Television History - The First 75 Years
 
 

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1951 CBS (Mechanical) Color Television  - CONTINUED      

(44K)  Additional pages from this training notebook:

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One major drawback to the CBS color system was that it was not compatible with the existing Black and White screen television sets.  Owner of these sets would have to buy and install (or have installed) a special CBS color adapter (shown and explained here).  

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Companion Color Receiver - Determined not to have their system rejected by the public, CBS thought of a solution to every problem.  For those B&W set owners that did not want to suffer interruption of service (while the adapter system was being installed), and who wanted a beautifully designed color television cabinet -- without the full expense of buying another complete set -- CBS offered the "Companion Color Receiver".  It was easily connected to the B&W set (within a half-hour), and could be placed anywhere in the same room.  The B&W set would be used to watch B&W programs, and this fancy new CBS-Columbia set would be used to watch color programs!  Nifty eh?  I'm not sure if any of these sets remain today.  Examples shown below:

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CBS-Columbia "Companion Receiver"

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Chassis view of the set above

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Stand-alone Air-King set which used the CBS color system

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CBS Color Television Specification Chart

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Kits (by other manufacturers) to convert standard Black and White sets to CBS color were marketed in this time period.

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Final Analysis of the Three Systems presented to the US Senate

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