What year did broadcast TV turn color?
As television broadcasters and their audiences begin the massive and expensive transition to digital High Definition TV, you might be interested in the last major television revolution: the big change to COLOR broadcasting in the 1950s-60s. Until 1953 television had been strictly black and white. There were competing schemes for transmitting color pictures, but in 1953 the RCA "compatible-color" system was accepted as the standard by the FCC. RCA's system allowed color images to be transmitted and received on either monochrome or color receivers. But the RCA/NTSC Color Television System will soon be phased out because the FCC requires broadcasters to complete the changeover to digital transmission by 2007.
What are your thoughts on this subject?
74 Comments
Sean Philips
In the US? The country needs to be specified - in Australia colour broadcasts only began in 1975 and in the UK it was 1967. Details matter and America isn’t the centre of the universe!
dick aspel
Specify in the US. America is not the world!
john duckett
Poor question, not everyone lives in the USA
skullfire
Question is not specific to the world view, therefore, it should be corrected or removed.
David Holmes
If the country had been specified I would have made the right choice. Colour was introduced later outside of the USA. The PAL. system is used in many countries. I think that France uses/used SCAMACCA.
Gary Chadwick
Why don't they state that the question relates to the USA.
Rose Erofeev
Exactly. USA is a country. There are other countries in the world,and we didn't have colour TV until mid 70s in Australia
Georgia Kemp
We got our first colour TV in the 1980's in NZ.
dmarkc
Gemmule , careful. Do you wish to instigate blanket insults for "most people in India?" Or maybe just your caste?
ianfsmith
Television did not start in Australia until 1956. Colour started 1977.
David Stokes
But not in South Australia or the NT -
ToniP
The question needs to ask in which country.
Lynda Wild
Yes. We certainly didn’t have colour TV in Australia in 1953.
We did not have tv in Canberra until early 60’s.
Larry Jones
It was actually 1945.
Vincent
The date depends on the country.
Jacqui Halvorson
But it wasn't common in the average US household until the mid- to late 1960s!
Char
Rose Erofeev, I live in the US and didn't have it till much later too.
Char
We didn't have color tv till much later. My aunt and uncle had it much sooner... should have went with my first thought...
earlepg
I was happy to see the wide date range in the options. The change-over from b&w to color certainly wasn't instantaneous anywhere. In my case, the tv we had in 1953 didn't show us color. However, sometime before 1960 we were happily watching color programs on a newer tv. As far as I was concerned, of the choices provided, 1953 had to be my choice.
Wyla Reedy
I remember my Dad always having to adjust the color.
JohnnyRoulette
Pat Wells, I don’t believe most of the cricket football/soccer questions are coming from the US users. I could be wrong. I have to guess at more of those than all other sports combined. I don’t care for being painted with such a broad brush. I have never thought ours wass the only country that mattered. I have never complained about questions I’d be unlikely to know anything about, given my geographical location. Some of us know where Australia is. I listen to a lot of odd Australian bands, watch some Australian films and have read some Australian authors. That being said, I had no clue when they got color television.
smwhalen
I just remember when Bonanza and Disney went from black and white to color. It was amazing!