405 line colour test transmissions

[peter_scott]

Originally Posted by rambo1152

FERNSEH, that Pye 405 line set is rare and unusual. Not only is it colour, it is also left-handed!
Is there any reason you can see why the cabinet is that way round?

You could say that it is right handed when approached from the rear. More important for a prototype?

Peter

[vidjoman]

Mention has been made of Motor Racing films being shown. I think they were sourced from the Shell or BP film library's stock of race films. I do remember seeing motor race films on TV back in the 50's, but only in B & W of course.

[beamcurrent]

I thought that forum members might be interested in the cameras at the start of the process? https://www.tvcameramuseum.org/marco...olour/p-1.html

This link takes you to the Marconi three Image Orthicon camera(s) that were used for these and other tests.

Thanks to Amraduk for the Youtube link, which was useful.

[peter_scott]

Looking at your page 7 of 9 Brian I was interested to see the vertical ladder leading to control room gallery. So all that equipment was contained in the old EMI studio A control room.

Peter

[cheerfulcharlie]

Originally Posted by Andrew2

I've got that colour test on DVD, transferred from my original VHS copy of the wonderful documentary 'This is the BBC' (1959). I like the rather stilted 'control room' bits.

yes "we will have to change the blue tube tomorrow" LOL

Some enterprising ATV engineers bought up a few old Marconi cameras and set up a freelance colour recording service for export.

This is from Hippodrome a Rediffusion variety series filmed at Wembley. The b/w 405 cameras needed thick neutral density filters due to the intense light needed for the colour cameras.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCodULRjS24

[Amraduk]

Originally Posted by cheerfulcharlie

yes "we will have to change the blue tube tomorrow" LOL

Engineer, looking at clock says: "You mean today, don't you?"

Regards,

Dave.

[G8vsjDave]

This is what I love about this forum, wonderful memories, It reminds me of going to the Ideal Home exhibition at Olympia at the age of about twelve with my mate Bill and watching a pre-launch BBC2 test transmission and actually being able see the improvement in line structure on the picture.
A few years late, my school year went on a day trip to France and the following day, at school we were asked by our teacher what we noticed different about France. When it was my turn I said “they have television that works on 625 and 819 lines”. It was then I realized to my cost, not everybody was interested in the technical side of television, and from then, I became the class GEEK.

Good times though

Dave

[red16v]

Originally Posted by cheerfulcharlie

yes "we will have to change the blue tube tomorrow" LOL

Some enterprising ATV engineers bought up a few old Marconi cameras and set up a freelance colour recording service for export.

This is from Hippodrome a Rediffusion variety series filmed at Wembley. The b/w 405 cameras needed thick neutral density filters due to the intense light needed for the colour cameras.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCodULRjS24

Wasn’t this recorded by Intertel? Was Intertel set up by (ex) ATV engineers?

[emeritus]

An account of NTSC colour TV in the UK appeared in the the journal of the Society of Television Directors, "Television Lighting", Autumn 2003, "NTSC colour TV in the United Kingdom", by John Burgess.

It has this to say about Intertel.


'Steve Beamish, formerly Director of Engineering at Intertel, writes:

"Intertel (VTR Services) Ltd. was established in 1962 to service the increasing demand by American television networks and independent producers for electronic production facilities in Europe. At first, the camera and videotape facilities were monochrome , on 525/60 cycles. But by 1964, when the Innsbruck Winter Olympics coverage for ABC-TV was undertaken entirely by the Intertel group of companies, the demand was gradually changing to colour camera origination and VT recording.

In the United States, camera and videotape equipment manufacture was almost exclusively in the hands of RCA and Ampex. Whilst in Europe there were various experimental colour cameras only Marconi had actually manufactured a working camera in significant numbers - the BD848. Intertel was of course interested, but we were dismayed at the size and weight of the cameras.

Early in 1964, Philips announced its development of the Plumbicon camera tube and later in that year, the design and prototype manufacture of the PC60 camera channel that used three of the new tubes in each camera.

Although the PC60 was smaller, lighter, and required only approximately a 50% increase in scene illumnation compared to its monochrome counterparts, the reaction by European broadcastes was lukewarm, since colour standards had yet to be agreed upon. Philips themselves were not particularly helpful and were prepared only to forecast a probable delivery of PC60s in mid-summer 1966.

This situation placed Intertel in something of a cleft stick - a good 75% of our business came from the US networks and affiliates on the West Coast. If we could not meet the demand for colour programming facilities in Europe, the business would be lost to film, via Samuelsons et. al.

This left us with no option but to purchase four BD848 cameras from Marconi and to quickly build a scanner to accommodate them. Because of the sheer bulk and weight of the camera control units the front suspension of the vehicle used had to be reinforced. Although many of the programme assignments which Intertel subsequently undertook for its American clients were outside broadcasts, winter sports etc., the majority were in fact indoors,and this posed a whole raft of new problems concerning lighting, the like of which neither Intertel, nor in fact any other television company in Europe, had encountered before. To put the matter into perspective, monochrome 4.5" Image - Orthicon cameras in regular studio usage in the mid 1960's required between 1000 lux to 1500 lux to produce good quality pictures. By comparison the BD848 using 3" Image Orthicon tubes , which incidentally were 12dB inferior in signal to noise compared to their 4.5" counterparts, needed a minimum of 3500 to 4000 lux to produce useable pictures.

