John Logie Baird

John Logie Baird

1888-1946

Scottish engineer and inventor with a prominent place in the history of television. He took advantage of advances in electronics and light-sensitive materials in the 1920s to develop the first practical electromechanical television system; which was demonstrated publicly at Selfridges department store in London in 1925. He demonstrated the first television system that could transmit live images with tone gradation in 1926, the first television system for infrared radiation that could perform in complete darkness (“Noctovision”) in 1926, and the first demonstration of color television and of stereoscopic television in 1928. That same year, he was the first to record television signals with his “Phonovision” system and successfully transmitted television signals across the Atlantic Ocean. He also demonstrated theater television with a large screen (60 cm ´ 150 cm) in 1930. Between 1929 and 1932, the Baird system was used by the BBC for transmission of public television programming using commercially available Baird “Televisor” receivers. Baird also contributed to the development of all-electronic television later in the 1930s through World War II. He demonstrated the first fully electronic color television display in 1944, a 600-line system with triple interlacing. He later proposed a 1000-line system (“Telechrome”) that would have produced images comparable to HDTV.