What is Technicolor? (2021)

(studiobinder.com)

60 points | by thunderbong 294 days ago

4 comments

  • Animats 292 days ago
    Technicolor is one of those technologies where, with enough money and determination, someone did something for which the technology wasn't really ready.

    Something similar happened with color TV.[1] Early color TV cameras were as big as Technicolor cameras. Same 3-channel concept, with a splitter prism, filters, and a camera tube for each color. The camera tubes were image orthicons.[2] The whole setup was insanely complicated, had hundreds of adjustment potentiometers, and took hours to get set up and stable.

    On the display side, the first good theater-scale projection TV system was Eidiphor.[3] As with the cameras, the system was big, complicated, expensive, and required three of everything. Eidophor was developed in 1939, and nothing better came along until the 1990s.

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_TK-40/41

    [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_camera_tube#Image_orthic...

    [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidophor

  • isx726552 292 days ago
    The full blown three strip technicolor process with dye-transfer prints was a true marvel. The picture it produced was absolutely incredible for its age, and thanks to the stability of the eyes, the prints retain their quality for decades. If you ever get a chance to see a vintage dye transfer print projected in a cinema, it’s really something to see.
    • dcminter 292 days ago
      > thanks to the stability of the eyes

      Took me a few seconds to work out that this was a typo, not some strange persistence-of-vision related effect!

      • rkagerer 292 days ago
        It's interesting, in the context of the original paragraph I totally read that as "dyes" the first time around. I'm usually pretty eagle-eyed at spotting typos, but some neuron of intuition in my brain snuck that one through.
    • ftugicuh 292 days ago
      Explanatory film, from the 100th anniversary of the process: https://youtu.be/g9S76vtk4Ro

      It is worth researching the almost extinct dye transfer process in photographic printing as well: http://www.processreversal.org/public/text/Browning_dye_tran...

  • dang 292 days ago
    Related. Others? Not much over the years...

    How Technicolor created Ruby slippers without using color film - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28071731 - Aug 2021 (47 comments)

    “Technicolor for Industrial Films” 1940 Process Promotional Film [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25897711 - Jan 2021 (1 comment)

    Explore the Early Years of Technicolor Film in 40,000 Documents - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15133951 - Aug 2017 (1 comment)

  • aleph_minus_one 292 days ago
    I would have thought that this text turns out to be about physics beyond the standard model:

    > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor_(physics)