René Barthélemy

René Barthélemy (10 March 1889 – 12 February 1954) was a French engineer and a pioneer in the development of television technologies.

Background The invention of television was a slow enterprise of collective improvement between researchers and do-it-yourselfers from different countries, the first concepts of which date back to the end of the 1870s. It was the successive discoveries in electricity and optics that made it possible to formulate the theoretical projects, the first experiments and the first demonstrations.

Biography

Barthélemy was the son of a tailor from Nangis, and his teachers encouraged him to continue his studies in engineering in which during 1909–1910 he studied for a diploma from the École Supérieure d'Électricité. At 22 years old he was a radio-telegraphist at the Eiffel Tower. In 1922 he filed a patent on mains power supply for radio receivers for which, until then, heavy and bulky batteries were used; his invention assisted the development of radio broadcasting in France. He achieved the radio transmission of still images from the Eiffel Tower in January 1930. Prints of images were received at a resolution of 42 lines on a 132 mm wide roll of cyanotype paper.

Television By 1929 Barthélemy had been made head of the new television research laboratory, created by Jean Le Duc at the request of Ernest Chamon, CEO of the Compagnie des Compteurs in Montrouge.

A demonstration of television had been carried out at the Olympia Cinema in November 1930 using John Logie Baird's system. The second public demonstration of television in France, on 14 April 1931, was in the amphitheater of the School of Electricity at Malakoff in front of 800 guests. The receiver used the lensed Nipkow disc with a screen of 40 cm x 30 cm and a mechanical mirror camera of Weiller design at a resolution of 30 lines, developed in the Compagnie des Compteurs laboratory. This "radiovision" experience is the first from a radio transmitter (located 2 kilometers away, in the buildings of the Compagnie des Compteurs), others having been carried out previously but by wire: viewers were shown the broadcast of the short film L'Espagnole à l'éventail presented by Suzanne Bridoux, a collaborator of René Barthélemy and the first presenter in the history of French television.

Continuing his work under the auspices of Postes, télégraphes et téléphones (PTT), Barthélemy developed from December 1932 a new design at 60 lines definition and produced an experimental program in black and white of one hour per week, "Paris Télévision". The first official French television broadcast took place on 26 April 1935, under the aegis of Georges Mandel, Minister of PTT, from the studio at 103 rue de Grenelle. It was a twenty-minute sequence in which the actress Béatrice Bretty read a text recounting her recent tour of Italy: Radio-PTT Vision, the first French television channel, was born.

From , the Eiffel Tower served as a transmitting antenna with a power of 10 kW. On , continuing to perfect his devices, Barthélemy developed and produced an output of 180 lines of definition, but the time of "mechanical" disc television was over and advances in electronics were paving the way for modern television. At the beginning of 1937, programs were more frequent and took place every evening from 8:00 pm to 8:30 pm, broadcasting over a radius of 100 km.

Barthélémy died on 12 February 1954 at Antibes, and is buried in the Fontenay-aux-Roses cemetery.

Publications

Honors Member of the Académie des sciences, on 18 March 1946 Commander of the Légion d'honneur, on 12 February 1954