical color telev...
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/ technologyconnections
Image credits!
Random apartment building:
res.cloudinary...
Images of the Pantelgraph early facsimile system are used under Creative Commons attribution with the following copyright holder:
CC BY-SA 4.0 | 2012 | Alessandro Nassiri | Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Milano
All other images are either free of copyright, or are in the public domain.

[@Phredreeke]

Didn't analog TV (except for France who always has to do things the other way around compared to the rest of the world) use negative modulation and as such the image would become darker as stronger the amplitude is?

[@TechnologyConnections]

Yes, and thank you for the clarification. I myself never caught that! Plenty of graphs showing an analog video signal show black at the bottom and white at the top, with some even placing corresponding voltage levels such as the graph seen here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_video I have to admit I always assumed it was transmitted in this fashion, but upon further research, I see I was wrong! Thanks for watching!

[@MrJohndoakes]

The cool thing about mechanical TV is that you can transmit the signal on the shortwave bands, so the signal could cross the country, something impossible for analog VHF-UHF TV. Also, every version of mechanical television had to transmit the sound on a different frequency, so you needed a separate radio to hear the soundtrack.

[@Phredreeke]

Well, that's part due to the limited bandwidth, with the added perk that the mechanical TV can transmit image 100% of the time without the need for blanking time for the electron gun to reposition itself between lines and frames, while making synchronization hell in the process. BTW electronic TV has sound on a separate frequency as well at a certain offset from the video signal (though I believe some analog satellite TV systems carried digital sound in the blanking interval of the video signal)

[@garryiglesias4074]

+Phredreeke - I hope that you're using international system of units, instead of archaics ones to say such stupidity about French... French drive on the right side of the road, use SI units, and "what the hell" are they doing "the other ways around compared to the rest of the world ??"... USA is NOT the rest of the world... And Fahrenheit is a dumb temperature scale... So unless you support your stance with facts, it seems you just like french-bashing, but the uneducated way (the other way around compared to the intelligent people).

[@OlegKostoglatov]

The French were also the last nuclear power to ban above ground testing even after the Soviets and Chinese figured out that it was not a good thing to do. However, unlike Germany, they do understand that you can't electrically power a modern industrialized country of 50 million people with solar panel and wind farms, so they used nuclear energy, which they sell to Germany, who is shutting their plants down. So there are pluses and minuses with everyone. Secam was a good system, the only thing wrong was that nobody else adopted it, except I think that the Soviets used some modified version of it, everyone else used either NTSC, or PAL which was a modified version of NTSC.

[@bobuk5722]

Hi. To join the club, my Dad (I'm in my late 60's) built a mechanical scanning disk tv. Long time ago (violins play ....) well before WW2. After the BBC long wave radio shut down at 11pm there were test transmissions. Would be viewers disconnected the loudspeaker and connected a neon bulb in its place. Then a rotating disk with 64 small holes regularly spaced and arranged in a 1 inch wide spiral around the circumference was rotated in front of the neon bulb. The result, if you managed to get the receiving disk synchronised with the transmitting one in the studio (done with a piece of string wrapped around the motor axle), was a 1 inch square rather reddish 64 line TV picture. I suspect the motor speed here in the UK would have been 3,000 rpm. Originally they transmitted still images of the Kings head. Very patriotic! Dad told me all the neighbours in the road were crammed in around this small set up trying to watch! BobUK.

[@inactiveytchannel]

Wow.

[@darkgreenambulance]

Hi, Robert - appreciated/enjoyed your piece - very interesting. I think I read the motor driving the receiving disc round, was designed to reach the required R.P.M. but a second winding was fed a frequency which locked the disc to the transmitted scanning,, once the correct "dots" were lined up, so to speak. Do you know if that would be part of the existing signal - or a separate one? I borrowed an ancient book but returned it! All the best.

[@techguy9023]

Bev Wood it could be an audio subcarrier for sync. Jenkins early fax used a slotted disk interrupting a light and photo tube to generate that signal so I think he may have tried that on his “radiovisor”

[@darkgreenambulance]

@@techguy9023 Many thanks - this re-enforces the fact that so many contributing factors have come together - sometimes in a strange and unlikely way.

[@timotheusmiller]

What the heck!? That's so cool!

[@buppie2000]

I'm retiring after 35 years in TV and I've gotta say that's the clearest explanation of Nipkow for laymen. Impressive.

[@VinnytotheK]

That's a long time to be in a TV man, respect!

[@buppie2000]

@@VinnytotheK Yes, IN a TV. It was okay till they started making flat screens. I couldn't suck my gut in any longer. It was getting too difficult for me to crawl inside.

[@VinnytotheK]

@@buppie2000 Ah okay, wow! I can definitely see how it would be very difficult in this modern age. You hung in there for a long time!

