Industrial and professional applications of television technique

The rapid development of television as an entertainment medium has resulted in considerable engineering effort being directed at perfecting the performance and reliability of the analysis of a picture into an electrical waveform, the undistorted transmission of this waveform over a radio or cable link and its synthesis back to the reconstituted picture. This complete chain of transmission and reception and many of the subsidiary techniques have uses outside the broadcast entertainment field, and development has been devoted to their application to improve the efficiency of industrial processes and professional techniques. The paper attempts to survey the field of application of television technique to the industrial and professional fields, and to present in perspective the British contribution to television outside domestic broadcasting. Following some historical notes is an analysis of the various basic application principles involved, with some deductions on their resulting scope and limitations. These applications are then collated into three groups, namely those associated with a broadcast link, specific industrial and professional applications of a closed television chain, and applications of techniques which are either subsidiary to television or have been intensively developed as a result of its growth. Each of these groups is then subdivided into the practical applications concerned, which are described, and some assessment is made of their present and potential value. A concluding review points to those techniques and their applications which appear to hold most promise for future development.