Rca left everyone else at the alter

[ceebee23]

actually the colour wars were dirty on both sides of course ..CBS wanted to delay television by promising "Color Now" while RCA wanted to get some money back on its investment in mono TV ....but the behaviour of Senate which was effectively bought off by Sarnoff to prevent CBS broadcasting in color in the late 40s set a new low.

[andy]

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[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by andy

I think either system could have worked very well. An all electronic solution to displaying CBS color would have been implemented early on.

There would have been a severe motion artifact with the CBS system. Moving objects would have color fringes that changed from field to field. Only today's digital processing would be able to fix this. Something similar to MPEG.

[frenchy]

Originally Posted by andy

I think either system could have worked very well. An all electronic solution to displaying CBS color would have been implemented early on. Mechanical color sets would be as rare as 15GP22 based sets are (except for projection sets where a small color wheel in front of the lens would work fine).

Yes but would there have been any electronic alternative besides the tri-color tube? I mean they are still selling them now, if something cheaper AND better than the color kinescope had come along wouldn't we have seen it by now after 51 years? So IMO even if CBS had gotten rid of the color drums or wheels, it would have just been another version of RCA's with it's own drawbacks, plus the non-compatability issue. I think the farther you get from 1954, the better RCA's system looked compared to CBS....Frenchy

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by andy

I think either system could have worked very well. An all electronic solution to displaying CBS color would have been implemented early on. Mechanical color sets would be as rare as 15GP22 based sets are (except for projection sets where a small color wheel in front of the lens would work fine).

I think I remember reading a story somewhere on the web where in 1951, one guy when he was a kid used to tweak the oscillators the family TV set to receive the CBS 405 line color system tests in New York every night, in black and white of course. It was kind of interesting. I guess if the FCC took the CBS color system instead, they could always tweak the B&W sets out there to receive it.

I think I've read somewhere that Philo T. Farnsworth suggested the use of a 625 line picture standard in 1941 when the FCC was settling on the TV standard we use today.