Out of curiosity, I built that preamp/inverter on a piece of perfboard, using a 12V battery supply and a 2N3903 transistor:
It works, after a fashion, but it isn't great. The first pic shows the video signal (color bars) direct from the pattern generator:
And below is the signal coming out of the preamp. The pattern is inverted, but kinda "slenderized," and there seems to be some noise or instability:
The screen image is disappointing. It has decent contrast and detail, and the pot on the collector acts as a contrast control, but the vertical is quite unstable and retrace lines are visible nearly all of the time (not much in this pic, though):
I wonder if the 2N3903 transistor wasn't the best choice? The local supplier didn't have much to pick from. Here's the 2N3903 data sheet:
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Eng...s/2N3903-D.pdf
Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html