[@C0ttageChees]

​@@buppie2000 Bud I feel ya. Now try being a fat man that drives a WV Golf. 😜

[@hawks9142]

​@@buppie2000another victim of modernization 😔

[@jasonsage1417]

I'm a long time electronics buff, turned computer programmer (30 years ago) - and I learned a lot about the mechanical television from this great video and I commented because I wanted to tell you how impressed I am with your narration, articulate delivery, knowledge of the subject matter and good "techniques" like humor and sarcasm to make good points "Fax before Telephone - WHA??" etc. Great Job!

[@android01978]

Love watching this three years on; ‘I’m absolutely thrilled that this channel has over 21 thousand subscribers...’ now it’s over 1 million!

[@frankstrawnation]

Passed more 3 years the channel has now 2,27 millions subscribers.

[@BM-jy6cb]

3 years ago: "I never dreamed I would get 21000 subscribers. Today's subscriber count: 830,000. Well done!

[@mmmmm777x]

I know right?? I get so hype whenever he says that in older videos! He's easily one of my favorite youtubers!

[@MattyH1992]

And now over 1 million!

[@jonathancrosby1583]

1.21 million

[@RoySATX]

He's averaging between 24 and 25 thousand new subs each month! That is outstanding!

[@johnk6123]

1.29m :)

[@WAQWBrentwood]

My grandfather was a huge radio "nut" in the 1920s and built a couple different mechanical disk "TV"s, in the late 1930s he built (from a kit) an all electronic (CRT) set. He was obviously "bullish" on the prospect of TV, When TV was finally mainstream, he bought a "Proper" Westinghouse set, even though Pittsburgh had a grand total of 1 channel at the time! 👍 He'd be damned impressed (but not really surprised) by HD and 4K sets of today.

[@thanthanasiszamp4707]

WAQWBrentwood Your grandfather would mostly be damn impressed by the "digital video/digital audio" terms.

[@loraleijessick9581]

And then he would see the actual programming and opt to go back to the grave.

[@thanthanasiszamp4707]

Anyone noticed that the owner of this channel has removed his background music from each video? Unless it's my idea.

[@GewelReal]

@Joe Duke kek

[@handsomebrick]

Supposedly there were actual TV stations made for people with mechanical televisions.

[@daver5120]

A 75 foot disc that is taller than your building? Stop making excuses and get it done. We don't watch your channel for lame excuses.

[@ChristmasEve777]

HA! I must have missed something though. I didn't understand why the disc would have to be that big to get high resolution. Why couldn't the holes just be much smaller and closer together?

[@Brandyalla]

@@ChristmasEve777 From what I understood, he wasn't trying to increase the resolution, he was trying to get it to have a screen size of 15 cm square. The holes have to be at least as far apart as the screen is wide for only one to shine at a time. Proper number of holes times holes being 15 cm apart makes for a very large disc

[@-Gadget-]

🤣🤣🤣

[@compzac]

@@ChristmasEve777 More resolution means more holes, a larger screen means larger space between the holes themselves, but in any case you can only have one hole on the screen at a given point, think of it as a CRT screen, at one point in time a CRT is only actually modifying the light value for 1 particular spot, so if you were to increase the screen size you would have to increase the space between the holes and by in large the size of the disc over all, in terms of resolution, you could make the holes smaller and put them closer together at least in the terms of space between the holes on the inner to outer portion of the disc, though my guess here is that due to the number of holes and the speed of the disc all being a needed constant to produce a picture well this probably wouldn't work to well

[@bloodypommelstudios7144]

@@ChristmasEve777 Yeah he was after size not resolution. Resolution is just as hard to achieve though. If you wanted a 0.1mp equivalent display you'd need a 100kw light source just to have 1w of light get through.

[@matthewrichardson828]

Two smaller discs could rotate together, synchronized with gears, and they could have holes drilled with a vernier pattern, which would reduce the disc size and rpm required, while increasing resolution.

[@elephystry]

Nerd

[@nthgth]

! Build it!

[@fvckyoutubescensorshipandt2718]

Still a 37-foot disc for a 6" screen. Still way too impractical, even at 900 rpm that's still supersonic (1188 mph). And if it's faster than the speed of sound in the material it's made from = boom. It would make a better kinetic energy weapon than TV.

[@knezderpe1254]

Rectangular holes will work beter

[@johncrowerdoe5527]

@@fvckyoutubescensorshipandt2718 A basic magnifying glass would allow a physically smaller disc and truncation frame for the same size viewing experience. Appropriate optics on the rear of the N disc would reduce wasted light.

[@LazerJass]

I discovered this video just now when i thought i've seen them all. Hearing you being thrilled to have over 21000 subs in this video not believing this channel would ever grow that big and seeing that you've just hit one million subs in two and a half years since this video makes me very glad. Your content is pure love. Congrats!

