I was just admiring one today that said Color TV,
RCA at a local Motel.

I sent an email to Lytle Hoover, and received this reply:

"Actually in our researching our old records we can only estimate only >250 in the US. Additionally Marconi built their own TK-41s from RCA plans in England. NHK in Japan received @10 and built others there also.
Many of the photos that got displayed of local TV mobile units were the RCA unit being loaned or leased to the stations for special events.

-from Lytle Hoover's research of his RCA records to augment Ed Reitan's website's initial study of 'early Color Pioneers.'
http://novia.net/~ereitan/PION_6m.htm#EarlyPioneers

Lytle, former market research administrator for RCA Camden, maintains the RCA TV Equipment Section of Barry Mishkind's "Old Radio" website http://www.oldradio.com/ "

-----
Much thanks to him, we are homed in on the probable number built, and it is interesting to note what work-horses they must have been to be kept in service and shared around all that time.

Wow...Only 250 or so...Wonder what those bad boys cost in big, round 1960 dollars ?

From the 1957 price list:
Color studio camera chain (console mount) $49,500;
Color camera (less image orthicons) $17,951
Electronic viewfinder (less kinescope) $2,975
Color Camera control chassis $1,295
Processing amplifier $3,990
Master Monitor $2,450

Now, just add 3 image orthicons, viewfinder CRT, cables, and lenses, and there you are!

Lenses:

fixed focal length range in price from $190 -$300. A color camera also requires a $75 field lens for each objective lens.
Studio Zoomar lens: $5,900
TV Zoomar Lens (longer focal lengths, I believe, for outdoors): $7,500

edit: forgot the studio camera dolly: $3,000; and cradle head: $1,590.

Holy Merde ! THAT was real money back then..

according to the gov's inflation calculator,
http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
you should multiply by 7.8 to get today's prices,

It would be interesting to know if there are color camera TK 41 still running, and maybe some pictures of them, as for color TV SET CT 100. Someone may say something?

This is a great thread! I just have to jump in here after reading all the posts. I am an old color TV fanatic and have been interested in color broadcast equipment for years. I remember back in 1966 that I could actually tell, by the quality of the color image on our color TV, what brand and model color camera a station had. The TK-42 always had a very grainy and low contrast image. I could not believe how degraded the picture was compared to the TK-41. It was no wonder that NBC refused to use them.

I could also tell GE PE-250, Norelco PC-70 and Marconi MKVIII from their pictures.

Another interesting point is that back in 1965 RCA came out with a color film camera version of the TK-42. It was the TK-27 and also used 4 tubes, (in this case 1" for Red, Green, Blue, and 1 1/2" for luminance vs the 4 1/2" IO luminance tube in the TK-42). This film camera replaced the outstanding TK-26 (3V color) camera. The TK-26 was the color film camera used with the TK-41 live color camera.

Again, I could tell from watching a film if the station had TK-26 or TK-27 color film cameras. The TK-26 gave a snappy crisp color picture while the TK-27 made all films look low contrast, and grainy.

I remember back in the fall of 1964 watching the show 'Flipper' and how beautiful the color always looked. Then starting in the summer of 1965, the show all of a sudden had poor contrast, and a grainy image. The deep blues of the water lacked contrast. A few other NBC shows also suddenly started looking that way. I thought something had happened to our TV but later I realized that NBC must have installed at least one TK-27 and was using it for some of their color film broadcasts. Not sure if they pulled the camera later on or not, but the older tube TK-26 produced such a better picture than the "New Look" transistorized TK-27. I bet NBC felt the same about the TK-27 as they did about the TK42.

I read that ABC and CBS both installed GE PE-24 4V color film cameras for their network broadcasting.

Hello !
Firenzeprima please conctact me, in private, for questions on TK41. I'm working in RAI.

My email is: c dot girivetto at rai dot it

No spam please !

thanks !

I just acquired a set of DVDs of the Dean Martin Variety Show, which was shot with TK-41s. The remastering seems to have somewhat high saturation, but otherwise looks good.

