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The First Commercial TV Recording"Major Radiovision" Recording: 1934 |
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Contents: [ "Major Radiovision" Test Disc, | What's on the Disc, | BBC 12PH69797, | A Disc for Collectors]
The "Major Radiovision" Test Disc
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Many collectors in Britain and around the world have seen the label shown here. This disc was advertised in 'Television' magazine in 1934 as a product of the 'Major Radiovision' company and distributed and sold through Selfridges. Compared with 'Phonovision', this is a common disc made commercially for the growing number of television viewers. The disc was not intended for entertainment but for testing and aligning 30-line displays. |
What's on the Disc
| Unlike the 'Phonovision' recordings, this recording was meant for replay at 78rpm. This gives a video signal of 30 lines per frame, 12.5 frames per second - the Baird standard. | Listen to start of disc:
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Compared with the 'Phonovision' discs and the private recording of a 1933 transmission , the material on this
disc is uninspiring. Each side of the disc consists of a series of still pictures that are
slid in, left for about 20 seconds or so and slid out to be replaced by the next one. Two
of the pictures are slid in mirror-reversed. From this we can tell that the pictures are
transparencies - lantern slides - which have been back-lit. The purist would argue that
this is pre-Baird in concept (like Jenkins' shadowgraph). The stills show signs of arc-scanning. This means the camera was a Nipkow disc. However in 1934 when this disc was sold, Nipkow discs had been replaced by mirror-drum cameras in the studios. |
The disc fails as a reliable source of high quality 30-line test video. The quality of the video imagery is marred by a 5kHz 'ringing' - possibly head-cutter resonance. Only after this is 'notched' out does the high quality of the images become apparent. |
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Like the earlier 'Phonovision' recordings there are no synchronising pulses in the video signal. The disc had to be played back on domestic equipment. Even with precision alignment of the disc on playback there is a noticeable 'bounce' caused by residual off-centre playback of the disc. |
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All but one of the still pictures on the disc are cartoon-like head-and-shoulders views. Some look familiar. The picture above could be Charlie Chaplin, for instance. The exception is a frequency test pattern at the end of the second side of the disc shown here. |
BBC 12PH69727
The BBC archive has a pressing entitled 12PH/69727 which claims to be "a recording of an actual transmission". The BBC disc is in fact only a copy of the Major Radiovision disc (rather than the other way around) and therefore the BBC label is probably incorrect - although undoubtedly such test transmissions did take place.
A Disc for Collectors
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This is a disc that collectors can aim for. It is the only disc of 30-line video that
was sold to the general public. There are many copies of this around and they trade hands
for around £300 ($500) a time currently. It is touted as a Baird disc and is even called
'Phonovision'. 'Phonovision' it most definitely is not. The disc
is 'Baird' in that it complies with the Baird standard for 30 line TV. It is doubtful that
either Baird, the Baird Company or even the BBC had anything to do with this disc. That this is a series of static images marred prior to or during recording means that this disc falls far short in material content to all other recordings found. |
Other Pages
Main Index, | The World's FIRST TV Recordings, | Early Television History, | The Earliest Recording of Broadcast TV: Silvatone 1933, | The First Recording to be Sold - Major Radiovision 1934, | The "Marcus Games" Discs ]
All material in this page is copyright ©DFMcLean 1998 except where specified.
Last updated by Don McLean on 25th April 1998