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

[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