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Why Standards?
Three years of Indecision for Color...That Didn't Work
Original Text by Kyle Moore; foreword by Doug Larson

• Why talk about color?
• Not compatible
• Battle lines are drawn
• The battle heats up
• Bottom Line

Forward: Hyperbole. "Websters New World Dictionary" defines it as "exaggeration for effect and not meant to be taken literally." My dad mastered it. I can, for example, remember my father relating tales of the hardships he suffered as a child. Believe it or not, he walked uphill in five feet of snow to and from school every day. Sound familiar?

He obviously was fibbing (he grew up in South Texas, after all), but his message was loud and clear: If you think youve got it hard, then take a walk in my shoes. This message is more relevant to us today than ever before. We have just celebrated our 50th anniversary as an industry and are now honoring the 30th anniversary of the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers. Establishing standards for our highly technical hybrid fiber/coax (HFC)-supported communications network remains one of our biggest goals, and it has not always been easy.

In March, CableLabs stamped its seal of approval on the first two Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS)-compliant cable modems. Despite the fact that the process had taken less than three yearsa record for any industryand will rapidly accelerate operator deployment and consumer acceptance of cable modems, many still question the need for the process and the standards.

If youre one of those skeptics, I invite you to take a walk down memory lane in the shoes of those who toiled to establish color TV standards. The article to follow, originally published in "CATJ" by Kyle Moore (then president of CATA) and edited for publication in "CT," provides a blow-by-blow account of how politicians and TV set manufacturers almost set television back on its heels. At times, this account might seem hard to believe, but it is no exaggeration. It brings to mind something else my dad was wont to say, "Nothing worth having is easy." That said, lets slip back into the late 40s and early 50s.

Why talk about color?

What possible lessons can be learned from the development of a national color TV policy, as relates to our present world of (cable TV) communications?

Simply put, the manner in which the Federal Communications Commission handled the establishment of a national color TV policy illustrates, perhaps even better than the subsequent handling of the UHF fiasco, how many grave errors a federal agency can make and still stay in business. Those who believe "right will prevail" or that "the issue(s) will be settled on the merits" probably will have their bubble burst after reading this chronology. In this report, you can almost feel the electricity that existed between the two giants CBS and RCA, and one wonders how RCA representatives managed to keep their cool when Commission decision after decision went against them. In spite of our concern about their power positions today, we have to admire the RCA staffs virtually complete control over their tempers in the crazy years of 1949-1951.

An editorial appearing in a popular trade magazine in 1950 asked the question, "Why the Mad Rush to Color?" It was a good question. At the time, the FCC allocations freeze was well entrenched. There were 107 operating TV stations in the United States, in 63 cities. The vast majority of the country had yet to see any television, and the FCC was holding up the approval of new channels for these areas, then unserved, while it wrestled with the color standards problem.

In all probability, FCC Chairman Wayne Coy never expected the color mess to become such a burden on himself and his staff. In complete fairness to the chairman, the Commission was under the blustery and frequent attacks of Colorado Sen. Edward Johnson, who constantly badgered the Commission to approve color (new channels and so on)yesterday.

Not compatible

To understand fully the complexity of the color issues to follow, you must understand that in 1949, when color studies began, there were two proponents of systems, CBS and RCA. The RCA system was best described as experimental and, in 1949, incapable of producing satisfactory color. The CBS system had been around for nearly 10 years, but it had one considerable flaw: It could not transmit color programs so that existing black and white receivers could receive them in black and white.

On a present-day standard of 1 to 10 (with 10 being todays color standard and 1 being black and white), RCA produced a color quality with a scale rating of 2, and CBS produced color with a scale rating of 4, which made the CBS pictures twice as good as RCAs pictures for that time, but not half as good as todays average home color pictures.

As noted previously, during this period the allocations freeze was on. No new applications for stations were being considered, and as explained in the freeze-era report, the original premise of the freeze (how to straighten out the allocations table mess) was expanded in 1949 to include straightening out the color mess.

The two problems, sufficient channels and approving a national set of color technical standards, interwove because the original CBS "sequential field" color system would not fit into the then (and now) standard 6 MHz-wide channel assignment.

In fact, to produce acceptable (scale rating of 6) color, the CBS system required a 12 MHz-wide channel. Had that particular color format prevailed, today we would have half as many channels. Or to put it into 1949 vernacular, the 12 VHF channels then operating would have shrunk to 6 VHF channels, each twice as wide as present channels. Because fewer than 600 VHF channels (each 6 MHz wide) could be accommodated nationwide, it followed that fewer than 300 channels (each 12 MHz wide) could be allocated with the CBS color system.

