Color Muddle

Whatever happened to color TV? In 1951, to conserve scarce materials, the Government banned the manufacture of color TV sets. Last week Washington lifted the ban, and the TV industry was, theoretically, free to spurt ahead with color. Actually, it seemed to be just ambling along.

Up to testify before the House Commerce Committee was CBS President Frank Stanton, a very discouraged man. The CBS "field sequential system" had been approved by the FCC in 1950, he recalled, but TV manufacturers seemed to want none of it, because they were waiting for RCA's long-heralded "compatible" system (whose color broadcasts could be seen in black & white on present sets). CBS, said Stanton, would not push its system: "I think we would be tilting at windmills . . ."

CBS's color competitors were enthusiastic but vague. The TV industry's National Television System Committee reported that it was hard at work defining the standards needed for a compatible system. RCA's Dr. Elmer W. Engstrom said that, once FCC approves the standards, RCA "will immediately put into effect plans to mass-produce color TV receivers and tri-color tubes." Chromatic Television Laboratories, Inc., which says it can produce a tube to receive black & white as well as color from either the CBS or the RCA system, complained that the defense order had forced a shutdown of its production line.

Summing up, Manufacturer Allen B. DuMont gloomily said that 1) the CBS decision not to push its system was "very wise"; 2) he did not think the RCA system was as far along as RCA said it was; and 3) though the Chromatic tube had possibilities, it was "four to five years from practical use."

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