Color Television was disappointing when first introduced?

As far as "junk holes" are concerned,there are no more at the
CBS broadcast center.I have already searched every possible
crevice in the basement and came up with hardly anything
worthwhile except for a few boxes of NOS tv tubes and
an old Hewlett Packard 410B VTVM.And believe me,the
basement at CBS is massive with lots of caverns with lots
of places to hide stuff.Yes,there was once a treasure trove
down there,but you can thank management for cleaning
it out and throwing away things that they considered useless.
They mostly use the basement now to store office furniture
and other useless crap.I have no idea if NBC or ABC still have
junk rooms or not,they probably don't because their management
most likely has the same mindset as CBS.
Regards,
Swanson

[old_tv_nut]

We shot the HDTV test pictures for the FCC ACATS (Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service) in the Ed Sullivan Theater before Letterman moved in. We used all tube cameras, because HD CCDs were not yet in existence (early 90's). We had one BTS HD camera (using Saticons) that could have its modules switched to do 1050 interlaced (960 active lines) and 525 progressive. We had a Sony, which did 1125 iinterlaced, 1035 active (Japanese standard at the time). A second BTS camera was set up to do 787.5 progressive (720 active), the format proposed by Zenith and AT&T (and supported by MIT). Actually, this camera head could accept the the modules, but its viewfinder had been modified to 47 kHz sweep and could not be switched. Also, the video bandwidth on the BTS camera was a little short, rolling off at 25 Mhz or so. The internal control bus ran at 27 MHz, and when we wide-banded the progressive camera, we also had to make a bunch of ground and shielding changes to keep the 27 MHz clock out of the 720p video. All these formats morphed into the present 1080i and 720p.

The color rendition of the cameras was carefully measured on a Macbeth color checker chart and the matrix values adjusted to get signals as close as possible to the SMPTE standards. LeRoy DeMarsh of Kodak did the regression analysis. As I recall, the Sony was farthest off from what we wanted to start with, but we got a good match after changing values. There was also a problem with the "burn-in" of the Saticons - measurements made shortly after opening the iris differed significantly from measurements after the chart had been in place for several minutes.

Trying to get the least noise possible, we ran the BTS cameras at -3dB gain from nominal, putting us dangerously close to comet-tailing. Also, the 787.5p format had no viable image enhancer from the factory, and Zenith had a crash project (successful) to design and build one. This resulted in many long discussions and measurements to assure that the progressive and interlaced enhancement settings were not unfairly favoring one or the other.

The Sony camera used Sony Saticons, and the BTS cameras did too - but Sony kept their special low-noise FET preamps to themselves, and the BTS factory had to unsolder the preamps, which were soldered directly to the front of the tubes, and substitute the more noisy FETs that they could get.

I recall talk of the magnetic fields, but I think we had no problem - the cameras were kept away from the back wall.

One more thing - the theater had a beautiful but broken stained glass panel in the middle of the ceiling. Does someone know if it was restored, covered, or removed when the theater was remodeled for Letterman?

I'll have to ask the guys who did the first remodel if they
remember that stained glass panel and what happened
to it.They just got finished converting the place over
to HDTV.I know they went with a Sony switcher and
I'm pretty sure they are using Sony cameras.I think
they got a real good package deal from Sony.
Regards,
Swanson

[nasadowsk]

Actually, the NYC subway used rotary converters, not MG sets, for 600VDC traction power. It came in (on the IRT) at 11kv 3 phase 25hz AC, which was dropped down to 400something (not 480), fed into a rotary converter, then off to the traction switchgear. Some IND substations used mercury arc tubes, and some substations used 60hz rotaries. AFAIK, the last 25hz unit was retired in 2000, at nearly 100 years of age (!). All of the mecrury arcs are gone - I think those were actually the first to go because of the hazzards involved with repair of them - they were not sealed units and did require periodic repair, plus they had a 24/7 pumpdown via pumps on them. FWIW, NJ transit used the same basic system on the Hoboken division until '83 when they went over to 27.5kv traction.

Rotaries requied a tender to start/stop them as needed - they'd take them off line outside the rush hour to save wear and tear.

