[Jeffhs]

My ten-year-old RCA CTC185 XL-100 19" set has an "auto color" menu option (in the "picture quality" on-screen menu), but I set it to "off" a long time ago and forgot about it. Don't need it anyway, with today's rock-stable cable/satellite signals and vastly improved color processing systems in today's color TVs and stations/networks, as opposed to sets and broadcast signals/equipment of the '70s and earlier.

I agree that the so-called "auto color" preset controls, switched in and out via a front-panel button, are often set too high and almost always not to the viewer's preferences. I think these controls are preset at the factory, using a color-bar test pattern from a generator rather than with a broadcast signal. My CTC-185 has a menu option on the picture-quality OSD menu (option number seven, "reset picture controls") as well, but I'm sure all this does is reset the picture controls (except contrast) to midpoint (and the auto-color option on), which I think are the factory defaults.

I think the best way to deal with these so-called "auto color" schemes is simply to shut them off, forget them, and adjust the color controls on the set to your liking. IMHO, viewers should not allow a preset system to determine the looks of their color picture; everyone's preferences are different, and I think a person's eyes are a much better judge of screen color, flesh tones, etc. than any fancy electronic circuitry in the TV set. One manufacturer of flat-panel HDTVs (I don't recall which one) advertises an automatic feature in their sets it refers to as "Intellibrite" or some such. This system is supposed to adjust the LCD backlight brightness according to the brightness of room lighting, not unlike RCA's Colortrak system, Magnavox's Videomatic, "TAC" or Total Automatic Color, et al., all of which also used a photocell mounted under the CRT to monitor room lighting and adjust the brightness accordingly. I once had a GE portable b&w TV in the '70s (the set itself must have been pre-'64 or fifties vintage, as it was VHF only) that used a photocell to adjust image brightness according to room lighting, with a defeat switch on the rear of the chassis; I've never seen anything like it on a b&w set since.