Editing Color television (section)

===Fully electronic===
[[File:Baird first color photo.jpg|thumb|right|This live image of actress [[Paddy Naismith]] was used to demonstrate [[Telechrome]], [[John Logie Baird]]'s first all-electronic color television system, which used two projection CRTs. The two-color image would be similar to the basic Telechrome system.]]
As early as 1940, Baird had started work on a fully electronic system he called the "[[Telechrome]]". Early Telechrome devices used two electron guns aimed at either side of a phosphor plate. The phosphor was patterned so the electrons from the guns only fell on one side of the patterning or the other. Using cyan and magenta phosphors, a reasonable limited-color image could be obtained. Baird's demonstration on 16 August 1944, was the first example of a practical color television system.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hempstead|first1=Colin|title=Encyclopedia of 20th-Century Technology|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediathce00hemp|url-access=limited|date=2005|publisher=Routledge|page=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediathce00hemp/page/n873 824]}}</ref> Work on the Telechrome continued and plans were made to introduce a three-gun version for full color. However, Baird's untimely death in 1946 ended the development of the Telechrome system.<ref>Albert Abramson, ''The History of Television, 1942 to 2000'', McFarland & Company, 2003, pp. 13–14. {{ISBN|0-7864-1220-8}}</ref><ref>Baird Television: [http://www.bairdtelevision.com/colour.html The World's First High Definition Colour Television System] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403170543/http://www.bairdtelevision.com/colour.html |date=3 April 2015 }}</ref>

Similar concepts were common through the 1940s and 1950s, differing primarily in the way they re-combined the colors generated by the three guns. The [[Geer tube]] was similar to Baird's concept, but used small pyramids with the phosphors deposited on their outside faces, instead of Baird's 3D patterning on a flat surface. The [[Penetron]] used three layers of phosphor on top of each other and increased the power of the beam to reach the upper layers when drawing those colors. The [[Chromatron]] used a set of focusing wires to select the colored phosphors arranged in vertical stripes on the tube.

====FCC color====
In the immediate post-war era, the [[Federal Communications Commission]] (FCC) was inundated with requests to set up new television stations. Worrying about congestion of the limited number of channels available, the FCC put a moratorium on all new licenses in 1948 while considering the problem. A solution was immediately forthcoming; rapid development of radio receiver electronics during the war had opened a wide band of higher frequencies to practical use, and the FCC set aside a large section of these new [[Ultra high frequency|UHF]] bands for television broadcast. At the time, black-and-white television broadcasting was still in its infancy in the U.S., and the FCC started to look at ways of using this newly available bandwidth for color broadcasts. Since no existing television would be able to tune in these stations, they were free to pick an incompatible system and allow the older [[Very high frequency|VHF]] channels to die off over time.

The FCC called for technical demonstrations of color systems in 1948, and the Joint Technical Advisory Committee (JTAC) was formed to study them. CBS displayed improved versions of its original design, now using a single 6&nbsp;MHz channel (like the existing black-and-white signals) at 144 fields per second and 405 lines of resolution. [[Color Television Inc.|Color Television Inc. (CTI)]] demonstrated its line-sequential system, while [[Philco]] demonstrated a dot-sequential system based on its [[beam-index tube]]-based "Apple" tube technology. Of the entrants, the CBS system was by far the best-developed, and won head-to-head testing every time.

While the meetings were taking place it was widely known within the industry that RCA was working on a dot-sequential system that was compatible with existing black-and-white broadcasts, but RCA declined to demonstrate it during the first series of meetings. Just before the JTAC presented its findings, on 25 August 1949, RCA broke its silence and introduced its system as well. The JTAC still recommended the CBS system, and after the resolution of an ensuing RCA lawsuit, color broadcasts using the CBS system started on 25 June 1951. By this point the market had changed dramatically; when color was first being considered in 1948 there were fewer than a million television sets in the U.S., but by 1951 there were well over 10&nbsp;million. The idea that the VHF band could be allowed to "die" was no longer practical.