If color required 12 MHz-wide channels (as the early CBS system did), it would force the FCC to plan a nationwide TV allocation program with only half as many channels and channel assignments available as we have today. This would have had a dramatic effect on the problem of ultimate allocation of new channels, which was the original reason for the freeze.

There was talk in 1949 of placing all colorcasts into the then unexplored and untried UHF region, where a spectrum more than 400 MHz wide (adequate to handle 35 new channels, each 12 MHz wide) existed. This talk was quickly discarded because not only would existing receivers not be able to receive the programs colorcast in black and white; the existing receivers could not receive them at all. Where relatively simple black and white converters (which would make black and white reception of colorcasts possible on existing receivers) could convert existing receivers to receive color in black and white, a much more elaborate converter (costing perhaps more than the original receiver) would have been required to convert the UHF 12 MHz-wide colorcasts into standard black and white pictures.

Battle lines are drawn

CBS offered to solve the problem with a "slight reduction" in color quality, and the battle began.

Sen. Edward C. Johnson was one of the early advocates of color. Some have said of the senator: "Johnson wanted to get television in Denver (a city without television when the freeze hit), and he viewed the color matter as an obstacle to getting television for his constituents. Consequently, he was quick to jump on anything the FCC did which threatened to put off television for his Colorado."

Later, because Johnson ran for and was elected as governor of Colorado, others would say in looking over his record that "Johnson wanted to run on a platform that he brought television to Colorado."

Whatever his reasons, he was (it appears in historical perspective) mostly nettlesome to the Commission and did not have a profound effect on television in the country (or his state) until years later as governor.

Still, in the summer of 1949, Johnson already was fed up with the color indecision, even though the process had hardly begun. He therefore urged the influence-free high scientific community, represented by the highly esteemed National Bureau of Standards, to select a committee of experts to study the subject.

The senator said he wanted a "comprehensive and unbiased report from an independent group, so the public can be supplied, as soon as possible, with a true picture of what we have in color and can expect in the future."

There was some low-level scratching to form such a committee for a few weeks, but it eventually drifted into oblivion.

Early in the fall of 1949, the FCC got its color TV show on the road. It had decided that it would be the unbiased expert panel, all by itself, without any help from the National Bureau of Standards.

Held in the Commissions session room in the Department of Commerce building, reams of evidence and testimony were taken from virtually every area of electronics. Just as the hearings got underway, CBS did a razzle-dazzle bit of one-upmanship and staged a private demonstration of its color system in the Armory in Washington, D.C. The demonstration was attended by invitation only, and one of the invitees was Sen. Edward C. Johnson.

Immediately after seeing the demonstration, Johnson drafted a letter to FCC Commissioners Robert F. Jones and Paul A. Walker, in which he said: "The color show was magnificent and utterly convincing proof that color TV is here now, and that all that is necessary for it to sweep the nation is for the FCC to remove the roadblocks and promulgate standards for its operation."

Then the senator added a postscript to his letter and noted, "However, the reluctance to show the FCC the facts by those who know the most about color and who can most effectively demonstrate its development disturbs me."

After writing his glowing report, Johnson was upset and wondered why CBS had not made such a presentation to the Commission. Apparently, he realized after the fact that he may have been had by CBS.

Several days later, FCC Commissioner Jones wrote CBS President Frank Stanton: "Your zeal appears to have been tarnished. You insist on trying to promote your color system outside of the FCC hearing rooms, apparently because this Commission has taken the initiative in this matter. Your action in this matter might well lead one to the conclusion that while your company is anxious to transmit color TV, it is reluctant to permit others to operate color video receivers to appraise what you have transmitted. We must know whether laymen can operate the receivers, and we can learn this only by allowing laymen to operate the receivers under as many diverse conditions as are common in black and white."

The battle heats up

The gauntlet had been thrown down. The FCC had challenged CBS to "show off its color." After all, the commissioner reasoned, the FCC had begun hearings and was taking testimony. It would decide the fate of color. So show it the colorback up the testimony and claims.

For nearly a year, the FCC would stage a sideshow, main show and after-the-stage show. Millions would be spent by CBS, RCA and a few other latecomers as they built special sets, handcrafted color cameras and receivers, built special transmitters, and generally came in on-cue from the Commission.

Up to that time, most of the color tests had been conducted in New York. That was logical. Both CBS and RCA had headquarters and extensive production studios there.