The thing I wanted to note is the frequent use of a wide-angle lens with the camera close to the performers for head/shoulder shots. I have noticed this on many programs of the time, and I don't know if it was done because of studio space constraints or as a deliberate method to make the relationship of camera and performer more intimate, but it definitely does that. When Dean gestures toward the camera, the perspective change in the size of his hand is quite large, and I think having the camera so close encourages the performers to talk to it like an individual person.

There apparently was much less use of zoom lenses at the time, and I have actually seen dolly shots where it was obvioius that a wheel had developed a flat spot, and the camera "nodded" slightly, periodically, as it rolled.

Anyone having insight on the evolution of camera/staging techniques over the years, I'd love to hear it.

Cranes
 

Cranes were used on the variety shows a lot, Sing Along with Mitch for instance made extensive use of TK-41's on cranes as evidenced by viewing his program. Cranes quite often passed thru the entire group as they did their sing along segment.

Following focus on a wide-angle is easier for a close-up shot with these old fixed lenses on a turret. And the depth-of-field is much wider allowing the grand sets to stay somewhat in focus. Not as touchy as a longer lens which was probably near wide-open even with the massive lighting. A longer lens would have a more narrow depth-of-field and turn the background quite soft. And a 200lb camera is not helpful either to smoothly move, even if stationary, at a further distance for the close-up.

In my TK-42 days, I quickly learned that to do any kind of dolly move, I did it with the lens zoomed wide and moved the camera to make the shot. Not the lens to make the shot.

On the BW cameras of the day, focus was approximately set on the lens (front-focus) and the op actually moved the IO via the camera focus control for back-focus. Not knowing for sure, but the TK color cameras had to have a similar system. Please correct me if needed. To this day, we still have a front-focus/back-focus adjustment on modern cameras and lenses.

On turret-style cameras, these were the days before motorized iris controls so it was film-style lighting. The lighting director, who was king on any production right after the director, determined a common iris stop on all the lenses in the turret depending on the "look" of the production and poured on the lighting to get the video level needed. Nice and bright for Dean Martin. Darker and shadowy for Peter Pan (which was more of an ensemble production and not inclined to close-ups). Today, this is almost a lost art in television lighting. Auto-iris killed this. Not sure if the early zoom lenses had iris motors.

Many cameras will have a chin light mounted under the lens and that works best up close to hide the wrinkles. You can see these in many old photos. And you also get the cue cards closer to the talent. Helpful if they are getting older.


Dave A

Color camera optics including the TK-41 and later could not possibly do operational focusing by moving the pickup tubes - there is just too much that has to be aligned and bolted down so that registration doesn't get disturbed. So, operational focus had to be via the front-end. On the TK-41 with multiple fixed lenses on a turret, I believe operational focussing was done by moving the whole lens drum in and out. I don't know what adjustment was available for back focus. Regarding the iris, the TK-41 had a motor controlled iris in the relay lens path, which IIRC limited the maximum opening to F/4. (I'm out of town this week, so can't refer to the literature.) My understanding of how the optics worked was that it didn't matter if you opened the objective lens beyond f/4, f/4 is all you got due to the relay lens - so I'd guess the objectives lenses would all be opened further than f/4 to make sure they weren't affecting the iris adjustment. Unless, of course, one of the lenses was smaller than f/4, in which case I guess you could do it two ways: set all of them to the same smaller aperture, if you wanted consistency, or set all to max aperture, if you wanted the max sensitivity each could give (up to f/4).

I believe there's a working TK-41 in a private collection in Tujunga, CA.

Charles

I'd give my Eyeteeth...Have absolutely no use whatsoever for one, lack the technical skills to keep one working, no real room to store/display one, but I'd STILL love to have one...Maybe someday Julian will cabbage on one, & I can go down & "love" on his, & get it out of my system...I just think they're kewl as all get-out. Always have, even when I was a widdle kid & would see one on TV...I've seen studio cameras since then, & even have owned a couple of industrial cameras, but it ain't the same thing...Those big ol' grey, humptyback beasts say "Color Television" in the same way a Roundie does-everything that came after is sorta a pretender to the throne. Or am I being silly as usual ?

