. From 1929 to 1935, the BBC transmitters were used to broadcast television programmes using the 30-line Baird system, and from 1932 to 1935 the BBC also produced the programmes in their own studio, first at Broadcasting House and then later at 16 Portland Place. In addition, from 1933 Baird and the Baird Company were producing and broadcasting a small number of television programmes independent of the BBC from Baird's studios and transmitter at the Crystal Palace in south London. On 2 November 1936, from Alexandra Palace located on the high ground of the north London ridge, the BBC began alternating Baird 240-line transmissions with EMI's electronic scanning system, which had recently been improved to 405-lines after a merger with Marconi. The Baird system at the time involved an intermediate film process, where footage was shot on cinefilm, which was rapidly developed and scanned. The trial was due to last for 6 months but the BBC ceased broadcasts with the Baird system in February 1937, due in part to a disastrous fire in the Baird facilities at Crystal Palace. It was becoming apparent to the BBC that the Baird system would ultimately fail due in large part to the lack of mobility of the Baird system's cameras, with their developer tanks, hoses, and cables. Commercially Baird’s contemporaries, such as George William Walton and William Stephenson, were ultimately more successful as their patents underpinned the early television system used by Scophony Limited who operated in Britain up to WWII and then in the US. "Of all the electro-mechanical television techniques invented and developed by the mid 1930s, the technology known as Scophony had no rival in terms of technical performance." In 1948 Scophony acquired John Logie Baird Ltd. Baird's television systems were replaced by the first fully electronic television system developed by the newly formed company EMI-Marconi under Sir Isaac Shoenberg, who headed a research group that developed an advanced camera tube (the Emitron) and a relatively efficient hard-vacuum cathode-ray tube for the television receiver. Philo T. Farnsworth's electronic "Image Dissector" camera was available to Baird's company via a patent-sharing agreement. However, the Image Dissector camera was found to be lacking in light sensitivity, requiring excessive levels of illumination. The Baird company used the Farnsworth tubes instead to scan cinefilm, in which capacity they proved serviceable though prone to drop-outs and other problems. Farnsworth himself came to London to the Baird