Best British Colour Camera ?

[J Ballard]

Hi all-

I was told by a former co-worker, an ex Philips design engineer, that a 4 tube Plumbicon camera was made at either Eindhoven or Breda, in the Netherlands This was a separate luminance channel camera design, and the end result was that the management at Philips felt that the 4th tube was not worth the expense and extra effort. This despite the arguments of a large installed base of B&W receivers and the registration issues. So all Philips cameras produced at Breda were of the RGB format-and still are under the Grass Valley name.

This was in the mid 1960s, when most manufacturers were producing 4 tube cameras-luminance and RGB. The EMI 2001, with its Delta L detail corrector, was unique for certain. Saturated colors-even blues- had excellent detail, I have read. EMI seemingly understood the failure of constant luminance with this design, and offered a solution. But signal to noise suffered?

Do any working 2001s still exist? I'd love to see one with "torture test" source material.

When RCA saw the Philips/Norelco design in 1967 at NAB, a decision was made the following month to return to the RGB arrangement, and thus the TK-44A was produced. Others followed thereafter, or went out of the camera business.

A long time ago..

Regards,

Jay Ballard