Evening star., 1951-07-31
On the Air
Any Woiting
ForCoIor
Unnecessary
By Harry Macarthur


found any day in the ads offering
TV sets ut 20, 80, 40. so or so per
cent off. or even for one cent if
you buy a refrigerator, too.
Color is the bogey man a great
many people suspect. Too many
who would be looking at tele-
vision, this groups theory has it,
have decided instead to wait a
little while and see about this
color thing.
If this is true a department
store in enc large city and one of
the major set manufacturers
should be in a position to prove
it very soon now.
The store and the set maker
have cooked up a new deal which
makes it unnecessary to hold out
for color. 1t works like this: You
buy any one of several models
of the manufacturers black-and-
white TV sets at the store and
you get with it a guarantee that
you can turr it in on a color re-
ceiver any time before August
81. 1858. and receive credit for the
full purchase price.
Your set. of course, has to be in
working order when you turn it in
and it must be the same one you
bought, identified by a serial num-
ber. Otherwise there seems to be
no catch. You can buy $500
television set tomorrow. use 1t
two years, then take it back in
August, 1858, and go home with
$500 color receiver.
There is a message here some
place, possibly that the margin OF
profit in television sets is COM
Portable. 1t would seem to be a
fair assumption, too, that the Of
ficials of this store and this TV set
factory do not foresee any great
hullabaloo when all those CHS
color sets reach the market this
fall. They're betting that there
won't be any great demand for
color receivers before the fall OF
1858.
On Seeing Red: Several days
ago there was a piece here al
leging that the primary colors as
commonly known by the average
man, woman or child were red,
blue and yellow and not red, blue
and green. 1t was only an at
tempt at light reading on a hot
day when the news was scarce,
but several technical minded
readers and amateur photography
experts didn't see anything fun
my. 1t has been charged that this
was a blast against upright
scientists developing color tele-
vision and that there is someone
around here who doesn't know
what he is talking about.
The first half Of this charge
is absolutely unfounded.
AS for the latter half of the
charge, well, it is generally agreed
that the spectrum contains six
colors-red. orange. yellow. green.
blue and violet. There are, of
course, innumerable variations
1000 detachable ones according
to some experts. The Newton
theory divides the six into red,
blue and yellow, which are called
primaries because the mixture of
any two will never, produce the
third. and orange, green and vio-
let, which are secondary colors,
complementary to the primaries.
Some Of the scientiflc-minded
have pointed out heatedly that
the Newton designation refers to
pigment and not to light, which
is true. 1t probably is true enough.
too, as a reader has pointed out,
that any three of the six spectral
|colors could be used additively in
color television, depending on the
color gamut desired.
To get the widest range, you'd
have to use the three primaries.
Man named Helmholtz identified
the primary colors in the light
spectrum as orange, violet and
green. theory which has served
a number Of people. Not red,,
blue and green, but orange, violet
and green.
To demonstrate why 1t might
be better to drop the whole thing,
the colorS known to some as yel-
low-orange. orange, orange-red
and red are identified by Helm
holtz as, respectively, orange, red,
scarlet and crimson.
Anybody got a teapot we can
put this tempest in? The "red"
filter in the CHS color wheel is
identified by a CHS engineer as
magenta. Magenta is described by
an artist as "purplish. one of the
cooler reds"
Premiere Tonight: This evenings
entry in the summer replacement
sweepstakes will be whats On
Your Mind" which will explore
psychaitric problems on WMAL-
TV at 8. Isabelle Leighton will
be mistress of ceremonies and the
explorers will be a guest psychi-
artist and two laymen each week
X 4
Three More: At least three new
shows will change the face of
Friday evening, starting this week.
One Of these, set for WMAL-TV
at 1880, will be Say It With Act
ing" another version of the cha
rades game which is so popular
with TV sponsors. Maggie Nc
Nellis and Robert Aida will be the
featured players present. . On
WTOP-TV, replacing Mama" on
Fridays at 8, you'll find a show
called 1.-THE Ad Libbers," which