In 1925, John Logie Baird transmitted a 30-line television picture of a ventriloquist’s dummy nicknamed ‘Stooky Bill’.
The next year he demonstrated his system to the Royal Institution and to the the Times in his laboratory at 22 Frith Street in Soho, London.
Baird was already working on a means of storing the images, and in 1928 he developed a 78 rpm shellac disc to record and play back his 30-line pictures.
In the 1980s the BBC electronically recovered the pictures from original discs.
The BBC and IBA – then responsible for commercial TV in the UK – collected original equipment, built replicas and used modern electronics to recreate the images stored on Baird’s 78 rpm shellac discs.
Selfridges store in London sold Baird’s Phonovision disc system.
John Logie Baird died 14 June 1946. There have been many reunions of Baird’s original staff and his widow Margaret, hosted in 1986 by veteran broadcaster Leslie Mitchell.
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In 1925 John Logie Baird transmitted a
30-line TV picture... -
...of a ventriloquist's dummy nicknamed
'Stooky Bill'. -
One of the original discs.
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The 78 rpm shellac disc could record & play back 30-line pictures.
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Baird TV studio, 1928.
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Baird's outside studio, weather permitting.
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Baird engineers Ben Clapp and Joseph Denton...
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...with Baird's mechanical TV system in 1927.
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Baird's 1926 mechanical TV system, now a museum curiosity.
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Baird's Phonovision video disc recorder, July 1928 (pic HJ Barton-Chapple).
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Early domestic projection TV from Ekco & Baird’s Scophony company, 1939.
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The model ES-104 gave a 20in x 24in picture, in black & white of course.
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London’s Selfridges sold John Logie Baird's video disc system.
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Baird's widow Margaret and Leslie Mitchell with a 1939 TV at Radio Rentals museum, 1983.
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One of many Baird TV pioneers’ reunions (1986).
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William Fox was televised by Baird in the 1920s.
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...and Ben Clapp, who we saw earlier.
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...seen here with ex-colleague Dennis Ridgeway (1986)
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...and Tony Bridgewater (1986).
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Equipment used by BBC to recreate Baird disc, 1966.
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Reconstructed Baird video disc picture, 1966.
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A Wireless World exhibition model of Baird.