Oppenheimer’s BFF Invented Color TV

Did you know that Ernest Orlando Lawrence, the Nobel laureate and Manhattan Project physicist, also played a pivotal role in the creation of color TV? Here's the fascinating story of how Lawrence set up an electronics lab in his garage and entered the crowded field of color television technology to help shape the future of broadcasting.
This video is the first in a 3 part series done in collaboration with ‪@Asianometry‬ . After watching this video, check out these:
Part 2: • Sony's Breakthrough Co...
Part 3: • Why Early Tech Giants ...
And read our article on the topic: spectrum.ieee....
Script: Allison Marsh
Narration: Allison Marsh
Editing: Helena González
#television #technology #tech #history #techhistory #oppenheimer

[@Hopeless_and_Forlorn]

Actually, the back-masked, three-gun color CRT was a market success which led to the introduction of color TV into most American homes well before the superior Trinitron system reached the US. As difficult as the engineering of a successful color receiver was, and as revolutionary as the Trinitron system was, I believe the outstanding engineering accomplishment of color TV in the US was the successful development of a fully compatible transmission format that allowed both black and white and color broadcasting within the original, 6 MHz bandwidth limit established in 1941 for monocolor TV. The necessary innovations in signal-packing for color broadcasts, such as quadrature modulation and vestigial sideband, are all the more remarkable when you realize that it was all done with vacuum tube technology and long before computer-aided design. It was a true landmark in get-it-done engineering, and it remains a fascinating lesson in RF technology.

[@Starphot]

I agree and I worked on repair of such units in the 1970s. My first color TV was a Heathkit GR-2000 with a 25" black mat picture tube in it. It brought the image a little better than the Trinitron for that size. How using the black mat surrounding the tricolor dots made an improvement to the contrast of the image as the NTSC standard allows. Me and a buddy started doing consumer electronics repair out of his garage in 1978 with home visits as most of the customers had the 25" console sets, often with AM/FM/Phono Stereo. We put in a black mat picture tube to replace the old one in a customer's console with vacuum tube circuits, resoldered about everything because we moved the set to the shop and the customer was amazed that the color was better than it ever was. That GR-2000 lasted 30 years before parts were no longer available and I cut the cable cord. No TV here since 2006.

[@Ice_Karma]

It's important to remember that NTSC broke new ground, especially when comparing PAL against it. The designers of PAL could look at NTSC and avoid mistakes its designers made, but the designers of NTSC didn't have that "luxury".

[@Starphot]

@@Ice_Karma Yes! I remember that the British Parliament had to buy the few remaining black and white tellys from their owners just to turn off the black and white PAL transmission! Do they still have to pay the bloody BBC fee?

[@jimbryce6982]

Ah, not exactly as also noted in other comments. I worked on issues of standardization and NTSC in patent law and as a teenager in the 1950s watched the developments by RCA and the spinning color disk CBS approach that failed. Long before Sony marketed the Trinitron RCA was selling practical, well liked color television in the US in the 1950s. As other commenters point out, resolution of compatibility with black and white technology and agreement on an industry wide standard was the key to market acceptance. Once that was solved demand rose dramatically supporting sales in the millions driving prices down.

[@scottlarson1548]

@@Ice_Karma PAL was just more expensive to implement than NTSC (that long delay line!). After ten or fifteen years of color televisions they became less expensive to produce so the improvements PAL brought were more practical.

[@Private-GtngxNMBKvYzXyPq]

Aisianometry brought me here.

[@Ice_Karma]

Teaming up with Asianometry? Cool!

[@cogoid]

This was really well done! I hope you will continue to work together with Asianometry‬ on other projects in the future.

[@markarca6360]

The element Lawrencium (Lr) was named in honor of Ernest Lawrence.

[@stephenw2992]

Pye was a massive manufacturer, not some shop

[@whophd]

Also made some of the finest quality colour TV pictures, as I remember it. Good engineering.

[@jeromemckenna7102]

RCA marketed a color television in 1954, your video ignores that fact. I was born in 1951 and never saw a color tv in anyone's home until at least 1960. but I did see them advertised and I did see them in the RCA building in NYC.

[@edgeeffect]

There's a really big difference between "phosphor" and "phosphorus".

[@oldtvnut]

The title "Invented Color TV" gives a misleading impression of Lawrence's role, while the content of the video in itself is more representative of his partial contribution to the field. Just the relative numbers of papers from the various sources in the cited IRE proceedings tells the story more accurately of major and minor contributions.

