Black and While programs on Color Tv

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How come some of the old B&W programs on the "Oldies Channel"
(THIS-TV) are black and white, while others are tinted, usually black
and greenish white. Yes, the color programs are accurately colored,
so it's not that the tv colors are off, and some B&W programs are
actually correct. Is this in the film or is the tv transmitter wrong?

 

[William Sommerwerck]

How come some of the old B&W programs on the "Oldies Channel"

(THIS-TV) are black and white, while others are tinted, usually black
and greenish white? Yes, the color programs are accurately colored,
so it's not that the TV colors are off, and some B&W programs are
actually correct. Is this in the film or is the tv transmitter wrong?

Filmed B&W programs are often transferred with a color camera or telecine
and transmitted as a color signal. The transfer equipment might not be set
up correctly.

It's also possible your TV's tracking is off, but you say some B&W programs
look okay, so that's not likely.

I occasionally watch this, and haven't noticed any unusual color casts in
B&W shows ("Bat Masterson", "Sea Hunt", etc).

I've noticed something similar on Blu-rays, both color and B&W. Scenes
appearing in the supplemental material have a different color balance or
cast, even though they're presumably derived from the same source. "North by
Northwest" and "Young Frankenstein" are good examples.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Could it be that these are programs/movies that were 'colorized' in the
very early days of that process -- which rendered ghastly results IMO,
and which have simply never been re-colorized with new techniques?

No. No one would colorize an entire TV series, as the cost would be
outrageous.

The newer computer-controlled colorizings are excellent.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Also an artifact of NTSC -- Never The Same Colour

Not true. NTSC is neither inherently inaccurate or unstable.

In any case, I think this is digital, and doesn't used NTSC encoding.

 

[Andrew Rossmann]

How come some of the old B&W programs on the "Oldies Channel"
(THIS-TV) are black and white, while others are tinted, usually black
and greenish white. Yes, the color programs are accurately colored,
so it's not that the tv colors are off, and some B&W programs are
actually correct. Is this in the film or is the tv transmitter wrong?

It may be the source material, too. These days, most everything is
digital, even what the stations play from probably comes off of a
computer.

You don't mention where you are. ThisTV is from Weigel Communications,
which is based in Chicago and broadcasts on WCIU (ThisTV is 26.5). One
of the technicians (hvs10trk) is a regular on this forum:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=815397

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Also an artifact of NTSC -- Never The Same Colour

The UK PAL (Phase Alternate Line) inverts the subcarrier phase
on alternate lines so phase distortion during transmission cancels
itself out - NTSC doesn't and is inherently prone to drift, hence it
was dubbed; Never Twice the Same Colour.

Drift of /what/? I've wasted many hours explaining why NTSC is, overall,
better than PAL.

The US video distribution system never had much trouble with phase errors.
European systems did.

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Aparently the US military incorporated a swinging phase error in their GPS
satelites to stop all and sundry using it without the decoding key - it was
a British engineer that cracked it using a technique based on PAL
technology.

Note quite. The GPS system did have the higher resolution data encrypted.
There were several systems to improve accuracy without the keys, such as
broadcasting it on FM radio subcarriers, differential units (multiple
antennas) and so on.

During operation Desert Storm (aka the First Gulf War), there were not enough
millitary GPS units to go around so President Clinton ordered the encryption
turned off.

It has stayed off except in a few limited areas, such as a small portion of
the area between Cuba and the US.

That's why there have been proposed replacement systems by Russia and the EU,
there is always the real possibility that the US will turn on encryption
again and everyone's "SatNav" will be useless. As in "about 100 meters,
maybe two hundred, maybe 100 meters ago, turn in some direction and go for
a while".

Geoff.

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Sigh. The NTSC was created for B&W television.

Acronyms are always changing, for example:

GSM (French for mobile system group) -> Global System for Mobiles.
DVD (Digital Video Disk) -> Digital Versatile Disk

Geoff.

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

But they traded color drift for high-brightness ficker; not necessarily
a good choice, since the early color drift of NTSC, being due to
equipment instabilities, was soon fixed by better gear, while PAL's
flicker problem, having been designed in, persisted.

I have a PAL TV set that displays very bright white as black. Someday I'll
replace it.

Geoff.

 

[Bruce Esquibel]

Neither. The color burst has to be turned off for B&W programming,
so the color killer circuit doesn't create artifacts. Stations used to
be very careful about this, but over the years some just don't bother
anymore.

Yeah but if they left the color burst on, it would present as a colored snow
all through the picture.

The OP is talking about a dominance of green, which I've seen too on
some B&W telecasts. I've also seen it there up to a commercial break, then
the next segment is normal.

I always figured it was something at the station rather than the print they
were using. Some peice of equipment in the chain that normalizes color or
something which needs to be turned off or bypassed for B&W shows.

-bruce
[email protected]

 

[William Sommerwerck]

The UK PAL (Phase Alternate Line) inverts the subcarrier

But they traded color drift for high-brightness ficker; not necessarily
a good choice, since the early color drift of NTSC, being due to
equipment instabilities, was soon fixed by better gear, while PAL's
flicker problem, having been designed in, persisted.

As far as I know, this is closer to the truth. The consensus has generally
been that Never Twice the Same Color was due to poor studio practices, not
problems inherent in NTSC. To give a small example... The early episodes of
"Barney Miller" were shot on cameras that were not properly aligned or
calibrated. This is easily visible.

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Flicker is due to the 50Hz field rate, its only noticeable if you're used to
60Hz field rate.

Which really is a design flaw, there was nothing that required it, and a 60Hz
rate screen is not really a problem with 50Hz lighting.

The need to be synced to the power line frequency was needed in the 1930's
when the 405 line system was developed due to arc lights being used for
studio lighting. By the time PAL was developed (early 1960's) arc lights
were long gone.

It was just done to be incompatible with the US.

The US got you back, the number one design criteria of ATSC was that it was
not DVB-T compatible.

Geoff.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

We were watching TCM last Sunday when they were running

fragments (because that's all that remains) of silent B/W movies...

Although about 90% of all silent films have been lost, many exist in full
versions. (Believe it or not, 50% of all sound films are believed to be
lost. Most of these were probably from small studios.)

some of which were "tinted" with the bluish or brownish look.

It's called "sepia". Tinting was common, used to establish mood. Kodak made
fine-grained release films with a tinted base. Tinting ended with the
introduction of sound.

They call it 'art'. I call it crap...

It was standard when color was not available. Think about the fact that the
film itself isn't "realistic".

...but it was not a burst phase error. If there is no chroma (the
definition of B/W) the phase wouldn't mean a thing.

This is true in terms of the way NTSC and PAL are designed/defined, but I'm
not sure it's true in practice.

The OP says all other color is normal (though I have seen some
TVs that were dreadful when the owner thought it was great), so
perhaps he found one of these tinted B/W films.

Yes, of course. "Bat Masterson" was printed on sepia stock, "Sea Hunt" was
printed on blue, etc, etc, etc.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

That NTSC hue issue was fixed in the '70s and never showed

up again. I know Hue controls that were never touched
because it wasn't a problem.

I've owned color TVs since 1974, and I simply don't remember adjusting the
hue control (incorrectly called tint on many sets).

It should be pointed out that a "true" phase error is a differential (that
is, non-minimum) phase error. Readjusting the hue control to get the
fleshtones correct pushes other colors in the wrong direction.

I've noticed over the years that people tend to adjust the hue control for
slightly greenish flesh tones. Don't know why.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

It should be pointed out that a "true" phase error is

a differential (that is, non-minimum) phase error.

Whoops. That should have been non-linear. So easy to get confused...