[78-L] Subject: Kinescopes (WAS Average Age)

[David Breneman]

In the 1930s, NBC was playing around with kinescoping
some broadcasts experimentally.  I think the oldest of
these films dates from the 1936 series of field tests.
If I remember correctly, they used a 16mm camera running
at either 15 or 30 fps, and no attempt was made to record
the sound.  Some experimental kinescoping was done earlier,
with "spotlight" (Nipkow disk) cameras, but those ran at
20 fps.  There was a film clip of this from (I think) the
1933 World's Fair in Chicago, shown in a series called
"Television" made in the 1990s.  It shows a man saying
"This film recoding was made and synchronized with sound
at the General Electric pavilion" or something like that.
Unfortunately, the producers of the show showed the film
at 24 fps, so the guy's voice is unnaturally high.

But yeah, real 2:3 kinescoping at 24 fps (film speed) didn't
come into use until after WWII.  RCA developed that system
along with Kodak.