WI: Early television being silent
- Thread starter Petike
- Start date
That's actually how it was in the days of early "low-def" TV. What the current analogue terrestrial TV standards are now (from the British 405-line to the French 819-line, as well as the standard 525-line and 625-line standards) back in the 1920s and 1930s was HDTV.
Uh, the first TV signals with synchronised sound occurred in 1927 (about the same time sound movies were beginning, but before TVs were actually fully electric) then it makes no sense, indeed, since television came in as a radio signal it was easier to put a soundtrack to it than to put one on a roll of film.
But, two things.
One, there could always arise difficulties with sound being synchronous with the picture that is being broadcast just based on who turns on what at what time to get things going. It happens even with youtube videos in our wonder age of the 21st century (though those are errors on upload). And, as you see in those videos, a delay of even a half a second can, as the picture runs longer and longer, build up to the point where its a delay of several seconds to half a minute or more or anything in between.
Two, I'm not sure of the details of how signals work, but wouldn't terrestrial radio signals take some time to reach an area depending in its distance from the initial output? And wouldn't that also cause difficulty in syncing up the picture and sound?
I like the idea and thought a bit about it, but I can't think of any cultural reasons in any contries developed enough to start television service first...
Unless TV was invented by a deaf mad German scientist, in that case anything is possible...
TV developed by imperial-court-heavy regimes in either China or Japan?
I'm thinking of the fact the Japanese had never heard their emperor speak before he addressed the nation in a radio speech, when he declared his government was surrendering. And the people could barely understand him, as he was speaking in an archaic royal dialect.
Also, I guess there's the language barrier in the general population of China.
Though I guess it's easier to just have a modernist totalitarian regime propaganda minister go all arty when he creates his official television format.
That'd be good, but in those days the only people broadcasting were national groups, who presumably would have the resources to correct such problems pretty quickly.
Again, all EM signals move at the same speed, and you don't have to transmit the signals as separate either, since the TV is already dealing with a signal much more complex that mere sound could be, you can slot it in with few issues
Arty can also mean having beautiful violin music alongside subtitled pictures if you want.
Having a TV without sound is like having a computer without a mouse, yeah, you could do it, but it would take a hell of a lot of explaining why.
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