http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/tv/history/history.htm says that experimental 405 line color started on 10 October 1955.

http://www.earlytelevision.org/pye_experimental_color.html shows an experimental 405 line PYE color set.

Then I came across a book titled "The 1950s" by
Edith Horsley
Domus Books
A Bison Book

Edith M. Horsley
U.S.A./Quality Books
Copyright 1978 Bison Books Limited
ISBN 0-89196-015-5
Printed in Hong Kong
Prduced by Bison Books Limited
4 Cromwell Place, London, England
Published by Quality Books Inc.

This book is written apparently in American English (e.g. "color," not "colour"), but has a great deal (perhaps majority) of English events as well as American and international.

On page 91, in the 1953 chapter, it has a couple of color illustrations attributed to Radio Times Hulton Picture Library. These photos purport to show 1) a cameraman and subject experimenting with color TV in 1953; 2) a family watching an experimental color set (no date).

So, my question is, what can we find out about what these pictures are really showing and their likely real dates?

The studio camera is too compact to be a simultaneous color camera of that time, but could conceivably be a field-sequential camera.
>>Anybody have any knowledge of this particular camera model?

The color receiver looks like a mock-up or publishing cut and paste. Rectangular screen and too compact to be a round shadow mask tube, also definitely not a field-sequential color-wheel set.

Despite all the doubtful features, the photos are in color, indicating perhaps that color was important to the original purpose.

This site discusses the BBC television coverage of the 1953 coronation. A single paragraph is devoted to the experimental closed circuit color broadcast. I agree that it was possibly a field sequential system. Here's the paragraph:

"As befits the coming generation, two hundred children saw the Coronation procession by the TV of the future - in colour. They were at the Great Ormand Street Hospital in London. By closed-circuit they received pictures from three TV colour cameras overlooking Parliament Square"

And the site:

APTS | 2 June 1953 - Coronation Day
Address:http://www.apts.org.uk/coronation.htm

-Steve D.

I remember reading about that on a BBC engineer's web site, which is sadly now gone. It was a color sequential system, complete with color wheel and it was supposedly transmitted the coronation via a closed-circuit post office line to an orphan's home, or children's hospital, or something like that.

David

It had to be field sequential because of the size of the camera. Because of the rectangular shape of the receiver screen, it was a projection type receiver, with a small color wheel, similar to the GE/CBS receiver design:

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

At the resolution at which we can access the photograph, it appears to be a professional shot including a real fire in the fireplace. Except for the center of the flame, the 'color TV' picture is the brightest element of the picture. It probably got that way for one of two reasons: it was latrer stripped in by the '50s graphics department or it is an 11 by 14 transparency in front of a diffusion filter in front of a lamp. My guess is those people were looking at a blank hole in that cabinet, itself perhaps a figment of some designer's concept of television cabinets (what are those three lower-left knobs for?!).

The receiver could be real but not the image in it's screen. If that is a field sequential projection color receiver,the picture would be too dim to photograph in normal ambient light.

Great commnents and links! I never thought of a projection set.
A closeup up the TV doesn't reveal much more, but it does look like a transparency - note: no shutter bars, which are very hard to eliminate completely.

You are probably right about the picture being fake, but it is possible that it is real. By 1953 fairly bright projection tubes were available, and with careful photography it would be possible to get such a picture.

I wonder what the frame rate was. I've sent this thread to David Boynes in the UK, who probably will be able to give us some more information.

You are probably right about the picture being fake, but it is possible that it is real. By 1953 fairly bright projection tubes were available, and with careful photography it would be possible to get such a picture.

I wonder what the frame rate was. I've sent this thread to David Boynes in the UK, who probably will be able to give us some more information.

Possible, but I still think unlikely - for another thing, the color balance is too perfect. But still... it could be real and just done to award-worthy standards.

Ain't technological archeology fun?

It's amazing how little info there is on this colour broadcast. Probably lost in the shadow of the BBC's overwelming b&w coverage of the event.

Here's an excerpt from a timeline that mentions a PYE ( A British electronics co.) and American company connection?

"1953..... the FIRST colour television programme was shown when the coronation of Queen Elizabeth 11 was transmitted. It was the result of an experiment between Pye of Cambridge and an American company. The vivid reds and dark blues worn by the Canadian Mounties and Royal Marines enthralled the children of the Great Ormond Street hospital who were watching this FIRST colour television broadcast."

