NBC’s Color Kinescopes…The Lenticular Color Film Process

NBC’s Color Kinescopes…The Lenticular Color Film Process

First, this Ernie Kovacs color clip is most likely NOT a lenticular color kinescope, but…it could be, and we will discuss that.

This is a segment from the Ernie Kovacs “Saturday Color Carnival” show dated January 19th, 1957. It was also used in the NBC 50th Anniversay Special in 1976. The “Saturday Color Carnival” shows were all done from NBC’s Colonial Theater in New York.

This Kovacs color film has been widely discussed and displayed as a lenticular kine, but it is a 16mm recording on standard color film of the time. The RCA/Eastman lenticular process used 35mm film, and no lenticular color transfers of any kind are known to exist.

The only way this could be an actual capture of the lenticular system is, if it was a recording of a live playback of the lenticular show for the west coast, or an internal playback sometime afterward.

I have read many discussions on this clip, and several describe this as an NBC color kinescope film made for limited distribution to sponsors with a modified kine, which I think may be right.

It would be a simple process to use a regular kinescope camera (with their special shutter speed needed to record live television), loaded with color film to shoot a 5″ color monitor, instead of the usual B/W monitor. Burbank probably had a modified kine machine like this they used for sponsor requests and also lenticular comparison tests.

That simple process would seem to be an elegant solution to time shifting…that is delaying an east coast live show for rebroadcast in the west, BUT! The problem was that color film could not be processed in the 3 hour window the network had to turn it around, however…black and white film could be. That is where the lenticular process comes in.

On page 40 and at the top of page 41 is a description of how the process worked from the book “Jump Cut” by video editing pioneer Art Schneider.

From the November 17, 1956 issue of “Broadcasting” here is the article on the press demonstration at NBC Burbank.

In the comment section, I have included a couple of images that show close up views of what the lenticular film surface would have looked like.

Unless the NBC engineer who recorded this pops up and let’s us in on how and when this clip was captured, we will never know if this is an off air color film capture of the live feed from New York, or a capture of the west coast lenticular playback. Either way though, this does approximate what a color film image might have looked like on the very few color screens available across the western United States in those days before color videotape, which debuted in October of 1958.

As mentioned, no lenticular color transfers of those early programs are known to exist and any example of the results of the process are presumed to be lost forever. It is possible that one or more of the original 3 strip (R,B,G) masters survived, but so far, none have surfaced.

Eastman’s “Embossed Kine Recording Film, reversal panchromatic black and white” was the special film stock used and it was discontinued in 1958. NBC’s special lenticular kine machines are long gone. -Bobby Ellerbee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEBg6ansaJA

An excerpt of Ernie Kovacs “Silent Show” from 1957. This is a very rare 50s colour kinescope film recording of a colour program using the lenticular process….

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