This black and white film from 1943 is a General Electric picture produced by Wilding Picture Productions, Inc. in New York. The film attempts to explain TV technology to an audience who had never seen television before. WRBG director Ted Houston hosts this “Sightseeing at Home” broadcast. It explains how live television works, and how pictures at transmitted from the TV studio and into the homes of WRGB’s viewers. WRGB was GE’s flagship station, and used as a test bed for perfecting TV technology. Credits: Wilding Picture Productions. Director: J.M. Constable. Writer: L.R. Algeo. Camera: George Hoover. Editor: W.H. Tinkham

The host Ted Houston greeting the viewer of WRGB on a TV screen from Schenectady, NY (00:11). A family is seated in their living room watching the greeting of TV host Houston while conversing (00:18). Footage from Ted Houston inside the WRGB studio (00:40). TV-Station workers behind the scenes (00:55). The “Sightseeing at Home” WRGB episode begins (01:06). A man enters a kitchen and looks at the food being cooked (01:46). Another man looking through a telescope (01:58). A man looking through a microscope (02:04). A line of women working with telegraphs (02:09). A movie-set (02:19). An air conditioned movie theater marquee mentions WWII news headlines, including the Flying Tigers in action and battles in Libya (02:29). A sound-recording studio (02:39). A man in an armchair listening to the radio while reading (02:51). A fencing match being filmed in a studio by a television camera (03:02). The technology of the television camera, and how it takes electric pictures instead of negatives for later developing (03:38). An illustration of how the electronic pictures in the television camera is transported to the screen of the receivers (04:51). The family watching the fencing match in their home (05:38). Electronic tubes used to prevent muddling or interference with the recorded film (06:03). A tower antenna used to release radio waves aimed for the transmitter, which connects the studio and the receivers in their homes (06:16). A transmitter site in the Helderberg Hills, NY (06:47). An illustration of the functions of a relay station (07:10). Two workers perform final check-ups inside the transmitter (08:00). A television screen separated from the television itself (08:16). The fencing match shown in the separated TV screen (08:52). The properties and technologies of a WRGB television studio (09:21). A man is controlling all the lights in the studio using a control-desk (09:49). Live televising of a seal-feeding event happening in a local zoo using mobile units (10:29). Backstage footage of television and sound production during the televising of a musical program (11:17). Ted Houston concludes the episode (14:16).

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