You want "Early Color"??? This is about as Early as it gets...
 

...from June 25, 1951-- courtesy of the Google/Life magazine archive (now available on the web)... and restored by yours truly.

Enjoy...! :D

-Kevin

Very cool screenshots. :yes:

Got any pictures of the set as a whole?

Is that a CT-100 ?

Maybe it's a CBS color wheel set? I'd guess it's live photos taken way back when, Ed Sullivan was on CBS and there's that CBS test pattern.

infinite thanks for having published these very interesting photos! Thanks, thanks, thanks!

The CBS test wheel is distorted.
 

Was that normal standard then?

What can I say WOW!!!!! I have seen some 1954 CT-100 shots before but these are new and amazing to see!!!:D And that colour shot of Ed Sullivan Show (Toast Of The Town) would have to be the only known surviving piece of footage of that colour special, photograph but I still call it footage. Those puppets look like they could of been out of the Howdy Doody Show too. Thank you for sharing these with us!

Just Google 'premiere ed reitan' to get the info:

“Premiere” – The first Commercial CBS Color System Telecast - 16 Sponsors

June 25, 1951 4:35 P.M. – 5:30 P.M. This program followed five minutes of a color test pattern that started at 4:30 P.M. Entertainment portions originated from the CBS Color Studio 57, at 109th Street and Fifth Avenue, New York. Commercials were originated at another “theater” (location unidentified) with Frances Buss as director – possibly, the Faye Emerson segment was a remote from MOMA or CBS at 485 Madison Ave.

With: Arthur Godfrey, Faye Emerson, Sam Levenson, Ed Sullivan, Garry Moore, Robert Alda and Isabel Bigley (stars of Broadway’s new hit “Guys and Dolls”,), Bil Baird Marionettes, Sol Hurok’s New York City Ballet (arranged by George Balanchine), Patty Painter (“Miss Color Television”), Wayne Coy (Chairman of the FCC), William S. Paley (CBS Chairman), Frank Stanton (President of CBS), with Archie Bleyer’s Orchestra.

Sponsors for this first telecast were General Mills, Lincoln-Mercury Division of the Ford Motor Company, Longines-Wittnauer Watch Company Inc., Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, William Wrigley Jr. Company, Revlon, Thomas J. Lipton Inc., National Biscuit Company, Standard Brands Inc., Quaker Oats Company, Best Foods Inc., Pepsi-Cola Company and Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company.

The only picture that doesn't seem to fit the 1951 scenario is the 'bloodshot' eye; didn't all those versions come later? The first time I saw one broadcast was in the early sixties, and it was a different version.

Pete

Thanks for the info, Pete--I've corrected the date in my original post.

And to answer an earlier question, sadly, I haven't found a shot of the monitors themselves... but from a performance standpoint, they look fine!!

-Kevin

Great stuff! I had no idea that there were color tests being done in New York in '51.

Anyone know when this might have been taken?

http://images.google.com/hosted/life...7af9730378a7b7

Actually if you search the Life archive at Google for color tv it returns a huge number of images of early RCA and CBS system images.

This is an early RCA test
http://images.google.com/hosted/life...c1161762e05620

and this image shows a CBS color camera in some detail:

http://images.google.com/hosted/life...4a2ddd9b8a25d1

Check this one out, large colour TV shot of a 1951 Pepsi ad!!!

http://images.google.com/hosted/life...%3Den%26sa%3DN

Here's plenty more early colour screen shots from 1951!!!
http://images.google.com/images?&hl=...tart=0&ndsp=18

I wonder if the Goldmark family might have some slides of screen shots in their archives, either from broadcasts, or laboratory work.
Kevin

I wonder if the Goldmark family might have some slides of screen shots in their archives, either from broadcasts, or laboratory work.
Kevin

cool pictures

Hey Pete,

As you rightly point out, the photos, wrongly dated 1954, at the top of this thread are from the June, 1951 CBS "Premier" broadcast of their field sequential color system. The CBS color logo, pictured, looks to be from that broadcast. The CBS "bloodshot" eye logos, a variation of their familiar b&w eye logo, came later when CBS adopted the NTSC color system. All the LIFE Magazine photos were from various issues that date back to the early 40's through the mid '50's as LIFE covered the developement of color tv.

