An RCA Presentation: Television (1939)

Early promotional film introducing TV to the American public, probably coordinated with the rollout of scheduled broadcasting at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Shows scenes of television production at the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) studios at Rockefeller Center, New York City, using equipment manufactured by NBC's corporate parent RCA.

Producer: Radio Corporation of America (RCA)
Audio/Visual: Sd, B&W

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Television
• An
• RCA
• Presentation
• Media
• 1939
• social
• science
• media
• communications
• engineering
• visual
• arts

[musicom67]

@fromthesidelines What a dialect! Interesting how these old-school 'lost' accents aren't heard anymore. "Look to Arrr-Seee-Aaaa"

[Aaron4444444]

Pictures from the sky! There IS a God!

[seatboi]

OH what I would've given to be alive back then! Tube sets are the best! I love restoring them....they were built to LAST with AMERICAN PRIDE...non-existsant today in the foriegn-made, built-to-fail modern JUNK they make now. Yes, the stuff DOES more, but NEVER lasts! I say if it isn't wood, metal & glass...THROW IT OUT & GET a REAL TV! :) Yeah, I know...I'm accentric to say the LEAST! :) But, u kno, I've plugged in a 70-year-old set & gotten a picture & sound- think ur ipod will work in 70 yrs?

[fromthesidelines]

The narrator, as I've previously noted, was radio announcer Andre Baruch. 'cats'.

[catsnharps]

My guess for the host--Ben Grauer. Anybody have any ideas?

[hilarioph]

What a history

[sportygirl869]

Do you think television will "catch on"?  hahaha

[fromthesidelines]

Movie cameras photograph images at 24 frames per second; television transmits images at 30fps....that's why, until RCA and DuMont perfected the "kinescope" camera by late 1947 [NBC's trademarked name for it was "Kinephoto"], which adjusted the camera's shutter speed to enable a "fixed" image to be recorded on film (without lines or flickers), very few examples of TV programs before 1948 exist on film. The ones seen in this film were "simulated".

[frednora]

This tele-vision box won't catch on. Nothing will replace vaudeville.

[buzzclick500]

I don't know...I don't think it'll ever catch on enough to pay for itself. Too many people are busy, and don't have time for that sort of thing. Great novelty gag for carnivals and science fairs and the like, though.  ;]