Australian colour TV experiments of the 1960s
 

Hi all. Been sort of finding out clues of Australia's colour television history.

Generally colour broadcasts didn't start over here until 19th October 1974 and the official colour open day was 1st March 1975. We were practically the last developed country to get colour no thanks to those tightarse bureaucratic dickheads! We were suppose to get colour in 1972.

But during the 60s and early 70s there were colour experimentations happening, and with research dating as early as 1965 from the facts I've come across.

According to this article http://www.ben.com.au/articles/47/0c028547.asp in 1965 the Powerhouse museum in Sydney demonstrated colour television using an EMI Type 204 3 vidicon tube camera which can be seen on the site http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/coll...se/?irn=249192 . I'm unsure of what TV was used to display the colour. The format is based on the NTSC system.

One of my mates also found this photo on the State Library Of Victoria website http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/hwtports/0...hp004692.shtml which has really intrigued me. It's what looks to be a RCA TK-40 camera as it has no vents. Anyhow I'm curious to find out if this is an Australian photo and if it is I would like to know more about this and the camera itself.

On 15th June 1967 Australian station ATV-0 borrowed RCA TK-42 cameras from Channel 9 in USA to do an experimental colourcast of the Pakenham horse races. You can see one of the cameras on this page http://www.oldradio.com/archives/har...tk42(atvo).jpg and reference from this site http://televisionau.siv.net.au/sixties.htm . This cast was done in NTSC.

In 1968 the government announces that Australia will adopt the PAL system instead of NTSC. That same year there was some sort of expo in Melbourne which had a colour television demonstration and Channel 7 did a colour demo showing what PAL colour television was like which fortunately was recorded on colour videotape and exists and I happen to have a copy of some of the footage which involves a young boy singing which I think he might be from the show "Young Talent Time", this footage was featured on a Young Talent Time DVD compilation.

During the early 1970s particularly during the 1974 period the studios were converting to colour many shows were recorded in colour but transmitted in B&W until 19th October that year.

Anyways thought I'd share this info with you guys.

Cheers
Troy

Always thought it ironic "Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo" was shot in color, & you guys had to watch it on dumb ol' B&W...Wonder why the boneheaded bureaucrats so tardy in bringing color TV to Down Under ? I can see 'em delaying it to the mid '60s,well, not even really THAT long, but Nineteen-feckin'-Seventy-Five ?!? Australia is a modern, Western country...I could see it if you guys were Upper Volta or Lower Slobbovia or some other God-forsaken 4th world shithole, but...

I always blamed the Australia colour television industry for not shooting the last season of Tripods in the '80's. :scratch2: Or was it the BBC? Who cares, based on this thread I'll stick with my original guilty party.

I don't think the TK40 or 41 had a tilting viewfinder (maybe someone else knows for sure) - Could this be a special adaptation of a TK41?

Thanks for pointing that out. Thought there was something different about this camera. Anyways looking at the record on this camera, the location is St Vincent Hospital in Melbourne dating around 1965 http://sinpic.slv.vic.gov.au/cgi-bin...ode=FT*&CNT=15 . I wonder if this camera still exists, if it does I want it!!!

The viewfinder on the TK40/41 was removable. Its conceivable that they put on a different viewfinder. In fact that one looks like it came from a Marconi camera or perhaps a Pye.

Here's a Marconi Mark III picture from the Knackers Yard: http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/knackers/images/abc1.jpg

Also I've heard, although I couldn't turn up a picture, that GE made an early color camera that was a TK40/41 look-alike. It could be one of those cameras.

Which particular Channel 9 did the camera come from? Channel 9 would be assigned to a different television station in every region of the U.S.

David

Colour television was first shown in Australia n 1963 when EMI Broadcast division received four EMI 204 colour cameras. These were the three vidicon version, which were in fact three 201 cameras in one case.
The first showing was at the Sydney Showgrounds when there was a small studio with two cameras and about 6-8 extremely large and heavy monitors around the showgrounds fed with an RGB feed. Afterwards one camera was installed in to the mediacal department of the University of New South Wales where experimental heart surgery was being conducted and another one went to the Museum of Applied Arts in Sydney.
How do I know all this, well I was the EMI Broadcast Technical Manager and the only one who handled the colour equipment. The other two cameras I cannot talk about as I transferred to EMI New Zealand just after Easter 1964 when they were still in the Homebush labs.

The color camera pictured in the above post is a TK-40 or 41. The original production TK-40's had no vents on the side.
Here's a link to a pix of the GE TK-41 "Look-a-like color camera:
mikecl~1.jpg
Address:http://www.pharis-video.com/mikecl~1.jpg

Also, NBC Burbank modified their TK-41 viewfinders to larger screens as seen in this photo courtesy "Eyes of a Generation website:1.JPG
http://www.eyesofageneration.com/media/images/1.JPG

Just an update on TK-40/41 look-a-likes. If you didn't see it, here is the Russian/Soviet era version of a TK-40/41 as recently posted on the ETF website: http://www.earlytelevision.org/images/urrs41.jpg

-Steve D.

Well, because they spell it with more letters, it took them longer to develop it. USA has color TV, Australia has colour TV :D

we made up for it ..we use PAL colour and you use NTSC color ..same number of letters!! heheheheh

and we use DVB and you use ATSC!

the reason it took so long ....political and bureaucratic inertia and a refusal to spend money to upgrade the national broadcaster, the ABC.

it actually took an election where the incoming government promised it to get colour broadcasting up and running.

G'day Dave, thank you so much for sharing your valueable knowledge on early colour experimentation in Australia and your experience in the field :).

I have a few questions out of curiosity, I've made a colour picture snap a few years back from a Sony AVC-3200CE vidicon camera using red, green and blue cellophane and combining the channels in Corel Photopaint and the pic can be viewed here http://www.labguysworld.com/RGB_002.jpg , I was wondering are the pictures from those EMI 204s the same/similar to the colour image I made? Secondly those monitors, were they round screen US brand colour TVs? Thirdly I was wondering if you might know anything about that modified RCA TK-40 type camera http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/hwtports/0...hp004692.shtml used in St Vincent hospital?

Cheers
Troy

I think Italy was the last developed country to get color TV, the official start for color broadcast was in feb 24, 1977, although experimental color broadcasts started in time for the 1972 olympic games and some Italian manufacturers were already making color TVs in the late 60s for the north european markets.

As a consequence, most households stuck with B/W until the early 90s and 23" B/W sets were still manufactured until the mid-late 80s, some even had digital tuning and remote AND a hybrid chassis with 4 or 5 tubes!

1975?! 1977?! I thought Canada was bad, for getting colour in 1966, considering we use the NTSC system, and the USA had it since 1953.

But then again, the town I'm from, in central rural Saskatchewan, didn't get electricity or indoor plumbing until the 50s and 60s... and cable TV until the late '90s, and high speed internet (non-dial up) until 2003. (I remember when we got high speed internet, it was the biggest thing ever lol... and when our cable TV broke 30 channels... that was big too LOL... aaah i feel spoiled now haha)