Double Stretch

Two of television's irksomely narrow dimensions were stretched last week in England. A group of independent radio engineers established a new distance record for reliable picture reception. Others began to install a 6 ft. by 5 ft. cinema screen for public projection of larger size television pictures. English home set screens are 24 in. by 20, or smaller.

In a hut at Ormesby Bank, four miles from Middlesbrough at the edge of the North York Cleveland moors, months of experiment were triumphantly concluded when an Soft, steel antenna caught 70 minutes of television program transmitted from Alexandra Palace through 220 miles of fog-thickened English air. Freak bounces of ultrashort waves have been recorded: Alexandra Palace signals have been picked up as far away as South Africa. But 50 miles has been the generally accepted limit for reception of reliable pictures.

BBC experts still rely on their projected coaxial cables to bring television to the north of England, explain that Ormesby Bank reception was possible only because of its 700-ft. elevation, high mast, ideal atmospheric conditions. BBC can guarantee none of these reception assets to all Yorkshiremen.

The big screen is the work of Scophony Ltd., owners of a new process for projecting television pictures as though they were films. The method of freeing the picture from the limitations of the cathode tube is Scophony's secret, but they have a screen going into London's new Monseigneur News Theatre in Baker Street. Scophony's Director Solomon Sagall has promised full-sized cinema screen television for all theatres of England's Odeon Circuit by year's end. Test showings of Scophony projections have excited televisionists.

Copyright law protects BBC television programs from being exhibited to paying audiences. So, to have something to show his incipient spectators, Mr. Sagall will have to use his revolutionary new projection process as a lever either to force BBC to supply programs or to induce Parliament to license an independent program service.

Seven-year-old Scophony is the lusty baby of British television. Guided by squat, bespectacled Russian-refugee Sagall, it weathered five years of bailiff dodging, grew from a room and a half in Soho to $1,050,000 capitalization, achieved financial association with Odeon. Competitor in large-screen television is Baird Television Ltd. partly owned by Gaumont-British Picture Corp., Ltd. They report several orders for theatre television screens, do not specify which theatres, might offer BBC loans of Gaumont-British stars in exchange for programs.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.