World's First Color Moving Pictures Discovered

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World's First Color Moving Pictures Discovered

Posted by timothy on Thursday September 13, 2012 @01:09AM from the with-or-without-a-u dept.

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.

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Forgotten Silver by oneiros27 · 2012-09-13 01:18 · Score: 3, Funny

1899? That'd be even earlier than Colin McKenzie's film, which I believe was 1911 ... I'd have to rewatch Forgotten Silver to confirm it, though.

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And when you're used to modern video... by jeffb+(2.718) · 2012-09-13 01:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

...it's jarring to see a still image stamped with "this content is not currently available for your device". Nice illustration of 113 years of progress, BBC.
1. Re:And when you're used to modern video... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-13 02:40 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Funny... works fine on my Linux box :P
Incredible by puddingebola · 2012-09-13 01:23 · Score: 3, Insightful

That's amazing. It's so amazing that I almost think the National Media museum is the victim of some kind of hoax. Reading about color in motion picture films, Wikipedia says hand colored films began in 1895 with Thomas Edison. This isn't hand painted though. Anyone with photography knowledge have an explanation?
1. Re:Incredible by EvilSS · 2012-09-13 01:32 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Looking at the clip it appears to use black and white film, but with a rotating color wheel front on the projector similar to DLP projectors today. I assume one was used in front of the camera as well. I would guess that syncing issues were probably what killed it.
  
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2. Re:Incredible by omnichad · 2012-09-13 02:41 · Score: 4, 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.
3. Re:Incredible by jandrese · 2012-09-13 03:41 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Cyan/magenta/yellow is for subtractive systems, like print. This would use RGB because it is being effectively projected.
  
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4. Re:Incredible by Major+Bloodnok · 2012-09-13 03:51 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  There are stunning turn of the 20C images of Russia done by Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii at the Library of Congress using this process. He used three lantern projectors to display the pictures. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/gorskii.html Of course the great thing is we don't have the fading of color dyes like modern color film, so the color is as good now as it was when captured.
5. Re:Incredible by Skapare · 2012-09-13 04:44 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  If projecting three colors, even if in different time phases, you use red, green, and blue. Since those are primaries, this does give the best color saturation. But it also has the downside of reducing exposure more than secondaries (a problem that still exists even for today's digital camera through the tiny array of color filters).
  
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6. Re:Incredible by 91degrees · 2012-09-13 08:33 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  3 strip technicolor was actually smarter than that. It only used a single camera with two exposure surfaces. The image was split in two by a prism, with a green filter in front of one strip, a second strip that was only sensitive to a narrow frequency (in the blue range), and a third strip behind the blue strip and behind a red filter.
  
  Really ingenious. This means you're not trying to do the same camera operations at the same time with three separate cameras
Why are you surprised? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2012-09-13 01:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

They have digitized it for the computer. They might have also fixed the transition and jerkiness. They should digitize the old black and white footage and apply the same techniques to see if the (relative) smoothness is a side effect of the digitization or not.

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Much Better Video Available by eric2hill · 2012-09-13 01:32 · 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 intended by the inventor.

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1. Re:Much Better Video Available by Tapewolf · 2012-09-13 01:53 · Score: 3, 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 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 ) ...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.
copyright? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-13 01:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

Wait its only been 113 years? Can I view that content without worrying about being sued by MPAA?
The process was patented... by lurvdrum · 2012-09-13 01:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

if this had been in 2012, he wouldn't have patented a film process but instead followed Apple (and others) by patenting "The idea of colour moving pictures displayed to an audience" and his descendents would now be suing Hollywood for 15 gazillion dollars.
1. Re:The process was patented... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-13 02:13 · 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.
It wasn't just "investigated".... by Ellis+D.+Tripp · 2012-09-13 03:30 · 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
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.

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Second, actually by ThatsNotPudding · 2012-09-13 05:22 · Score: 3, Funny

He made one even earlier of a mouse piloting a steamboat, but that one was lost in a mysterious fire...