However, the Triniscope idea was used commercially in several niche roles for years, notably as a color replacement for the kinescope, from which it took its name.
Color television had been studied even before commercial broadcasting became common, but it was only in the late 1940s that the problem was seriously considered.
At the time, a number of systems were being proposed that used separate red, green and blue signals (RGB), broadcast in succession.
Most systems broadcast entire frames in sequence, with a colored filter (or "gel") that rotated in front of an otherwise conventional black and white television tube.
Because they broadcast separate signals for the different colors, all of these systems were incompatible with existing black and white sets.
In spite of these problems, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) selected a sequential-frame 144 frame/s standard from CBS as their color broadcast in 1950.
On a black and white television this extra information would be seen as a slight randomization of the image intensity, but the limited resolution of existing sets made this invisible in practice.
Although RCA's system had enormous benefits over CBS's, it had not been successfully developed because it proved difficult to produce the display tubes.
RCA's solution was to use three conventional black and white tubes with filters on the front to produce the three primary colors.
Given the cost and complexity, RCA also built prototype units using a two-color system, orange and cyan.
[3] During the early color meetings hosted by the FCC, the selection board made it clear they did not consider the Triniscope to be an acceptable solution.
As the FCC meetings evolved into the NTSC, other researchers at RCA were hard at work on the competing shadow mask concept.