American Cinematographer - January 15, 1922 - 9

January 15, 1922

THE AMERICAN

CINEMATOGRAPHER

Pictures by Wireless
IT'S been done!

Pictures have been sent by wireless and another impossible thing has been accomplished.
What couldn't be done has been done again and another dream has been made to come true.

Nearer and nearer science creeps toward the veil which separates the seen from the unseen-the world of
sense from the world of spirit-the
physical from the super·physical-the
wakeful phase of being from the
contemplative phase of being.
Six years ago at Balboa Studio Will M. Ritchey, one of the screen's best thinkers and photoplaywrights,
dreamed of the day when motion pictures might be transmitted by wireless, but he did not dream that even then
a man was at work on that very idea howbeit with but faint promise that he might succeed in making the dream
come true.
Mr. Ritchey is a newspaperman .and he was thinking of the matter in its news aspect alone, of the value of
such an invention in the dissemination of news and perhaps of its utilization in a news theatre-that
is a new
development of the motion picture theatre which should show reels and split reels of news, travel, scenics, cartoons,
educationals, and local news subjects. The other man-the inventor-had a bigger dream which, however, included
all that Mr. Ritchey's vision saw. This man, Dr. Elmore R. Walters, of the Kosmos Film Laboratory, at 4811
Fountain Avenue, Hollywood, California, has been a student of light and color for sixteen years and his active
research work has touched every known phase of these subjects, which, because of their very nature, are inexhaustible-for light and color seem to approximate the infinite.
Dr. Walter's researches in the film laboratory, here and abroad where he has specialized and been signally
successful in color work, and his study of the slow motion camera, awakened his interest in the exhibition of
~otion pictures and this led to his experimenting with the transmission of pictures by wireless.
The transmission of still pictures by wire is almost an old story. It can be done and done well as was recently
proven by the Los Angeles Times in the case of the [jempsey-Carpentier fight. Then several weeks ago a Frenchman named M. Edouard Belin attempted to transmit by wireless from Annapolis to Paris a photograph of President Harding in the act of making a speech, but the attempt was only partially successful. At the receiving end
the picture was registered upon a gelatine cylinder. There was a background and a rough outline in dots and
dashes of a man, but no resemblance to the President whatever. It required twenty minutes and great expense for
M. Belin to transmit his picture. His sending equipment was complex and cumbersome and the results negligible
except to establish that a photograph can .be sent by wireless.
Now comes Dr. Walters and not only transmits pictures by wireless, but sends and receives his pictures at
the. rate of sixteen per second, and they register at the receiving end in the colors of the original and in exact
outline, so that if the figure be a familiar one the observer may readily recognize it.
The Walters process is not an .invention, in the true sense of the word, but rather an application of well known
principles of photography, telegraphy and optics in concentration. His apparatus is simple and so nearly perfect
that perfection is only a short step away.
Transmission and reception are practically instantaneous-identical
operations-and the cost is small; and, if
one may pause to reflect upon the possibilities of Dr. Walters' achievement it is easy to imagine a great central
station sending a motion picture from one point,· and by one operation, to 100 or 1,000 picture theatres disseminated throughout an expanse of country nation-wide, and simultaneously accompanying the action of the picture
by the music arranged for it by means of the wireless telephone.
Dr. Walters has already successfully accomplished this over a distance of about ten miles, and so satisfactory
has been his achievement that he will demonstrate his process before the critical assembly of the A. S. C. at their
open meeting February 13, 1922.
A full and technical description of Dr. Walters' process will appear in an early number of
CINEMA·TOGRAPHER.

THE

AMERICAN

American Cinematographer - January 15, 1922

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