Videokarma.org TV - Video - Vintage Television & Radio Forums

- Early Color Television (http://www.videokarma.org/forumdisplay.php?f=36)

- - Early color TV in Italy (http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=195082)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Grant (Post 2279582)

Trade barriers and field rate issues aside, don't ignore another very obvious reason European nations only adopted color TV later than the Americans did. Economics.

When NTSC color was introduced, Europe had not yet fully recovered from the immense tragedy of World War II, which left many of it's factories and research labs in ruin.

It would take some time before the economies of Western Europe would grow again. While the Americans were putting out millions of new overhead-valve cars, the European industrial economy was being driven by motorcycle production. Even the rise of the automotive mass-production age in Europe, circa 1958, was with subcompact cars, often featuring two-stroke engines with less than one-fifth the horsepower of the V-8 Chevys in America. Not until the 1970's would the purchasing power of the average European be compared to that of people in the USA or Canada.

One could also argue that Europe was not really as far behind as the introductory dates would suggest. Sure, NTSC color transmissions began in 1953, but color TV in the USA would be hampered the "chicken and egg" problem (people not buying color TV because most shows were monochrome, TV stations/networks not investing in color because very few people had color TV sets). Sales of color TV sets in USA actually -fell- between 1956 and 1960! The jam would not break until late 1965. Compare this with the UK. When BBC1 and ITN flipped the switch (15 November 1969), the market was ready-made, colour tellies - and colour programmes, were the usual quite quickly. Thus the real lag period (color America and monochrome Europe), only lasted about 5 years.

Two other things to add:
Field rate issues did not doom NTSC in Europe - there were forms of NTSC designed to work with a 50Hz field rate and a wider channel for overseas markets (much as Brazil uses PAL-M, a version of PAL for a 6MHz channel and 60Hz field rate)

I would be very interested to know how the proposed Italian "ISA-identification in alternate suppression" system worked.

Rob

I know what they say about the issues related to the choice between different systems in Europe and in this case in Italy, which were discussed in this forum. however RAI began with NTSC to make the first experimentation but was affected by various problems and therefore was immediately abandoned in favor of the other systems (PAL and SECAM). To learn more sull'ISA type "ISA Indesit" and then clik on "The War of color TV." you'll find some information, but few are able to learn more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Grant (Post 2341346)

One thing I notice after 39 years of watching NTSC color:

When my parents got our RCA CTC-38 (1969), the color was usually good at one "right" hue (phase) setting, yet it was not very uncommon (especially on videotaped network programming) for the phase to be far off the mark (green or purple faces, blue grass). Sometimes the local station would super a notice "technical difficulties" at the bottom. I understand this was because the NTSC reference signal ("back porch", "color burst") could not be transmitted with the picture on the microwave links then in use by networks (please, someone, tell me WHY this was so, if they can send a chartreuse dress image on the link, they can send the burst, can't they ?).

The burst was and is always transmitted with an analog signal. It must be, otherwise there is no color frequency and phase reference. However, it has been the practice frmm the beginning to generate a new, clean synchronizing and burst signal locked to the incoming signal. Early in the color days, there was often considerable degradation of the video and the burst, so when the burst was regenerated, sometimes it was the wrong phase. (Sometimes this was simply because no-one adjusted it correctly.) Since there might be more than one stage of regeneration, it could be very difficult to track down the stages at which something went wrong.

For a short time, a signal called VIR (vertical interval reference) was implemented. The idea was that this auxiliary burst would be inserted at the studio and not adjusted or replaced along the network. Some TV sets (General Electric in particular) used the VIR to make automatic color adjustments. However, broadcasters discovered that they could use the VIR to adjust the signal and even automatically compensate any transmitter shortcomings. At that point, the VIR was being adjusted and no longer represented the original studio signal. Eventually, the industry gave up on the whole idea.

Improvements were made in the networks over the years. At one time, the networks adopted atomic clocks to set the burst frequency, and the local stations then locked to that. Later, when frame synchronizers became available, the local stations could re-sync all incoming signals to their local reference.

Another big improvment was simply the move to solid state gear, which could go much longer than tube gear without drifting out of specification.

These days, with much video being originated in digital components, or at least converted to digital before going over the network, there are fewer points at which it is critical to carry the burst properly.