In an attempt to resolve this problem, Intertel built a massive lighting generator - with an overall output of 1200amps @240V., nearly 300kVA, single phase, to supply scanner, VT truck, and lighting too. Big Bertha, as the generator came to be known, on occasion provided standby power at the BBC television Centre for several months on end. After serving us well, it was finally put to use by Intertel's new owners, LWT, as an emergency power source at the new studio centre at Kings Reach on the South Bank in London - an exursion from which it did not return.


During its relatively short life, from 1965 to 1968, OB1C, as the Marconi BD848 colour unit was known, covered may programme commitments including Sunday Night at the London Palladium, Ski Jumping at Innsbruck, the Moscow State Circus in Minsk amongst many others. By 1968 however, its operational role at Intertel had diminished considerably. We had taken delivery of the first four Philips PC60s in the summer of 1966 and installed them in a new vehicle. Then when a further four PC60s camera channels were purchased in 1968, the Marconi cameras were no longer a viable proposition, and were eventually given to various training colleges, such as Ravensbourne College in Kent " '

[PaulM]

I restored one of the Intertel BD848s to operational status for IBC in Amsterdam for the then National Museum of Photography, Film and Television - must be over 20 years ago. The pictures were actually very good - knocked the EMI 204 vidicon colour camera into a cocked-hat. That had way too much red sensitivity and green/blue 'saw' red leading to rubbish colour. The shading was also dire. The BD848 gave lovely colour and was remarkably stable in terms of registration. The camera lasted the whole show without a single fault. However, there was an inherent problem in that the camera had been dropped and I could never make the registration on the left hand side spot-on as the optics bed was damaged. We also had a bit of hum as the HT power pack wasn't the right one and a bit under-powered. The then head of Sony cameras came round to the stand and I can't describe how excited he was to see a working 'coffin camera'. Pics attached. The Dalek is red (and correct) on the left hand BD848 camera's monitor, the EMI 204's picture is orange and could not be made a proper red because of the red 'leakage' to green and blue. An interesting exercise on many fronts!

Best regards,
Paul M

[beamcurrent]

The pictures were actually very good - knocked the EMI 204 vidicon colour camera into a cocked-hat.

Whilst Paul is correct about the picture differences of the two cameras, I think he is being just a little unfair to the EMI.

The Marconi BD848 or B3200 (the numbering scheme changed around then) was produced in 1962 and aimed at the very top end of the market offering the very best performance albeit at a high cost.

The EMI 204 was produced 4 years earlier (1958) and aimed at the more cost conscious industrial/medical market. At that time 4 years was a long time in the rapid development of television cameras. It was a simpler camera using the much cheaper vidicon tubes and it is hardly surprising the Marconi produced better pictures. https://www.tvcameramuseum.org/emi/204/204p1.html

Marconi produced a colour camera using vidicons in 1961 the V3310 aimed at the industrial/medical market and it would have been fairer to compare the EMI to the V3310 more like for like. https://www.tvcameramuseum.org/marco...10/v3310-1.htm However as far as I know no complete V3310 exists?? I have the remains of one in the collection but is is so incomplete it will, short of miracles, never work again.

[PaulM]

Brian, you are pedantically correct about it being a B3200 but it's not quite as simple as that. It was a bit of a hybrid. The camera and CCU were the later model (albeit with the earlier V/F in the newer case - don't ask, it was a pig). The power supply was one for the BD848, but I substituted a generic Marconi 250V unit belonging to me as the original wasn't too good. The B3200 was the development of the BDB48 (itself a bit of a saga) and 'borrowed' technology from the MkIV camera, but with electronic gamma correction added as the IOs were operated 'below the knee'. It was one of the most difficult restoration tasks I've ever taken on, but I still have C Format recordings of its output to prove that it worked.

I have a Marconi V3310 CCU and PSU in good condition, and I know where there's a head, but I've never seen one work. It would probably be no better than the EMI 204, but I would wager that the colour splitting system would be superior to the 204 which was dire. I have a complete EMI 204 myself now, but I won't be bothering to power it up! The 204 was not good and vidicons were simply not the way forward for quality colour TV of any kind - we proved that again at IBC that year. EMI clung to them until they had to give up, but in the early 1960s they were still pitching vidicons for broadcast work as well as ISM applications (they made them, of course), but as we all know, the Plumbicon was just around the corner. From your own site, here's the 204 being slanted for broadcast work: https://www.tvcameramuseum.org/emi/204/204p3.html

The best pictures from the Intertel cameras are actually of the Seekers footage at the London Palladium which had been posted in excellent quality, but was taken down. It's now been posted again, but the quality is nowhere near as good as the original offering and rather soft.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfJ-ul4TfBc

Best regards,

Paul M
www.becg.org.uk
www.projectvivat.co.uk
www.golden-agetv.co.uk

[red16v]

Originally Posted by red16v

Wasn’t this recorded by Intertel? Was Intertel set up by (ex) ATV engineers?

An ex-colleague of mine confirms that this was indeed recorded by Intertel using their ex-Smith Kline 3" IO Marconi cameras. He confirms too that the EMI203's needed to be stopped right down and the addition of double density neutral filters to combat all the light!

[emeritus]

The instruction manual of my first camcorder, a VHS-C JVC GR-7, recommended users to fit a x4 ND filter in bright sunlight to prevent loss of sharpness due to the effect of diffraction that would otherwise happen if the lens were physically stopped down. I don't suppose this would have been a problem with the larger imagers and longer focal length lenses of 1960's cameras.