RCA Victor’s 7-function wireless remote... in 1961
Did you know... discrete power control was available even in the 60s!
Posted by Daniel Tonks on September 2, 2013 at 7:35 AM
Who knew remote controls in 1961 could do so much? This public domain advertisement for RCA Victor’s new (well, new 50+ years ago) color console television with 7-function (14-button) “Wireless Wizard Remote Control”, comes from the Library of Congress’ Prelinger Archives and is entitled “Early technology to enable the channel-surfer”. It’s a fascinating snapshot into both the marvellous electro-mechanical technology of the age, and rather lengthy product marketing.
As the interlaced MPEG archival source wasn’t particularly good, I’ve detelecined it, run advanced noise reduction and sharpness restoration, then adjusted video levels to recover some degree of contrast and color (it was washed out and practically black and white). Mild corruption has been cropped away from the edges. Audio has also had noise reduction, re-EQ, and manual elimination of remaining pops. Finally, it’s been encoded in HD simply to prevent YouTube’s tendency to overcompress at SD resolutions!
Special thanks to RC member “24/7” for bringing the existence of this unique video to my attention!
That childhood favorite is back in a new Timmy video.
