John Logie Baird

John Logie Baird (August 13 1888 – June 14 1946) was a Scottish engineer, who is best known as the inventor of the first working electromechanical television system – indeed the first practical, publicly demonstrated system of television in the world. He had a significant role in the early history of television but by 1937 it had evolved beyond his ideas into a wholly electronic medium.

Birth and education

Baird was born in Helensburgh, Argyll, Scotland, and educated at Larchfield School (now part of Lomond School), Helensburgh; the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College (which later became the University of Strathclyde); and the University of Glasgow. His degree course was interrupted by World War I and he never graduated.

Television experiments

John Logie Baird with his "televisor", circa 1925.

The first known photograph of a moving image produced by Baird's "televisor", circa 1926.

Although the eventual development of television was the result of work by many inventors, Baird was one of its earliest pioneers. He is generally credited with being the first person to produce a live, moving television image by reflected light, among other major advances he later made in the field.

In his first attempts to perfect television, Baird experimented with the Nipkow disk, and demonstrated to the Radio Times that a semi-mechanical analogue television system was possible with the transmission of moving silhouette images, such as his fingers wiggling, in his London laboratory in February 1924. On October 2, 1925 he first transmitted the now famous low-resolution image of a ventriloquists dummy's head known as "Stookie Bill". Baird later transmitted the image of a local office boy, William Taynton, whom he paid to endure the hot lights then necessary for an effective image.

Hastings, in East Sussex, UK, claims to be the 'Birthplace of Television' as it was there he was living for health reasons when he did much of his research work into his televisor. Hastings would claim to be the place where electro-mechanical television was first actually perfected and demonstrated. While in Hastings, Baird enjoyed the considerable support of the Hastings Radio Society, whose president, William Le Queux, was an early enthusiast of Baird's work. According to some of the interviews released as part of the documentary CD-ROM The Dawn of Television Remembered, Baird may have had far more considerable help from others at this early stage than had previously been realized.

In 1928 he demonstrated the first colour television and true stereoscopic television. In 1932 he was the first to demonstrate ultra-short wave transmission.

From December 1944 until his death in 1946, Baird lived at a house in Station Road, Bexhill On Sea, immediately north of the Station itself. Named "Baird Court", Rother District Council gave permission for this property to be demolished and the land used for a modern block of flats in 2006, despite the efforts of many local residents who believed that this property should be listed and preserved due to its historical importance.

First public demonstration

Baird gave the first public demonstration of moving silhouette images by television at Selfridges department store in London on March 25, 1925.

On October 2, 1925, John Logie Baird was successful in transmitting in his laboratory the first television picture with shades of grey derived from reflected light: the head of a ventriloquist's dummy, in a 30-line vertically scanned image. Hoping for publicity, he visited the Daily Express newspaper to promote his invention. By Baird's own account, the news editor was immediately suspicious. Later he was quoted by one of his staff as saying: "For God's sake, go down to reception and get rid of a lunatic who's down there. He says he's got a machine for seeing by wireless! Watch him — he may have a razor on him." [1]

Baird repeated the transmission for members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times on January 26, 1926 in his laboratory at 22 Frith Street in the Soho district of London. It was the world's first demonstration of a true television system, one that could broadcast moving images with tone graduation.

Broadcasting

In 1927 Baird transmitted a long-distance television signal over 438 miles of telephone line between London and Glasgow. He then set up the Baird Television Development Company Ltd, which in 1928 made the first transatlantic television transmission from London to Hartsdale, New York and also made the first television programme for the BBC. He televised the first live transmission of the Epsom Derby in 1931.

From 1929-1935, the BBC broadcast television programs using the 30-line Baird system. At first, the transmission standard was a 30-line image scanned and reproduced using Nipkow discs, but later cameras used a flying-spot system instead of a disc. By the early 1930's, as it became clear that the BBC wanted a higher definition system, Baird began experimenting with other means of scanning, eventually moving to an "intermediate film" process which involved shooting the images on split 35-mm cinema film, then rapidly developing and scanning the film while still wet. At the same time, Baird realized that mechanical scanning had reached its limits, and the Baird company licensed the electronic Image Dissector developed by the American inventor Philo T. Farnsworth to scan the film. In experimental transmissions, the Baird company was able to send first a 180-line and then a 240-line image using this system, though dust specks from the film and other problems marred the images.