During its campaign for FCC approval, CBS gave the first demonstrations of color television to the general public, showing an hour of color programs daily Mondays through Saturdays, beginning 12 January 1950, and running for the remainder of the month, over [[WUSA (TV)|WOIC]] in Washington, D.C., where the programs could be viewed on eight 16-inch color receivers in a public building.<ref>"Washington Chosen for First Color Showing; From Ages 4 to 90, Audience Amazed", ''[[The Washington Post]]'', 13 January 1950, p. B2.</ref> Due to high public demand, the broadcasts were resumed 13–21 February, with several evening programs added.<ref>"Color TV Tests To Be Resumed In Washington", ''The Washington Post'', 12 February 1950, p. M5.</ref> CBS initiated a limited schedule of color broadcasts from its New York station [[WCBS-TV]] Mondays to Saturdays beginning 14 November 1950, making ten color receivers available for the viewing public.<ref>"CBS Color Television To Make Public Debut In N.Y. Next Week", ''The Wall Street Journal'', 9 November 1950, p. 18.</ref><ref>[http://www.earlytelevision.org/images/TV0441-150dpi.jpg CBS Announces Color Television] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080804175847/http://www.earlytelevision.org/images/TV0441-150dpi.jpg |date=4 August 2008}} (advertisement), New York ''Daily News'', 13 November 1950.</ref> All were broadcast using the single color camera that CBS owned.<ref>"You Can See The Blood on Color Video", ''The Washington Post'', 15 January 1950, p. L1. "Video Color Test Begins on C.B.S.", ''The New York Times'', 14 November 1950, p. 44.</ref> The New York broadcasts were extended by [[coaxial cable]] to Philadelphia's [[WCAU|WCAU-TV]] beginning 13 December,<ref>"CBS Color Preview Seen By 2,000 in Philadelphia", ''The Wall Street Journal'', 16 December 1950, p. 10.</ref> and to Chicago on 10 January,<ref>"CBS to Display Color Video in City Next Week", ''Chicago Tribune'', 6 January 1951, television and radio section, p. C4.</ref><ref>"Preview of CBS Color TV Wins City's Acclaim", ''Chicago Tribune'', 10 January 1951, p. A8.</ref> making them the first network color broadcasts.

After a series of hearings beginning in September 1949, the FCC found the RCA and CTI systems fraught with technical problems, inaccurate color reproduction, and expensive equipment, and so formally approved the CBS system as the U.S. color broadcasting standard on 11 October 1950. An unsuccessful lawsuit by RCA delayed the first commercial network broadcast in color until 25 June 1951, when a musical variety special titled simply [[Premiere (TV program)|''Premiere'']] was shown over a network of five East Coast CBS affiliates.<ref>"C.B.S. Color Video Presents a 'First'", ''The New York Times'', 26 June 1951, p. 31.</ref> Viewing was again restricted: the program could not be seen on black-and-white sets, and ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' estimated that only thirty prototype color receivers were available in the New York area.<ref>Four-hundred guests watched the premiere commercial broadcast on eight color receivers at a CBS studio in New York, as no color receivers were available to the general public. "C.B.S. Color Video Presents a 'First'", ''The New York Times'', 26 June 1951, p. 31. A total of about 40 color receivers was available in the five cities on the color network. The CBS affiliate in Washington had three receivers and a monitor. "First Sponsored TV in Color Praised by WTOP Audience", ''The Washington Post'', 26 June 1951, p. 1. Most of the remainder of the prototype color receivers were given to advertisers sponsoring the color broadcasts. "Today, June 25, 1951, is a turning point in broadcasting history" (WTOP-TV advertisement), ''The Washington Post'', 25 June 1951, p. 10.</ref> Regular color broadcasts began that same week with the daytime series ''[[The World Is Yours (TV series)|The World Is Yours]]'' and ''[[Modern Homemakers]]''.