[@jerbear7952]

I think we are all surprised at how many of us there are.

[@antonnym214]

My grandfather worked at the FCC. He told me about early TV systems that used a spinning disc. Very cool stuff! i gave you a thumbs-up. All good wishes.

[@matthewfranklin7541]

My Grandad worked at Scophony Ltd who were early mechanical TV manufacturers before they became Thorn EMI. He went on to help design the Searchwater radar for the Nimrod anti submarine aircraft! collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/cp39370/scophony-limited

[@ross259]

Wow, I didn't know that fax machines predated the phone and I had no idea about mechanical TV. Such a great video.

[@Gribbo9999]

They just weren't called "fax" - short for fascimile. I think the police had some early versions for scanning and sending mug shots.

[@alandaters8547]

Great bar question: " If you define a fax machine as something that can scan a graphic, convert it to electrical impulses, send it over wires, and have another machine create a copy, guess when the first one was made, plus/minus 50 years!" This should be good for a free drink, but be ready to "prove" !

[@johncrowerdoe5527]

@@Gribbo9999 I heard it was the Pinkerton's detective agency using that before federal law enforcement agencies were really a thing.

[@statusquo9520]

They still ask for a fax in some banks. How about that.

[@MrDegsy69]

Ross Burke they had morse key telegraphy through wired telegraph poles in the days of the wild west. I find it amazing that somebody could send a 'wire' between towns even back then.

[@dutrekker1617]

The spinning wheel was used by CBS when they developed their first color TV system. It used a rotating color wheel to create color. The FCC made their system the standard until RCA demonstrated all electronic television. This explains why CBS refused to go to color broadcasting until the late 1960's.

[@OlegKostoglatov]

The 1965 season actually, but other then at NBC, who was owned by RCA, there were very few colour programs produced before 1965 anyhow.

[@compzac]

To an extent this is how DLP televisions worked when Projectors and Projection TVS were getting big

[@RJDA.Dakota]

This is correct. I remember the CBS affiliate was the last one to go colour in our area.

[@manfredcaranci6234]

And I understand from someone who was around at the time of the CBS color wheel vs RCA all-electronic system demonstrations that the color wheel actually produced superior color. Person who told me is no longer with us, unfortunately.

[@bangerbangerbro]

But that's not the same thing as in the video is it? Just a way of getting colour from a mono CRT? Like the colour 3D thing for the Milton Bradley Vectrex video game console.

[@robinbockman7247]

John Logie Baird is still remembered in Australia every year with the TV Week Logie Awards.

[@fredfredburgeryes123]

OH MY GOD THIS IS WHAT ROLF HAD IN HIS LIVING ROOM. When you played the sound of the thing I instantly realised this. LiFe HaS mAnY dOoRs, EdBoY

[@davestout844]

What time stamp are you speaking of?

[@AtmoStk]

@@davestout844 He's referring to an animated tv show.

[@davestout844]

Oh I know what Ed Edd and Eddy is, I just wanted to know at what time stamp of this video it's referring to.

[@3xfaster]

Dave Stout it’s “Knock Knock, Who’s Ed?” But at the tail end of the episode, the monster movie marathon episode. Hope ya find it!

[@danniboi187]

@@davestout844 I'm not sure but I think they are talking about 8:27

[@JuniorJr...]

I love the smart side of KZbin.

[@lennieanderson8544]

It's not easy to find either bro . respect

[@SweetTodd]

@Don Bastardo Or even the side that makes one so depressed that one would have to get antidepressants. *Cough Cough*, CNN, *Cough*, NBC...

[@mickeymouse12678]

Only problem is my dumb brain has a hard time following along, though I do enjoy the videos.

[@HemlockSky1991]

Same. This and Today I Found Out are my favorite channels.

[@Ferrichrome]

haha me too but also the stupid side is great.

[@EyeAmBatman]

Whenever i watch these videos, i always zone out, daydreaming of all the possibilities they must have thought of back then when they discovered these things

[@Natalie-ez1zc]

television inspired by fax machines but created before telephones? what the absolute fuck

[@robertfoden9972]

Incredible as it may sound, you'll just have to accept that all of that is true.

[@Toastedandtoasted]

Hate to say it but, mandela effect is apparently real as fuck

[@danem2215]

How is that the Mandela effect? Nobody incorrectly remembers learning the fax came before the phone. You just assumed that because it sounds more logical.

[@wokejesus6501]

You friggin air drop this guy in the Alaskan wilderness and two days later he's hosting a pirate radio show with a hydroelectric powered transmitter

[@josephconsoli4128]

Very good explanation of mechanical television. I think what's great about it is that it's just plain ingenious. You really don't care about the definition. You're just amazed at it making any image at all. In the late '20's-early'30's it must've been downright miraculous, especially with the accompanied broadcast audio. Approximately 5,000 of these primitive receivers were sold. A relatively small number, but still more than you'd expect. I must add that typically a magnifying lens was used to enlarge the picture, and, another big negative to the definition is that these signals were transmitted over the airwaves. Likely, if you saw a dark silhouette against your reddish-orange background, you were doing good. Once word got out of all electronic television using a CRT in the early '30's, mechanical television just became a footnote in electronics history. Love to have one of those sets now though!