In late 1936 the BBC began alternating Baird 240-line transmissions with EMI's electronic scanning system which had recently been improved to 405-lines after a merger with Marconi. EMI's system initially suffered from a number of technical difficulties, but its engineers were eventually able to overcome them, while Baird's intermediate-film process using Farnsworth's tubes remained balky. A fire at the Baird company's facilities at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham further damaged their ability to compete, and early in 1937 the BBC ceased broadcasts with the Baird system in early 1937.

Other inventions

None of Baird's early inventions were complete successes. In his twenties he tried to create diamonds by heating graphite and shorted out Glasgow's electricity supply. Not long afterwards Baird designed a glass razor; it was completely rust resistant, but it shattered. Inspired by pneumatic tyres he had a go at pneumatic shoes, but his prototype contained semi-inflated balloons which burst. He also invented a thermal undersock, which was actually a mild success.

Baird's numerous other developments demonstrate his flair for invention. He developed, in 1928, a primitive video recording device, which he dubbed Phonovision. The system consisted of a Phonodisc, which was a 78rpm record that could record and play back a 30 line, 12 frames per second video signal. These recordings, though marred by problems such as mechanical resonance, have been restored by Scottish engineer Donald McLean, and have a powerful, haunting quality about them. They are the earliest recordings of television ever made.

His other developments were in fibre-optics, radio direction finding, infrared night viewing and (possibly) radar. Questions remain about his exact contributions to radar, for his wartime defence projects have never been officially acknowledged by the British government. According to Malcolm Baird, his son, what is known is that in 1926 Baird filed a patent for a device that formed images from reflected radio waves, a device remarkably similar to radar, and that he was in correspondence with the British government at the time. Much of the information regarding Baird's work in this area is just beginning to emerge.

Later Life

Although few people realize it, Baird was removed from direct control over his company in 1933, well before the contest between the EMI and Baird systems took place; as part of the re-organization following Isidore Ostrer's acquisition of the firm, Baird was asked to resign. He remained a sort of paid consulatant, and his in-home laboratory on Crescent Wood Road in Sydenham was staffed by company engineers and supplied from its stores. There, even after the Crystal Palace fire had destroyed the company's own facilities in 1936, Baird continued his work on developing new forms of Television; after the dissolution of the Baird company on the eve of World War II, he paid the staff out of his own pocket. In 1940 he demonstrated a 600-line colour system, and the next year improved upon it with a stereoscopic colour image. During 1944 he persuaded British authorities to make plans to adopt his 1000-line Telechrome electronic colour system as the new post-war broadcast standard. The picture quality on this system would have been comparable to today's HDTV. The Hankey Committee plan lost all momentum partially due to the challenges of post-war reconstruction. The monochromatic 405-line standard remained in place for three decades until the advent of the 625-line PAL system in 1967.

Late in 1944, Baird and his family removed to a home in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, England. His health, never robust, declined over the ensuing year, and he died on 14 June 1946 after suffering a stroke in February.

Legacy

TV now spans the globe and is the world's most popular form of entertainment, offering multiple channels covering all sorts of subjects.

In the Channel 5 programme Don't Get Me Started, aired on 29 August 2006, presenter Selina Scott complained about the falling standards of British TV with such shows as Big Brother and other "reality" programmes. Malcolm Baird said in an interview that had his father known how TV would turn out in sixty years time, he would have dropped it and turned to another invention.

The model of the Baird televisor in the London Science Museum has been removed to the National Museum of Photography, Film, and Television in Bradford.

See also

• Logie Awards — Australian television
• University of Strathclyde

Further reading

• Briggs, Asa, The Golden Age of Wireless. History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom series, Volume II. London: OUP, 1965.
• Kamm, Antony, and Baird, Malcolm, John Logie Baird: A Life. Edinburgh: NMS Publishing, 2002. ISBN 1901663760
• McLean, Donald, Restoring Baird's Image. London: The Institution of Electrical Engineers, 2000. ISBN 0852967950
• McArthur, Tom, and Peter Waddell, The Secret Life of John Logie Baird. London: Hutchinson, 1986. ISBN 0091587204.
• Norman, Bruce. Here's Looking at You: The Story of British Television 1908-39. London: BBC, 1984. ISBN 0563201029
• Rowland, John, The Television Man: The Story of John Logie Baird. New York: Roy Publishers, 1967.
• Tiltman, Ronald Frank, Baird of Television. New York: Arno Press, 1974. (Reprint of 1933 ed.) ISBN 0405060610.

External links

• The Baird Television Website
• Mechanical TV: Baird Television
• Baird bio on BBC site
• How to build a Baird televisor - also contains many detailed references to Baird's history
• John Logie Baird - Gizmohighway Technology Guide
• Narrow Bandwidth Television Association
• Phonovision