On August 25, 1967, Vice Chancellor Willy Brandt stands smiling in front of cameras running on the grounds of the International Consumer Electronics Fair in Berlin. His hand rests on a large red button. When he presses it, a new age begins. In Germany, viewers can now receive television in color.
Start of color television:The button was just a dummy
However, the button that Brandt pressed is only a dummy. A technical assistant behind the stage flips the real switch, but a little too early. For example, German television goes in color a few seconds before the button is publicly pressed. But only a handful of viewers noticed that, because only about 6,000 households have a television set that cost 2,400 to 4,000 marks at the time. The final breakthrough of color television in Germany was not achieved until the 1974 World Cup, which many Germans took as an opportunity to buy a color television set.
Race for the best color TV
For many years, engineers in the research laboratories of the industry had been working on bringing colorful images onto the screen. Color television was introduced in the USA as early as 1954 - based on the NTSC standard developed there. However, clear color errors appear again and again. Faces sometimes turn green, a meadow suddenly turns bluish. It's clear to the corporations that if you can fix these deficiencies, you'll get big business. So the technicians are feverishly looking for a solution - also in Germany.
Walter Bruch and his employees had the goal of developing a qualitatively convincing system for ink transfer.At Telefunken in Hanover, a team led by engineer Walter Bruch is working on this task. The company is even setting up its own research laboratory below his private home. He also works there after work and at the weekend, following developments in the USA and the progress of the competing French SECAM system. Eventually he made his breakthrough:he optimized the process of the already known NTSC technology.
PAL becomes the standard in (almost) all of Europe
On December 31, 1962, Telefunken registered it as a "color television receiver for a true-color NTSC system" with the German Patent Office. In January 1963, Bruch presented his color television based on the PAL system to experts at the European Broadcasting Union. Two and a half years later, the federal government decides to use PAL for the transmission of color television. Most Western European countries follow - with the exception of France, which introduces its own SECAM technology.
However, it will still be a few years before color television is introduced in Germany. There are several reasons for this:on the one hand there is a dispute about the patent, on the other hand a number of technical adjustments are necessary. The entire studio, transmission and reception systems have to be converted to three-channel color technology. And the technicians have to ensure that PAL can still be received in the usual quality from black-and-white devices.
Honors and awards for Walter Bruch
Walter Bruch went down in television history as Mr. PAL.Walter Bruch has received many awards for his development. In 1964 the University of Hanover awarded him an honorary doctorate, and in 1968 a university in Saarland awarded him an honorary professorship. In the same year, Bruch was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit and a street in Hanover was named after him. However, critics accuse Bruch and the Telefunken group of having patented and successfully marketed an already known technology. PAL is indeed successful - it is sold in many states and becomes the most widely used technology worldwide. However, PAL no longer plays a role in digital television.