In 1946 Pritchard joined RCA Laboratories as a Member of the Technical Staff at Riverhead, NY, where he was engaged in communications research. In 1950 he transferred to RCA laboratories, Princeton, NJ. There his research involved many aspects of color television systems development, receivers, color kinescopes, transmitting encoders, cameras, and magnetic recording of TV. This work included the planning and testing of systems and circuits proposed for adoption by the National Television System Committee. Between 1960 and 1970 Mr. Pritchard worked developing video processing circuitry for color TV receivers, colorimetry and decoder matrix methods, information display techniques, and analog techniques employing charge-coupled devices for TV applications. He also worked on Selectavision VideoDisk development. As a member of the Television Research Laboratory, Mr. Pritchard was involved in research related to high-definition TV systems that include applications of digital signal processing techniques.
Awards
Pritchard received seven RCA Laboratories Outstanding Achievement Awards. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and of SID and member of Sigma Xi, Tau Beta Pi, and Kappa Mu Epsilon. He is listed in American Men and Women of Science and in Who's Who in the East. In 1975 he was appointed a Fellow of the Technical Staff, RCA laboratories. In 1977, he received the Vladimir K. Zworykin Award for "significant contributions to color television technology" at the IEEE Consumer Electronics Spring Conference, Chicago. In 1981, he was a team member recipient of the David Sarnoff Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement, "for the development and implementation of a CCD comb filter integrated circuit in color TV receivers." Also in 1981 Mr. Pritchard was the only American among nine corecipients of the international Eduard Rhein Prize 1980, presented in Berlin, and was cited for numerous contributions in the field of video techniques and particularly as a leader in the development of the Dynamic Detail Processor employed in RCA ColorTrak receivers. He was also appointed a member of the New Jersey Governor's state panel of Science Advisers. In 1983 Mr. Pritchard was elected to membership in the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.
