Happy Birthday 1953NTSC Color :)

[Pete Deksnis]

Tried to interest the local Big Rapids newspaper in this bit of December 17, 1953 TV history, but to no avail

Sixty years ago today, television burst into color.

It was a long time coming, mid-1941 to late 1953, and long to be accepted by the black-and-white-TV-enamoured '50s public.

But the Big Rapids Pioneer didn't buy it.

This 'n That

As for behind-the-scenes developers of analog color television, these are some of the companies who contributed to the 1953 NTSC color television standard:

• American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation
• Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation
• General Electric Company
• Hazeltine Research, Inc.
• N. V. Phillips' Gloeilanpamfabricken
• Philco Corporation
• Westinghouse Electric Corporation

It's a list that was compiled by RCA and appears on a label inside the cabinet of every CT-100 made.

In honor of the occasion, I have benched my CT-100 (see pix) and am giving her an electronic massage of sorts: fix a drifting brightness control (poor C7 ground), recalibrate the hue control, and so on...

I'll also investigate another CTC2 modification (the set had a composite input added in 2007 that was based upon a 1956 RCA circuit.) I hope now to add an S-video input based upon WA2WISE's concept presented here on AudioKarma a number of months ago. If successful, it should completely rid the 15GP22 image of all 'sparkling' around fine print and other such cross-color. Thanks to Cliff Benham who has loaned me a composite interface adapter for the project.

Full circle. Also, things keep moving forward and the future of TV is already here, due in no small part to one of our own members here at AudioKarma. A short quote if I may: "Working together with a team of Zenith research engineers, Wayne Bretl, Richard Citta, and Wayne Luplow created the digital high-definition technology now mandated by the FCC to replace the nation's ... old analog system." Not to worry, we'll all be keeping the old one alive

Pete

[old_tv_nut]

My only regret is never working for a company with a cool name like "Gloeilampenfabrieken"

[old_tv_nut]

I also want to say that S-video seems a bit like like cheating. The NTSC system was selected with all its warts in full view.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

I also want to say that S-video seems a bit like like cheating. The NTSC system was selected with all its warts in full view.

30 years ago I did a lot of research to reduce those warts...

And I was a few months old when NTSC color was born.

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

My only regret is never working for a company with a cool name like "Gloeilampenfabrieken"

Actually that company is Philips. They were known as Norelco in the US. Gloeilampenfabrieken literally means "light bulb manufacturer" in Dutch. It is just the ending of the company name. Similar to the "Motor Company" part of Ford Motor Company.

[VintagePC]

Originally Posted by egrand

Actually that company is Philips. They were known as Norelco in the US. Gloeilampenfabrieken literally means "light bulb manufacturer" in Dutch. It is just the ending of the company name. Similar to the "Motor Company" part of Ford Motor Company.

Apparently they started specific and then broadened out, 5 years before that name they were known as Metaalgloeilampfabriek (Metal filament lamp factory)

Probably a good thing they didn't keep that naming scheme or you'd have a mass of companies with names that are incredibly confusing to the non-speaker... Philips bandrecorderfabriek, philips keukenapparatuurfabriek etc

[Steve D.]

Originally Posted by Pete Deksnis

Tried to interest the local Big Rapids newspaper in this bit of December 17, 1953 TV history, but to no avail

Sixty years ago today, television burst into color.

It was a long time coming, mid-1941 to late 1953, and long to be accepted by the black-and-white-TV-enamoured '50s public.

But the Big Rapids Pioneer didn't buy it.

This 'n That

As for behind-the-scenes developers of analog color television, these are some of the companies who contributed to the 1953 NTSC color television standard:

• American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation
• Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation
• General Electric Company
• Hazeltine Research, Inc.
• N. V. Phillips' Gloeilanpamfabricken
• Philco Corporation
• Westinghouse Electric Corporation

It's a list that was compiled by RCA and appears on a label inside the cabinet of every CT-100 made.

In honor of the occasion, I have benched my CT-100 (see pix) and am giving her an electronic massage of sorts: fix a drifting brightness control (poor C7 ground), recalibrate the hue control, and so on...

I'll also investigate another CTC2 modification (the set had a composite input added in 2007 that was based upon a 1956 RCA circuit.) I hope now to add an S-video input based upon WA2WISE's concept presented here on AudioKarma a number of months ago. If successful, it should completely rid the 15GP22 image of all 'sparkling' around fine print and other such cross-color. Thanks to Cliff Benham who has loaned me a composite interface adapter for the project.

Full circle. Also, things keep moving forward and the future of TV is already here, due in no small part to one of our own members here at AudioKarma. A short quote if I may: "Working together with a team of Zenith research engineers, Wayne Bretl, Richard Citta, and Wayne Luplow created the digital high-definition technology now mandated by the FCC to replace the nation's ... old analog system." Not to worry, we'll all be keeping the old one alive

Pete

Pete,

In honor of NTSC color tv's 60th birthday, this article from the Jan. '54 Radio Age.

[old_tv_nut]

Thanks for that, Steve! It looks like the article continues further - do you have the rest?

[Steve D.]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

Thanks for that, Steve! It looks like the article continues further - do you have the rest?

Sorry about that. Just added the final page of the article to my post.

-Steve D.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Thank you for posting the article, Steve.

[W3XWT]

I wasn't able to get a decent display of Steve's attachments.

My question is... what exactly did Phillips contribute to NTSC? I know they (via Maggotbox) were able to later contribute ghost canceling...

[old_tv_nut]

Philips (note one "l") is not listed in the committee member affiliations of the NTSC.

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

Philips (note one "l") is not listed in the committee member affiliations of the NTSC.

That list was lifted from my website and was generated years ago. Today I checked the label in the CT-100 and it mentions patents. So, perhaps Philips held a patent from b&w set days that got funneled into RCA color circuitry?

Pete

I think this is the patent in question: https://www.google.com/patents/US283...ed=0CEEQ6AEwAg

Apparently Philips claimed invention of the idea of combining the color and luminance signals together.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by egrand

I think this is the patent in question: https://www.google.com/patents/US283...ed=0CEEQ6AEwAg

Apparently Philips claimed invention of the idea of combining the color and luminance signals together.

Much too late to be a patent on basic combination of luminance and color subcarrier. What it is, is a proposal to put one color difference signal on the lower sideband of a high-frequency subcarrier, and the other color difference signal on the upper sideband of a mid-frequency subcarrier, with the two sidebands overlapping but interleaved, similar to the way NTSC chroma and luma are interleaved.

Here's a clear scan of the patent:
http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=0...iew+first+page