-Steve D.

These images are of the public displays of CBS color that occurred as part of CBS' fight to get the NTSC to accept their standard..

http://images.google.com/hosted/life...a3fc10db1d3972

http://images.google.com/hosted/life...e4b509cb936976

A pity they're in black & white! But the photographer must have been
under severe lighting restrictions, especially for the interior shot.
Thanks for posting these.

These are great pictures but are those color wheel sets? I don't see where the wheel could be?

They must be CBS sets, as you can see in screen 1 it is showing the 4 color CBS system, and if my thinking is correct the CT-100 could not have displayed this shot. because the systems were not compatable. But what would the CT-100 look like trying to decode ths signals?? would it a B/W pix, or a distorted out of sync color shot? Does anyone know if pictures of this exist???

I think that those are the color wheel sets made by Zenith in 1949.

Steve

The field sequential and NTSC systems are completely different. You would see nothing but a jumbled mess on a CT-100 if you tried to watch field sequential. Horizontal scanning rate on the CBS system is 29,150 Hz vs. 15,575 for NTSC. Vertical scan rate for the CBS system is 144 Hz vs. 60 Hz for NTSC.

Yes, they are the Zenith sets:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/field...rototypes.html

The Life images are not fully tagged so searches are variable... you will find a jumble of RCA and CBS color tv images..and worse repeating a search does not always bring the same results...eek...BUT these images appear to be of RCA technicians working with early triple tube RCA prototypes...

http://images.google.com/hosted/life...7a3b4413f5d421

http://images.google.com/hosted/life...29657e584fca56

and these are of CBS technicians working on the console seen in the foreground on the the color images

http://images.google.com/hosted/life...c526082503f2d7

http://images.google.com/hosted/life...96475c6b49e955

Note the test pattern chart on the wall.

And this one ....of Balanchine directing a color tv broadcast of the NY Ballet.

It is from 1951 and note the CBS color camera....which seems to be a different model to those used in the other tests ...which are dated January 1950.

I assume it is a modified standard camera with a spinning wheel rather than drum ?

http://images.google.com/hosted/life...b8b87029a2b498

Once heard an urban legend that some very rich baseball fan was willing to pay whatever it cost to have a B&W TV converted so it could receive (in B&W) the CBS colorwheel system, so he could watch the World Series, which was broadcast in the CBS colorwheel system. Later on, I heard that they never did the World Series back then in the CBS colorwheel system...

In any event, all you'd need to do is modify the timing circuits on the vertical, and the horizontal. Years ago I worked at a small company that made "cameras" for converting video to hard copy on Xray film. And we did a prototype 525p progressive scan monitor by modifying a more normal 525i interlaced B&W display. Forgotten all the details of what we needed to do to the horizontal output stage, but it wasn't that difficult. What does happen is that the flyback time stays about the same, but the forward scan deflection goes much faster. Which would make for more percentage of "overscanned" left and right edges of the video image being lost.

You's still have flicker in any highly color saturated parts of teh video image.

cbs color
 

Ceebee,

The photos of the "technician" appears to be of Fred Coe, the famous CBS producer of dramas of the era. Photo of Fred below from the UCLA Archives. He produced Playhouse 90 and many other dramas for them and may have been pressed in to service as a director for the event shown. The console looks to have only the one camera connected...and only one color monitor. Follow the taped-up camera cable in the second photo. It looks like the only one going to the console.

