Behind the scenes UK experimental colour transmission 1957

[Aussie Bloke]

G'day all.

Just found this amazing footage on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub3mtKMw-q0

This clip shows the behind scenes of the experimental UK colour broadcast from January 1957 which the cameras and control room and equipment can be seen in their full glory!

Also (I guess this would of been posted previously) the program itself exists in it's entirety on B&W kinescope and can be viewed on YouTube as well:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2MsQQ2UzVw
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FN9MjWXyM0
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V84-5rg3i8o
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHhyyWYW9E

[old_tv_nut]

noticed no one responded - just wanted to say thanks for the post

[Sandy G]

I watched 'em again....Wow...Still never have understood why color TV wasn't available in Blighty & the rest of Yoorup til so late, except for bureaucratic intransigence...And, of course, the desire on the part of some interests to tweak RCA's & America's collective nose a bit...

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Still never have understood why color TV wasn't available in Blighty & the rest of Yoorup til so late, except for bureaucratic intransigence...And, of course, the desire on the part of some interests to tweak RCA's & America's collective nose a bit...

Maybe they waited until some of the important patents on color TV expired?

[ppppenguin]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

I watched 'em again....Wow...Still never have understood why color TV wasn't available in Blighty & the rest of Yoorup til so late, except for bureaucratic intransigence...And, of course, the desire on the part of some interests to tweak RCA's & America's collective nose a bit...

The UK was the first country outside the US (and Japan?) to have CTV.

Some good reasons for taking so long:
Never Twice Same Colour
Cost - at both RX and TX ends

Actually NTSC can work perfectly well with modern technology and a lot of care.

[NewVista]

Originally Posted by ppppenguin

Actually NTSC can work perfectly well with modern technology and a lot of care.

P-P-P Penguin is R-R-R Right, as long as the Diff Phase spec is good in signal path, no problem. Early B&W transmitters (used for early color) prone to this problem.

US in 1940s should have taken the advice of some (Philco) and gone with higher res (700, 800 lines) but still, 525/60 NTSC would have been a good evolution from 405/50 for England in the late 50's as well as an original system for Aust/NZ (completing NTSC for the Pacific Rim). Would have made program distribution distribution a lot easier. To hell with non-English-speaking Continental Europe, let them keep their 625/50 (frame rate too slow for good motion) and their PAL (w/ its "Hanover Blinds" & half vert chroma resolution) and they can keep their Euro currency - which England wisely rejected.

[tubesrule]

Originally Posted by NewVista

US in 1940s should have taken the advice of some (Philco) and gone with higher res (700, 800 lines) but still, 525/60 NTSC would have been a good evolution from 405/50 for England in the late 50's as well as an original system for Aust/NZ (completing NTSC for the Pacific Rim). Would have made program distribution distribution a lot easier.

Keep in mind England was considering 405/50 NTSC not changing to 525/60. It's nearly impossible to run the frame rate of the television at a different frequency from the AC power. (at least for crt based sets) This is why all 50Hz power countries use a 50Hz field rate, and 60Hz countries use 60Hz.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by tubesrule

It's nearly impossible to run the frame rate of the television at a different frequency from the AC power. (at least for crt based sets) This is why all 50Hz power countries use a 50Hz field rate, and 60Hz countries use 60Hz.

Well, it was nearly impossible to do at a reasonable price with tubes at the time. Obviously eventually doable at reasonable cost with more sophisticated solid state power supplies, as demonstrated by millions of computer monitors.

[NewVista]

Originally Posted by tubesrule

It's nearly impossible to run the frame rate of the television at a different frequency from the AC power. .

You hear this now and then but I can't see how it's scientific - more an "Urban Myth".

Using systems with 25fps is unenlightened (based on 1920's 24fps film). It should not have been television spec by the 1950's.

