I have tried in fairly dark room, off light, as is the B-W.

http://www.myvintagetv.com/philco_apple_tube.htm

For more information on The Philco Apple CRT

It has been a few years since I "played" with my VF...but I am SURE that if the photocells are NOT positioned correctly in front of the screen you will not have color. I recall that if ONE of the cells was covered--you would get a "weird" picture, with "confetti" all through it or such--and if BOTH cells were blocked--the color was gone and a "somewhat " BW picture was the result.

That color VF was a -neat idea...fun to play with... but it is NOT really practical to use out of the case--since the index stripes are picked up on the OUTSIDE of the tube--and ANY external light will "mess things up". On the Sony vidimagic, the index info is picked up on the REAR of the tube and from a DIFFERENT phospor--that glows a bright green--from the rear of the screen!!

Yes, but try to move the photocells of the position, tested many times, no change is not the same color

Well, I thought that I might have to take it apart if the Beta deck did not work, but I finally got a Beta tape (*Dire Straits "Alchemy" concert from 1983), popped it in and it ran fine :music:, so the projector likely will not be coming apart for awhile. Here is a link to some excellent pictures of the insides of a Vidimagic, posted earlier on this site:
http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=248120
jr

*What a "blast from the past" we really enjoyed watching this concert last night on the Vidimagic. This video has been long out of print, I felt that I was very lucky to find a copy. This morning, I discovered that as of June of this year the video has been available in the US on DVD and BluRay. Of course, I ordered a copy.:yes:

...

jr - You're NO fun, but I DO understand why you don't want to take it apart! I have gotten much better at fighting the desire to take everything I get apart, which was not the case in my younger days. Now I only take things apart if they were acquired for that specific purpose, or if I absolute have to because it needs to be repaired.

I don't know how I missed the photos in Eckhard's posting! The Indextron tube looks a lot larger than the 1 in the Watchcube TV. Very interesting unit.

Good day to all,

I finally have my Sony KVX Indextron in good working order. Andy Cuffe worked on it, big thank you to Andy.

There is a description of the repair and screen shots on my website if your interested. Just scroll down to the bottom.

The link: http://www.visions4.net/journal/time...e-a/indextron/

Hi

This is my first post here on Videokarma. I found Videokarma.org last year, when searched information about RCA vintage video camera view finder model CKC021 which I bought from USA.

My plan is, after hopefully getting a circuit schematic, convert this viewfinder's colour block from NTSC to PAL, because here in Europe is no NTSC signal present, all is digital using PAL parameters (576 lines). Additional converter (PAL to NTSC) will worsen the signal quality significantly, I already tried it. Secondly, all IC's are covered with thick black paint, so reverse engineering is also tricky. And Philco Indextron system is almost unknown here, no specific info about it.

There are no schematics for that in Internet. So that is the reason why I registered to Videokarma with hope, that fellow member Jhalphen still has a copy of it.

After that I planned to build wooden casing resembling old 1940-50 era TV set around this viewfinder, of course it will be very miniature size.

Best regards
Scott

Welcome to VK Scott,

I have those files you are looking for, Jerome was very generous to send them to me. I will wait for Jerome to respond to your request, but if he dose not see this, I can send to you.

Sounds like an interesting project if you can pull it off.

Best regards,

Marshall

Hello Scott,

Of course i still have the files, backed-up several times. When you spend many hours doing Scans, you don't want to loose them!

Give me your Mail address by MP + max inbox file size and i will send you everything concerning the CKC-021 color viewfinder.

I don't think your planned conversion will work. The electron beam scanning speed is linked to the phosphor strip width and pitch. This is optimized for 3.58 MHz NTSC subcarrier. A tube for PAL would require a different strip pitch to coincide with the PAL subcarrier at 4.43 MHz.

see the illustration here, bottom of page 3 of this thread:

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...3&d=1278374924

Secondly, the viewfinder contains several highly specialized analogue ICs which Hitachi developed for the color VF. A PAL version would require duplicating the IC's internal circuitry with discrete transistors and each IC probably has over 100 transistors on the chip.
BTW, these ICs are unfindable. I need a HM11759 Color Processor chip and have tried for several years with no success.

Finally, i do not agree about your comment concerning PAL to NTSC converters. I have several units purchased at around 150 Euros which truly convert 525/60/3.58 to 625/50/4.443 and they work fine.
Think about it: the resolution of a 1.5" color CRT is pretty weak anyway, it's not a 25" CRT or bigger size flat screen.
Mine have a 6Mb interpolation memory (reduces judder in horizontal camera pans).

I would keep the VF as is and convert composite PAL to NTSC.
Been there, done that and quite pleased with the results.

Best Regards
jhalphen
Paris/France

PS: @e-type2, thanks! for your offer to help Scott.

Hello

Thank you for answering. I sent a PM.

I agree with You, this indexing system is much more complicated compared to usual three-beams CRT-s.

I found one schematic for normal size (over 20") screen TV with indexing scan, there are less IC's and more transistors. Color processing and beam syncronisation seems to be two separate blocks, between them was simple RGB signal. If it's same case with viewfinder, then making conversion is not that hard. But that will be known after through analysing of the schematics.

I have experience only with the digital receiver boxes. Besides digital HDMI output, there are option for analog output, either RGBout via Euroconnector, and PAL or NTSC composite format. Well, these "inner" converters are beyond from perfection and really, even on that tiny 1,5" screen picture quality is bad compared to PAL (black&white of course with that viewfinder) signal.

I found at ebay some cameras with color viewfinder, even as cheap as 5 US$, but seller would post only inside USA. I bought mine with 30$, but postage to Europe was twice as that. So I abandoned the camera itself and the seller was kind to send only the vf part to keep postage more reasonable level.

Best Regards

Scott

Yeah, postage between North America and Europe can be a real wallet-killer. Just recently I got a postage quote for a "Black Beauty headlight" (Lucas Ranger), which are of British origin.

Sellers that won't ship outside the USA, there's another big problem.

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