We present the architecture of a six band high-definition television (HDTV) camera system newly developed for accurate color reproduction of motion pictures based on spectral information. The camera has an optical component connecting the objective lens to two conventional HDTV camera heads whose spectral sensitivities are individually adjusted by placing different interference filters between the objective lens and each camera. Evaluation of the accuracy of the color estimation obtained using the six band camera and a conventional RGB, i.e., three band, HDTV camera using simulated and experimentally obtained camera signals showed that the six band camera achieves accurate color estimation. In the experimental evaluation, the average color differences for the 24 color patches of the GretagMacbeth Color Checker for the six band and RGB camera signals were 1.43 and 4.12 delta-E_ab. This system should thus be suitable for a wide variety of applications.