[@badbeardbill9956]

Well there were more advanced mechanical sets with over 100 lines in the mid 30s, and mechanical sets could reach 405 by 37 though I’m not aware id they were widely commercialized. They didn’t use the Nipkow disk though but rather mirrors and rotating drums/screws

[@johnhoward3042]

Seth Meyers has never looked better.

[@happity]

His show is now momentarily bearable!!

[@Dracopol]

He's pretty dotty...

[@markcondrey2297]

I consider this video to be very good. You break the subject matter down in such a way as to be understood by a layperson...not an easy task. I used to service CRT televisions for Zenith back in the day and your presentation is a trip down memory lane. I think the Sony Trinitron was the apex of this type of technology.

[@jacobcowan3599]

And now you have 100 times as many subscribers! It's been fun to watch this channel grow and your production quality increase (even in Novembers) but it's also nice to come back to these older videos and see you putting just as much love and care into them as you do now ^~^

[@QoraxAudio]

In the Netherlands, there is a television award called after Paul Nipkow to honor him, called 'De Zilveren Nipkowschijf' (meaning: The Silver Nipkowdisk). It is oldest and one of the highest awards in the television business over there.

[@hotwireman49]

Vertical hold!! I remember that! Oh god I'm ancient!! I used to fiddle with the v-hold dial on the back of my b&w tv set. When all else failed, just thump it a couple times on top with your first. Works every time! 🤣

[@gdj6298]

Ha, I remember that. It was the era when "remote control" meant "having a child". "Turn the telly over, mate" (meaning change the channel from one to ...the other one) "Do the vertical hold thing" And of course, "Give it a thump" And in my house, dodgy volume pot sorted out with two of my Lego blocks jammed under the control. Do you remember the fine tuning control that was around the rotary channel selector ? - known as the Big Wheel and only to be touched in extreme circumstances.

[@hotwireman49]

@@gdj6298 YES!!! Omg you're hilarious! you must be British!

[@hotwireman49]

@@gdj6298 I'm sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office reading your reply, laughing out loud. My fellow wait-ees are looking at me like I'm insane.

[@gdj6298]

@@hotwireman49 That's what too much telly does for you... I don't know why the Lego is a permanent image in the back of my mind - it probably wasn't a long term thing because we rented our set (everyone did because tellies were a} expensive, b} not that reliable), so any problem, the guy would come and either mend it, or swap our clapped-out bit of crap for another clapped-out (but recently repaired) bit of crap. A further memory from that era - if I was sitting in the way of the telly my Dad would say "Oi - fourteen-inch head!" I've just taken out a tape measure. Fourteen inch screen. We might not have had colour but we must have had good eyesight. Oh, and while I was at it, I measured my head. Don't ask.

[@WMartinNI]

It's amazing to see how happy you were with over 21,000 subscribers. Look at you go now!

[@ThisIsNeccessary]

Nearly 6 years later, and you've gone from 21k to nearly 2 million ❤❤❤

[@DrBovdin]

I just re-watched this after a few years… Still nice, but you sure have made a few improvements on your set 😉 As a little side note, we still have a very specific use case for Nipkow discs to this day - we use them in scanning confocal microscopes. Such a microscope uses a pinhole to limit the contribution to an image by out-of-focus features in a sample, greatly improving on contrast and resolution. The principal is to image consecutive single diffraction limited spots and sequentially build up an image, just like in traditional television. It is possible to use crossed galvanometer mounted mirrors and a fixed pinhole, but by using a Nipkow disc of pinholes, the scanning speed can be raised and a close to real-time image can be acquired. These devices are very common in especially biological research. Due to the high out-of-plane rejection rate, a scanning confocal microscope can even build up a 3D reconstruction of a sample by scanning the third axis as well.

[@jeffc5974]

"Not in a straight line, mind you, but by traveling along actual roads." So what G-force would you get turning a corner at that speed?

[@3xfaster]

Jeff C enough to make guac outa anything organic!

[@CannedMan]

Three years ago: Thank you for being one of the 21 000 subscribers. Today: 1.2 *million* subscribers. How cool it is to have had the pleasure of seeing this channel grow.

[@animeAJproductions]

A mechanical TV as big as an apartment building? Now THAT'S communal entertainment!

[@rager1969]

I watched this video when it was new and decided to watch it agian. Holy crap, you've jumped from 22K subscribers to 424K in just two years! Well done, sir.

[@oxybrightdark8765]

And now, a million.

