Nipkow disk 21st century entertainment

What if the Nipkow disk became the main prototype for entertainment and the standard tv was never invented?

http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=70015&rendTypeId=4

 

HueyLong

Banned
Radio and movie theaters will remain dominant.

The Nipkow disk takes a 50 cm disk to get an extremely small, low resolution picture. Its too expensive and too low quality to allow development to continue along the lines of the disk. Television as we know it will not exist. There won't be any point to have a Nipkow Disk television

Actually, keeping theaters as the main entertainment spot could be interesting. Its not as socially fragmented as television can make us, as a public place is inherently social.
 
Interesting, so nothing really could get this technology off the ground. I wonder if it had any advantages over tv tech?
 
AFAIK it had some problems - the pictures were very grainy, of course they were black-white, the actresses had to paint their lips black and eyelids green so there was a better contrast. The faster a Nipkow disk rotates, the better is the picture, but IIRC it can't rotate faster than 240 times / second, or the disk is destroyed.
 
Any more thoughts on the Nipkow disk? If it became mainstream it could be sold in little portable units, kind of small mini dvd players.
 
Top