Farbfernsehen
Color television as introduced in North America in 1954 is best described as being 'colored' television. The system used the existing black and white signal but with the addition of a component intended only for television receivers designed to show color. By careful application this 'colored' signal was ignored by ordinary TV sets and had negligible effect on the appearance of the black and white image. This meant that color programs were viewable on the many existing black and white receivers which fulfilled a requirement for 'compatibility' desired by the television industry. Once the so called 'composite' video signal containing the color component had been generated it could be handled just as if it were a black and white signal, eliminating the need to replace much of the existing TV infrastructure. Colorplexer was the RCA name for the equipment that created this 'composite' color signal from three separate images each created in the primary colors, Red, Green and Blue supplied by a color video camera. This process was by the standards of the day quite complex and demanded accurate control of all the various parameters involved if an acceptable color image was to be achieved. The simplification afforded by this 'head end' approach became evident and contributed to the gradual acceptance of color programming over the following decades.