The discovery that sounds could travel by radio waves set several scientists thinking. If sound could be transmitted in this way, what about pictures?

The main problem faced was scanning, which was how to convert picture into a continuous sequence of information. When a person looks at a picture on a television screen, he is actually seeing millions of tiny dots of light. These dots are arranged in lines. On a modern television, there’re 625 lines on the picture. The more lines the picture has, the clearer and precise the picture is. This is because the image is broken up into very tiny parts.

Some of the first pioneers of television looked at electronic methods. In 1923, a procedure for converting an image into electrical signals was developed by Vladimir Zworykin, a Russian-born American.

Another pioneer was John Logie Baird, a Scottish engineer-turned-inventor who developed television in a different way. He had struggled unsuccessfully for 9 years until one day he came up with an idea for a mechanical scanning system; a system which was based on an invention by Paul Nipkow, a German student. Nipkow had the idea of cutting up images into lines and he produced an ‘electric telescope’ which comprised a disc pierced with a spiral of holes at the edge. The disc would divide the object into a series of lines when it was spun in front of an object. Baird applied for a patent to use Nipkow’s idea to make television. He managed to produce a flickering, blurred picture in 1925.

Braid greatly excited by his success, borrowed money to improve his invention. He rented a workshop in London to continue his work. He televised a ventriloquist’s dummy to the public at his workshop. The image was very dim and blurred as it was made up only with 8 lines. However, it was a success despite the poor quality. The public began to believe in the possibilities of this new communication system.

Baird set up his own company and continued to work to improve the quality of the images. The BBC was founded in 1922 to broadcast radio programs. Baird persuaded them to transmit television service. Meanwhile, other companies were working on electronic methods. In 1933, Zworykin patented the ‘iconoscope’, a camera tube that converted an image into electrical pulses, which was used by the Radio Corporation of America in 1936.

The electronic method was more sophisticated and could produce better quality pictures than Baird’s mechanical device. There were several drawbacks to the latter’s system. The camera was immobilized so anyone televised had to stay in one position. Besides, those televised were asked to wear heavy make-up so that their features could be seen. This was due to the poor quality of the picture. They were also almost blinded by the flickering light from the machine. Finally, the system’s frequent breakdowns proved to be the last straw.

For a while, the BBC used both mechanical scanned system and electronic system for their programs, but they finally dropped the former favor of the latter in 1937. Baird was bitterly upset over the decision. However, Baird’s first flickering pictures earned his credit as the inventor of the television, despite other pioneers who had been working on producing more advanced and technological equipment than Baird.