When M. Fox confronts the professor in his lab in 1955, he hooks his cam-corder to a black & white TV (a small 13" Philco I believe) but the view they see is in full color.
It could be that the station he was watching was broadcasted in black and white, but viewed on a color t.v. So when the cam-corder was hooked up, the picture was then changed to color.
If you look closely the TV screen is not in full color when they are playing the video tape, in fact it is probably faint color for two frames because when I saw it the screen was in black and white both times.
Color television did exist in 1955, although it was rare. Most shows were still broadcast in black and white, especially low budget TV shows. It's not out of the question to have Doc owning a color TV, since he was a scientist, and apparently had a good deal of knowledge about electronic equipment. He would have been very interested with any new equipment he'd never seen before, as his fascination with the video camera showed. (and a final note, color TV wasn't exactly as crisp and clear then as it is now, it showed up on early color televisions as very dull and faint.)
i don't remember when color tv was invented but i do know that the tv was black and white because the tv was old and when doc shut it off it took a long time to shut off so it was a old tv. and when they were watching the tape on the tv it was in black and white, so i don't know what your talking about but if you have a black and white tv and a color or camcorder you can't make the tape on the tv colored.
Nope. Color TV was invented in (deep breath) 1928, according to the World Almanac and Book of Facts.
Doc, given his obvious curiosity (and wealth. Notice he owns two televisions, then consider Lorraine's brother made a statement about Marty at the dinner table when Marty said his family owned two televisions), probably looked into it and made a reproduction.
Also, black and white television isn't really white. You can see this in the black lines you see on magazine folds from time to time. That's not a true black, but a printing of each color on top of all the others. Since mixing all colors of light makes white, a poor mix would result in a hint of other colors, the dominant one being blue (that's why our sky is blue. It's the color of the rainbow with the widest difference of wavelengths, so it covers the other colors nicely, as there's more blue in the spectrum. I used to be a printer, and studied this on a basic level).
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