[ppppenguin]

Originally Posted by tubesrule

.....It's nearly impossible to run the frame rate of the television at a different frequency from the AC power. (at least for crt based sets) This is why all 50Hz power countries use a 50Hz field rate, and 60Hz countries use 60Hz.

Japan has both 50Hz and 60Hz power which must have made things a bit interesting for their TV service.

Colour made it impossible to use a mains (power line) locked field frequency. In the early days most systems relied on this to minimise the visibility of hum effects. Not sure which is more annoying; a slow moving hum bar or a 10Hz effect.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by ppppenguin

The UK was the first country outside the US (and Japan?) to have CTV.

Some good reasons for taking so long:
Never Twice Same Colour
Cost - at both RX and TX ends

Actually NTSC can work perfectly well with modern technology and a lot of care.

IIRC, I think Cuba was an early adopter of NTSC TV in 1957, IIRC. Havana had a color station before Miami did.

[old_tv_nut]

Visibility of flicker varies extremely strongly with absolute brightness, and varies somewhat from person to person. Some medicines can affect it. The last time I was in Europe, the TV in my room showed really visible flicker to me only on large bright areas - the average scene looked quite acceptable to me. One time (years ago) I had to use eyedrops for a few days to stop iritis (inflammation of the iris). This resulted in enhancing my flicker sensitivity to the point where I could see full modulation of the flicker from black to white on a 60 Hz NTSC display.

The colorwheel experiments done by Cliff Benham and shown at the early TV convention show that different people see different amounts of flicker at the CBS 24 frame/72 field rate, and everyone sees it on the NTSC wheel color converters.
These experiments also show clearly that it is the luminance flicker that is visible, not chrominance.

[Duke Nukem]

Still never have understood why color TV wasn't available in Blighty & the rest of Yoorup til so late

From what I've read in magazines of the period, even in the latter years of the 50's American colour television wasn't that much of a success. By success, I don't mean technically, rather the take-up of colour TV was still low, cost being an issue. Meantime, the UK and I guess Europe too were far less affluent than America so take-up here would presumably been even worse.

TTFN,
Jon

[ceebee23]

I think primary reason for the BBC and the UK not adopting 405 line NTSC was that the EBU had settled on 625/50 as the new European standard in the early 1950s.

This was being progressively introduced across Europe (both west and eastern Europe). (Australia adopted this standard in 1956)

France was running an 819/50 and the UK its 405 line standard both were phased out by the early 1980s.

The UK decided to introduce colour with the 625 line standard. Various investigations into the colour format were undertaken and ultimately PAL was adopted.

But the key to the decision not to proceed with 405 NTSC seems to have been cost and a fear that if they adopted 405 line NTSC colour the public would have seen less reason to adopt the spanking new 625 line standard ... because on the colour receivers of the day 405 line, 525 line and 625 line looked barely different!

I should also point out that the commercial broadcasters, especially ITN's Lord Grade were pushing heavily for colour from the moment they went on air!

[Duke Nukem]

The primary reason for not adopting colour on 405 line would have been that the decision was to introduce 625 line before colour was introduced and to phase out 405-line. So 405-line colour would have been pointless dead end.

The UK's adoption of PAL was almost a last minute thing. The Pilkington Comittee produced a report on the future of TV and gave a plan for the introduction of 625 line within 2 years with colour to follow on the new standard. However, the report preceeded the German PAL system (or at least its announcement in the trade press), so at the time it was almost certain that the plan was for 625-line NTSC (I say almost certain as there had also been experimental broadcasts using the SECAM system).

As to 405 and 625 not looking much different, even in the 50's some firms such as Ekco were already using a spot wobble system on their up-market sets (17"!) to try and mask the line structure and by the time of the Pilkington report early 60's screen sizes were 19" for paupers and 23" for toffs. There would definitely be a difference between 625 and 405 line colour, though in the early/mid 50's when many mono sets couldn't even fully resolve the 405 line system I accept that there 405 and 625 colour might have not shown much difference.

TTFN,
Jon