Blue RCA TK-41 camera
 

I found this YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtHRv...eature=related of a RCA TK-41 colour camera on display painted blue. I would like to know was this its original colour and was this a remote OB camera?

About every one I've seen in pics have been a silvery-grey...

The lighting is so bad in that video it's hard to tell what color it is, might be grey.

I started watching "Dragnet 1969" tonight and in the first episode of the season Joe and Bill appear on a Television program and they showed two VERY BLUE TK-41 Cameras.

I snapped this picture off the screen.

Blue TK41
 

This was a CBS camera. They never left the factory painted this color. CBS hated RCA and when they had to use an RCA, it was immediately stripped of all logos and painted blue. Unusual to see the RCA logos. BTW, All Jack Webb's later shows were filmed at Universal Studios (Hollywood) and was mostly aired via CBS so explains the blue cameras on that episode. You can see that episode on Youtube. Earlier Dragnet shows were not owned by Webb until he formed his own Mark VII productions in the later part of the '50's.

Also I have the Mitchell BNCR movie camera #244 that was purchased new by Jack Webb in 1959 (Mark VII Productions) and filmed all of his TV shows till 1983 when he died. Universal also used it for filming other shows of the '60's to include "The Munsters". All of the Dragnet series and others were shot entirely on 35mm. The "I Love Lucy" shows were shot entirely with 3 Mitchell BNCR cameras as 90% of all Hollywood produced shows were shot with this model camera. My camera still has the property tags for Universal and CBS.

First off, all of Mr. Webb's Dragnet shows (from his 1952-59 series to Dragnet 1967 / 1968 / 1969 / 1970) were originally aired on NBC - which in those days was owned by RCA. The TK-41 class was definitely considered better than the infamous TK-42 or even the TK-43, to the point where NBC's O&O's kept the 41's in service in all their studios up to 1969-71 when they were replaced with TK-44A/B's. The "blue" cameras may've been props for use in episodes like that.

Secondly, when NBC purchased Norelco PC-70's for use in several of their remote units in 1968 (prior to the introduction of the TK-44A), on some such cameras they did exactly what CBS had done to the old RCA TK-40/41's - strip the logo off. In the PC-70's case, it was evident that the Norelco logo plate was taken off because of small holes in certain places where the logo plate had been.

And CBS's aforementioned hatred of RCA was such that practically the only reason they truly committed to color after 1965 was the introduction of Norelco's first Plumbicon color camera, the PC-60, followed by General Electric rolling out their PE-24 (and later PE-240) color film chains/slide scanners. (Though four of CBS's five O&O's - the exception being New York's WCBS-TV - used RCA TK-27 chains, and one of those four - Philadelphia's WCAU-TV - even went with the aforementioned RCA TK-42.) And that's not counting their 1962-63 purchase of Marconi Mark IV B&W cameras, when the ancient TK-10/30's and TK-11/31's came up for replacement.

Interesting reading all of these facts. It's sad that CBS held a hateful grudge against RCA just because RCA's NTSC was adopted over the CBS system. Because of this stupid grudge, many great shows on the network were deprived of being presented in regular colour especially the famous Ed Sullivan Show which had more stars on it than the stars in the sky at night!!! Still CBS could of purchased the early General Electric PE-15s that were much like the TK-41s.

I don't think there was any love lost between CBS' William Paley & Gen. Sarnoff of RCA, either. But Sarnoff, from what I've been able to read, was not very well-liked in the industry. And I think it went far beyond a business rivalry- People actually detested HIM, personally.

Pardon my opinion of Sarnoff. The man was an asshole! His goal was to gobble up all technologies for radio and television by intimidation or purchase. He thought he could control the entire entrainment industry. For a while he did. Check out the books written by RCA associates on television, they were hack. That is why Farnsworth is rolling in his grave. Doogie

See what I mean ?!? (grin) My favorite alleged Sarnoff quote has to be-"I don't GET Ulcers-I GIVE them...." I think that was in conjunction to the development of color TV.

I would say we were fortunate that RCA was the winner in the Color Wars, otherwise we would have been stuck with CBS's incompatible, Field Sequential Color Wheel monstrosities and that would have really set Color back a decade or two.

Only one problem: The color tubes were RCA's I-O's. The only reason, as I said, why CBS went color beginning in 1965 was, in essence, due to the development of Philips/Norelco's PC-60 camera - and that company's Plumbicon tubes, thus ending RCA's de facto monopoly on the color TV equipment market. (And beyond cameras, once other RCA equipment - such as 44BX and 77DX microphones - came up for replacement, they purchased mics from "other" companies as well.) ABC was another kettle o' fish - they didn't even have the money to upgrade to color, and when they finally did, they were in a financial hole for nearly a decade, with only well-rated sitcoms from the early 1970's period sustaining them.

Surprised Mr. Ellerbee didn't catch the erroneous assertion of Dragnet having been on CBS . . .

Regarding CBS equipment colors - in the early 70s when we at Motorola were involved with a project with CBS Labs, they had two standard colors, a light gray and a dark gray. All their equipment was painted one or the other of those two.

General Electric also made IO tubes and I have one in my collection which can be seen on my site http://www.troysvintagevideo.741.com/orthicon.html . Surely GE would use their own tubes? Or were the B&W IOs made for colour cameras a different type of IO to the standard IOs used in B&W cameras and only RCA made the specialized IOs for colour cameras?