Vidicon
and Plumbicon Tubes
|
Vidicons |
Plumbicons |
|
The introduction of the Vidicon tube by RCA in the early fifties greatly helped
in the reduction of the size and weight of the studio TV cameras in general,
as well as in the development of color TV by making possible the use in one
camera of three different tubes, one for each of the three basic colors, red,
green and blue. Dedicated Vidicons for color
television had their glass front plate of the appropriate color, and were accordingly
marked with one of the letters “R”, “G” or “B” following their model number.
Other advantages of the Vidicon tubes compared to
the Image Orthicon were their relatively
simple design, easier manufacture, and lower cost. Originally Vidicon tubes had antimony trisulfate
targets. Variants of the original Vidicon, by
different manufacturers, used alternate materials some of which improved the
image quality. But the real leap forward was the introduction by Philips in
the early sixties of the Plumbicon tube, very close
in design to the Vidicon, with a lead oxide target,
giving an image of high definition with an improved signal to noise ratio, low
lag and less trailing artifacts from bright spots in the picture. Vidicon
tubes had a 1”, 2/3” or 1/2” image input, but the most common was the 2/3”.
The Plumbicons had 1” or 2/3” inputs. In the x-ray picture above, the two upper
tubes are Plumbicons, and the lower a Vidicon. Vidicons
and Plumbicons have been progressively and largely dethroned
by the advent, in the late seventies, of the CCD (charge-coupled device)
image captors. |
Go to Main Page |