British Color Experiments - 1950s mystery photos

[Combwork]

I think us Brits were probably right to wait; the problem with any standard is that once adopted, research into better ways of doing whatever it is become stifled by having to be compatable with `the standard'. One thing that's always puzzled me (wildly off topic but it's night time, maybe no-one will notice). VCR manufacturers extended recording time by halving the tape speed and accepted the trade off of lower definition in favour of extended recording times. Why did they not make machines that would record at double speed; a 4 hour standard speed tape would contain 2 hours of higher definition video for special recordings. Was there some technical reason why this could not have been done?