The History of Color Television

The History of Color Television The earliest mention of color television was in a 1904 German patent for  a color television system. In 1925, Russian inventor Vladimir K.  Zworykin  also filed a patent disclosure for an all-electronic color television system. While both of these designs were not successful, they were the first documented proposals for color television. Sometime between 1946 and 1950, the research staff of RCA Laboratories invented  the worlds first electronic,  color television system.  A successful color television system based on a system designed by RCA began commercial broadcasting on December 17, 1953. RCA vs. CBS But before RCA, CBS researchers led by Peter Goldmark invented a mechanical color television system based on the 1928 designs of  John Logie Baird. The FCC authorized CBSs color television technology as the national standard in October of 1950.  However, the system at the time was bulky, picture quality was terrible, and the technology was not compatible with earlier black-and-white sets. CBS  began  color broadcasting on five east coast stations in June of 1951. However, RCA responded by suing to stop the public broadcasting of CBS-based systems. Making matters worse was that there were already 10.5 million black-and-white televisions (half RCA sets) that had been sold to the public and very few color sets. Color television production was also halted during the Korean War. With the many challenges, the CBS system failed. Those factors provided RCA with the time to design a better color television, which they based on Alfred Schroeders 1947 patent application for a technology called shadow mask CRT. Their system passed FCC approval in late 1953 and sales of RCA color televisions began in 1954. A Brief Timeline of Color Television Early color telecasts could be preserved only on the black-and-white  kinescope  process introduced in 1947.In 1956, NBC began using color film to time-delay and preserve some of its live color telecasts.  A company named Ampex  made a color videotape recorder in 1958 and  NBC used it to tape  An Evening With Fred Astaire,  the oldest surviving network color videotape.In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower visited the NBC station in Washington, D.C. and gave a speech discussing the new technologys merits. His speech was recorded in color, and a copy of this videotape was given to the Library of Congress.NBC  made the first coast-to-coast color broadcast when it telecast the  Tournament of Roses Parade  on January 1, 1954.The  premiere of Walt Disneys Wonderful World of Color in  September  1961 created a turning point that persuaded consumers to go out and purchase color televisions.  Television broadcasting  stations and networks in most parts of the w orld upgraded from black-and-white TVs to color transmission in the 1960s and 1970s. By 1979, even the last of these had converted to color, and by the early 1980s, black-and-white sets were mostly small portable sets  or those used as video monitor screens in lower-cost consumer equipment. By the late 1980s, even these areas switched to color sets.