Out of personal interest where did you source this information from? I am interested in getting in touch with this collector and arranging a payment for a DVD recording of a direct video feed from his TK-41 in action doing outdoor and indoor shootings. I love to see the modern world through the eye of a 1950s colour video camera. I know Chuck Pharis is trying to restore one of his TK-41s to working condition and before hearing this I was expecting him to be the first to get a TK-41 working.

Not at all in my opinion. Nothing beats having the original TK-41, the FIRST TV camera to be used for official colour broadcasting, well not the first, there was the TK-40 but anyways the TK-40/41 cameras are a must have for anyone into broadcast television history and to have them in working order would be mind blowing!!!

I personally have some 70s industrial Sony cameras myself including a 1974 colour Sony DXC-1200P camera http://www.labguysworld.com/Sony_DXC-1200.htm which I plan to restore with online technical help. I could go out and get myself a handycam but I think it's more fun to use an ancient colour camera made before I was born today, I love to shoot the modern world through the eye of a camera that's decades old, I get so much thrill out of it. It's a pity Australia got colour way too late, I would of loved to go trekkin around Australia tracking down TK-41s and roundie colour TVs.

It's Chuck to whom I was referring... I sold him some of the chain equipment for his. I thought he was close to having it working a few years ago, but not sure... I haven't seen him in awhile.

Charles

Ahh okay. Yeah, I can imagine his TK-41 would be on its way to working order, though I wish I knew what the status of his restoration job on i was, he hasn't updated his site in nearly a year and I'm waiting with baited breath to see what he'll add to his site next. It's nice to see he has some TK-31s working though and will be demonstrating one at the next convention, man I wish I were there!!! Anyways I hope his TK-41 restoration is near completion, be so good to see one working again!

Dennis Degan took photos of NBC's setup at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York during the mid-to-late 1970's, and they had banks of TK-27 film chains. That might give you a hint as to NBC's attitudes towards the TK-27. Ed Reitan's color TV site mentioned that at least one ABC studio (their Prospect and Talmadge studios in Hollywood), as of the mid-1960's, had had TK-26 film chains, then got TK-27's whose performance had the exact same issues you spoke of, and reverted to the TK-26's thereafter.

It also seemed that on replications of slides, the reds on occasion looked rather weak when compared with the earlier TK-26's - never mind GE's PE-24 (and later PE-240) film chains. I wonder if you could tell by quality which stations used GE PE-24's vs. which ones used the TK-27.

Norelco (of PC-70 fame) had their own film chain, PCF-701 (which used - surprise, surprise! - 3 Plumbicons), but would anyone know which stations, if any, used that particular machine?

W.B.

I have seen those photos from NBC and the captions indicate they upgraded their telecine rooms in 1976.

RCA indroduced their 4-tube TK-27 color film camera in 1965 and then replaced it with an improved 3-tube version, the TK-28 in 1972. The TK-28 was a much improved version film camera and by looking at the pictures, and by the date the room upgrades were made, these look like these were TK-28 cameras, even though the caption says they were TK-27 cameras.

The TK-27 had a large camera module mounted on the top front of the cabinet that was visible, where as the TK-28 had a small one or non at all.

Telling which stations used either GE PE-240 or RCA TK-27 film chains was easy! I lived in Boston in the mid 60's and it was easy to tell who had what by just watching some films on their stations.

WBZ-TV ch. 4 and then WKBG-TV ch. 56 had TK-27s while WNAC-TV ch.7 and WSBK-TV ch.38 had GE PE-240s'. WJAR-TV ch. 10 Providence also had TK-27s.

I also lived in Syracuse, and and WSYR-TV ch. 3 went with TK-27s, while WHEN-TV ch. 5 and then WNYS-TV ch. 9 went with the GE color film chains.