[@kovu159]

This is all incredible stuff. Thank you for making these videos, I hope you keep it up as your channel grows!

[@MrOnosa]

Imagine having over 22,000 subscribers! For real this is incredible. Thank you for sharing.

[@MidnightHunters]

“I’m absolutely thrilled that this channel has over 21,000 subscribers now” Imagine now at almost 2M

[@verdatum]

We need colin furze to get on this 7 story disk.

[@MrDegsy69]

verdatum Don't! Just don't! It will be absolute carnage. 😂😂😂

[@TheTarrMan]

What if instead of a big disk someone used a belt with the little holes? Might solve the size problem to a certain extent. . . . . might be louder too.

[@Worstplayer]

It would be smaller, but not slower. The tape in your 15cm, 30hz, 480p tape-o-visor would have to go 7776Km/h.

[@verdatum]

I think you could improve things by using multiple holes driving separate lights that cover different regions of the screen. But I'm too lazy to think through the geometry. Another improvement would be to use miniaturization on the tape/belt and rely on projection to blow up the image. In other words, the light shines on to a lens that's focused on a screen. So long as you can make the holes tiny enough, and get a light to shine through it that's bright enough to project, but not so hot that the belt melts. Damnit, I'm mildly tempted to make this latter idea.

[@verdatum]

If you have high-power lasers, you can make a "mechanical" television even easier. In that case, you can just spin one mirror horizontally and one mirror vertically on a motor at 60hz and turn brighten and dim the laser. Again, shooting them at a screen. But I think that's cheating.

[@Worstplayer]

@verdatum what you described is exactly how HTC Vive base stations work. In a way mechanical television did make a comeback after all.

[@spikester]

Laser printers also use this type of scanning mechanism, just a single horizontal line though without vertical, but moving the drum roller serves that purpose.

[@JohnDRobinsonelectronicdrums]

is that a Tascam in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me? lol

[@gdj6298]

My school library (in ~1970) had an old book called something like "The principles of modern television". It must have been pre-war, pondering the relative merits of Nipkow discs, Zworykin mirror spirals (now that's got to be a bit of precision engineering) etc. I love old tech books that discuss excitedly what was cutting-edge at the time. It's against my principles, but I wish I'd "long-term borrowed" that book !

[@tiagopiazza3648]

21k subscriptions with this kind of content and effort? 2017 were dark times, bro! you rock

[@Kanoshe]

this is seriously amazing dude great job

[@dtsdigitalden5023]

That was a terrific presentation. Extra points for encoding video as audio (listening to it provided fidget-spinner comfort), and then converting that back to video! You've earned your beer, sir. Next few rounds on me. P.S. How do you find the time to do all this sh*t? :)

[@dash8brj]

Imagine the size of the motor to spin up a 75 ft disc, let alone the starting current draw!

[@BastiElektronik]

A friend (which is not really a friend, more of a person I know) of mine does something with large electric motors in his job. I showed him this video and he said that a motor with a total of 45Kw would be able to do that!

[@gazbot9000]

In Australian schools, we were always drilled into accepting the "fact" that it was John Logie Baird who invented the television. This belief is further reinforced by Australia's annual television industry awards night, the Logie Awards. The most prestigious award is the Gold Logie, given to Australia's most popular z-list celebrity each year after a public poll... No one is awarded the Gold Zworykin. Vladimir Zworykin's pioneering contribution to the development of electronic television was to use a cathode ray tube instead of a mechanical flywheel to produce the scan lines. His proof of concept was demonstrated during the same period that Baird was trying to promote his evolutionary dead-end. Thank you so much for your enlightening demonstration of the Baird device, I have a much better understanding of how brilliant and unfortunate his invention truly was. Amazing!

[@FacetsOfSerenity]

21000 subscribers then (22 actually) and he is as humble now at 1.03 mil. Keep up the great work.

[@sophiegrey9576]

Congrats on 22,000 subscribers!

[@amiganutt]

Love this video. I attempted to build one using a neon bulb. Of course the results were, well, a disaster. Learning experience though. One more thing. I tried this when I was 13 in 1951.

[@DanafoxyVixen]

Mirror Drums solved many of the problems regarding Nipkow disks size limit on resolution, in fact John Baird himself later ditched the disk because it was so limited. resolutions of 120-240lines were common using drums and the Scophony system could produce images of more than 400 lines which is about Laserdisk resolution.

[@thatonegayfurry4177]

dam furry get outa here wait

[@Lumencraft-]

That was really a neat experiment. Best use of an LED I've seen all week :)

[@PetarBozic]

You said 25k subscribers, but when I looked under the channel name, it's OVER 800K!! And the quality difference is massive too! Well done man, well done!

[@guymontag2948]

21,000 subscribers? Congrats as you've now hit 1.45 million. Love your channel.