(Virtually all TV programming originated in New York at that time, and microwave interconnection existed only between Boston and Washington, running through New York.)

However, to accommodate the FCC, CBS spent a large sum to convert Washingtons WOIC (Ch. 9, now WTOP) to color, and RCA equipped both WNBW and an experimental UHF station they had operating in Washington for color.

The main arguments from October 1949 until a decision was reached in early fall of 1950 were these:

1. The CBS system started out requiring a 12 MHz-wide band (the equivalent to two TV channels) but converted to a 6 MHz-wide system when the CBS people saw that if they wanted to broadcast color on VHF, this would be a requirement.
   
2. The CBS system, called field sequential color, was a mechanical nightmare. At the studio, the cameras were equipped with large discs, which were equipped with blue, red and yellow filters.

   The discs were driven by a motor at 1,440 RPM, and as the filters passed in front of the camera pickup tube for fractions of a second, the camera pickup tube saw only those colored objects that corresponded to the filter positioned in front of the camera lens at that instant.

   At the receiver, another color disc driven by another motor spun the disc in front of the receiver picture tube. By synchronizing the two motors exactly (one at the TV camera and one at the TV receiver), the illusion of a colored image was created.

   The CBS system was not capable of transmitting compatible color; that is, existing black and white receivers tuned to a CBS colorcast did not receive a picture in black and white (or color). They simply received no picture at all.

3. CBS told the Commission that while it was demonstrating color pictures only on receivers with 7-, 10- and 12-inch picture tubes, their technique would work just as well with the new larger 16- and 19-inch screens also. Some would question this, as we will see.
   
4. The consumer, should the CBS system be approved, would be faced with the following options:
   
   • Buying a color receiver, which would receive CBS colorcasts and black and white telecasts
   • Converting an existing receiver to a color receiver (costing several hundred dollars) to receive CBS colorcasts or standard black and white telecasts
   • Installing a less-expensive converter so that when CBS colorcast, the receiver would produce the program in black and white but not in color (approximate retail cost, $75)
   • Doing nothing, in which case the consumer would get no programming when CBS colorcast

In 1949, there were 3.6 million TV receivers in the hands of the public. By the end of 1950, when the Commission reached a decision on color, there would be 9.7 million black and white-only receivers in public places. By the end of 1951, when the Supreme Court had finally settled the dispute, there would be more than 15.4 million TV receivers in the hands of the public.

CBS hit hard, long and repeatedly on the fact that its color had the best-looking pictures. It harped on the 10-year program during which they had color, and Sen. Johnson didnt help things with his insistence that color was here and ready, and the public wanted it.

The RCA-compatible color had the following arguments going for it:

1. It was all-electronic, and neither the TV studio nor the home receiver required large rotating color cellophane discs in front of the picture tube.
   
2. The existing receivers received the colorcasts in black and white, with about the same black and white clarity as regular black and white telecasts.

However, the RCA compatible color had failings at that time, and it was these failings on which the Commission focused:

1. The hues were unnatural and required almost constant viewer juggling of the receiver controls. (It later turned out that, for the most part, this aspect of the problem was being caused at the studio and that, as studio techniques improved, the user/viewer got to sit in his chair more of the time and play home-technician less of the time.)
   
2. The color smeared. That is, the colors tended to run. Bright colors, such as ruby red lips, tended to keep right on going past the lips into the face area beyond.
   
3. Color quality was unstable and changed drastically from minute to minute.

Clearly, RCA had a good concept going, but it had more than a few bugs left to be worked out in 1949 and early 1950. Equally clear, CBS knew deep down that RCA could and would solve these problems, so it pushed extra hard to get its system accepted as "the national standard" before RCA could work out the bugs.

It was more than a matter of corporate pride. CBS had patent rights on its system, and anyone constructing a CBS system color receiver would have to pay a patent royalty to CBS for their rights. A few bucks were involved.

CBS kept the pressure up on the Commission, and Johnson periodically reminded the Commission that he was satisfied with the quality of the CBS pictures, and he wanted televisionnow. (Perhaps because Colorado had no television, Johnson was not worried about his constituents badgering him about his approval of a system that would antiquate their TV receivers. After all, they had none at the time.) - CT

In our second installment next month, the standards race heats up as RCA and CBS demonstrate their systems to the FCC, in what one commissioner called "the darndest three-ring circus you ever saw." Stay tuned.

Doug Larson is senior editor at "Communications Technology." He may be reached via e-mail at .

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