Editing Shadow mask (section)

===Market introduction===
During development, RCA was not sure that they could make the shadow mask system work. Although simple in concept, it was difficult to build in practice, especially at a reasonable price point. The company optioned several other technologies, including the [[Geer tube]], in case the system didn't work out. When the first tubes were produced in 1950, these other lines were dropped.{{Citation needed|date=February 2011}}

Wartime advances in electronics had opened up large swaths of high frequency transmission to practical use, and in 1948 the U.S. [[Federal Communications Commission]] (FCC) started a series of meetings on the use of what would become the [[UHF]] channels. At the time there were very few television sets in use in the United States, so the stakeholder groups quickly settled on the idea of using UHF for a new, incompatible, color format. These meetings eventually selected a competing semi-mechanical [[field-sequential color system]] being promoted by CBS. However, in the midst of the meetings, RCA announced their efforts on compatible color, but too late to influence the proceedings. CBS color was introduced in 1950.<ref name=seq/><ref name=g82>Gilmore, p. 82.</ref>

However, the promise of the RCA system was so great that the [[National Television System Committee]] (NTSC) took up its cause. Between 1950 and 1953 they carried out a huge study on human color perception, and used that information to improve RCA's basic concept.<ref>[http://broadcastengineering.com/infrastructure/broadcasting_colorimetry_standards/ "Colorimetry standards"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524204414/http://broadcastengineering.com/infrastructure/broadcasting_colorimetry_standards/ |date=24 May 2011 }}, ''Broadcast Engineering''.</ref> RCA had, by this time, produced experimental shadow mask sets that were an enormous leap in quality over any competitors. The system was dim, complex, large, power hungry and expensive for all these reasons, but provided a usable color image, and most importantly, was compatible with existing B&W signals. This had not been an issue in 1948 when the first FCC meetings were held, but by 1953 the number of B&W sets had exploded; there was no longer any way they could simply be abandoned.{{Citation needed|date=February 2011}}

When the NTSC proposed that their new standard be ratified by the FCC, CBS dropped its interest in its own system.<ref name=seq/> Everyone in the industry wanting to produce a set then licensed RCA's patents, and by the mid-1950s there were a number of sets commercially available. However, color sets were much more expensive than B&W sets of the same size, and required constant adjustment by field staff. By the early 1960s they still represented a small percentage of the television market in North America. The numbers exploded in the early 1960s, with 5,000 sets being produced a week in 1963.<ref name=g80>Gilmore, p. 80.</ref>