orthicon

It used three separate vidicons for the chroma channels and an image orthicon for the luminance.

So RCA bought the rights to both technologies and combined them into the image orthicon, a tube that cost US$10,000 in the 1950s.

An image orthicon integrates light over a full frame, and has a photomultiplier built in, so light sensitivity is good enough to be usable.

So RCA developed the image orthicon, which combined both of those technologies.

This is the RCA TK-41, the first good color TV camera.[1] Each image orthicon alone (it used three) was about $10,000 in the 1950s.

There was the image orthicon.[1] That's a TV camera tube.

I can recognize an image orthicon image from an old recording in a split second, as they produce unmistakable images (albeit excellent ones).

The image orthicon can record images by candlelight and the isocon by starlight (as it has such a good noise figure—so good they were used for imaging in astronomical telescopes).

I consider the image orthicon and its 'bigger' brother, the image isocon, video camera tubes to be just about the most remarkable electron tubes to have ever been devised.

What essentially differentiates the orthicon from modern solid-state imaging devices is that it has a much more complicated architecture that involves many different processes whereas the latter repeats essentially one process on mass.

Also keep in mind that tin oxides can be both conductive and semi-conducting, which means that intermodulation is likely to occur around the edges of the lid (remember, tin oxide is unusual in that it is both conductive and essentially transparent which counts for why it's used as electrodes in vidicon and image orthicon camera tubes).

Sure, RCA did develop great technologies such as the image orthicon (a truly remarkable device but nevertheless an evolution of earlier tech) and the shadow mask color tube, and much, much more, but much of it was after much of the early pioneering work had already been done.

However, it tends to flare in bright light, causing a dark halo to be seen around the object; this anomaly is referred to as "blooming" in the broadcast industry when image orthicon tubes were in operation.