Movies for TV - Early Television Foundation

KINESCOPE RECORDING 329
permits have been used no more stations will be built for some time.
Since there are no construction permits left to construct in 1950
there will not be much financial incentive for the telephone com-
panies to build and lay new relay links. Therefore, even though tele-
vision stations in single or even two station markets desire to have
network service, the cost would be too high for them to carry and
would not bring a great enough return for the telephone company
to be able to support it financially.
The only alternative to this is for the stations to use recordings
electrical transcriptions as they are called in sound broadcasting.
Thus, the kinescope network was formed by the use of films of the
desired programs sent to affiliated stations all over the country. Be-
fore continuing with the important subject of networking, it would
be interesting to discuss the place of kinescope recordings and films
in the international field.
Radio is truly international in its ability to penetrate national
boundaries and be received by peoples thousands of miles from the
transmitter. Even though the language is different, propaganda
messages can be sent in the tongue of the nation to whom the mes-
sage is directed, and most important of all, there is no limiting of
service to an arbitrary fifty miles or so by the physical properties of
the medium. Finally, the methods by which the message is sent are
standard all over the world and an American receiver will work as
well in Russia as it will in England or Italy.
But, in television, a number of countries have different standards
of transmission. This means that an American receiver would not
produce pictures in England, France, Holland, or Russia without
a change for each country, so that even if the waves did travel all
the way to these countries, the existing sets would not work on the
outside signals. Although the language problem would reduce the
value of visual pictures slightly, their value would still be much
greater than speech only.
Methods of film projection are standardized in all countries,
and a program on film would be the ideal way of getting programs
from one country to another when either transmission
standards or distance made direct pickup impossible. This idea