TV Home Forum

1969 changeover from black & white to colour

One for the grey cells & our 'older' viewers ! (August 2010)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
GS
Gavin Scott Founding member
I used to work for a business owned by a Lord (no less), who created one of the first OB trucks in the world. In fact, a fleet of them.

Now I'm hazy on the detail (probably as much as he is, and he's in his 80s) but I seem to recall he equipped them with 405 line cameras - just as 625 line came into play. As such they were never used, they sit to this very day in a row of aircraft hangers, covered with dust sheets - having been untouched for decades. Cameras, recording equipment - the whole shebang.

I bet he'd make a pretty penny if he were to let forumers in for a tour!

The company was called "On the Spot Television" - and I think he sold the name to what is now a broadcaster - but I'd need to chat with him to gain more information.

Cool, no?
MA
Matt_1979
Thanks for all the info - it is very interesting to hear about the gradual conversion - and that other programmes such as Z Cars were initially in black and white after November 1969.
NG
noggin Founding member
Cheap b/w monitors had to be replaced by Grade I colour monitors, which were so expensive that many stations only had one or two of these in the gallery, with all the camera/source monitors remaining black and white.


Interestingly - source preview monitors remained in black and white well into the 80s and 90s in some studios and OB trucks, and colour source preview monitors are seldom Grade I (they're usually reserved for vision, lighting and in some cases TX and PVW - though it is vision and lighting who really need them) There are certainly trucks on the road now that originally had B&W preview monitors in them...

Smaller black and white monitors were MUCH sharper than smaller colour monitors (so arguably better suited to camera preview monitors where focus is an issue) - though there were major issues in getting B&W monitors that had whites the same colour as the whites in colour monitors - and if you didn't the B&W monitors used to look horribly blue in comparison ISTR. (In fact the difficulty in obtaining B&W monitors with the right phosphors was as much behind the switch to colour source previews as anything else!)

A similar argument holds for why viewfinders are often still black and white - small colour (CRT, LCD, OLED) displays are still often not as sharp as B&W CRTs.
NG
noggin Founding member
Indeed, the cost of re-equipping for colour was enormous. The smaller ITV stations had sunk all their capital into building studios when they launched, and several had saved money by using cheaper monochrome cameras.


Though to be fair it would have been difficult for ITV stations to have bought colour cameras in the early 60s - as the decisions about what colour standard was to be used, or even what line standard for BBC One and ITV, hadn't been clearly taken, and colour camera technology was really developing quickly.

Europe was lucky to have some delay in introducing colour - allowing Plumbicon camera tubes to be developed (early US colour cameras used Image Orthicons and Vidicons - sometimes a mixture in the same camera...) and the adoption of PAL and 625 lines.

If ITV (well at least some franchises) had had their way, we may well have had 405 line NTSC on VHF - which would have meant no switch to 625 and UHF... (Which would then have left us potentially with 405 NTSC and 625 B&W or NTSC dual standard sets) The BBC were very close to adopting 625 line NTSC (quite a lot of the early colour kit was hastily converted from 625 NTSC to 625 PAL...) as well - though you'd have needed complicated decoders as the 405 NTSC and the 625 NTSC would have been based on different sub-carriers.

The adoption of 625 PAL was relatively late in the day - but meant that we were able to benefit from a lot of the pain of the US's launch (particularly the work done at CBS and Philips/Norelco on Plumbicons which revolutionised colour picture quality)
MA
Markymark
Indeed, the cost of re-equipping for colour was enormous. The smaller ITV stations had sunk all their capital into building studios when they launched, and several had saved money by using cheaper monochrome cameras.

[u]
Though to be fair it would have been difficult for ITV stations to have bought colour cameras in the early 60s - as the decisions about what colour standard was to be used, or even what line standard for BBC One and ITV, hadn't been clearly taken, and colour camera technology was really developing quickly.


Don't forget also that the franchise period ended in July 1968, so none of the ITV companies were likely to invest in equipment when they couldn't be sure whether they'd still be on the air post 68 !
RJ
RJG
Ironically two companies which had invested in colour gear...TWW and ABC...lost their franchises in 1968. Although ABC was, of course, merged with Rediffusion to form Thames. Then there was Yorkshire TV which was colour capable from day one, although the output was black-and-white only for the first year, apart from some experimental broadcasts. For instance Junior Showtime was proclaiming itself a Yorkshire Television colour production in the summer of 1969. I know the BBC were running some colour BBC 1 programmes before the November switchover date, but from Crystal Palace only. Presumably ITV were doing the something similar.
As far as colour on BBC 2 was concerned, it wasn't available from all transmitters from the beginning. Again Crystal Palace was first. It was some time before colour circuits were installed to the likes of Sutton Coldfield, Black Hill etc.
And, IIRC, Grampian TV opened on 625 line UHF from Durris a few weeks before its 10th birthday, but everything, including network programmes, was black-and-white until the anniversary.
MA
Markymark
RJG posted:
Then there was Yorkshire TV which was colour capable from day one, although the output was black-and-white only for the first year, apart from some experimental broadcasts. For instance Junior Showtime was proclaiming itself a Yorkshire Television colour production in the summer of 1969. I know the BBC were running some colour BBC 1 programmes before the November switchover date, but from Crystal Palace only. Presumably ITV were doing the something similar.


