Rca left everyone else at the alter

[oldtvman]

I know that during the developement of color television all the ideas and principles that Rca used for its compatible color system were'nt theirs alone. I wonder if any of you old timers can shed more light on the fact that after the fcc adopted the never the same color system, most manufacturers then decided to let Rca sell color to the public, not to mention the bad taste CBS had for having their line secuential system thrown in the trash. any thoughts?

[reeferman]

Nobody else had the deep pockets (for color tv) Sarnoff had.

Those same deep (greedy) pockets led to Armstrong's suicide over the crap they gave him for his invention of FM. Truly despicable ego driven corporate behavior.

Anthony
PS The real tragedy and irony of what Sarnoff did to this man is that if he had only embraced the technology then RCA could've made a fortune for themselves by selling new compatible radios and transmitters, just like what we now endure whenever a new recording format appears (Cylinder records-Discs-LP-Wire recording-RTR-4 track-8 track-Cassette-CD-Mini Disc-MP3........1/2" video tape-Beta-VHS-8mm-Digital.....Laser Disc-DVD-who knows what next!)

[andy]

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[Telecolor 3007]

Where I can find the tragic story of Armstrong?

[Chad Hauris]

There is a book called "Man of High Fidelity" that has Edwin Armstrong's story.

[Steve D.]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

Where I can find the tragic story of Armstrong?

Telecolor,

A GOOGLE search for "Edwin Armstrong" will provide several sites including a biography.



-Steve D.

[frenchy]

Originally Posted by oldtvman

I know that during the developement of color television all the ideas and principles that Rca used for its compatible color system were'nt theirs alone. I wonder if any of you old timers can shed more light on the fact that after the fcc adopted the never the same color system, most manufacturers then decided to let Rca sell color to the public, not to mention the bad taste CBS had for having their line secuential system thrown in the trash. any thoughts?

You're not suggesting we would have been better off with CBS's system are you?

[ceebee23]

actually the colour wars were dirty on both sides of course ..CBS wanted to delay television by promising "Color Now" while RCA wanted to get some money back on its investment in mono TV ....but the behaviour of Senate which was effectively bought off by Sarnoff to prevent CBS broadcasting in color in the late 40s set a new low.

[andy]

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[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by andy

I think either system could have worked very well. An all electronic solution to displaying CBS color would have been implemented early on.

There would have been a severe motion artifact with the CBS system. Moving objects would have color fringes that changed from field to field. Only today's digital processing would be able to fix this. Something similar to MPEG.

[ceebee23]

But on the other hand there would have been no phase error ..but then again extracting RBG would been fun ..and no saturation control....mmm...as for color fringing ...perhaps a quick check with the Early Television museum may clear that up ..as they have some CBS field sequential sets working????

Of course just as CBS did the blue banana trick RCA had swirling batons which very neatly showed this problem! ...aaaagh fun and joy

[frenchy]

Originally Posted by andy

I think either system could have worked very well. An all electronic solution to displaying CBS color would have been implemented early on. Mechanical color sets would be as rare as 15GP22 based sets are (except for projection sets where a small color wheel in front of the lens would work fine).

Yes but would there have been any electronic alternative besides the tri-color tube? I mean they are still selling them now, if something cheaper AND better than the color kinescope had come along wouldn't we have seen it by now after 51 years? So IMO even if CBS had gotten rid of the color drums or wheels, it would have just been another version of RCA's with it's own drawbacks, plus the non-compatability issue. I think the farther you get from 1954, the better RCA's system looked compared to CBS....Frenchy

Very early color film used a two color system...sometimes pretty effectively. Were there ever experiments with a similar arrangement for television?

Anthony

[Pete Deksnis]

Perhaps the thrill of finally seeing CBS sequential color live clouded my objectivity. But I do not recall observing color fringing on the small-screen, operational 1951 CBS-color equipment at the 2004 ETF convention. Small screen is probably the operational word; field sequential color on today’s hi-acreage bottles would change the picture.

Photographing the historic event proved to be more difficult with a moving image, however. It may have had more to do with shutter-speed interacting with frame-rate than something else such as color fringing. But, when we paused the DVD player supplying the NTSC video to the transcoder, our results were more successful.

If you haven’t already seen it, here's a link to some of the best photos (save time, skip over the prattle before the first picture). Thanks again to Reeferman who served as cameraman.

http://home.att.net/~pldexnis/potpou...color2004.html

BTW, the x-hatch pattern conundrum noted in the text has been solved: nothing technical, just a distorted reflection of the museum's ceiling!