November 16, 1956 Color television RCA PRESIDENT FRANKLIN FOLSOM (LEFT) AND RCA CHAIRMAN DAVID SARNOFF WITH AN RCA CTC-5 COLOR TELEVISION, CIRCA 1956
At the 1939 World’s Fair, RCA laboratories–now a part of SRI International–introduced the all-electronic television system. The invention of the television created an industry that forever changed the world.
By 1953, RCA devised the first complete electronic color TV system. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission adopted RCA’s system as its National Television System Committee (NTSC) standard that same year. The NTSC standard is still in use today.
“The Story of Television,” video, circa 1956
Four prominent RCA researchers show the color TV tube selected after an internal contest, 1950.
Read our 75th anniversary blog feature
75 Years of Innovation: Color television
Read more from SRI
March 3, 2026
SRI becomes a founding member of the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation
Hosted by the Linux Foundation, the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation will build an open-source, AI-native software stack for 5G and early 6G Radio Access Networks.
March 3, 2026
Where do laser beams originate?
To mitigate the dangers that lasers pose to civilian and military targets, SRI is leveraging photonic circuits to pinpoint the origin points of laser beams.
February 25, 2026
SRI advances trustworthy data exchange across disparate healthcare systems
Helping systems talk to each other increases patient safety, lowers costs, reduces errors, and streamlines treatment.
Manage Cookie Consent To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions. FunctionalFunctional Always active The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.PreferencesPreferencesThe technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.StatisticsStatisticsThe technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.MarketingMarketingThe technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options
Manage services
Manage {vendor_count} vendors
Read more about these purposes
Accept Deny View preferences Save preferences View preferences
