How Analog Color TV Works: The Beginnings

In this video we explore how we added color to everyone's favorite passive entertainment medium. Modern color broadcasting began in 1954 after years of experimentation, and this video will teach you the early history.

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[garyrector]

I'm old enough to be your grandfather, yet I learn something interesting from your videos every time I watch one. Thank you for the research and sheer effort you've put into "Technology Connections." Your videos are very well done and fill a void of knowledge on YouTube.

[TomTomEntertainment]

RGB and 144Hz? Man those guys were hardcore gamers.

[JMacQ]

I never was able to understand before how color TVs were able to light up their correct red, green or blue "pixels", even after reading a lot on Wikipedia and various vintage television sites. Your explanation of the shadow mask, the angled effect and the fact that color CRTs have no actual pixels was easy to comprehend and it makes total sense to me now. You've earned a new subscriber and I'll look forward to new videos from you, and to going back and watching all of your old ones.

[HuggieBear]

Yeah when I was a teen I had a B&W tv and I hooked up a vcr to it. I would play the my recording on my B&W set. I was young and did not know that I was not recording what showed on the TV but the signal that came through the cable. I was shocked when one day I took one of my recordings and played it on a color set and the picture was in color and not the B&W I thought I had recorded.

[infinitecanadian]

My grandpa worked in an appliance store. A perk of this is that he got a color television set at home to work on. His was the only color set on the block, and people came over just to see it.

[marktubeie]

Possibly the best 'tech explained' videos on YouTube good sir. _oh and I always love your dry sense of humor!_

[smallmoneysalvia]

Man, I love your videos. It’s awesome to see someone take the engineer guy’s formula and apply it to electronics. I’m increasing my patreon contribution. You definitely deserve it.

[peterquint]

Baird's solution to everything: get a massive disk spinning at dangerous speeds.

Why use a normal umbrella when you can have a buzzsaw blade attached to a power drill over your head?

[vimb]

When u made yellow from red and green, I could actually see green in some parts of my peripheral vision, SO AWESOME!!!!

[kaylathehedgehog]

I discovered your channel, and this video answered a question that I've had ever since I was a child. Growing up watching a CRT TV, I always wondered what those red, green, and blue squares were on the screen. I had forgotten all about it, until I found this video. Love your content!

[denisallard]

I am in complete awe! I had to subscribe. Thank you so much for these extremely informative and rich videos! You sir have got to be the most well documented person out there. How are you able to deliver so much content without skipping a beat is beyond me. Enough said, let's watch !

[willgilligan]

I really enjoy your videos. You have a great voice for teaching/instruction..

[lukerinderknecht]

I don't really understand or care about the topic, but it's nice to see someone so passionate and knowledgeable about something. You obviously put a lot of work into this, good work!

[pcno]

9:04 The guns are actually very close together in the neck of the tube, so the angles of the beams would be almost identical if they followed straight lines. But since the trajectory of the beams is controlled by a magnetic field which tends to curve the beams in a way that is affected by even the small distance between the guns; the beams end up curved in 3 directions, making the shadow mask much more effective in directing each beam to the appropriate phosphor spot.

[intergalacticchanel]

5:29 Something tells me this Baird guy was popular at nightclubs.

[hgbugalou]

I had a big 20" trinitron monitor back in the early 2000s and it was awesome for the day. I still remember those two shadow line wires some people would complain about. Looking forward to the video on this.

[longboardfella]

Looks like I'm years late to this channel. What a gem. I've been sharing many of them with my old dude friends

[Thevaporwaveraver]

i dont think i have ever made a comment like this before on youtube, but that bit with you speaking through the CRT was a realy nice touch

[MalachiTheBowlingGod]

Surprisingly accurate and in-depth exploration of analog color television in the USA.

[electronash]

#spoilers

"Hiding the colour in plain sight" meaning that the colour in a Composite signal is directly modulated onto the original "brightness" signal, but using a higher carrier frequency. ;)

A black and white TV would usually do a pretty good job of filtering out that added carrier, due to low-pass filtering of the luma signal.

Superb vid btw, as always. :)