Color - Here We Go

Wow, how time flies!

Not only from black and white to color but in wow the days fly by. I didn't realize that it had been so long since my last input. Geez, it seems like it was just yesterday.

I hope you all have enjoyed my blog so far. It has been fun writing it.

Anyway, I found it really surprising, not only that TV (black and white) was invented so very long ago and color was not that far behind it, but was still so far behind when it came to putting it on the market for consumers.

Color TV was demonstrated at the International radio exhibition in Berlin in 1939. In the United States Bell Laboratories demonstrated a a mechanically scanned color TV in June 1929, a year after my husband was born. Electronically scanned color TV was demonstrated February 5, 1940 by RCA. CBS began experimental field tests August 28, 1940 and live cameras by November 12 the same year.

NBC (owned by RCA) had its first field test of color February 20, 1941. (I was still not a spark in any ones eye yet.) CBS started daily field tests June of 1941. The only viewers were limited to RCA and CBS engineers and invited press. Because of World War II all manufacture of television and radio equipment was stopped from April. 22, 1942 to August 20, 1945, so there was no opportunity to introduce the general public to color TV.

After the war, color TV development was dominated by three systems looking for approval by the FCC as color broadcasting standard for the U.S.: CBS, RCA and CTI. (All were incompatible with existing black and white sets.) RCA's became compatible in 1949.

CBS gave the first demonstrations of color to the general public January 12, 1950 on a daily basis for an hour daily from Mondays thru Saturdays and ran for the remainder of the month in Washington, D.C. in a public building on 16-inch color receivers. The FCC formally approved the CBS system as the U.S. color broadcasting standard October 11, 1950. RCA and CTI's systems were found by the FCC to have to many technical problems at the time. The worlds first RCA broadcast was June 25, 1951.

The first color TV (CBS-Columbia) sets had problems and were pulled off the market after only 100 were sold. The National Television System Committed during 1950 and 1953 developed a color system compatible with existing black and white sets and passed FCC quality standards. RCA developed the hardware. Kukla, Fran and Ollie (an NBC episode) was the first publicly TB broadcast program using NTSC compatible color system on August 30, 1953. The first coast-to-coast color broadcast by NBC was covering the January 1, 1954 Tournament of Roses Parade.

Well continue this really spell binding journey next time. Have a wonderful day!