Panorama 1956 - Behind the scenes view of BBC Television

[spacemagick]

A truly fantastic snapshot of backroom television tech history. I wonder whatever happened to "zoom lenses"?

[aptsarchive]

@spacemagick Glad you enjoyed the upload.

[BobWXXI]

That RCA TK-41 they were experimenting with in 1956 in Britain is the same one that NBC used in bringing the first color TV broadcasts to the United States three years earlier. They installed them first at 30 Rockefeller Plaza/WNBT in New York, the NBC television center and KNBC in Burbank (Los Angeles) California, WRC-TV in Washington and WMAQ-TV in Chicago. A few other non-NBC stations (WCCO-TV in the Twin Cities, WBAP-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth and WBEN-TV in Buffalo) were early adopters.

[FrederickDelarge]

mossie60 - quite agree with you re. the supreme professionalism of Mr Dimbleby. What a pity he then had to go and queer his pitch with those two sons of his, the second rather more than the first.

[gentil79]

it's incredible that it took another 10 Years for BBC to start a regular colour service.

[aptsarchive]

@gentil79 The BBC colour television experiments tried different technologies to produce a colour picture, firstly the US NTSC system (as featured here) and then later the German PAL system, which is the one that was finally adopted.

[gentil79]

@aptsarchive yes, i know that. I wasn't criticising BBC at all. the fact is that teh American NTSC (shown with RCA TK31 cameras) had a few technical issues that's the reason why they never adopted it. it was too early for Europe to adopt the colour TV. because of the delay caused by WWII, Television took longer to be re-introduced i europe while in USA, they started theyir broadcasts as from 1939.

[albertusj]

A very engaging presenter.

[chumpster69]

Absolutely wonderful. Thanks so much for taking the time to upload this.

[maxington26]

thank you so much for posting this.

[Ampex196]

Many thanks for posting!

Nice pics of the Emitron (and CPS Emitron). The 'zoom' appears to mounted on a Marconi Mk3.

[mossie60]

A truly great piece of BBC Television history,presented by the greatest broadcaster of the last century Richard Dimbleby.

[aptsarchive]

Glad you enjoyed the posting. There are many more television archive pieces currently being prepared to upload to the APTS YouTube Channel in the very near future.

[tubeie07]

How wonderful, a delight to see. Yes, I have seen many time the cameraman rotate his turret when he thought he was switched away ! Always appreciate your posting APTS...