[SML] TV trivia question

[Mt. Angel Performing Arts Center]

The transition from monochrome to color meant that instead of using one 
pickup tube for gray scale you now had 3 sensors (and in 1953 I think 
only image orthicons were available), one each for red, green and blue.

To create a monochrome baseband signal to mimic the existing luminance 
profile of a single image sensor from the three primaries  (thereby 
maintaining visual compatibility with the installed base of black and 
white TVs) they were combined in the ratio 71.5% Green, 21.2% Red and 
7.2% Blue - so most of the 'brightness' of a color signal came from the 
green channel.

And set lighting was in the hundreds of foot candles for the early tubes 
so you'd pick the brightest color for most of the field to keep studio 
power and A/C cost reasonable.

Also, the brighter/whiter the video signal the less transmitter power 
was consumed - remember sync tip = 100% transmit power, white = 0% 
transmit power.

Thirdly, green gives an excellent contrast to flesh tones, and if there 
are color phase shifts in the transmission chain (not uncommon with 
those early day color signals) the home viewer interpolates whatever 
flesh is displayed as 'flesh' and the green masks perceived color 
shifts. Everybody looks equally sickly with a green background.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Carla

"When the politicians claim TV turns their proceedings into a circus it 
should be made plain that the circus was already there, and that TV has 
merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well-trained." 
Edward R. Murrow

On 6/17/2018 4:18 AM, Richard Niederberg via Stagecraft wrote:
> Back then, the 'whitest' TV white was specified as '137E'. due to the 
> luminance and chrominance limits of the first color television cameras' 
> pickup tubes, such as Orthicoms, Endicoms, Vidocoms, et cetera, all used 
> before the advent of today's charge-coupled devices (CCDs),
> /s/ Richard
> 
> On Sat, Jun 16, 2018 at 11:32 PM, John Taylor via Stagecraft 
> <stagecraft at theatrical.net <mailto:stagecraft at theatrical.net>> wrote:
> 
>     I may be right or may not, the back of the brain says it looked
>     better but also still worked well for the B&W sets.
> 
> 
>     On 6/17/2018 12:34 AM, Me via Stagecraft wrote:
>>
>>     Watching some old tv shows from the 1960s. Shortly after they went
>>     to color lots of the sets became gas chamber green. Did some
>>     salesman unload a couple of tons paint cheap or was there another
>>     reason?
>>
>>
> 
> 
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> -- 
> /s/ Richard
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