A BBC Experimental Colour Transmission 1957 - Part One

A black & white telerecording of a BBC Television experimental colour transmission on 31 January 1957 which was broadcast and shown to a large audience of Members of both Houses of Parliament on six receivers installed in a room in the House of Lords.

This telerecording is MUTE for the first two minutes.

The BBC had been carrying out research and development on colour television since the resumption of the television service in 1946.

On 7 October 1954, the first 'compatible' type of colour television picture was radiated from the medium-power transmitter at Alexandra Palace. The pictures included slides and 16-mm motion pictures.

During the winter of 1955-6 a regular series of transmissions were conducted at Alexandra Palace, with the primary purpose of testing the compatibility of the pictures on a comparatively large sample of domestic receivers. Again, only slides and pictures from 16-mm motion film were used. In the meantime Studio A at Alexandra Palace had been equipped with a single three-tube colour camera of Marconi design, and the first occasions on which colour pictures including scenes from the studio were broadcast occurred on 3, 4, and 5 April 1956.

By the autumn of 1956, Studio A at Alexandra Palace had been equipped with a second experimental colour camera and, a little later, a 35-mm Cintel film scanner was installed to supplement the slide and 16-mm film scanner. With this equipment and with the enthusiastic help of programme staff, an ambitious and comprehensive series of programmes were broadcast and were observed in people's homes on specially developed experimental colour receivers and also on a large number of black-and-white domestic sets.

During the winter of 1957-8 a further series of experimental programmes were broadcast from the studio at Alexandra Palace and was seen by a rather bigger audience on colour receivers than in the previous year. At the conclusion of these tests in 1958 the studio at Alexandra Palace was dismantled and the cameras installed temporarily in a van which carried out two outside broadcasts. The slide and film-scanning equipment was moved to the Lime Grove Studios where a regular series of transmissions outside normal programme time were given, beginning in the autumn of 1958.

Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FN9MjWXyM0
Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V84-5rg3i8o
Part Four: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHhyyWYW9E

This film footage is from the Archive Collection held by the Alexandra Palace Television Society.

http://www.apts.org.uk

~ APTS ~
Preserving the televisual past for the digital future

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[colin9311]

Wonder if there is anyone who can lip read that might be prepared to create a transcript of the opening words of Sylvia Peters? That would be rather nice don't you think?

[aptsarchive]

@colin9311 A great idea and something that we have thought about! We are also looking for a lip reader to identify what people are saying in footage we have of pre-war programmes, filmed in the studios at Alexandra Palace!

[djfmitv]

Is it possible to use the "colour restoration" technique on this footage? It would be interesting to see what NTSC colour would of looked in those early experimental days...

[aptsarchive]

@djfmitv This has been discussed earlier on in the message thread. Richard Russell, who created the software to "read" the chroma dots "There are many BBC programmes that could potentially benefit from the process. However, there are conditions: first, of course, they have to have been made in colour originally. It's only applicable to PAL [the UK video standard], not to [the American] NTSC". This means that the technology "cannot be used with film recordings from the Americas or Japan".

[altfactor]

@wrtlpfmpf This was a kinescope recording (filmed off a TV screen) transferred to a videotape with time code.

[bhoyardee]

Cy Grant ?! I haven't heard of him in 50 years! Great to see old footage of him.

[Orlabobz]

@atomicnortherner

oh ok! fair enough..... I was wondering if it was sarcasm, because a the question was so silly, someone couldnt possibly think that! ha!

[atomicnortherner]

@Orlabobz just relaying a question I heard a month ago =-)

[Orlabobz]

@atomicnortherner

was that sarcasm?

[atomicnortherner]

what? tv hasnt always been in colour?