Here's the site:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/m.gratton/June/June%202nd.htm

-Steve D.

Hmmmm...I'm still skeptical about the pic on the TV being real..it's just TOO good....

This recollection from a cameraman who worked the 1953 coronation broadcast:

"Whilst 20 million viewers watched the transmission in black and white, 150 children and staff of the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street watched part of the procession in colour. Pye of Cambridge were given permission to set up three colour cameras on the roof of the Foreign Office, and by using a portable transmitter beamed the signal to Ormond Street to display colour pictures on two 20" sets. Twenty years later it would be standard practice for major OBs to be in colour. and today it is common place to deploy 20 to 25 cameras just for one programme 'Match of the Day.'"

From this site:the current page
http://www.tech-ops.co.uk/page86.html Cha

I would sure like to see photos of the cameras and receivers.
-Steve D.

As I see it:
(1) It is a professional photograph. Note the classic shading from dark on the left to light on the right. [We read from left to right. Our eyes seek light areas. Such things combine to produce a 'pleasing' picture.]
(2) It is certainly a real home. Unlikely a photographer would generate a set with a real fire, a mantle with eight knickknacks (that carriage clock is blimey British isn't it), or three hanging pictures. It's too expensive; you can find a real home with less trouble.
(3) Soft diffused lighting. There are no shadows. Compare this image to the other that is full of shadows.
(4) Here's the biggie: there is strong evidence of retouching. If that is so, it's a short leap of faith to believing that the TV image was also 'manipulated'.

My Analysis:
The subject of the picture is a TV set displaying a color picture. The photo editor wants your eyes to find the TV set. To do that, HE (remember this is the early '50s) makes sure the TV is bright and has sharp edges. Look at the upper edge of the TV cabinet; the wall behind the set is light. How? It certainly did not come from that dim floor lamp. It most likely came from an artist's airbrush, because now the TV cabinet stands out from the dark wall since there is now sharp contrast between the cabinet and wall.

But here's the smoking gun: look at the blowup of the TV cabinet in Wayne's other post. What your eyes didn't 'see' as anything but a natural highlight shows up as a bright artificial-looking line under the 'CRT' area. If that's natural, explain how it happened. You want to ask yourself, what's the source of illumination that is needed to cause that fine, bright beam? Or, for that matter, what on the TV cabinet is reflecting so much of the 'soft' lighting in that room? It looked natural in the overall picture because it created a sharp frame for the 'colour' TV picture , but it looks artificial close-up, because IT IS. It's virtual proof of retouching.

Sooooo, what we MAY have here is a photograph of an experimental, operational colour TV system operating in a home and projecting an image bright enough to overcome room lighting and (as we used to say brainstorming magazine covers) so it will 'bang out' of the page.

I don't think so. What we have here is a picture that was professionally generated to do a job.

Of course, I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

Pete

I agree that it looks fake overall

I just want to note that color printing in earlier processes was far poorer than more recently. It was quite common to outline objects in the black plate by hand to make the image sharper. Big outfits like Time/Life had much better processes than were used in many books (and therefore didn't need this handwork). This book was printed in '78, late enough to be better, but was on semi-matte paper, with poor contrast, and all the color images seem to have poor blacks. These two in particular have brownish lowlights instead of true black. Color balance on other pages varies all over the map. Anyway, it's hard to tell how many stages of manipulation this went through between 1953 and 1978, for either artistic rendition or just to get the plates to an acceptable level of color and detail.

I am pretty sure they are mock up pictures even if the set was a working set but we do know from references that there were experiments both in field sequential and NTSC formats for UK 405 line but that the UK did not broadcast in color until they commenced 625 PAL in the late 60s (like most of Europe).

I have to say though that the idea of seeing the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth in colour would have been fantastic. No greater way to show off colour television would have been possible. It is a pity the Pye's experiments did not include the service itself but only part of the parade.

It is a pity that the Beeb never went into 405 line NTSC ....but that is a whole 'nuther story!!! (I could say the same here in Oz ...625 line PAL probably wasn't worth waiting 20 years for!)

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?

Although I am no expert in this field, the primary limitation with standard domestic VCRs, was and is the luminence under chroma recording method.

