Peter Carl Goldmark | |
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Peter Carl Goldmark
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Born |
Budapest |
December 2, 1906
Died | December 7, 1977 Port Chester, Westchester County, New York |
(aged 71)
Nationality | Hungarian |
Children | Peter C. Goldmark, Jr. |
Engineering career | |
Institutions | Columbia Records |
Projects | Color television |
Peter Carl Goldmark (Hungarian: Goldmark Péter Károly) (December 2, 1906 – December 7, 1977) was a German-Hungarian engineer who, during his time with Columbia Records, was instrumental in developing the long-playing microgroove 33-1/3 rpm phonograph disc, the standard for incorporating multiple or lengthy recorded works on a single disc for two generations. The LP was introduced by Columbia's Goddard Lieberson in 1948. Lieberson was later president of Columbia Records from 1956–71 and 1973–75.
Goldmark got his first exposure to television in 1926 while in graduate school in Vienna. He later hoped to work with John Logie Baird but was turned down for a job after meeting Baird for lunch in London. In 1936, Goldmark joined CBS Laboratories, and one year later he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Goldmark married Frances Trainer, whom he divorced. Together they had four children; three sons: Peter Jr., Christopher, Andrew and one daughter:Frances.After divorcing Frances Trainer, Goldmark married Diane Davis and had two more children: Jonathan and Susan
In addition to his work on the LP record, Goldmark developed field-sequential color technology for color television while at CBS. The system, first demonstrated on August 29, 1940, and shown to the press on September 3 used a rapidly rotating color wheel that alternated transmission in red, green and blue. The system transmitted on 343 lines, about 100 less than a black and white set, and at a different field scan rate, and thus was incompatible with television sets currently on the market without an adapter.
Although CBS did broadcast in color with the Goldmark system in 1950–1951, the "compatible color" technology developed for RCA and NBC (by a team led by Richard Kell, George H. Brown and others) was compatible with existing black and white TVs. Goldmark and others have pointed out that the CBS color wheel system did provide better picture quality (although lower image resolution) than RCA's system, but the compatibility problem proved its downfall. An improved RCA/NBC color system submitted in July 1953 became the industry standard chosen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in December 1953. Ironically, cameras using the color wheel system continued to be used for scientific research for several more decades, including the color lunar surface TV cameras during all the 1970s NASA Apollo moon landings. Goldmark also continued his work in developing new LP-related technologies, such as the Highway Hi-Fi, a system designed to play 7-inch LP records in automobiles.