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I am sorry to say I donīt know for how long did live these first color broadcast after spare parts stopped coming to Cuba.
Even to keep B/W TV on air was difficult. I was told that on every camera head they had put a 110V outlet, and a soldering iron was kept ready at every studio, so technicians could plug it and start repairing any camera that failed while on air. And even so, sometimes you started the show with three or four cameras, and ended it with only one.
About late 60s it was clear something had to be done about getting color in Cuban TV screens. I was just an interested teenager then, but I know it was talked about using the SECAM system.
For compatibility reasons, B/W transmissions had to keep the US EIA standard, and to use SECAM, it would have been necessary for the Soviets to build a custom line of SECAM studio gear (and TV sets) with 525 line specifications.
After some time it was decided to go with NTSC. The first color equipment Cuba got was a brand-new NEC OB-van with 4 cameras and 1-inch TT-series R2R VTRs, maybe in 1973. It was a beauty to behold after years of having older RCA and DuMont equipment in every stage of decay (and working).
And that OB-van did everything. Of course it was the ONLY color equipment here, and so only a few programs could be in color. On the mornings the truck could be in the Havana outskirts recording a musical or drama program, and in the afternoon it was parked alongside Radiocentro, its cables running up the stairs to the studio (whose B/W cameras had been pushed aside) broadcasting a live show.
After that came UMatic and then Betacam. Umatics were kept in use until around 2001-2003, and Cuban TV still uses BetacamSP (because we are not yet in HD).
I have a personal UMatic archive of some 2,000 documentaries and short fiction works, made in VHS around the 90s and 2000s by the then students of the University of the Arts -some of whom are now recognised film directors-, and these UMatic tapes are the only surviving copies of their early works. Of course, I keep some VTRs in good shape and am digitizing the archive, but the tapes still hold very well.
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