Looking for early colour video and kinescope recordings from the 50s and early 60s

[Aussie Bloke]

Hi all. I'm an Aussie who's fascinated with really early live colour pictures from the pre-1965 era and am looking for any show that was colour video recorded or recorded on colour kinescope film dating from say 1954 to 1965 and also the pre-1954 experimental era if any exist in colour.

Anyways so far I've got a hold of a Howdy Doody DVD release containing the final episode in colour dating 1960 and some Andy William bits of the Osmonds dating 1962 to 1964 and I'm really impressed that live colour television was that good back then as I'm use to seeing grainy scratchy quality B&W kinescope films of that era. That Howdy Doody episode is a GREAT example of early colour video technology because of the blue colour chromakey effects and ripple effects in the video, I never knew video effects like this even existed back then!!!

Anyways I want to get a hold of more early colour footage from the early years on colour video or colour kinescope film as I get a buzz out of watching early live colour. I've heard that the earliest known colour video recordings are a 1958 An Evening With Fred Astaire and a 1958 Eisenhower speech. And I heard there were some early colour kinescope films of TV shows from the earliest years too. So if anyone here has in their video collection any early colour video and kinescopes of 50s and early 60s TV shows I would love to trade for a VHS copy. I heard that that 1958 Eisenhower video footage was shown on an Eisenhower doco in recent years, does anyone here have this? Anyways if anyone can help me that would be fantastic!!!

I'm also after a VHS copy of the earliest surviving B&W video recordings too. The earliest I have is a watered down 25 minute Ed Sullivan Show from April 1959 which was really nice quality pictures. The earliest surviving video recordings I've heard of is an Edsel Show from 1957 and some footage where some remote truck is driving along some mountain range which the camera is on top of the truck shooting the scenery. If anyone has these and others from that era I'm also interested.

Cheers
Troy

[Sandy G]

Just curious- When did y'all get color in Australia ? Seems like England didn't have it til '69 or something like that. What system do you use-PAL, SECAM, or NTSC ? Are yr earliest color sets roundies or rectangular ? -Sandy G.

[Aussie Bloke]

Hi Sandy. Australia was pretty much one of the last countries to get colour. We first had experimental closed circuit colour casts as early as 1967 which some TK-42s were borrowed from USA to do a TV show, though only control room people watched the casts in colour. And we were fussing over which would be the best system to use in Australia. We eventually decided on PAL D and though between the late 60s and early 70s we had experimental colour casts and colour video recordings colour transmissions didn't start until October 19th 1974 and only some shows were in colour at the time. March 1st 1975 was the opening day for colour in Australia and that was when every show on every station was in colour except re-runs of earlier shows. So we pretty much were slow to get colour unfortunately. And we first got B&W TV in 1956 which the Melbourne Olympics was the catalyst to bring television to Australia, otherwise it would of been a few years later we even get B&W.

As for UK, they had experimental close circuit colour casts as early as 1956/57 using Marconi variation of the RCA TK-41. They had problems with colour stability of those cameras and those cameras according to a collector didn't produce photographic colour pictures, the colours were a bit unrealistic I think. UK first broadcasted colour in 1967 and until the early 70s it would of been half'n'half that being some shows in colour, some in B&W.

Cheers
Troy

[Sandy G]

Troy-Wow !! That late !! Well, on second thought, Oz is a very big place w/not all that many people & color broadcast equipment is muy expensivo, much less sending it "Down Under". I guess nowadays y'all have cable there w/CNN, BBC,HBO, Cinemax, Discovery, History Channel, MTV, all that rubbish? I'd guess you personally know what a roundie is, but most Aussies would flip if they saw one. Too bad- seeing a 40 yr old color set workin' is quite a thrill. -Sandy G.