[@stephenbanyar1874]

Cycling enthusiasts must be thinking... "Mechanical television... Imagine hydraulic television!"

[@portal_jumper_7963]

i can't believe it took me 2 years to find this, i love ideas like this, its kinda inspiring to find alternatives to modern day standards while also being cheaper than said options

[@gimpdoctor8362]

These videos are great, keep em coming :) My only feedback is: well you know how some people are aural learners and some visual learners? I really get the impression that you are an aural learner because sometimes you describe things using long sentences, which could otherwise be described with a diagram of some sort. I know you're already putting so much effort into everything to make these videos, but I feel often a diagram (or even animated diagram) would go a very long way. Thank you again for this channel and have a nice day :)

[@hkr667]

Totally agree. I was almost begging for a (drawn) visual example of what he meant, shown at a slower pace. This was perhaps his first video that I could not follow. I still gave a like for the effort and topic, but this was a bad-ish video for me.

[@seanhanlon6150]

I agree.

[@alexanderstohr4198]

having a real world demonstration is sometimes even more worth than any sort of words or a diagram. but of course using all methods together might bring the most best results for a watcher.

[@hugodesrosiers-plaisance3156]

And this is what constructive criticism looks like. Wish more people were able to wrap their head around the concept.

[@UnivegaSuperSport]

For example, at 2:51, you've just showed the record with the drilled holes and are describing placing "a squar(ish) mask in front of holes....you've created a device...". Some sort of graphic or drawing of this needed.

[@grendelum]

*_Oh no, not again !!!_* Now I have this powerful urge to sketch out this project as I've already considered several means of synchronization twixt disc and signal... even worse, for some reason I *_really_* want to machine a disc with 3 holes coming in at different angles on the back converging into one on the front... must.. not.. make.. RGB mechanical televisor...

[@GranRey-0]

My grandfather is a relative to John Baird. He grew up on Vancouver Island after his family came over to settle the West Coast in Port Renfrew. My grandmother married him, albeit after she had my mother, but he's always been my Grandpa Chuck since I've been alive. My grandfather has a brilliant mind as well and is very mechanically inclined.

[@Mike_212]

What a great channel to stumble upon. Love the way he delivers the info - in a quick, steady, monologue. Very interesting, subscribed!

[@wtmayhew]

Mechanical television had a shot at working in the 1930s. There was a UK company named Scophony (word roots sight and sound). The Scophony televisions were mostly intended for large theater audiences, but home use using rear projection was anticipated. The Scophony televisions used a high intensity discharge lamp shone through a cell similar to a Bragg Cell to modulate the light, then deflected the beam with two motor driven faceted mirror drums at right angles to each other for vertical and horizontal scanning. With a mirror, the angle of deflection is doubled thanks to the fact light beam is being reflected. There is very little information about Scophony; they appear to have been victims of World War II and the high cost of their equipment. Apparently the only surviving remnant of Scophony is a scanning motor in a museum and some promotional literature. As far as I know, there is no surviving apparatus.

[@powellmountainmike8853]

I am a retired electronics engineer. I have been studying electronics since I was a kid. In my library I have a number of early radio books, which describe and show pictures of mechanical television equipment which was used experimentally by "hams" in the 1920s. Very interesting video. Keep up the good work.

[@guys-in9vd]

8:36 it sounds like an 80s pc running 3d graphics

[@technirvana4199]

I thought a Raster was Weed Smoking Jamaican guy!?

[@RussellTeapot]

LOL

[@JLHunter61]

You're thinking of a "Rasterfarian," who is a television watching Jamaican.

[@TheNitroG1]

that's rasta...not raster. actually rasterization was also the method they used to make old FPS games like doom and hexen.

[@technirvana4199]

*Sirens Wail* Way to go TheNitroG1 there will definitely not be any joke's being told when you are around!! #TheLaughterPoliceAreNoJoke :P

[@richardwendling4030]

only if your Australian. You may also be drinking Gidor Ide!

[@seanb.6793]

Always amazes me how people figured & figure this stuff out!

[@darrellw82]

Secret knowledge.

[@markokelly2494]

Good explaining. I came closer to understanding the Nipkow disk than I ever have before.

[@undeadelite]

John Yogi Bear

[@papalaz4444244]

John Logie Baird FRSE 13 August 1888 - 14 June 1946) was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator who demonstrated the world's first live working television system on 26 January 1926. He went on to invent the first publicly demonstrated colour television system and the first viable purely electronic colour television picture tube. In 1928 the Baird Television Development Company achieved the first transatlantic television transmission.

[@stevenewtube]

Just watched this vid and you had 20k subs! Much has happened since. Keep going, I love your work.

[@Phroggster]

Watching and commenting again 2 years later just because your back catalog is still so hot. Holy smokes though; from 22k subs to (let's round up) 500k in two years? That's a lot of lives that you've improved. Bravo!

