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August 25, 1968…NBC Debuts Color Portables In Chicago
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The day before the riotous Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago, NBC broadcast color images from the convention floor, using these new cameras. Although not a product of the RCA Broadcast Electronics Division, this portable color mini camera, as it turns out, was developed by RCA’s Astro Electronics Division. The Astro Electronics Division of…
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EXCLUSIVE…Inside The First Color Television Remote Unit
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Thanks to Chuck Pharis, and his very rare RCA “Red Book”, I have new information and images to share with you, that include not only the first color remote unit, but also, new details on the Washington, Studio 3H and Colonial Theater color trials. I will set the stage with some background on color…
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THE NBC BUILT, ND-8G CAMERAS
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UPDATED March 3, 2023: Around 2010, I found a photo of an odd looking NBC camera in use in 1947. Not knowing what else to do, I passed around a picture to a group of what I consider REAL experts. There was a lot of discussion but finally Ed Reitan, who has the great…
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THE SECRET BACKSTORY OF THE RCA TK 44
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Chapter One: by Bobby Ellerbee Over a period of months in 2009, I spoke to former RCA engineers Lou Bazin and Larry Thorpe, and to Fred Himelfarb of NBC, about a troubled period for both companies…the 1960s. Those conversations focused on topics from how the RCA TK41 cameras continued to evolve, to what…
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HISTORY FOR HIRE: A Grand Tour of Hollywood’s Top TV Prop House
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In February of 2011, Concord, California camera collector John Bolin took a tour of Hollywood’s top ”prop’ house, History For Hire. By taking his camera, he took us all on tour with him. John sent me over 100 photos of his visit, but I’ve included only about thirty here because the place is so…
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The Virtual Archives of RCA Engineer Harry Wright
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He helped design the RCA TK42, TK42XX, TK43, TK44, TK47, TK48, TK76 and more. The man in the suit is Harry Wright, one of RCA’s most respected mechanical engineers. I had the privilege of getting to know the man who designed some famous cameras for RCA, Mr. Harry Wright. To get things started with…
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CBS Field Sequential Color Cameras at Studio 57
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Below I have collected more than twenty images of the fabled CBS Field Sequential Color cameras in action. Until their debut here, these images have not been seen like this before. Below, Ed Sullivan prepares for his part in the production that is documented in this one-day sequence of photos. This page is mostly…
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Six Decades of “Tonight”
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THE TONIGHT SHOW: Six Decades of Television and Camera History A look back at more than 60 years of the cameras that brought us everyone from Allen, Paar and Carson to Leno, O’Brien, Leno and Fallon Included below: RCA TK10s, TK11s, TK41s, TK44s, TK47s, Sony HD 1000s and Sony HD 1500s and 1550s I’ll…
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WSB-TV: The Early Years
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Here are about 16 images from Georgia’s first TV station, WSB-TV in Atlanta, showing their RCA TK30s at work. The station signed on September 29, 1948 and use the TK30 till around 1954, when a few TK11s were added. In the early ’60s, WSB went to the RCA TK60s, then got the first delivered…
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WAGA-TV: The Early Years
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This was Atlanta’s second TV station. It was a CBS affiliate until the late 1980s. WAGA had TK30s and later TK11s, but never had TK60s. The station bought Norelcos in 1966 or so. Like WSB, there are virtually no photo archives left, but here’s all that I know of. The station is now a…
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WKY-TV: First In Local Live Color
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In this piece, you’ll see television history in the making that starts in 1949 and continues into the present. Now standing safely in Boston is one of the first two color cameras ever delivered to a local station: WKY-TV in Oklahoma City. The Black and White Years / The Color Years / The Rescue…
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ULTRA RARE HOWDY DOODY IMAGES! The Original Howdy…
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Be sure to click through these historic images, as I have made extensive comments on each of them, and each image holds a secret of its own. These screenshots are from a rare early kinescope believed to have been shot on April 6, 1948, and would be perhaps the very first moving image of…
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June 8, 1938…The New RCA Orthicon Camera Debuts
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This was a step up from the Iconoscope in it’s light sensitivity, but it was a remote camera and still needed daylight, or stadium lighting. The Orthicon was a hybrid of sorts, needing the added utility of Philo Farnsworth’s Image Dissector tube technology, which was finally incorporated into the Image Orthicon a few years…
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Television’s First Studio Camera…RCA’s Studio 3H Iconoscopes
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In 1935, two years after Radio City opened, NBC Radio Studio 3H was converted to RCA Television Studio 3H. Technically it would remain an RCA domain until the opening of the 1939 World’s Fair, at which time W2XBS, and this studio were put under the control of NBC Television. On July 7, 1936, Studio…
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Surprise! CBS Had Marconi Mark IV’s In 1960…
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For those of us interested in the technical side of broadcast history, this comes as a surprise. Pictured here are two shots from the set of the November 1960 Presidential Election coverage, in which John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon. This was at the CBS Grand Central location, where, for this occasion Studio 41…
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AMPEX = Alexander Matthew Poniatoff EXcellence…
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This is the history of the fascinating early years at Ampex. I hope this will give you a new perspective on their grand achievements in audio and video, as well as a new appreciation for Bing Crosby’s efforts to make recording a reality. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee Source
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1929: Radio Movies in Color
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One of the leaders of Bell Labs had an idea of how to show the black and white movies of those days in color. This idea seems to be a lot like what we finally got in electronic color TV, with the use of mirrors and color filters.
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1930: Television Gives Radio Eyes and Ears
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Discussions of 1929 TV milestones like ‘color over a wire’ and other events are described, but TV had yet to prove its broadcast potential and the closed circuit possibilities are discussed here. In their wildest dreams, they never envisioned what TV has become.
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1932: David Sarnoff on “Where Television Stands Today”
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“Where Television Stands Today” is an 8-page article written for Modern Mechanics by one of the most important names, and true pioneers, of broadcasting. It’s a very interesting read.