The hard part was trying to see the difference between the older RCA TK-26 and the GE PE-240 cameras for both had great pictures.

I read in several sites were the TK-42 and TK-27 cameras just did not live up to the expectations they had hoped, and that RCA later replaced them with the TK-44 (live) and TK-28 (film) cameras which from what I read, were excellent cameras.

Just my comments. Maybe someone else has some better information.

I noticed the photographer misidentified the TP-7A slide projectors as TP-6's, now that you mention it. So if NBC did have TK-28's as of 1976 and he called them TK-27's, well . . .

As for WNAC-TV using PE-24's (as I saw in GE ads from 1964-65 - they might've added some PE-240's to their roster of equipment after 1966), they were in good company with other RKO stations: WOR-TV (Ch. 9) in New York, KHJ-TV (Ch. 9) in Los Angeles, and WHBQ-TV (Ch. 13) in Memphis also used these GE film chains in their respective setups.

And I wouldn't be surprised that WBZ-TV would've had TK-27's; sister station KYW-TV in Philadelphia also used them. (Whereas WFIL-TV, known after 1971 as WPVI-TV, had PE-24/240's.) As for WKBG: Would anyone know if the use of those TK-27's crossed over to the station's 1974 call letter change to WLVI? It would seem that those TK-27's also had horizontal linearity issues, along with the other bugs you mentioned.

I don't know but I was living in Boston at the time they switched call letters. They stayed at their same studio location at the switch so I assume they really never changed anything at the time except the call letters.

WKBG-TV ch. 56 signed on in December of 1966 and I think the call letter change to WLVI-TV came in the early 70s' so that would not make the TK-27s' that old.

One interesting memory: As I said earlier, the TK-27s had, IMHO, very poor contrast and lacked "shap" to their pictures. I remember back in 1967 watching a rerun episode of 'The Patty Duke Show' on WKBG-TV ch. 56 and even though it was being shown in B&W off their TK-27, the contrast was so low and poor, I almost called the station. I had to manually crank up the contrast control on our TV to compensate for it. It was not just that film copy either for I could tell every time they aired a film from that film chain, the picture was poor. Their other film chain was somewhat better so it was interesting watching them switch films from one chain to another and actually see the difference.

I also have some questions for NYC viewers, but first a little background. Aside from WNBC-TV which went from TK-26's to TK-27's around 1965 (the same time that the picture quality of film-based shows like Flipper changed, and not for the better), I seem to recall WCBS, WABC and WOR used GE PE-24's (and probably a few PE-240's if acquired after 1966), and WPIX was equipped with TK-27's while that station was being prepped for color in 1965. I'm at a loss as to which film chains WNEW-TV used, though from what I've seen I could've sworn they too had TK-27's when they started running films in color in fall 1965. (Irrespective of their getting Norelco PC-70's when they added live studio color to their setup in '66.)

W.B. - interesting comment you made about the show Flipper changing in quality from better to worse back in the mid 60's. I remember when we first got our color tv back in December 1963 how beautiful the filmed NBC network shows looked in color. Then in the late spring of 1965, some of them started to look less vibriant, low in constast, and lacked snap. The color was still OK so I could not figure what to adjust on our set to fix it. Only some programs looked this way and not every week. I could not figure what was going on.

It was not until a year or so later when local stations started getting TK-27 film chains did I finally figure what had happened. I suspected that NBC had replaced some of their RCA TK-26 35mm film chains with with TK-27 cameras.

From what I can read into, NBC also saw these issues with the TK-27 and held off replacing all their film chains until the improved TK-28 film cameras became available several years later.

Going back to your post, Flipper was one of the shows I remember changing in quality the most. Living in Boston at the time, a new WKBG-TV ch. 56 signed on in Dec. of 1966 and installed all RCA cameras, (TK-42 & TK-27 for film). I remember their 16mm color film programs really had some low contrast issues. I really missed the TK-26 film chain quality. Only the GE PE-24/240 seemed to match it.