The CBS camera in the Balanchine shot is a RCA B&W camera with the color wheel inside the modified body behind the turret. Probably a 10 given the date. Neither the 10 or 11 had the side vents as manufactured. The camera also has the grey/white stripes which was used as a quick camera adjustment chart. More on this CBS B&W trick from this wonderful equipment website by Bobby Ellerbee;

http://www.eyesofageneration.com/bobby_TK11_A_31.php

Dave A

There was at least one commercial adaptor for converting CBS color for a B&W set;

http://www.earlytelevision.org/colortone.html

Dave A

Found some more great early colour TV photos from around I guess 1951 featuring beautiful actress Faye Emerson:

http://images.google.com/images?q=co...=source%3Alife

Faye Emerson caused a bit of a kerfuffle back in the early days of TV. IIRC, she was host of a show, & the dresses-"gowns" she wore had plunging necklines, which caused quite a stir. I've seen pics of some of 'em, & by nowadays standards, they're pretty tame, but for back then, I guess not.

The Gene Autry Show in Color 1950
 

On a website with a rather extensive episode guide for his program it is mentioned that in 1950 CBS commissioned Autry to film 2 of his TV show episodes in color to be used at a demonstration for their color system as to how a filmed program would look. So he filmed two episodes in color in 1950: "The Raiders" and "Double-Barreled Vengeance." These aired on his series in April of 1951. His series airs on Encore Westerns. The first time I saw his series on Encore I wondered why two color episodes popped up in the middle of season #1. I thought they were maybe airing out of order because his final season 1955-56 was done all in color, but when I noticed the copyright dates were 1950 i knew that they must have been done in color for some reason and recently found out that the CBS color demo was that reason.

CBS color
 

I'm sure y'all know this, but before browsing here I was reading a Billy Strayhorn biography, and a good part of one chapter deals with "A Drum Is A Woman," CBS's big-splash color production, using the wheel of course. Interesting stuff. Just 100,000 people had sets to watch it, and, of course, they would become useless when NBC won the standards battle.

One other interesting tidbit in that chapter..........earlier, people lined up in NYC to see a color set featuring...................a slice of baloney. :banana:

CBS - RCA Comparative Demontrations to the FCC
 

These ohotos are mislabeled as ALL Faye Emerson photos.

They include additional photos of the CBS field-sequential and the RCA dot-sequential color system and their 1950 demonstrations to the FCC. Faye Emerson is shown in ohly some of them.

Comparative photos of the two systems were published in the magazine, and the color has survived much better in magazine print, than these original Google photos which have faded.

It is interesting to view the following print attachments and the superb color of the CBS System when compared to the poorer performing RCA System.

Enjoy.

Consumers Reports Engineers went to the FCC demonstrations and they wrote about it briefly in a 1951 issue
of the magazine.
They thought the CBS system was excellent and the RCA System looked pastel and pasty.
RCA made alot of improvments over the next couple of years.

By these pictures it is no wonder CBS got the early nod-a clear difference, even with those less than ideal photos.

It seems from all the reports and the recreated/restored equipment that CBS's field sequential system was capable of excellent results...the real problem was its incompatibility with existing sets.

I am not sure how flexible it was in operation switching between cameras etc.

And of course it would have migrated to all electronic pretty quickly.

The CBS system also benefitted from careful staging of every demo. I have a copy of a CBS technical memo describing problems with a bright red sweater, developing a cyan halo due to overexposure of the image orthicon. The solution was to substitute a darker sweater.

I also laughed at that solution. But I would think the CBS camera could have benefited from "Operating under the Knee", just as it was standard practice to reduce halos, and achieve linearity of the three primary signals with the later NTSC TK-41 cameras. The NTSC camera often suffered from poor balance between the IO's and the tubes were often hand selected to find three matching tubes. Reflections in the color splitting dichroics often led to "red shirt ghosts" image to the right of the gentleman's white shirt. This plus differential phase distortion with the NTSC signal, and camera and home receiver complexities of registration and adjustment, it is easy to say that the color reproduction of the CBS Color System was far superior. NTSC camers also benefited from careful staging and adjustment of the cameras.

Ask anyone who had seen demonstrations of the CBS Color System at the Early Television Foundation museum or any of the few monitors/receivers in the hands of collectors. The CBS system simply produced better color quality.

Ed Reitan