Note that the RCA logos have been removed from the RCA TK-41 cameras. CBS had a working color system several years before RCA did but the FCC opted for the NTSC color standard as developed by RCA. NTSC color programs could be viewed on existing black and white televisions. The CBS system required viewers to purchase new and very expensive television sets. CBS management was upset enough at the rejection of their development to order that all RCA logos be removed from all RCA built equipment that might possibly be seen. They also dropped almost all color programming for about 5 years, 1959 - 1964. When European made color cameras became available in the mid 1960's, CBS had a good alternative to RCA equipment and was all color by the 1966/67 season.

@MovieMakingMan

10 ай бұрын

Thanks for that interesting info. I’m a filmmaker and ran my own video production facility at NASA and I can definitely appreciate the amount of effort put in by those production teams in the past. Their jobs were infinitely harder than today due to the improvement of visual and audio equipment. Now color cameras can be so small they aren’t even seen on pens, eyeglasses, etc. One of my film instructors said it was amazing effort just to complete a film given all the pitfalls in the paths of production teams. I’m so glad this video was preserved. It opens a window to how hard it was to produce a show and how far we have come since those golden days on television.

@telocho

9 ай бұрын

CBS had another color system proposed and approved before RCA/NBC came with NTSC, but they had no working camera’s. They could only broadcast color from scanning color film. RCA made the very first functional color cameras. The Norelco’s are from a much later period, from the mid sixties, and are the same ones Philips made for the PAL system. Those Norelco’s have Made in Holland on them.

@rongendron8705

8 ай бұрын

Well researched!

@fromthesidelines

7 ай бұрын

There was another reason CBS began scheduling about half of their prime-time programming in color in the fall of 1965. That spring, NBC announced plans for an "all-color" schedule- with several exceptions- to begin that fall. CBS (and to a lesser extent, ABC) realized that more Nielsen viewers owned color sets........and they tended to watch more color shows. If CBS didn't begin regular color telecasts, NBC would become "the #1 network". So they "converted" their most popular shows to color: Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton, Lucy {she had a head start with two seasons of color episodes the network telecast in black and white}, "LASSIE", "MY FAVORITE MARTIAN", Andy Griffith, "PETTICOAT JUNCTON", "MY THREE SONS" {acquired from ABC}, "GILLIGAN'S ISLAND", "GOMER PYLE, U.S.M.C."- and new series including "GREEN ACRES" and "HOGAN'S HEROES". And the strategy worked: CBS had six of thr "Top Ten" shows that season, remaining #1 in the ratings, with NBC a close second........and ABC in "fourth place", despite the unexpected mid-season success of "BATMAN" in 1966.

@glennmillerfan

6 ай бұрын

The CBS color system was developed in 1940, while the RCA compatible color system was developed in 1947 and ready to go by 1950. I would say that without World War 2, we likely would have had color television in 1948.

Was curious about Janice Paige, seen rehearsing for Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that she's still alive in 2022, and turned 100 in September!

@barryobrien7935

11 ай бұрын

Janis Paige.

@MovieMakingMan

10 ай бұрын

Thanks for pointing that out.

All were broadcast at the time on 13-inch screens. Only black n white kinescopes of these shows survive unless they are lost.

Ed Sullivan's "TOAST OF THE TOWN" color broadcast [the only one he attempted until he started weekly color telecasts in September 1965}- with Janis Paige and Eartha Kitt - took place on August 22, 1954. The "DANGER" episode was "A Shadow on the Sand", telecast on August 31, 1954. "THE BEST OF BROADWAY": "The Royal Family" was telecast on September 15, 1954.

@gabrielyudenich1109

Жыл бұрын

Hey Barry, i have one question for you. The test for broadcast of Ed Sullivan toast of the town of September 1953 (i guess), did you know if this tests exist and where i can see them?

@fromthesidelines

Жыл бұрын

I don't believe they do.

@gabrielyudenich1109

Жыл бұрын

@@fromthesidelines Very sad. I'm trying to find those tests and the program of September 13, but i didn't find any

@tomsayen9295

7 ай бұрын

Think about how few viewers had color television sets costing $1000.00. RCA, Westinghouse and Hytron had crude 15 inch sets available. And how many CBS affiliates could actually carry a color broadcast from the network to their transmitter.

Probably made for when CBS tried an early '50s experiment with a single color broadcast of some of CBS's leading programs; 'Burns and Allen', 'I love Lucy', ect. 'Danger' was always in B/W.

@superluminal89

5 ай бұрын

Wait...there's a color episode of "I Love Lucy"?

Hard to imagine all the work to put on a huge production and no way to properly record it! If you were lucky enough to have a color tv, you'd have a lot of friends coming over that night!

@robsemail

11 ай бұрын

Yep, most every weekend in fact. My parents married in 1958, two years before I was born, and my grandmother gave them a color TV as a wedding gift. People came over frequently to watch TV, and all my friends would come over on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons in color.

I always wonder what the techs at CBS would have thought about our technology today if they could have seen it then.

@user-ht1xu4gv2u

8 ай бұрын

Stunned and befuddled in 197 5:28 2:a portable vcr was a clunky pansonic bw cam and a reel to reel 1 inch. Tape nto record 1 hr we had 2 machines on a cart we pushed around one fixed and one handheld Can you say primitive😅😅

@fromthesidelines

7 ай бұрын

"Aw, it'll *never* work!" 😉

I believe those were TK40's because there are 3 camera cables bundled together. The 41 had the 3 cables built together Into one cable. There were only a few color TV receivers sold in the fifties, and as others noted, video recording was 2 years (B&W) and (color ) 4 years in the future.

