Word: rca
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Color with Dots. RCA's system, called "dot interlacing," is entirely electronic, needs no spinning disc. In the transmitting camera are three tubes. In front of them is a system of "dichroic mirrors" (see below) which allow each tube to "see" in one color only. All three tubes scan the scene continuously, but an electronic switching device, turning their signals on & off 11.4 million times a second, allows each tube to transmit over the telecasting station only one-third of the time. In this way the "video signals" from all three tubes are strung together like trains made...
Another fact is that RCA's system still does not work well. It has rarely been shown to the public, and does not impress laymen. Different sets show the same scene in different colors. The colors are not at all faithful; they often change suddenly and erratically. Dr. Elmer W. Engstrom, research chief of RCA, admits that the system is still in the laboratory stage. But RCA-men add that the CBS color system has reached its limit: it has no "room for growth...
...RCA wants immediate public field trials to test the various systems. CBS declares that it is "perfectly willing to compete with any color TV system any place, any time." But it insists that "a system [its own] can be picked now on the basis of its known performance." Extensive trials, argues CBS, are unnecessary and would be costly and confusing...
Degradation. Both RCA and CBS are highly skilled at pointing out faults in the other company's system. First, says RCA, the CBS pictures are "degraded." This means that CBS, to increase the number of pictures per second and thereby avoid flicker, has had to reduce the number of scanned lines in each picture from 525 to 405. Thus, the "definition" is reduced and the grain of the picture is made coarser, like a newspaper cut compared to an illustration in a slick-paper magazine...
...present-day black & white system. There have been many attempts to build such a tube, but none has succeeded so far. Many experts believe that color television should be postponed until such a tube, or something equally good, has been developed. To adopt either the CBS or the RCA system in the meantime, they argue, would be to freeze color television at a low level...