CBS prototype camera?

[old_tv_nut]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ht_2599wt_1223

Ebay item #370887768870 - Press photo, undated

"Miss Color Television"

22 YO Jean Rogers of Yonkers transmitted to audience of newspaper men and members of IRE. Shown seated before the TV camera in CBS studio at 49 E 52nd St.

Has anyone seen this camera before? Looks like a prototype. And why is the operator ("Edward Anholt") holding a pushbutton switch?

[Steve D.]

This camera is new to me. Perhaps the operator is snapping a still photo and the button is a shutter release??

-Steve D.

[Pete Deksnis]

Hmmm Since the model is not Patti Painter and the camera looks like a hand-made prototype, I'd say it's a pre-1949 version. That is, one that came before the sequential color camera CBS used in their famous 1949 demo that had 19-year-old Patti as the model.

Pete

[earlyfilm]

Originally Posted by Pete Deksnis

Hmmm Since the model is not Patti Painter and the camera looks like a hand-made prototype, I'd say it's a pre-1949 version. That is, one that came before the sequential color camera CBS used in their famous 1949 demo that had 19-year-old Patti as the model. Pete

I feel that Pete is correct that this must predate Patty Painter.

Goldmark, in his 1973 book, indicates that he used Patty Painter in the famous 1946 UHF tests where the signal was transmitted on UHF between the Chrysler Building in downtown NYC to the Tappan Zee Inn in Nyack, NY. I feel that this camera is 1945 or earlier.

This looks like an improvement on the WWII era drum based camera, but more crude than the 1945 one shown in the below picture from ETF.

http://earlytelevision.org/images/cbs_camera_10001.jpg

In the eBay picture, you can see a motor on the back that turns a color drum, similar to the motor and color drum in this picture also from ETF, with a silver surface mirror in the center to reflect the picture into a modified standard B&W camera such as the below1945 image:

http://earlytelevision.org/images/CBS_3.jpg

The hastily built aluminum lift-up cover on the right side of the camera is probably to hide the fact that Goldmark is using a normal B&W RCA camera with the lens removed.

I would place this camera prior to the 1945 twin lens drum camera shown above simply because it does not have a viewfinder and you get the idea that the cameraman is watching a monitor to adjust his lens.

The 1945 cameras had the left lens reflecting the image off a mirror inside the color drum and into a camera. The right lens went through a dove prism prism (or three mirrors) that inverted the projected image on a ground glass for the cameraman to see and use to focus as both lens were on the same rack mount.

Goldmark caught some flack in an early color test when someone caught the fact that the color was wired and not broadcast and this may have been the camera used for that earlier test. I cannot remember the date or where I read about it, but it was prior to the 1946 UHF tests.

James

[cbenham]

I think you have sorted this out very well.

Cliff

[Chris Sirchi]

I was watching this BBC documentary about JLB and was very surprised to see this famous CBS TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuE--w03vTc

(at 52'53').

We will try to get more informations from the BBC and enventually from the director of the film.

[David Roper]

"This set was produced by CBS in 1946"




But it wasn't. It was made by General Electric for a standard that differed from the one proposed by CBS. Read more here.

[Chris Sirchi]

Ok, interesting! Have you some more informations about this set and this other field sequencial system? So the guy on the BBC film is not right?

[Steve McVoy]

Lots of information on various early color systems, including field sequential, on our website:

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

Unfortunately, the BBC is incorrect.

That receiver is in the National Museum of Scotland. It was purchased by Michael Bennett-Levy from a dealer in the the US some years ago, and donated recently to the museum.

[Chris Sirchi]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TV-NEWS-BOOK...item565b9b4381


Thank you Steeve. Some more informations about the CBS system in 1950 in this TV NEWS BOOK with an interesting picture of an expetimental receiver (big set and smal screen).

[peter scott]

Originally Posted by Steve McVoy

Lots of information on various early color systems, including field sequential, on our website:

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

Unfortunately, the BBC is incorrect.

That receiver is in the National Museum of Scotland. It was purchased by Michael Bennett-Levy from a dealer in the the US some years ago, and donated recently to the museum.

Yes, unfortunately the National Museum of Scotland is now a pale shadow of its former self and whereas in the past such items were well displayed now there appears to be nobody giving any thought to educating the visitor. There is a small card beside the set but it gives next to no description or context/background and the set sits in a hall with no other television exhibits despite the fact that they have a good collection hidden away. (It has no projection screen.)

Peter

[cbenham]

Originally Posted by David Roper

"This set was produced by CBS in 1946"




But it wasn't. It was made by General Electric for a standard that differed from the one proposed by CBS. Read more here.

Stated in the Technical pages, the V rate is 144 Hz and the H rate is 37,800 Hz.
this means the video produced an interlaced 525 line, 144 field image on the set. In today's parlance 525@72i.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by cbenham

Stated in the Technical pages, the V rate is 144 Hz and the H rate is 37,800 Hz.
this means the video produced an interlaced 525 line, 144 field image on the set. In today's parlance 525@72i.

For a single pure primary color (e.g., all green) it was 24i. Flicker on neutral colors would be reduced somewhat by the addition of the blue and red fields, but overall it would be similar to 24 fps movies with the usual double shuttering.