Watching the following clips (i.e. film on one and showing of slides of the other), can you tell by these which film chains were used by this station:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=220u5CRGfd8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_mF1DT4pPY

I also have an amendment to make: A broadcast veteran who worked at WOR-TV as a summer relief behind-the-scenes'er (mainly a cameraman) from 1966 to 1971 noted that in terms of telecine, it was RCA all the way. Prior to 1968, the station's telecine and master control were at the Empire State Building (the same place from which King Kong fell to his doom :D ), and the equipment there included TK-26 color and TK-21 monochrome film chains. (Their studios and videotape facilities then were at 1440 Broadway.) After Channel 9 consolidated their studios, VT facilities, telecine and master control under one roof at 1481 Broadway (in what used to house NTA Telestudios) in 1968, the station upgraded its telecine to RCA TK-27's - thus all three commercial indie stations in NYC used TK-27 film chains. (Apparently, GE's claims of WOR using PE-24's in their ads was wishful thinking on that company's part.)

This same veteran mentioned that WNEW-TV (where he also worked) had TK-27's.

W.B.,

Interesting about WOR-TV using all RCA. If I am not mistaken, back then was WOR-TV an RKO General station? I know that WNAC-TV ch. 7 in Boston was an RKO General station and they did have GE PE-250 (live) and PE-24/240 (film) color cameras. I had a tour of that station back in the 60s' and saw the studios and film chains. I remember the telecine islands were RCA (TP-7) slide projectors, with TP-15 mutiplexers, but they had replaced their RCA TP-6 16mm projectores with Eastman 285 projectors and all were feeding into the GE color film cameras. Videotape was all Ampex (either VR1200B or VR2000B high-band VTRs' - I can't remember)

As far as other Boston stations, if I recall, WBZ-TV (Westinghouse Broadcasting) had RCA TK-42 and TK-27 cameras, WHDH-TV ch. 5 (first with color) had RCA TK-41 and TK-26 with TK-43 remote cameras for Boston Redsox home games, WNAC-TV with GE equipment (as mentioned above), WSBK-TV ch.38 GE PE-240 color film, (still no live color at the time but later PE-250 live color cameras), and WKBG-TV ch.56 had all RCA with TK-42 and TK-27. Finally, if I remember, I think WGBH-TV ch.2 (Edu) which had RCA TK-60 B&W cameras went with Marconi 4-tube live color cameras. Not not know about their film cameras.

RKO had a reputation for being notoriously cheap - and I think the fact that WOR-TV didn't switch to GE film chains in '64 may've had to do with their having shown films in color beginning in 1960, when RCA was practically the only game in town, and their TK-26's working just fine and dandy . . . only upgrading their telecine when they moved their studios and prodution facilities.

To be sure, WOR-TV did have GE PE-250 studio cameras. Beginning in 1967, as a replacement for the B&W RCA TK-11's they had from their earliest days in 1949, and for the TK-41 color cameras that since c.1963-64 had been at the studio in the off-(baseball) season and at Shea Stadium when the Mets were playing their then-hapless seasons. (WPIX was another NYC station that had PE-250's, also starting around 1966-67.) * EDIT: WOR-TV, in late 1967, ordered nine (surprise, surprise) PE-250's - six for use at Shea during Mets games, the other three to their studios for year-round local live color programming. *

Back to Boston: After WHDH-TV was kicked off Channel 5 in 1972 and the then-new WCVB-TV took over, which film chains did the new station use?

And as for the Marconi 4-tube color cameras used by WGBH: Sounds like the Mark VII, in a 'YRGB' arrangement; their subsequent Mark VIII was three-tube, arranged as 'GRB'.

That was the million dollar question. I never was able to find out. If I remember, when they signed on in 1972, their studio cameras were Phillips. so I was thinking they went with Phillips film chains. The only thing I never could figure was if Phillips made telecine units. I think they did at some point but I don't recall if they had them in 1972 or not.

