In this short promotional film by Zenith, the consumer electronics company touts the many advantages of its new color television sets. The film opens with a father taking his daughter to a Chicago Cubs baseball game (00:30), who are hosting the San Francisco Giants. His daughter’s reaction to seeing her first live baseball game, “in color,” causes him to make the decision to buy a color television set. Interviews with people on the street (02:29), who own Zenith products—including a B&E TV Repair employee (02:56), reinforce the quality associated with Zenith. Zenith is the first company to put color signals on the air in Chicago, paving the way for the expansion of color television. The film shows the Zenith assembly plant for its color TVs (04:15), an R&D facility (04:23), and a color tube plant. Zenith provides the best in appearance, performance, and dependability, and the film goes on to reveal how it hits each of those consumer demands. Zenith’s Plant 2 (06:19) manufactures many components used in color televisions, including the super-gold video guard tuner. At Plant 6 (07:40), Zenith hand-crafts chasses, which are critical to a television set’s performance. The film also discusses Zenith’s color demodular circuitry (10:48), the use and production of phosphor and shadow masks, and other aspects of the TV screen’s production. The final test area (17:00) is where Zenith employees ensure the high quality of Zenith’s color television sets. In the sets themselves, the controls are concealed to protect from children but are easy to use (18:56). Zenith also features the state-of-the-art “space command” remote control (19:50). With Zenith, you get ease of operation, top performance, brighter pictures, dependability, and fine appearance. The film ends with a look at the various cabinet styles of the television sets (20:53), including the Italian and French Provisional styles.

Zenith Electronics LLC is an American brand of consumer electronics owned by South Korean company LG Electronics. It was previously an American company, a manufacturer of radio and television receivers and other consumer electronics, and was headquartered in Glenview, Illinois. After a series of layoffs, the consolidated headquarters moved to Lincolnshire, Illinois. For many years, their famous slogan was “The quality goes in before the name goes on.” LG Electronics acquired a controlling share of Zenith in 1995; Zenith became a wholly owned subsidiary in 1999. Zenith was the inventor of subscription television and the modern remote control, and the first to develop High-definition television (HDTV) in North America.

The company was co-founded by Ralph Matthews and Karl Hassel in Chicago, Illinois, as Chicago Radio Labs in 1918 as a small producer of amateur radio equipment. The name “Zenith” came from ZN’th, a contraction of its founders’ ham radio call sign, 9ZN. They were joined in 1921 by Eugene F. McDonald, and Zenith Radio Company was formally incorporated in 1923. Zenith introduced the first portable radio in 1924, the first mass-produced AC radio in 1926, and push-button tuning in 1927. It added automobile radios in the 1930s with its Model 460, promoting the fact that it needed no separate generator or battery, selling at US$59.95 The first Zenith television set appeared in 1939, with its first commercial sets sold to the public in 1948. The company is credited with having invented such things as the wireless remote control and FM multiplex stereo. Zenith also pioneered in the development of high-contrast and flat-face picture tubes, and the multichannel television sound (MTS) stereo system used on analog television broadcasts in the United States and Canada (as opposed to the BBC-developed NICAM digital stereo sound system for analog television broadcasts, used in many places around the world.) Zenith was also one of the first companies to introduce a digital HDTV system implementation, parts of which were included in the ATSC standard starting with the 1993 model Grand Alliance. They were also one of the first American manufacturers to market a home VCR, selling a Sony-built Betamax video recorder starting in 1977.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com