World's First Color Moving Pictures Discovered 105
BoxRec writes "The BBC is reporting newly-discovered films made by pioneer Edward Raymond Turner from London, who patented his colour process on 22 March 1899." When Turner invented his process, though, existing projection systems weren't up to it; to see the discovered footage, British archivists digitized the film for computer playback. When you're used to old films being both black and white and jerky, it's amazing to see it in color and (relatively) smooth.
Much Better Video Available (Score:5, Informative)
YouTube has a much better video than the one linked in the article that contains the process they went through and talks about the capture and projection [youtu.be] intended by the inventor.
Re:Much Better Video Available (Score:4, Informative)
YouTube has a much better video than the one linked in the article that contains the process they went through and talks about the capture and projection [youtu.be] intended by the inventor.
I was going to provide the original link to the National Media Museum (which for the curious is here: http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/PlanAVisit/Exhibitions/LeeAndTurner.aspx [nationalme...eum.org.uk] ) ...but it's the same video anyway.
What intrigues me is that they apparently blew it to 35mm first instead of going straight to digital.
Re:The process was patented... (Score:5, Informative)
You know the reason Hollywood is in Hollywood? The film industry went as far away from Edison as they could in order to violate his motion picture patents.
Re:Incredible (Score:5, Informative)
Sync is a problem because the objects are moving! The only way around it with B&W film is to have three simultaneous cameras shooting through color filters.
Re:And when you're used to modern video... (Score:0, Informative)
The other user probably has the same problem as you do, an IOS device. It's foolish to blame the BBC when your non-standards-compliant web-browser can't render a site. Why do I see this foolishness from IOS users, while Android users seem to be able to understand that you won't get the full experience with every single website. For example /. is badly broken on Android, causing the comments to be displayed slider to not work, but the threads aren't full of whining Android fanbois.
It wasn't just "investigated".... (Score:5, Informative)
It was actually ADOPTED as the official US color broadcast standard by the FCC from 1950-1953.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-sequential_color_system [wikipedia.org]
The main limitations of the CBS field-sequential system were the requirement for a rotating color filter wheel more than 2X the diameter of the picture tube. TV sets larger than 10" screen size or so became absolutely HUGE. The system was also incompatible with existing monochrome sets, which already had a substantial installed base by then.
Once RCA developed the all electronic system that eventually became "NTSC", the field sequential systems were relegated to niche applications such as the color cameras that flew to the moon on the Apollo landings. And yes, a similar system forms the heart of modern color DLP projectors.
Re:Incredible (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Incredible (Score:2, Informative)
Color mixing is different with pigments than with light. In pigments, the primaries are red, yellow, and blue. In light it's cyan, magenta, and yellow.
Re:Incredible (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Incredible (Score:3, Informative)
Really ingenious. This means you're not trying to do the same camera operations at the same time with three separate cameras