WCVB-TV did have to go with all new broadcast equipment because WHDH-TV would not give up anything for them. They held out to the end in hoping they would win the legal battle to stay on the air.

Philips/Norelco did make some telecine equipment, which few stations, it seemed, had used. One such unit, produced in the late 1960's, was called the PCF-701, a three-Plumbicon (what else?) color film camera, used in conjunction with a PCM-800 multiplexer (I may've mentioned this earlier). The PCF-701 was as big in size, from what I've seen in old Broadcast Engineering issues, as GE's PE-24/240's and RCA's TK-26/27/28's. However, most 3-Plumbicon color telecine cameras Philips/Norelco made, especially by the early 1970's, were small compact units, generally for smaller TV outfits (like public-access channels or college TV stations). For that matter, I've read that RCA's TK-28's had the option of using vidicons or Plumbicons.

I seem to recall that when WCVB-TV first took to the air, they used Philips/Norelco PC-100's - one of the few in the U.S. to do so.

Is true that "R.C.A." TK-41 needed to reach stability and they needed a lot of light in order to deliver a good image?

All tube cameras needed to reach stability before showtime. To minimize this time they were left 'on", that is the all filaments were kept on 24/7 with no plate voltage when not in use. All tube cameras required some tweaking before showtime.

Yes, all early cameras required considerable light to make them work properly but as time went on they were able to develop tubes that required less light. The English were making far better tubes than RCA or GE. In England EEV, (English Electric Valve Co.) were making high quality tubes but were also more expensive, but most studios bought domestically so EEV's are scarce in this country.

For a TK41 camera, 2P23's were developed and tested/marked specifically for it's best specific color spectrum. Usually each tube had a suffix letter (R/G/B) for its' tested color spectrum. Fortunately red was an easier color to match for as it is probably the most important color in the three as in making good flesh tones. Testing tubes for their efficiency in the RGB spectrum's will make the camera more efficient and thus use less light. These tubes are complicated to make in manufacturing and no two are ever exactly alike so they are sorted out for their best application.

Early studios who did use lots of light had to take this into consideration because artists/performers who had to wear heavy costumes could pass out due to heat exhaustion and their makeup would also run and have to be done over and over many times. All television actors who worked in the '50's will tell in their memoirs about this problem. Also A/C wasn't everywhere either.

The recommended level for the TK-41 was about 400 foot-candles (4300 lux). Later ultrasensitive image orthicons could reduce this by 2:1 or more.

All photoemissive photocathodes were temperature senstitive and sensitive to their history of use. It seems that any substance with a low work function (gives up electrons easily from light stimulation) was also not chemically very stable.

The image orthicon secondary emission target performance was also temperature sensitive, and subject to burn-in of images.

Here is WCVB's projection room in 1977

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...0HZpZqA#t=400s

WMUR-TV in Manchester also had a TK-27 chain.

...

Hi all-

I recall reading in Broadcast News that 300 Tk-40/41s were produced, but Lytle's figures are probably more accurate. He should know. They sold for $65 K without color monitor-a LOT of money in those days.

Remeber also that both Marconi and Toshiba were RCA licensees, and produced variations on the 41 design. The Toshiba model had many additional features (filter wheels,etc). But I have no idea on what their sales numbers were.

regards,

JB

Apparently, WNEW-TV's TK-27's came after 1970, as according to an August 1968 issue of BM/E magazine (as on the World Radio History site), Channel 5 had in their telecine department three 4-V General Electric color film chains (presumably PE-24, as they started broadcasting in limited color in 1965 via film, slides and tape) and seven B&W Sarkes Tarzian film chain cameras. Naturally their slide projectors were RCA TP-7's, their 16mm projectors a mixture of TP-6's and TP-66's. They ordered additional RCA equipment in 1977; TK-46 studio cameras were definitely among them, probably TK-28 chains as well.

And WOR - when they moved to 1481 in '68, they already had two TK-27's - and once settled there, ended up with four of that model.