While the CBS color broadcasting schedule gradually expanded to twelve hours per week (but never into prime time),<ref>Ed Reitan, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20061206003312/http://www.novia.net/~ereitan/CBS_Color_Programming_rev_h.htm#ProgressColorcasting Progress of CBS Colorcasting]", ''Programming for the CBS Color System''.</ref> and the color network expanded to eleven affiliates as far west as Chicago,<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20061206003312/http://www.novia.net/~ereitan/CBS_Color_Programming_rev_h.htm#affiliates CBS Color System Network Affiliates]", ''Programming for the CBS Color System''.</ref> its commercial success was doomed by the lack of color receivers necessary to watch the programs, the refusal of television manufacturers to create adapter mechanisms for their existing black-and-white sets,<ref>"CBS Color System Makes Television Set Makers See Red", ''The Wall Street Journal'', 17 October 1950, p. 1. Three exceptions among the major television manufacturers were [[Philco]], which offered 11 models that could show CBS color broadcasts in black-and-white; and [[Westinghouse Electric Corporation (1886)|Westinghouse]] and [[Admiral (electrical appliances)|Admiral]], which offered adapters to receive color broadcasts in black and white. "Philco Offers 11 TV Sets To Receive CBS Color TV in Black and White", ''The Wall Street Journal'', 4 June 1951, p. 9. "Westinghouse to Sell Adapter for CBS Color TV Signals", ''The Wall Street Journal'', 7 August 1951, p. 18.</ref> and the unwillingness of advertisers to sponsor broadcasts seen by almost no one. CBS had bought a television manufacturer in April,<ref>"Hytron's Deal With CBS Seen TV Color Aid", ''The Washington Post'', 12 April 1951, p. 15.</ref> and in September 1951, production began on the only CBS-Columbia color television model, with the first color sets reaching retail stores on 28 September.<ref>"CBS Subsidiary Starts Mass Production of Color Television Sets", ''The Wall Street Journal'', 13 September 1951, p. 18.</ref><ref>"[https://books.google.com/books?id=oCEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA8 Para-TV Color Sets To Go On Sale Soon]", ''[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]'', 6 October 1951, p. 6.</ref> However, it was too little, too late. Only 200 sets had been shipped, and only 100 sold, when CBS discontinued its color television system on 20 October 1951, ostensibly by request of the [[National Production Authority]] for the duration of the [[Korean War]], and bought back all the CBS color sets it could to prevent lawsuits by disappointed customers.<ref>"[https://books.google.com/books?id=pCEEAAAAMBAJ&q=cbs+color Text of Note to CBS Asking Color Set Halt]", ''Billboard'', 27 October 1951, p. 5</ref><ref>"Color TV Shelved As a Defense Step", ''The New York Times'', 20 October 1951, p. 1. "Action of Defense Mobilizer in Postponing Color TV Poses Many Question for the Industry", ''The New York Times'', 22 October 1951, p. 23. Ed Reitan, [http://novia.net/~ereitan/Color_Sys_CBS.html CBS Field Sequential Color System] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100105183213/http://novia.net/~ereitan/Color_Sys_CBS.html |date=5 January 2010}}, 1997</ref> RCA chairman [[David Sarnoff]] later charged that the NPA's order had come "out of a situation artificially created by one company to solve its own perplexing problems" because CBS had been unsuccessful in its color venture.

====Compatible color====
<!-- Courtesy note per [[WP:RSECT]]: [[Compatible color]] and [[Color compatible]] redirect here -->
While the FCC was holding its JTAC meetings, development was taking place on a number of systems allowing true simultaneous color broadcasts, "dot-sequential color systems". Unlike the hybrid systems, dot-sequential televisions used a signal very similar to existing black-and-white broadcasts, with the intensity of every dot on the screen being sent in succession.

In 1938 [[Georges Valensi]] demonstrated an encoding scheme that would allow color broadcasts to be encoded so they could be picked up on existing black-and-white sets as well. In his system the output of the three camera tubes were re-combined to produce a single "[[Luma (video)|luminance]]" value that was very similar to a monochrome signal and could be broadcast on the existing VHF frequencies. The color information was encoded in a separate "[[chrominance]]" signal, consisting of two separate signals, the original blue signal minus the luminance (B'–Y'), and red-luma (R'–Y'). These signals could then be broadcast separately on a different frequency; a monochrome set would tune in only the luminance signal on the VHF band, while color televisions would tune in both the luminance and chrominance on two different frequencies, and apply the reverse transforms to retrieve the original RGB signal. The downside to this approach is that it required a major boost in bandwidth use, something the FCC was interested in avoiding.

