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You Mean They Used Color Cameras For B/W Broadcasts?

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Eyes Of A Generation.com

You Mean They Used Color Cameras For B/W Broadcasts?

Yes, they did and WICU was not alone…so did WSB in Atlanta, and many other local stations in the mid ’60s.

This photo is one I recently found, and it reminded me of a the disbelief many young people had on an article I did here, a year or so back on the conundrum that the ’65 network color conversions had caused at the local level.

From ’65 till about ’67, RCA’s booth at the NAB had the TK60 B/W camera next to their TK42 color camera, and lot of local stations were struggling to decide how to handle local color.

Many had just plopped down a hefty sum for a new color transmitter and support equipment, but what was next? How long could they hedge their bets on local B/W?

To add to the problem, the TK42 was not as good a camera as the TK41, and most knew it, but RCA didn’t have a fix yet. They had discontinued the TK41 in 1964, and the TK44 didn’t come till ’68. On top of that, Norelco’s PC60 came to the market in ’65, and CBS was all over that, and ordered them by the dozens, crowding out local orders.

Back then, sometime the best idea was to buy a color camera and use it without the colorburst on two + camera shows. I know it is hard to believe, but believe your eyes…it happened. -Bobby Ellerbee

Source

15 responses to “You Mean They Used Color Cameras For B/W Broadcasts?”

  1. Jan Kokochak

    We had RCa color studio cameras in 1967 at WFMJ TV 21 in youngstow, Ohio. The camera operators were all first class engineers so they could (theoretically) repair them if they went down during a live broadcast.

  2. Stan Sollars

    I bet the TK60 put out a sharper monochrome picture than the 42. True? Thanks.

  3. Curtis Bohl

    According to a St. Louis Media History Page user, KMOX donated six Marconi Mark VII color cameras to KOMU (being a CBS O&O, surely they wouldn’t have RCA color cameras 😉 )

  4. Curtis Bohl

    Supposedly KOMU-TV in Columbia was one of the last local NBC affiliates to get local color cameras in the early 70s which were donated by KMOX-TV in St. Louis. This would have been around the time they moved from the old Cole Street studios built as KWK-TV to the current One Memorial Drive studios. Guessing KOMU was still using their original 1953 GE cameras.

  5. Steve Dichter

    Bobby as you pointed out on your website: “The TK41 was followed by the A, B and C models, and were manufactured until 1964, however in 1966, 24 more were made on special order when ABC bought 12 cameras for their remote trucks and 12 more were sold to stations. The TK41C that you have was from this last batch made and was bought by KTLA in 1966”. And I was working at KTLA when this TK-41 arrived and was uncrated. This being KTLA’s 4th TK-41.

  6. James Snyder

    It’s also worth noting that the color conversion was very expensive. Most B+W equipment (like DAs) wouldn’t pass the 3.58 MHz color subcarrier either accurately or at all. Since NTSC color was a composite color difference system (YIQ), one could use just the luminance signal (Y) for B+W broadcasts and only use the chroma signals (I & Q) when you could pass the signals and keep them in phase. Unlike B+W, color was very sensitive to phase errors, which made maintaining the analog equipment with the proper phasing very challenging. A whole new method of engineering and maintenance had to be created in addition to training camera engineers to shade the cameras to match.

  7. Jim Tolson

    At WGN, our cameras’ HD outputs terminated at a patch panel for quite a while, waiting for the HD buildout of the rest of the plant. Our CW primetime and many ball games bypassed everything and came up on a 1-by switcher. Crunchy transitions 🙂

  8. Dennis Degan

    NBC-NY’s Studio 6A in 30 Rock was HD for about 4 years before Conan O’Brien’s ‘Late Night’ actually aired in HD. 6A was the first studio in the building equipped to produce HD programming:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/557372146/

  9. Michael Bruchas

    Then KVOO TV in Tulsa had 1 color camera and 2 GE b&w camera for news. B&W was for the old faxed NOAA weather maps and AP/UPI pix. Color for anchors and weather. A lot of zooming, panning and trucking with the color camera.When I went to college in Tulsa in 1969, they had converted to 2 then 3 GE color cameras. University of Tulsa was given the 2 GE’s and a lot of scoops for lighting. I think that we inherited an old GE switcher, too.
    Scripps Howard bought the station from local ownership but was originally very cheap on upgrading gear. Now they have the best in Tulsa!

  10. Mark West

    NBC Burbank shot shows like “The Dinah Shore Chevy Show” in color. In the 1980’s I edited a show “Here’s Television Entertainment” that aired clips from that show in color for the first time. Another notable show shot in color but broadcast in monochrome was the “Fred Astaire Special.”

  11. Jim Tolson

    At WICD, our single color camera made planning Important. The Inman Hotel’s support columns blocked certain moves. Usually a “Sports is brought to you by” break would cover them, if you were quick 🙂

  12. James M Patterson

    Perhaps some stations would do a one-camera show in color, such as a simple news program with just a guy at a desk. Also, in the early days, some stations had separate production rate cards for color and B/W taping.

  13. Charlie King

    We had our color cameras in Amarillo for about a month before we started transmitting in color. We broadcast in B/W then would practice in color, this was to get the engineers, more than anything, the chance to learn how to color match. After moving to San Diego, we did a remote taping for the BBC’s show Tomorrow’s World. Since the BBC was not color yet, we did that in B/W.

  14. Peter Mark Bockman

    You read the most interesting stuff here

  15. Richard Melton

    Same thing happened in the transition to HD. Several stations opted to purchase HD cameras as one of the first items needed to covert the facility for local HD production. The SD output was used until all of the equipment was HD ready. For one station I know, that was about two years.

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