Yes, Thames/LWT /ITA were broadcasting on UHF and in colour from Crystal P for some output ahead of Nov 15th, but they (and the BBC) had to be careful I think, and could only call them 'tests', because the Postmaster General 'Colour' licence for BBC 1 and ITV didn't take effect until Nov 15th.

I don't think YTV could have transmitted much 625 or colour during most of 1969, because of the collapse of the Emley Moor mast, it was a struggle to be on the air via 405 as it was.
NG
noggin Founding member
RJG posted:
Ironically two companies which had invested in colour gear...TWW and ABC...lost their franchises in 1968.


Yep - and didn't ATV at Elstree have at least one studio that could work in NTSC 525 for US productions - so they could make colour shows for the US before standards conversion was any good?

ISTR that one studio at TVC was also built to be 525 B&W capable (but the facility was seldom if ever used?)
SW
Steve Williams
Yes, Thames/LWT /ITA were broadcasting on UHF and in colour from Crystal P for some output ahead of Nov 15th, but they (and the BBC) had to be careful I think, and could only call them 'tests', because the Postmaster General 'Colour' licence for BBC 1 and ITV didn't take effect until Nov 15th.


Which is why the first "official" colour programme on BBC1 was at midnight on November 15th itself.
SP
Steve in Pudsey

ISTR that one studio at TVC was also built to be 525 B&W capable (but the facility was seldom if ever used?)


TC6,7 and 8, which at the time they were built shared an apps room, and could all use the 525 kit. Apparently a Danny La Rue play was made in 525 in TC6.

http://www.tvstudiohistory.co.uk/tv%20centre%20history.htm
CO
Colm
I mentioned this in the NI News thread on the Newsroom a while ago, but as it's relevant for here:

625-line UHF colour transmissions in Northern Ireland started on 14th September 1970 from the Divis transmitter (serving the Greater Belfast area), just sneaking in ahead of the first colour transmission in the Anglia region (Tacolneston on 1st October 1970).

From evidence I've seen, mainly in archive collections and the recent-ish UTV at 50 and UTV Rewind series, it seemed Ulster Television had the facilities to produce colour film by the time the new Divis transmitter went online - indeed, they produced a colour film in 1969 called "No Surrender" about Orange marches which was shown in other ITV regions.

In terms of studio-sourced programming, it appears the studios at Havelock House became equipped to produce colour broadcasts by 1973. There were certainly studio programmes made in or around the early 1970s in monochrome; e.g. one of the two surviving copies of "The Romper Room" (not sure of year); and the studio parts of a 1972 edition of "UTV Reports" hosted by Gordon Burns which contains colour film reports.

Additionally, it appears the oscilloscope logo used until 1993 may have been introduced to mark the launch of the UHF service; I've seen newspaper advertisements promoting the upcoming launch of the colour service (with a scary picture of Ena Sharples!) using that particular logo. The same logo was used on UTV's monochrome output after the UHF colour service began - it appears in the two examples mentioned above.

I'm not as sure about BBC NI, but I believe they had also completed the switch from monochrome to colour by at least the end of 1974.

Does anyone have a clearer idea if the situation in Northern Ireland affect any decision by BBC NI and UTV to convert to colour?

And, for what it's worth, RTÉ (whose first colour broadcast was their production of the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest - I believe they had to borrow colour OB equipment from the mainland) were still broadcasting studio material in monochrome until 1976 - one of the last series to go colour was, ironically for them, "The Late Late Show", because the studio used at Montrose was the last to be upgraded to colour broadcasts. From what I've seen, colour film inserts for RTÉ news became a regular occurance during 1973, and the first domestically-made commercials were also produced in colour by 1973.
DO
dosxuk
There are certainly trucks on the road now that originally had B&W preview monitors in them...


I can think of at least one, used on a weekly live programme, which still does have some of the Sony 19" 4 x B&W (complete with Anglia TV asset ID stickers) preview monitors used for source previewing. Admittedly at it's last rebuild in 04, it had a whole load of new colour monitors fitted, but the additional B&W monitors were useful so they were kept hold of. They're in the process of planning the move to HD for this truck, so their days should be numbered.

Newer posts