Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1960)

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20 JANUARY 4, 1960 EIA Reports on Land Color: Color discoveries by Dr. Edwin H. Land (Vol. 15:27, 32, 34, 40) should be encouraged but shouldn’t alfect FCC’s color TV standards at this time, a special EIA subcommittee concluded last week. RCA’s Charles J. Hirsch, chmn. of the Broadcast TV committee, signed the report, which stated : “It is artistically & commercially important that a color TV system be capable of producing the best color rendition permitted by the state of the art. Advertised products which depend on color for identification must be faithfully reproduced. In addition, reception of color programs on black-&-white receivers should be reproduced so that each color makes its proper relative contribution to brightness. “The ‘binary’ color system studies by Dr. Edwin Land can produce pelasing pictures. However, these are not colorimetrically as faithful as pictures produced with a 3-color process. “The FCC color TV signal when carrying a 3-color picture contains all the information for reproduction of color pictures by 3-color receivers, by 2-color receivers using earlier methods as well as the methods outlined by Dr. Land, and by monochrome receivers. This leaves to the manufacturer of color receivers the option of designing any type of receiver for the FCC signal. “Excluding the picture display and associated power equipment, the added complexity, over a monochrome receiver, of a color receiver designed for the present FCC color TV signal, is represented by the increase from approximately 17 tubes in a monochrome receiver to not more than 24 in a color receiver. The receiver for any other color system will undoubtedly be composed of monochrome circuits to which tubes are added for color processing. Tbe increase in tube complement of present FCC color TV receivers does not add unduly to their cost. The bulk of the price increase of these receivers over their monochrome counterparts is due to the color picture tube & associated components. “The methods outlined by Dr. Land might result in a receiver based on the present FCC color TV signal but using a simpler display based on Dr. Land’s techniques. It is possible that a transmitter designed exclusively for the transmission of color pictures by the methods outlined by Dr. Land would be simpler than one built for the present FCC signal. However, such a transmitter would be unable to transmit pictures having as faithful a color rendition as is possible by the present state of the art. “Since the FCC color TV signal carries simultaneously the information for 3-color reproduction and for the methods outlined by Dr. Land, and since it does not result in a large increase in the cost of receivers, it permits continued investigation of Dr. Land’s method without deterioration of pictures reproduced by receivers making full use of the information present in the signal. Therefore, the FCC color TV signal should be left unchanged at this time. It is important that Dr. Land and others be encouraged to continue their studies of the basic phenomena of color perception.’’ All-transistor battery portable will go into production this month at Sony Corp., Tokyo, according to Home Furnishings Daily, which says the 8-in. set has 19 germanium transistors, 4 silicon transistors and 14 diodes. Initial domestic retail price is given as $194. There are no present plans to export the set. Other Japanese manufacturers have shown prototypes of transistor TV sets, but this is the first announcement of production plans. Tube-Semiconductor Forecast: Semiconductor sales will increase 37% over 1959 this year, TV picture tube & power tube sales will rise and receiving tube sales will remain at 1959’s high level. Those are the trends for 1960 as seen by GE electronic components div.’s knowledgeable gen. mgr. L. Berkley Davis. Highlights of his preview: Semiconductors — Sales will rise to $550 million from 1959’s $400 million. Included are sales of 130 million transistors, a 53% increase over 1959, for a total of $315 million. Transistor sales will break down into a $45-million consumer market, $120-million industrial market and $150 million for military uses. Semiconductor rectifier sales will increase by 18% to $92 million from $78 million in 1960, with controlled rectifier sales doubling. TV picture tubes — Nearly 13 million will be sold for $260 million, a 5% increase over 1959. A large majority of the replacement tubes will still use reclaimed glass. Receiving tubes — Sales will be about the same as 1959, or some 435 million, of which about 20 million will be imported. The 415 domestically produced tubes will sell for about $345 million. Nearly 100 million tubes will be used by TV manufacturing industry, biggest single group of tube customers. Power tubes — Industry sales will reach a new high of $300 million, a growth of 10% — the greatest increase being in military tubes. 4: * sic Sample quantities of new tunnel diode, operating in the 1,000-mc range, are now being produced by GE for industry experimentation. It’s the 2nd type of tunnel diode sampled by the company and is priced at $60. In his 1960 forecast, Davis predicted that during 1960 tunnel diode samples “will be limited to small quantities pending the development of circuits.” Report on Lawrence color tube: “Conversations with certain interests in the TV business looking forward to commercial production of the Lawrence color tube in sets, are being carried on,” said Paramount Pictures Pres. Barney Balaban in his year-end memo to stockholders. “There are some indications that the public is more receptive to the present color sets on the market than they have been in the past. Progress is being made toward our goal of manufacturing a color set at a lower price than those on the market now.” Paramount owns the Lawrence tube; recent development of the tube has been carried on by Du Mont Labs under contract. Canadian TV improved in Oct. as distributor sales to dealers increased to 56,410 TV sets from 48,670 in Sept. — but sales were down from Oct. 1958’s 59,177. For 1959’s first 10 months, sales totaled 327,632 compared with 338,985 in the year-ago period. The 10-month breakdown (corresponding 1958 figures in parentheses) : portables, 56,385 (52,112); table models, 85,537 (106,817); consoles, 175,077 (169,809); TV-radio-phono combinations, 10,633 (10,157). For Oct. 1959 (vs. Oct. 1958) the breakdown was: portables, 9,548 (8,162); table models, 15,907 (18,786); consoles, 29,151 (30,341); combinations, 1,804 (1,888). Auto-radio switch kits, sold separately by manufacturers for installation of rear-seat speakers, are subject to the excise tax on auto parts or accessories, according to the Internal Revenue Service (Rev. Rule 59-381). But when the rear-deck assemblies are sold as parts of the speakers themselves they are subject to the excise on TV & radio components.