Color Television was disappointing when first introduced?

[Celt]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

I remember often seeing blond hair that would look unaturally greenish, for example.

And here I thought that was a bad rinse job!

[old_tv_nut]

Actually, there was another reason for green hair - The optics in the TK-41 were sensitive to polarization, and when backlight is used, the reflection off hair is polarized (at least to some extent). This polarized light went preferentially to the green pickup tube. Later camera optics reduced or eliminated the problem.

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

Actually, there was another reason for green hair - The optics in the TK-41 were sensitive to polarization, and when backlight is used, the reflection off hair is polarized (at least to some extent). This polarized light went preferentially to the green pickup tube. Later camera optics reduced or eliminated the problem.

That's right. I have an RCA promotional book for the TK-42 4-tube camera that brags they had eliminated the green hair polarization problem in the TK-42. The only problem was that the TK-42 had an inferior picture compared to the TK-41. NBC refused to use them, sticking instead with their ten year old TK-41s. The TK-42 was the first transistorized color studio camera so it should have been more reliable, but it wasn't. One station in Ohio had four TK-42s - three in the studio, and one permanently located in the shop used as a test jig for repairing modules to keep the other three running!

[oldtvman]

I have lived thru the early stages of developement of the color television products, I still say that when RCA jumped the gun and practically claimed credit for the the entire ntsc system, other manafacturers were left in the cold, and as well all know competition is one of the key factors in a product being more readily available and the cost then starts to drop. After the 1st initial surge of color models, all the other companies basically set on the sidelines and said "ok Rca you sell color to the public". and until the early sixties you saw little or no product from the majority. You also have to consider that most of those manufacturers had plenty of stock on components to build b & w sets, they wanted to exhaust those supplies before jumping head first into the color market.