1957 CBS Cinderella kinescope: possibility of colour recovery!

[Aussie Bloke]

Originally Posted by NewVista

Don't see the point of all the work they went to for early 'Dr Who'? - unless there were some B&W-only copies of shows with Lala Ward, in which case, yes, go to work!

Well for us Dr Who fans, we very much prefer to see the early Dr Who episodes enhanced in quality as close to the original broadcasts than seeing them in poor quality film and we want to see the colour episodes in colour, not B&W, and with the technology available to do this and so many classic Dr Who fans, there is a good point to restore those early shows to close to their original broadcast quality!

[NewVista]

I just want to see Lala Ward in colour because I think I'm in love.. (In real life she ran off with the leading actor, Dr Who himself!)

Just like that other delectable English actress Rachael Ward.. (who in real life ran off with her co-star in The Thornbirds!)

[jmdocs]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

CBS did not have color kinescoping or lenticular film at that time. The dots only got recorded because they failed to insert a chroma notch filter in the video feed. That was apparently fixed soon after, and no further dotty kinescope films were made, as far as anyone knows.

Side note: Ed Reitan was interested in restoring some lenticular recordings. He kept promising to send me a frame of color bars to work with, but never got around to it. Apparently, he was very close-mouthed about any ideas of his and only revealed them to maybe one person he thought could help. He had an idea that the lenticular film might be scanned on a flatbed scanner or dedicated slide scanner at high resolution and the stripes separated by computer processing. I tried to convince him that a slide projector and color filter would not only be simpler, but would work better. I had read about someone who was involved with lenticular and gave talks demonstrating it with a slide projector and filter. At the dramatic point, he would put the filter on the projector, changing the image to color. Whatever samples Ed had, got lost after his death.

Lenticular Kodacolor can definitely be restored: vhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqWldGxHKqw

Question is whether lenticular kinescopes also used the same vertical line structure for the lenticles. NBC definitely used it for a few years; somewhere around here I have the SMPTE Journal article about it. Also a couple of TV columns where they criticize how grubby the lenticular kines looked in the West Coast feed. Of course a modern restoration could get a lot more information out of the film than a 1956 film chain. Supposedly there are some lenticular kinescopes in the Jerry Lewis collection at the Library of Congress but I'm not sure (and that collection is going to take years to process...)

Jeff M.
Chicago, IL

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by jmdocs

Lenticular Kodacolor can definitely be restored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqWldGxHKqw

Question is whether lenticular kinescopes also used the same vertical line structure for the lenticles. NBC definitely used it for a few years; somewhere around here I have the SMPTE Journal article about it. Also a couple of TV columns where they criticize how grubby the lenticular kines looked in the West Coast feed. Of course a modern restoration could get a lot more information out of the film than a 1956 film chain. Supposedly there are some lenticular kinescopes in the Jerry Lewis collection at the Library of Congress but I'm not sure (and that collection is going to take years to process...)

Jeff M.
Chicago, IL

Thanks for posting that. I have seen some lenticular footage of an Eastman / Edison lawn party, but this is the first time I have seen this film.

If they restored the color optically, it appears to me they had a lens with slightly wrong focal length, resulting in the hue shift across the image.

[old_tv_nut]

Here's a rough diagram of what may be happening. Mismatch could occur with projection lens longer focal length than taking lens (as shown), or shorter.