@glennmillerfan

6 ай бұрын

Yeah. Only about 500,000 color televisions were sold between 1953 and 1959 and color television sales didn’t start to pick up until 1960 or 1961.

These are rehearsals for Broadcasting LIVE using color tv cameras. This is early experimental color tv work.

For an example of what the CBS color system would look like you can watch the video of the moonwalks on Apollos 15, 16 & 17. The NASA color television camera was based on the CBS color wheel system. The original CBS picture actually probably would have looked better because the NASA color camera was miniaturized and adapted to use less power & bandwidth resources than a standard studio camera and there likely was some picture degradation in the transmission from the moon and also because of the age of the surviving videotape.

We didnt get a color tv till 1981

5:44 and now ed Sullivan

10:22 that is a whole line of very rare and highly sought after 15gp22 crt tubes.

There was a similar 'behind the scenes' program about how NBC's color system was developed. They even poked fun at CBS in a song at the end, but I can't find it on YT. Anyone know where it is?

That theater at 81st and Broadway became the original home to Sesame Street and is now a Staples.

@fredricardo3272

9 ай бұрын

Wow

I'm pretty sure BLUE layer is missing in this camera production.

@telocho

9 ай бұрын

Probably the film was faded to complete red like most films do. When trying to restore, there is very little blue to rescue. They do collor correction for accurate skin color/flesh tones.

So this was the start of CBS pioneering color broadcasting and how they were the leader in pushing color TV - -OH WAIT that was NBC, CBS dragged their feet for 11 or 12 years except for an occasional special usually from TV City Beverly/Fairfax. No interest in helping RCA 😢

Nice!

Was this a demo of the mechanical spinning wheel color system cbs tried? The cameras look like the same ones on the RCA electrical system.

@mecdutempsjadis

Жыл бұрын

CBS’s earlier ill-fated field-sequential system? No, that color wheel system by this time-beginning of Fall 1954 season-had been replaced by RCA’s (thus NBC’s) NTSC dot-sequential compatible color system. Look again at those RCA TK-40A cameras you noticed, reluctantly purchased by CBS, who even removed the RCA logos from the sides of the cameras.

@aris95

Жыл бұрын

@@mecdutempsjadis So this CBS color wheel system was very short-lived ?

@mecdutempsjadis

Жыл бұрын

Yes, as a functional standard for color telecasting, CBS’s field-sequential color wheel system was very short-lived. From October 1950, when the FCC adopted it as the standard for color TV in the US, to October 1951, when CBS suspended field-sequential colorcasts, the system was a technological and commercial nonstarter. Its innate incompatibility with the black-and-white broadcasting system already in use kept the TV-buying public away in droves, while RCA got its act together and developed the NTSC dot-sequential compatible color system which the FCC approved as the new color TV standard in December 1953.

09:31 No way! Apple macs exist it past!!!!!

One wonders in the days prior to video tape, the kinescope era and live TV; how did the west coast view these programs? Could they process a color film and broadcast it for the west in time for broadcast, or did they do two live preformances?

@altfactor

2 жыл бұрын

There may have been color kinescope recordings, but delayed broadcasts of color programs in the pre-videotape era (e.g. the West Coast feeds) may well have been in black-and-white.

@ppc7457

2 жыл бұрын

they invented color video tape around 1958.

@kennixox262

2 жыл бұрын

@@ppc7457 I was referring to the advent of video tape, monochrome or color.

@glennmillerfan

10 ай бұрын

@@altfactorI don’t they had color kinescopes until 1956, so the color programs likely aired three hours earlier on the west coast or three hours later on the east coast if they originated in California. The earliest color kinescopes that I’ve seen are not good quality either and look worse than a multi generational VHS or Betamax tape recorded in the longest recording speed.

@tomsayen9295

7 ай бұрын

I read that ABC/Hollywood had no color tape/film/slide capability when "The Jetsons" premiered on September 23, 1962 as ABC's very first color telecast. So ABC/Hollywood took the 35 mm film and 16 mm safety over to NBC/Burbank, who sent it over the AT&t line to ABC/New York at 7:30 eastern then three hours later sent it to ABC/Hollywood for the west coast feed.

Is this photograped in 2 strip technicolor process?

@mecdutempsjadis

Жыл бұрын

No. First of all, two-color Technicolor had been replaced by Technicolor’s three-color process (“three-strip Technicolor”) back in the 1930s. By the mid-1950s, two-color film systems had largely given way to newer three-color systems. Even two-color Cinecolor was gone by this time. This film, a 1954 in-house CBS production intended solely for use within the industry, was likely photographed in some Eastmancolor or Ansco Color type of process. If the hues don’t appear that vibrant, or the palette that broad, it’s very likely due to fading of the source film over the ensuing sixty-plus years.

I wonder if watching this on film is a much different experience than seeing it on television. How accurate is this representation on film? Tape was in development then, but I guess it wasn't available for this.

So why are we filming this with a two-hue color process?

@altfactor

2 жыл бұрын

Probably looks that way due to deterioration of the color film print.

@smadaf

2 жыл бұрын

It's full-color film that has faded.

@Q80Warlock

2 жыл бұрын

This was probably filmed using Cinecolor film which only captured the red/green spectrum of colors and was cheaper.

@pon2oon

2 жыл бұрын

@@Q80Warlock You'd think they'd be able to afford it for a 14 minute film, Well at least these first, few color tv owners got to see a better experience than this.

@scottmarshall1414

Жыл бұрын

It looks like it was filmed and printed in 35mm Eastman Color, which fades badly over time. You can see red, blue, and green knobs on the camera control panel at the following time code, which proves it was filmed in 3-color, but it's likely the film was faded and attempts at color correction were made when this video was mastered kzread.info/dash/bejne/m2uhx6NyetbQgtI.html