[@rarbiart]

Now I suffer from heavy Ken Burns effect poisening...

[@gp.gonzales]

so cool! Partnering with Asianometry!

[@cjc363636]

Just watched Asianometry's Trinitron video. This collab is 2 chef kisses!! You have my vote to do this again soon!!

[@agustinlara2356]

I thought Guillermo González Camarena invented color tv?

[@jemmytaveras]

I'm sorry but why is there no mention of Guillermo González Camarena? guy invented the frist colour TV and he doesn't get even a passing mention?

[@yuegodelg]

THIS

[@miguelhuerta5826]

Because Camarena did not invent color TV. John Logie Baird in 1928 demo a color. I am glad we didn't end up using Camarena's nor Baird's since they both were mechanical with a spinning wheel. We would have been stuck for 50+years with that

[@jemmytaveras]

@@miguelhuerta5826 actually, Camarena's patent was so good that it was used as the bases for NASA's re broadcasting of the moon lading worldwide. Camarena was a man ahead of his time

[@miguelhuerta5826]

@@jemmytaveras for that mission NASA used a field sequential color system (FSC) invented by Peter Goldmak. Goldmak demoed his system in 1940 before Camarena's. Camarena was also a FSC, but cam someone had already invented one before him . NASA has a site dedicated to the tech used where they describe the video system and why it was chosen.

[@todtemplin9927]

This isn't completely wrong, but it is misleading. Zarnoff at RCA really should get the credit for making broadcast compatible TV a reality in 1953. Palley at CBS was behind a color wheel system that was far superior in definition, but required too much bandwidth and was not compatible with simultenious BW transmission. Corning glass works should get the credit for producing the first tri color picture tubes in quantity. The National Television Standards Comitee selected the RCA system because the signal could be embedded into the BW signal and fit into the 6 megahertz alotted to a TV channel.

[@rty1955]

Sarnoff was an early Bill Gates, either buying up companies or buy patents, NOT a nice man. Fact its was Farnsworth who invented the first electronic TV, Sarnoff bought that patent and SCREWED Fansworth

[@Nerd3927]

Just watched the Asianometry video. You gained a very happy subscriber. Great content!

[@reinerfranke5436]

The key to production is to photolithography generate the shadow mask as well as using a 3 step photolithographic illumination, hardening and washing with the final unique mask: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aJutnmlroraKiJI

[@whophd]

Ah, the video this one should have been

[@ghostmantagshome-er6pb]

I read his biography when I was young. I wanted to cry when he died even though it was 50 years before. He so much more work to do.

[@mybachhertzbaud3074]

Thanks for not skipping over the many failures that take place when things are developed. Many times videos just go right to the point of success and leave the impression that things are really easy to do.🤔

[@y_x2]

A bit more info on how his tube works would be better...

[@ivok9846]

she can't do that......perhaps her friend john can.....

[@spacewolfjr]

My favorite E.O. Lawrence quote _"Who the hell put this spaghetti here?"_ (moments after stepping on a plate of spaghetti)

[@gus473]

IIRC, Ernie Lawrence was a South Dakota farm kid! Amazing what that sort of background can prepare you for later in life! P.S. Jon Y. sent me! 😎✌️

[@rty1955]

I had a 25" Dumont color TV in 1955

[@terrytc1]

He didn't invent color TV, he developed an innovative type of color CRT tube that proved to be impossible to build. Sony bought the rights to it and ended up by producing only 10% workable tubes due to its complexity. They finally abandoned the tube and went on with the Trinitron tube. Your title is very misleading.

[@AdrianMNegreanu]

it's already mentioned in this video 😂

[@jeromemckenna7102]

They also ignore the fact that RCA was production color television in 1954.

[@jonathanbuzzard1376]

It is even more misleading because John Logie Baird (the first person to build a working system to transmit moving pictures over radio waves) demonstrated a working 600 line colour TV system in 1940.

[@rty1955]

@@jonathanbuzzard1376 Baird was MECHANICAL, not electronic. It was a dismal failure

[@jonathanbuzzard1376]

@@rty1955 it was still video transmitted over radio waves, and his 600 line colour tv system was significantly superior to the other systems of the time. Is your modern flat panel OLED TV not a TV because it's not a CRT?

