Happy birthday compatible color tv

[Steve D.]

While America and the world's attention is focused on Dec.17th as the 100th annniversary of powered flight, the Wright brothers stunning world changing achievement. Let's not forget that on this date 50 years ago the FCC approved the NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) color standards and authorized compatible color television broadcasts to begin in the U.S. According to Ed Reitan's "History of Color Television site, the first color viewed on that date was the NBC "color chimes" logo slide broadcast at 5:32 pm est. Not to be outdone, CBS presented the first NTSC program at 6:15 pm est. NBC followed with a program at 6:30 pm. In the months prior to Dec. 17th there had been several experimental and test color programs broadcast and received on prototype color receivers in the hands of engineers. The public would see their first major color show on New Years day 1954 as the Tournament of Roses Parade was colorcast to various special receivers set up in large department stores and other viewing sites. Color receivers would not be available for sale to the public for several months. although it has been suggested that Admiral had sets as early as Dec.30, 1953, Westinghouse is generally recognized as having the first mass produced and advertised color sets on the market in Feb. 1954. RCA Victor marketed its CT-100 color set starting in April 1954.

[wa2ise]

At RCA there was this story floating around about some of those early color TV transmission tests. One test was a broadcast of a bowl of fruit, including bananas. Someone took the bananas and painted them light blue. Light blue is the color you'd get if you rotate the phase angle of the chroma subcarrier for yellow 180 degrees. The guy at the receiving end would see the blue bananas and think that he had the chroma phase (tint) 180 degrees out of phase. He'd "correct" the bananas and then the apples and oranges and grapes come out wrong. He then calls the guy at the transmitting camera studio to ask about it, and he claims that things in his color TV monitor shows things as they look in the studio....

[Steve D.]

I'm sure the guys at RCA played some colorful pranks from time to time. But David Sarnoff, the head of RCA, was very serious about color tv, so the jokes were short lived I'm sure. Truth be known, there were probably a lot of "blue bananas," just like you pictured, in the early tests and not because someone was fooling around.