The Mechanical Era of British Television
●Background
●Early Pioneers
●British Television Timeline
●Earliest TV
●‘Phonovision’: 1927-28
●Surviving Discs
●The Recovered Images
●Phonovision in print
●Studio
●The Discoveries
●The ‘Marcus Games’ discs: 1932-35
●Betty Bolton
●The Other Women
●Other Video Recordings
●The ‘Silvatone’ Recording: 1933
●‘Major Radiovision’ Recording: 1934
●The Man with the Flower in his Mouth
●Resources
●Bibliography
●Published Articles
●Book: Restoring Baird’s Image
●Reviews
●Ray Herbert review
●Andrew Emmerson review
●Lecture: Restoring Baird’s Image
●Other Projects
●30-line TV in the 1980s
●Shop
●The Dawn of Television Remembered
●Track Listing
●Data Content
●CD Reviews
●FAQ
●About
●The computers used for restoration
●News
Welcome
This site presents the results of my work in restoring what has turned out to be the world’s earliest recordings of television that were originally made in the 1920s and 1930s in the UK. There are three types of surviving recordings – all vision-only without audio:
●the experimental Phonovision recordings from 1927-8 made by John Logie Baird and his team as a byproduct of developing a videodisc player.
●off-air domestic recordings of the vision signal from the broadcasting period of Baird’s 30-line TV from 1929-1935. One of these is dateable and happens to be an extract from a television special: ‘Looking In’ – the world’s first television revue. Another recording (though not dated) features Betty Bolton, a star of vaudeville, west-end musicals, radio and film as well as television.
●a disc from Major Radiovision Ltd., sold from 1934 through Selfridges to provide effectively a test video signal for receiver/displays
I hope you find the site fun and informative.
Donald F McLean, PhD, BSc(Hons), CEng, FIET
Recent news (more →)
April 27th, 2024 - Notice: TVdawn.com
I have been supporting this website since 2002 and its predecessor since 1998. My own research has moved on, gaining greater distance from the material presented on TVdawn.com. With few updates in the past 5 years, I have decided it is time to close the website and personally archive the contents of TVdawn.com. Both TVdawn.com […]
© D F McLean 2013