SMPTE Historical Note: A Brief History of Television Camera Tubes
The development of the iconoscope camera tube made television broadcasting possible. The orthicon tube overcame some shortcomings of the iconoscope; a further advancement led to the image orthicon, which could operate with a much lower light level. Next to be used in broadcasting was the vidicon, which used an antimony sulfide target. For many years the only choices for pickup tubes were the image orthicon (for studio and field applications) and the vidicon (for film transmission). The Plumbicon, introduced in 1965, was the first vidicon-type tube to use a semiconductor target (lead oxide). This approach to tube construction led to a variety of pickup tubes and camera designs. Two recent examples, which are discussed, are the Saticon and Newvicon tubes.
- Print ISSN
- 0036-1682
- Published
- 1981-08
- Content type
- Original Research
- DOI
- 10.5594/J01412