Electronics 1979
RCA
Does your television automatically capture all these shades of Jupiter? Ours can.
FROM THE PRINTED PAGEOriginal ad copy
OCR transcription from the archived page. Scanning and reading-order errors may remain.
Does your television automatically capture all these shades of Jupiter? Ours can. RCA introduces ColorTrak 1980. With 8 color systems designed to automatically lock even subtle shades of color on track. Getting the color right means more than reproducing vivid reds, bright blues and brilliant yellows. On ColorTrak 1980, 8 different color systems are designed to work together to give you not just the right color, but the right shades of color, automatically. So you'll be seeing them in all their intensity, all their subtlety. Twenty-seven different designs, from table models to magnificent pieces of furniture, all meant to give you one thing. Color That's Consistently Right. AUTOMATIC COLOR CONTROL Automatic Color Control electronically monitors and adjusts color, for consistency from program to program, channel to channel. If the President addresses the nation while wearing a dark blue suit on channel 4, you shouldn't see a light blue suit on channel 7 or a greyish-blue on channel 2. AUTOMATIC FLESHTONE CORRECTION Automatic Fleshtone Correction adjusts flesh-tones so they'll remain natural and consistently lifelike. It prevents strong colors like greens and reds from overpowering the more delicate fleshtones. Brightness Monitored Day and Night. AUTOMATIC LIGHT SENSOR Raising the shades or turning on the lights shouldn't require you to also adjust your television. The Automatic Light Sensor will keep track of changing light levels in your room and automatically make adjustments on the brightness level to keep colors rich and vivid. ACCUFILTER PICTURE TUBE The Accufilter Picture Tube exists for the same reason you wear sunglasses on a bright, hazy day. By absorbing reflecting room light, it cuts down glare on the screen. Automatically. Simulated picture: The Contura ([illegible]). One of 27 designs available. Crisp Detail, Even in High-Contrast Colors. BLACKLOCK CONTRAST CIRCUIT Our Blacklock Contrast Circuit is designed to maintain picture detail in high-contrast situations. Take the typical autumn football game, where there's a strong contrast between the sunny and the shaded portions of the field. How many times have you lost the ball when it was punted out of the sunlight into the shadows? And what about the reverse? When the punt return man came out of the shade into the sunlight? Did you lose detail on his white shirt? There are two causes. One is signal variation, which you can control simply by owning a ColorTrak, with its Blacklock Contrast Circuit. The other involves faulty camera work, which would be the fault of the station, not your set. AUTOMATIC CONTRAST COLOR TRACKING Furthermore, when you adjust the contrast, our Automatic Contrast Color Tracking will adjust and balance the color and brightness for you. So Accurate, There's No Fine Tuning. CHANNELOCK TUNING Remember when you had to fine tune your television? Our quartz crystal Channelock Tuner is so accurate, you'll never have to fine tune a channel again. Never. It's already been done. Automatically. XTENDEDLIFE CHASSIS Finally, the energy-efficient XtendedLife Chassis offers an advanced power supply teamed up with voltage regulators to help stabilize color. Again automatically. All That Remains Is for You to Convince Yourself. See your RCA Dealer. Experience ColorTrak 1980. A picture unsurpassed in RCA color television history. Compare its ability to capture colors in all their intensity, all their subtlety, with your present color television. We think the decision you make will be... automatic. RCA RCA is making television better and better. COLORTRAK For the complete line of ColorTrak models write: RCA Consumer Electronics, Dept. 27 2126, 600 North Sherman Dr., Indianapolis, Ind. 46201.
Commentary
I start with Jupiter and almost miss the television. The planet occupies practically an entire page; the console gets a small rectangle across the gutter. Its screen repeats the planet, shrinking celestial spectacle to living-room scale. Then the caption quietly intervenes: “Simulated picture.” This is an invitation to imagine the result, not photographic proof of the receiver’s performance.
The date gives that choice of subject particular force. NASA records Voyager 1’s close approach to Jupiter in March 1979. I cannot identify this scan’s planetary photograph from the advertisement alone, but its use of Jupiter belongs beside that contemporary encounter. A wooden cabinet promises a seat at an unfolding scientific spectacle. The archive year is 1979; “1980” names the advertised ColorTrak range.
Across the gutter, wonder becomes homework. Eight named systems each receive an explanation, with compact symbols that make the page resemble an illustrated inventory. The examples are domestic and precise: a president’s blue suit changing between channels, a football disappearing into shadow, daylight entering the room. RCA turns engineering into relief from familiar irritations. Even its admission that bad camera work cannot be repaired by the set helps define the promise’s limits.
The most revealing phrase may be the invitation to remember fine tuning. Television watching here includes small acts of maintenance, and choosing a set involves a dealer demonstration or a letter to Indianapolis. Today’s online product pages shorten the hunt for specifications; the old page has to carry its explanations with it. Its density is partly a service to a reader who cannot simply open another tab.
For a beginning copywriter, follow “automatically.” It moves from the opening challenge through the technical descriptions to the buyer’s supposedly automatic decision. The last repetition converts a machine benefit into a prediction about persuasion. Short sentences such as “Ours can” and “Never” give the dense page moments of certainty. The practical lesson is to make repeated language accumulate meaning, while supplying concrete examples between its appearances.
RCA’s history traces the company to 1919 and its first consumer color televisions to 1954. The RCA brand today spans televisions, audio equipment, appliances and other consumer products; that continuing name should not be mistaken for an unchanged corporate organization.
The lasting promise is a convincing picture without continual intervention. Channel-by-channel analog adjustments and the furniture-like console locate this version in its period. Jupiter still supplies the more portable creative idea: choose a subject whose delicate differences make the claimed improvement worth caring about.