[@bryanh1944FBH]

And, I still watch the black and white Gunsmoke episodes ....

[@getsmarter5412]

She got the house, but I got the Trinitron!

[@nostalgeek2872]

At home in France, the Secam color process (and its LL' specific modulation standard) has caused us many problems than it has solved. See Wiki page on this subject.

[@johneygd]

Sometimes you have to offer something to get things right and color tv was one of those things😁

[@987654321wormy]

In the early 70s my father got our first color television second hand from someone. It had an issue with the color, and the screen was green and white when we watched it. He finally figured how to fix it himself about a year later, but I remember that green screen vividly. Bonanza, Wild Kingdom, and Columbo were weird to watch because of that. 😂

[@ingridfong-daley5899]

In the early 80s, one of our colour tvs was dying, and everything was flaming red because the green was out. You felt like your eyes were bleeding when Magnum PI's car showed up on screen!😆

[@JackWse]

Oh, you're feeling sick.. have you tried boats? Yeah just hop onto this oil tanker for the next couple of weeks that'll that'll cure you right up lol. I have a feeling this guy would have loved VR..

[@hamaljay]

Good news, everyone! 2:38

[@PatrickDempsey-bx9pi]

The fake dust and scratches is very distracting and annoying!

[@v8pilot]

Out of interest how does the tube in a PC monitor work? Was that a shadow mask system?

[@prufrockrenegade]

Yeah, most PC CRTs were shadow masks. Sony did produce some aperture grille PC CRTs, but they were fairly uncommon

[@whophd]

@@prufrockrenegade Fairly uncommon but very common in the first decade of colour Macs (Apple Macintosh II, Macintosh Quadra, and the pro models of Power Macintosh).

[@markatherton7848]

How on earth did PAL (Phase Alternate Line) get abbreviated to PAS ?

[@MostlyPennyCat]

Isn't there an IEEE standard for World System Teletext?

[@whophd]

Where do we see the rest of the story of the shadow-mask tube?

[@MrRonfelder]

they didnt invent color tv t. they only invented the pciture tube for the clor set. all the rest they had nanda to do with

[@phonotical]

Absolutely not, colour was first demonstrated in 1927,there were also mechanical colour options which actually went to market

[@enadegheeghaghe6369]

I think you are stretching the definition of what a color TV is

[@phonotical]

@@enadegheeghaghe6369 it's a television and it's in colour, end of

[@whophd]

@@enadegheeghaghe6369 The standard definition, if you will

[@anthonyxuereb792]

What were the Germans doing in regards to colour tv?

[@whophd]

I like how you've left a very open question that the reader will be overwhelmed with the answer if they check

[@anthonyxuereb792]

@@whophd I hope so.

[@anthonyxuereb792]

@@whophd Glad someone noticed.

[@DimasFajar-ns4vb]

wow and zamzam water

[@Iowa599]

I just realized the old tv tubes were like bottles... Putting a mesh wire screen in a tube had to be like putting a boat in a bottle!

[@kenmore01]

Not so much, the face of the tube is made separately from the back or funnel shaped part, and the two are fused together during manufacturing. You would insert the screen or mask before assembly.

[@Iowa599]

@@kenmore01 ah! lol, I didn't see those parts going together.

[@kenmore01]

@@Iowa599 LOL I don't think they showed it. It's just something I know from back then.

[@oldtvnut]

You can see a display of the separate parts at 5:25 in the video

[@Charlie-UK]

American exceptionalism isn't it great. John Logie Baird, a UK Inventor actually invented the forerunner to the High Definition Colour displays we use today. He also invented 3D Colour Television. Happy to say not everything, is an American invention...

[@davidshaw3303]

"Sony managed to bring the first successful colour TV to market". Not true. I like the Sony. It's brighter but the definition was never as good as the RCA shadow mask.

[@jvcaleta]

Ja Ja Ja!!!!

[@JPeiper]

Oppenheimer's BFF? Hash tag Oppenheimer only but not Lawrence? Stop fishing like cheap KZbinrs.

[@PacificNatureTV]

I wanted to enjoy this after being sent here by Asianometry but the voice sounds so AI-ish even though its credited to a real person in the description.. wtf is wrong with the audio capture/edit/processing??

[@dannyarcher6370]

SpaceX/Elon haters, take note of the final message.

[@bob_mosavo]

Thanks 👍 And thank you for partnering with Asianometry. He's AWESOME‼