View Single Post
  #6  
Old 06-13-2022, 03:50 PM
colortrakker colortrakker is offline
Thinking in color...
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: the REAL Central PA
Posts: 295
Here's what happened: RCA had no good comeback for the Philips Plumbicon tube. The TK-42/43 had an odd mix of 3 vidicons for color and one IO for luminance that required lots of light and heavy tweaking at the control unit to even make passable images. This show was likely done on TK-42s. There's some tape degradation but you may still be able to get a feel for the general "look" of the camera, especially against the show's film inserts. Other 4-tubes like the GE PE-250/350 wisely used 4 plumbs.

One other thing was the quirky "handles" on each side for zoom and focus. As temperatures inside the camera rose, the mechanisms seized and chattered, so many stations retrofitted regular controls.

That combination of problems led NBC to keep its TK-41s in the studios and buy Norelcos for the field (and guinea-pigging) until RCA came up with the vastly superior TK-44A...which ended up using Plumbicons just like the Norelcos did.
__________________
Good headphones make good neighbors.
Reply With Quote