RCA used Valensi's concept as the basis of all of its developments, believing it to be the only proper solution to the broadcast problem. However, RCA's early sets using mirrors and other projection systems all suffered from image and color quality problems, and were easily bested by CBS's hybrid system. But solutions to these problems were in the pipeline, and RCA in particular was investing massive sums (later estimated at $100&nbsp;million) to develop a usable dot-sequential tube. RCA was beaten to the punch by the [[Geer tube]], which used three B&W tubes aimed at different faces of colored pyramids to produce a color image. All-electronic systems included the [[Chromatron]], [[Penetron]] and [[beam-index tube]] that were being developed by various companies. While investigating all of these, RCA's teams quickly started focusing on the [[shadow mask]] system.

In July 1938 the [[shadow mask]] color television was patented by [[Werner Flechsig]] (1900–1981) in Germany, and was demonstrated at the [[IFA Berlin|International radio exhibition Berlin]] in 1939. Most CRT color televisions used today are based on this technology. His solution to the problem of focusing the electron guns on the tiny colored dots was one of brute-force; a metal sheet with holes punched in it allowed the beams to reach the screen only when they were properly aligned over the dots. Three separate guns were aimed at the holes from slightly different angles, and when their beams passed through the holes the angles caused them to separate again and hit the individual spots a short distance away on the back of the screen. The downside to this approach was that the mask cut off the vast majority of the beam energy, allowing it to hit the screen only 15% of the time, requiring a massive increase in beam power to produce acceptable image brightness.

The first publicly announced network demonstration of a program using a "compatible color" system was an episode of NBC's [[Kukla, Fran and Ollie]] on 10 October 1949,<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmBKjL00BSA "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" broadcast]</ref> viewable in color only at the FCC. It did not receive FCC approval.

In spite of these problems in both the broadcast and display systems, RCA pressed ahead with development and was ready for a second assault on the standards by 1950.

====Second NTSC====
The possibility of a compatible color broadcast system was so compelling that the NTSC decided to re-form, and held a second series of meetings starting in January 1950. Having only recently selected the CBS system, the FCC heavily opposed the NTSC's efforts. One of the FCC Commissioners, R. F. Jones, went so far as to assert that the engineers testifying in favor of a compatible system were "in a conspiracy against the public interest".

Unlike the FCC approach where a standard was simply selected from the existing candidates, the NTSC would produce a board that was considerably more pro-active in development.

Starting before CBS color even got on the air, the U.S. television industry, represented by the [[NTSC|National Television System Committee]], worked in 1950–1953 to develop a color system that was compatible with existing black-and-white sets and would pass FCC quality standards, with RCA developing the hardware elements. RCA first made publicly announced field tests of the dot sequential color system over its New York station [[WNBC|WNBT]] in July 1951.<ref>"RCA to Test Color TV System On Three Shows Daily Beginning Today", ''The Wall Street Journal'', 9 July 1951, p. 3.</ref> When CBS testified before Congress in March 1953 that it had no further plans for its own color system,<ref>"CBS Says Confusion Now Bars Color TV", ''The Washington Post'', 26 March 1953, p. 39.</ref> the [[National Production Authority]] dropped its ban on the manufacture of color television receivers,<ref>"N.P.A. Decides to End Restrictions on Output Of Color TV Sets", ''The Wall Street Journal'', 21 March 1953, p. 1.</ref> and the path was open for the NTSC to submit its petition for FCC approval in July 1953, which was granted on 17 December.<ref>"F.C.C. Rules Color TV Can Go on Air at Once", ''The New York Times'', 19 December 1953, p. 1.</ref> The first publicly announced network demonstration of a program using the NTSC "compatible color" system was an episode of NBC's ''[[Kukla, Fran and Ollie]]'' on 30 August 1953, although it was viewable in color only at the network's headquarters. The first network broadcast to go out over the air in NTSC color was a performance of the opera ''[[Carmen]]'' on 31 October 1953.