[@gshalabama]

I’m watching this video three years after it was made and he is up to 901K subscribers. He’s much better than my1970s childhood set of “World Book Encyclopedias”

[@007bistromath]

yeah, but can you play doom on it

[@Phobos_Anomaly]

007bistromath Doom plays on anything. Probably even potatoes.

[@elephystry]

Can it run Crysis?

[@condimentking14]

cool shirt where did you get it

[@TheTruthRocks]

TheTubeStore has 'em: www.amplifiedparts.com/products/T-shirtsgifts?page=1

[@neilbain8736]

Baird was bloody minded and didn't give up. When he died, in 1946 I think, he had been working on some pretty high resolution colour stuff and large screens for public performances. He had Crystal Palace as his studio. The rumour that the fire that destroyed it around 1936 was an insurance job has lingered.

[@markkinsler4333]

When I was an engineering grad student I proposed a mechanical TV system as a senior project for undergraduates. You can do a brighter scan with a rotating mirror, which was likely the last advance in mechanical TV. If you were to try it nowadays, a laser instead of an LED would be helpful. Note that this system was known as the 'flying spot' technique. To show a scene on a stage, you'd darken the room and scan the whole thing with a lamp shining through your Nipkow disk, and you'd sense the brights and darks of the video signal with a photocell placed next to your disk. Trivia: 'flying spot' projectors were frequently used in early broadcast TV to show slides and, later, movies. Worked pretty well.

[@jacobhargiss3839]

The issue with using a laser instead of an led is that laser light can be rather damaging to the eyes.

[@badbeardbill9956]

Use a dim enough laser and a diffuser at the screen. Not too diffuse but yeah

[@martinda7446]

All English speaking countries seem to pronounce Nipkow with 'cow' at the end and it makes me wince..I know it's not important really but its 'nipco' or 'nipcov' The Germans would make more of a 'v' sound but generally with East Europeans the 'v' tends to become silent. 98% of the HowtoPronounce..web sites even have the English contributions with a fierce COW at the end (is that a bull?). A fierce cow might be a bull, and it is bull.

[@xboys_archive]

Martin D A oh

[@Cole-ek7fh]

irrelevant. germany lost the war. the language is ours.

[@Mostlyharmless1985]

Look, English orthography is fast and loose with it's rules but you've hit on one of the hard and set rules of pronunciation. W makes a "wuh" sound. Period, full stop, end conversation. If you put w at the end of a o it makes the sound at the end of cow. Period, full stop. If you wanted it silent, you should have left it off. If you wanted it to be voiced, you should have made it a v. W and V has split in the civilized Saxon languages centuries ago, catch up with the times.

[@anonUK]

Mostlyharmless1985 Not necessarily. The English say "Moscoh" and "Glasgoh" for "Moscow" and " Glasgow".

[@Mostlyharmless1985]

Well, that's the creeping speech impediment across your nation you call an accent. =P

[@Synthematix]

Jesus you must live on wikipedia

[@BigOlSmellyFlashlight]

lol that's basically why I'm interested without Wikipedia I wouldn't know a thing that's going on

[@henrygingold6549]

Excellent video. Most people think that Baird's work on TV ended after the "great race" in 1936-39 when the Marconi-EMI system was adopted as the BBC's TV standard. By 1936, Baird had developed (literally) a 'flying spot system' whereby a scanner would scan film made minutes before of the TV show. It was called the, "intermediate" system and it was capable of producing excellent pictures that rivalled Marconi-EMI's. It was dreadfully complicated and downright dangerous as black and white film ran through several toxic chemicals to develop. Of course it wasn't selected and Baird moved on. He demonstrated electronic colour TV and even 3D TV. At the end of WWII he came up with genuinely high definition television but the BBC and the government declined despite the process being much, much better than the old Marconi-EMI 405 line system. Looking back at the film scanning process, he invented the flying spot film scanner which is still in use today. As was usual in those days (and today) patent trolls stole it and he lost out. His work during the war on RADAR etc., is still classified. J L Baird is one of Scotland's finest sons.

[@tomtalk24]

Makes you proud to be British. The head of the BBC at the time bullied Baird because of his eye sight when they were at school together, so although his system was much worse but worked. There was quite some bias between both systems being tested by the BBC. I'm amazed Baird even got the chance to try his system out.

[@ryanmoore8003]

Wow I've learnt and subsequently forgotten so much thanks to this channel

[@KatTheFoxtaur]

When video is posted: 22k subscribers 2.3 years later: Over 23 times that many! :3 Keep up the awesome videos! I love watching this kinda stuff, and you make it very interesting to learn!!

[@pikefolsom6061]

You are amazing sir this has changed the way I think about the televisions development I had never knew about this concept or these existing for that matter this is truely a ground breaking video thank you.