This limits the luminence ie monochrome resolution to around 240 (VHS) 270 Beta) lines.

Both SVHS and Beta ED extended the resolution to around 350-400 lines for SVHS and up to 500 lines with Beta ED.

Buth this required metal tapes and substanitally revised electronics.

Of course from the early days of vcrs there was always the option of Laserdisc and in even CED disks which offered superior images.

Both formats had issues (CED didn't survive for very long in the NTSC market let alone the PAL market).

But back to NTSC 405 line which was an option for the UK ....in many cases 625 line tv sets both colour and black and white, especially early colour sets would not have been much "sharper" than their 405 line cousins so waiting 15 years or more to go to colour didn't really add much.

The sad part of the UK not adopting colour in the 50s is that all those great BBC dramas from the 50s and 60s are only black and white!

---

The development of slant azimuth recording made it possible for Beta and VHS to to use much less tape than previously needed.

"Slant azimuth recording" means that the recording heads are not in line with each other but are offset by a small amount ...again apologies if I am a little inaccurate here..but with VHS I think it 6 degrees and beta 7 degrees ..or something similar.

This enabled Beta and VHS to do away with guard bands betweens each head pass over the tape effectively doubling the capacity of the tape.

The main difference between recording speeds is not resolution so much as signal to noise response. Hence LP and EP etc for VHS and BIII on Beta resulted in less saturated colour and noisier images with increased delta gain.

This is also why the improvements in tape were so important and made it possible to introduce the lower speeds. (And also the introduction multi head recorders with the different heads optimised for the different speeds resulting in much better low speed recording).

The introduction of HiFi recording for vcrs is whole 'nuther story since the spec for NTSC Beta enabled the sound to recorded in a "gap" in the signal, whilst with VHS this was not possible and resulted in the so called depth multiplex system with the sound signal recorded under the video signal.

The PAL Betas uses the same system as VHS to record HiFi as the signal spec does not have the "gap" utilised by the NTSC variant. (In fact NTSC Beta introduced HiFi stereo some time before it was available for VHS or for PAL Beta).

Of course the other significant tape development was the new bases which were thinner but capable of handling the stresses imposed in the recorders without stretching.

If you can remember the dim dark ages (ie the early 80s) VCR tapes came in basically one length L500 (two hours as NTSC BII or 2hours 10 minutes for PAL) and L750 (3 hours for BII and 3 hours 15 minutes for PAL Beta), and T120 NTSC or E180 for PAL VHS.

PAL Beta never adopted slower recording speeds.. there was no BIII for PAL Beta.

VHS T120 cassettes gives 2 hours at SP on NTSC but 3 hours on PAL ...this is due to the different frame/line rates. 625x50 does not equal 525x30 ...the heads spin more slowly (1500 as opposed to 1800 rpm) so PAL recorders use less tape.

The T160 (E240) tapes arrived by about 1984 and the L830 by '85. T200 tapes (E300) arrived in the early 90s...but were intially very expensive.

---

There were also Color TVs that used a Color Drum instead of a wheel around
a 17 or 20 inch B/W CRT.

There were also Color TVs that used a Color Drum instead of a wheel around
a 17 or 20 inch B/W CRT.

Over the years, [lotsa] I have seen this photo displayed with two different captions. Most often this photo is said to be of a direct view drum set with a 17 inch CRT.

However, I have also seen the same set in pictures with front and rear shots, described as a projection set, and indeed the rear photo shows a small CRT and a Schmidt optical system but the color filters are built into the shape of a cone such that the light from the optics passes through one side while it spins, bounces off a large mirror on the rear wall and onto the screen.

The optical system is nothing I have seen before or since. It is not anything familiar, like the RCA KRK1-1, or the Philips Protelgram or the systen used by Philco with their TP-400 CRT.

Not only this, but I have also seen this picture ascribed to more than a CBS prototype, but I can't remember the name of the other manufacturer.
Could CBS have given the cabinet to someone else to build a different system into?
Does anyone have a definitive answer to this mystery?

Backside photo I have

RCA, in their book "TELEVISION VOLUME 4 1942-1946", has a color camera with a color wheel and color wheel, color drum TVs. They also had a projection color TV using three 2 inch CRTs each with its own color, with lens from overhead projectors.

CBS or RCA working with PYE? Someone else?