TELEVISION 559 



Applications and Future Developments 



It Is not easy at this early date to predict with any confidence 

 what will be the first or the chief uses for television, or the exact 

 lines that future development may take. It must be clearly under- 

 stood that television will always be a more expensive service than 

 telephony, for the fundamental reason that it demands many times 

 the transmission channel capacity necessary for voice transmission. 

 This expense will inevitably increase in proportion to the size and 

 quality of the transmitted image. 



The kinds of service which are naturally thought of upon con- 

 sideration of the services now rendered in connection with sound 

 transmission are: first, service from individual to individual, parallel 

 in character to telephone service, and as an adjunct thereto; second, 

 public address service, by which the face of a speaker at a distant 

 point could be viewed by an audience while his voice was transmitted 

 by loud speaker; third, the broadcasting of scenic events of public 

 interest, such as athletic contests, theatrical performances and the 

 like. 



The first two types of service just mentioned lie within the range 

 of physical practicability, with apparatus of the general type already 

 developed. The third type, because of the uncontrolled conditions 

 of illumination, and the much finer picture structure which would be 

 necessary for satisfactory results, will require a very considerable 

 advance in the sensitiveness and the efficiency of the apparatus, to 

 say nothing of the greatly increased transmission facilities. For all 

 three types of service, wire or radio transmission channels could be 

 utilized, for while the problems incident to securing distortionless 

 transmission over wide frequency bands, or multiple transmission 

 channels, are different in detail in the two cases, they appear to be 

 equally capable of solution by either means. However, the very 

 serious degradation of image quality produced by the fading phe- 

 nomena characteristic of radio indicates the practical restriction of 

 radio television to fields where the much more reliable wire facilities 

 are not available. 