[@catholiccontriversy]

From 22K to 2.08M, you've come a long way.

[@dalee.9128]

He talks of 21k and it's cool to see, but seeing how it's only been 3 years since this video it's awesome to see how far he has gone.

[@glasshalfempty1984]

11:44 damn... You've come a long way. That's really awesome :) you definitely deserve it and any continued success!

[@Psy1402]

I love that in this video you're astonished by 21k subscribers but right now you're pushing a million. Congratulations.

[@jargonfreehelp]

The best explanation I have seen, clear, easy to understand and simple. Thank you.

[@Upstreamprovider]

This is well cool. Never knew virtually any of this. Thankfully there are people like you on KZbin to inform and enlighten us.

[@dzegyz_ierednis]

Wanted to find out more about these gems and you turned out to be the guy. Thanks m8

[@DL-kc8fc]

I built several mechanical TVs for our enthusiast community and also on the "platform" turntable. They were not 32 rd, but 24 rd (two-spiral, which reduced the speed in half). The holes were accurately drilled on a 0.5 mm CNC. The sync hole outside the spiral was 1mm in diameter. We transmitted the "video signal" to each other by CB radios. The recording was made on an ordinary tape recorder. The image was recognizable as well as the image on the postage stamp. So, given the technology used good enough. No disturbing line errors. Magnification was performed with a magnifying glass. The light source was a halogen bulb, and the light was modulated by Kerr's cell. I didn't want the higher resolutions because of the complexity. You do not need a large disc, but a multi-pass spiral and drum with shutters. The biggest problem, however, was the camera. It is possible to convert the computer image from the web camera to the 24th line - for that there are algorithms. However, the philosophy of these televisions is to transmit the current picture from a far place, not an entertaining film. Good up to the time of limited technological possibilities. Image capture can be solved by passing the halogen light through the disc and the optically focused raster from the face with a small photocell in hand. Therefore, you absolutely could not succeed with the picture from your mobile - a pitiful lack of light and possibly a frequency collision. Another option is to raster the celluloid film, which you must synchronize with the wheel speed. At presentations of mechanical-optical systems this is done by a CCD camera with an image converter - everything is hidden in a wooden period cabinet.

[@PaulMansfield]

Years ago I went to a ham radio club where people were experimenting with slow scan tv, and some had made mechanical tvs just like yours. They would transmit live tv to each other over radio. Brilliant, but also batshit crazy!

[@larrygall5831]

It's like watching a tv built into a washing machine stuck on the spin cycle LOL. I've always found this funny, and the idea of a 4' wheel spinning in someone's living room with the kids huddled around it..

[@spacial2]

This is yet another of those obscure subjects I've struggled with over the years. Thanks. I now understand.

[@janmeise7507]

Who would have guessed that you would end up with 2.2 million subscribers only 6 years later😜 Great work man, keep it going!!

[@Paul_C]

Funny thing, the first television awards in the Netherlands was called the 'de Zilveren Nipkowschijf', which translates to 'Silver Nipkow Disk' first awarded in 1962. There is a wiki page in Dutch.

[@Myrtone]

Microphones allow electrical recording of sound and audio amplifiers and loudspeakers or headphones allow them to be played back. Similarly, scanning discs, photo-sensors, vision amplifiers and light sources had the potential to allow electrical recording of pictures and playing them back, and John Baird did experiment with a system called phonovision, which recorded video signals onto phonographic discs.

[@hebneh]

This is the first explanation of mechanical TV that I've been able to sort of comprehend - even though most of it was still beyond my brain capacity.

[@timbryant9869]

I have been subscribed for awhile and this video just popped up. So great to see how both the channel and your presentation style has grown.

[@Nemesis_T_Type]

And now we are capable of having multiple videos in 1 monitor. It is kinda scary how technology has advanced in just a century.

[@kckdude913]

Over 21k subscribers 3 years ago? Well now it's over 800k! Congrats! You really deserve it. Your vids are super well made and informative.

[@donaldcampbell7894]

Bro you are Way too advanced for 99.99% of us lay people. But I love to watch. Keep the videos coming.

[@chasevans7171]

Cheers for the fax machine pre dating the telephone fact. That's a great one for later in the pub. Also nice to learn about how my cheap old e39 BMW tempts me with a factory fitted television in the dashboard that only shows 52 challels of static fuzz. They switched off the analogue transmissions in the UK a few years ago....

[@dmfraser1444]

Others may have mentioned this little nit to pick. The income signal is not lined up to the scanning that makes up the Raster. The scanning that creates the raster is synchronized to the incoming signal. The opposite of what is mentioned. An easy confusion. But close enough for the public. Still, I congratulate you on your description and experiments showing mechanical TV. Most people do not know it ever existed. Radio/TV broadcasting was my specialty at the Technical Institute I attended back in the 1960s.