 This is the SF Productions podcast network When you think of early television you might think of Uncle Milty or Lucian Desi or maybe even the honeymooners But there's a lot of TV before that going back to 1927 in a non-assuming building in Hilliard, Ohio Just west of Columbus. There's the largest assemblage of early TV technology outside of the Smithsonian. Let's go take a look This is a replica of a 1928 GE television model used in experimental mechanical TV, which predates what we know as electronic TV today Believe it or not. This is a television set using the mechanical method sold in Britain in 1930 Here's the actual screen Here's the interior parts with the large spinning nip-cow disc with tiny holes that created a low-resolution picture They used a matching spinning disc and huge intense light sources to generate the picture the lights were so intense Dolls like this Felix the cat were used in testing. You can see an example of the picture on the right Here's another example of the nip-cow discs There's a Columbus connection to early TV the Mercier Corporation hand-built sets in 1929 both as completed units and as kits These are all early electronic TVs all sold before World War two This is an entertainment center from England in 1938 a Mirror is used to view the picture as the picture tube is so long it would stick halfway out into the living room otherwise This is an RCA unit also from 1938 custom made for the few actually sold This is a better representation of the type of TV sold that year Vision only you needed a radio to pick up the audio Here's an RCA unit with a photograph built into the top introduced at the 1939 World's Fair These are all television sets sold before World War two Amazingly the museum and its members have restored some of the TVs to working condition. This is an RCA TRK 9 from 1939 They also had to build converter units to supply a signal since the digital signal of today would not work Here's a working GE HM171 TV set from the same year This is one of only two pre-war cameras in existence as used by RCA and NBC at the 1939 World's Fair RCA was heavily involved in the war effort This is a lightweight camera designed to go in the nose of a remote-controlled glide bomber We're now post-war with a Bell and Howell projection TV a Seaburg Emerson video jukebox And a Starrette set designed to be built into the wall of your local bar We've mentioned the Dumont network before on SFPPN shows like RCA. They also made television sets Here's a 1947 model Dumont also made the largest black-and-white television set ever the 30-inch Royal Sovereign These are all television sets made in the late 1940s. Here's a better view of portable sets from that period There were some unique designs even then This entertainment unit would have cost you the equivalent of $24,000 today Filco made a lot of buzz with its predictor model which allowed the picture to be separated from the rest of the set With a long cord of course Here's a model of AT&T's picture phone technology that really didn't take off until Skype and smartphones This was CBS's early attempt at color TV using a spinning color wheel And now here's the first commercially available color TV using what became the standard process the RCA CT 100 Which sold for about a thousand dollars in 1954 about half the cost of a car at that time This is an RCA CTC color set sold in 1955 This is a Westinghouse set that sold in 1954 although there's no evidence of actual sales Here's another way to get color TV a plastic screen that stuck to your set which gave you green grass and blue skies It worked well as long as you watch Western's a lot This is an interesting set Germany's Cuba Comet from 1962 Designed more as an art installation than a TV set It stands five feet seven inches tall over seven feet wide and weighs 289 pounds Here's examples of picture tubes Camera tubes and tiny transistorized sets This is the first color set imported from Japan to the US to Shiba set sold by Sears for $270 undercutting other 21 inch sets at the time This is the museum's room of broadcasting equipment Here's an RCA studio color camera from the mid 50s and the late 60s SFPPN is a podcast called the kinescope initiative which takes its name from this unit It was used to record TV shows on the film by pointing the film camera at a TV set Prior to the invention of videotape and this is a film chain used to broadcast film again prior to videotape This monstrosity is a TV transmitter from 1947 used by WTVN in Columbus now WSYX Oh, and here's one of the amplifiers that went with the transmitter This TV truck spent time at a number of stations before it ended up at the Ohio Historical Society I want to thank the early television museum for their cooperation in the making of this program You can check them out at early television.org. See you next time