Photos from BBC colour experiments

[Courtney Louise]

And here are a selection of others. All credit to Michael who owns the Negatives and my thanks for the privilege of being able to scan such treasures!!

[Courtney Louise]

and a selection of the B&W images again thanks to Michael

[brianc]

What fantastic photos; it's really important to save - and circulate - these sorts of images. Thank you Michael.

Looking at the CCUs, the smaller camera must be by Marconi as the two racks positions are very much Marconi. Did they have 2 "coffins" in H or only one - I remember seeing only one but there were 2 at AP? I have put the word around a few of my old cronies to see if they know about the smaller camera - does anyone know of the whereabouts of John Tanner (of Link and BATC fame) as he worked as an engineer in H and could help us?

[ppppenguin]

Thanks to Jarl Ayari we now have superb high resolution scans of these images. The main repository will be the APTS archive who will hold the full resolution images. I'm sure they will make them available as required but 74MB uncompressed TIFFs are a bit unwieldy for most of us. Lower resolution images should be more generally available. Brian Summers is already hosting some on his website.

Thanks again to Michael Barrett for making these wonderful pictures available to us.

[PaulM]

Brian,

Re:

. . . it might be a Philips LDK2 prototype

I actually suggested precursor which is a little different to *prototype*. It's almost certainly some sort of vidicon device, possibly a 2 or a 3 tube, but what it is precisely is a good question. The contemporary EMI vidicon 3 tube was, of course, the 204, which was much larger and green in colour. This camera has a Philips look about it, but who knows. Certainly an excellent find and a *nice* puzzle.

There were many 'Lime Grove colour tests'. I have an internal MWTCo. / EEV review booklet dated 9th July 1963 entitled: 'Colour Demonstration to European Broadcasting Union', giving the venue as the Lime Grove studios. This details some 625 NTSC tests using four Marconi cameras:

a) A Standard three-tube 3" IO RGB camera (the BD848, I assume). Yes, the BBC had two of these - hence the two CCU stations. That's the same model as the one I got going for the Science Museum (NMPFT, as was, now NMM) exhibit at IBC. One day I'll post the recordings I took from that beast. It was surprisingly good.

b) Experimental three-tube 4.5" IO RGB camera (I had heard about this beast from a Marconi Dev Eng colleague). It would probably have run on the same PSU/CCU as the 3" version. I'd love to see a photo of that one!

c) A four-tube camera using a 4.5 in IO and 3 vidicons - I guess similar to what RCA was playing with at the time.

d) A three-tube 3" IO camera but YRB, not RGB, a modified BD848, I guess.

Cheers,

Paul M

[HamishBoxer]

The two monitors on the bottom of the picture are Marconi and same as I have here.

David

PS time I gave it a run after 5 years or more stood!

[beamcurrent]

The full set of these interesting photographs can be viewed here:-

http://www.tvcameramuseum.org/michae...page/index.htm

There are 50 of them many not seen before.

I am still looking for information on the smaller of the two colour cameras in the colour studio pictures.

Regards Brian

[Peter.N.]

In the late '50s early '60s the BBC transmitted various colour test pictures on 405, the one that sticks in my mind was a very close up of a flower complete with crawling dot pattern. I haven't seen it since then and couldn't find it in any of the links, is there a picture of it still around?

Peter

[channel405]

Why does pic page 3/BBC039 have a HTV logo on the side of the camera?

[ppppenguin]

Although all the pics were believed to come from BBC related sources you are 100% correct. The whole sequence (35 to 52) with what looks like some of the cast from Fiddler on the Roof is HTV related. The cameras are EMI 2001 so post 1967. This would tally with the London production which opened in 1967.

[brianc]

I hadn't noticed it before, but the cameraman on the smaller camera in BBCcolour1 and BBCcolour2 looks very much like a young John Tanner whom I mentioned in an earlier post so he would know about the camera.

[jayceebee]

Totally not my field but found this quite by chance. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1964-10.pdf

Page 14 of the document (19 of the pdf) mentions a prototype 3 tube camera, does this help?

[beamcurrent]

Thanks for the posting about the BBC document, not one I had seen before. The camera mentioned on page 14 is not the one in the photograph, it's this one http://www.tvcameramuseum.org/philip...pc60proto1.htm a prototype for the PC60.

More likely is the mention of a Peto-Scott monochrome camera, it could well be that one, but again I have no information on it. One thing that worried me about the smaller of the two cameras in the picture, was that it was small!

IT could have ended up looking like this one? http://www.tvcameramuseum.org/philip...0/el8020p1.htm

It could well be a monochrome Plumbicon camera for comparison purposes as the BBC was worried about to poor red performance of the (then) Plumbicon tubes.

Thanks

Brian

[PaulM]

Brian, re:

It could well be a monochrome Plumbicon camera

I think that the two camera cables rather confirm that its colour. I still think that it's an experimental budget/industrial Philips model.

Perhaps there's a Philips expert out there that sees this forum?

Cheers,

Paul M

[beamcurrent]

Hi Paul,

I've found it! It is a Philips 3 x Plumbicon experimental camera and there is a picture and a short description on the "SMPTE volume 73 page 475". The tubes are in a horizontal row across the width of the camera base.

The picture I have from the SMPTE reference is a copy of a copy, if anyone can scan an original for me that would be appreciated. There is also a reference to the Philips technical review 25 1963/64 no. 6/7 which may have an illustration.

Regards

Brian