Virtually all of the NYC subway today is solid state fed off of 3 phase 60hz power. The signals are still 25hz in places though. NJT uses 100hz signal power which is in fact generated by geniune MG sets. A pole pig sounds really weird at 100hz and sticks out like a sore thumb in the substation...

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by nasadowsk

Virtually all of the NYC subway today is solid state fed off of 3 phase 60hz power....

No real questions here; just some thoughts: We heard from Swanson that the monitors are still being mumetal shielded; we know from nasadowsk the rotaries are now gone; I wonder if current shielding practices in the theater are unnecessary holdovers from rotary days? Maybe the new solid state units still spew out clouds of magnetic pollution. You wouldn’t think so.

[Telecolor 3007]

I don't know why U U.S.A. folks complained in the '50's and early '60's that a colour tv was 3-4 salaryes. If a "Telecolor" would cost only 3-4 slarayes, by 1989 unless 25% of the house holds would had had colour tvs (colour televison was introduced in Romania in 1983).

[yagosaga]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

I don't know why U U.S.A. folks complained in the '50's and early '60's that a colour tv was 3-4 salaryes. If a "Telecolor" would cost only 3-4 slarayes, by 1989 unless 25% of the house holds would had had colour tvs (colour televison was introduced in Romania in 1983).

What was the price difference in Romania?

[Telecolor 3007]

A "Telecolor" was about 15,000 lei (fifteenthouthand lei), an "Cromatic" (which had a bigger diagonale) was about 17,000 lei and an Soviet "Elcrom" 13,000 lei.
A sallary was about 1,200-2,200 lei.

[kc8adu]

Originally Posted by yagosaga

Oh, I want to see a photo of this 1965 porta color!

iirc the first portacolor was 66.
would you settle for a set with an 80 datecode?
a neighbor has one with a mid 1980 date on the back.in a bright red cabinet.chassis 10he.

[Chad Hauris]

Any way you could get some photos of this set? Have never seen a 1980 tube type portacolor yet.

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

...a Soviet "Elcrom" 13,000 lei.
A sallary was about 1,200-2,200 lei.

Was that 1200 to 2200 lei a year? Ten times the average salary for a color TV?

IIRC in the '54-'55 school year when you could still buy a $1000 CT-100 from the showroom floor (where and when I first saw a CT-100), my spanish teacher was making $3800 a year. Four times more than the price of a CT-100; but it didn't matter, there was no way he could afford one either after living expenses (he had a family).

[Sandy G]

Yeah, a "big" salary back then would have been $5000 a year...About then, my dad got a raise from $35 a week to $50 a week...but he had to come back after supper & help wash up the presses...He & my mom bought a new '55 Chevy & my granmother, -his mom- raised hell about it. Said he was acting like somebody who made $100 a week..."You gonna have to draw in yo' horns", she'd say. $1000 doesn't sound like so much today, but back then that was about more money than the Good Lord had..no wonder not many CT-100s were sold.-Sandy G.

[Telecolor 3007]

I wanted to say that the sallary was betwen 1,200 and 2,000 lei.
After all, how many sallaryes cost a colour tv in 1955, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964?
The first models of "Telecolor" (3006, 3007) where the best. All of the electronical components where G.D.R. Made (except some of the integrated circuits there where Czechoslovakia Made and some capacitors Romanian Made-by "I.P.E.E."). If you where lucky you could get an set equyped with "Toshiba" (Made in Japan) picture tube (my "Telecolor" 3007 got "Toshiba" CRT ). The tv sets could be equyped with wired remote control (I never so a set with remote control because the remote control was dificult to install).
The last models of "Telecolor" (5601, 5602, 5603) where the poorest. The spring from buttons from the programtor where poor, the Polish Made crt's ("Unitra") where also poor. In one word, they sucks!

[bgadow]

Originally Posted by kc8adu

iirc the first portacolor was 66.
would you settle for a set with an 80 datecode?
a neighbor has one with a mid 1980 date on the back.in a bright red cabinet.chassis 10he.

In some GE service documents I have there is a letter dated 1977 from GE-Portsmouth, VA, stating that manufacture of the HE chassis was over & done. My guess is that there were a bunch of leftovers that they put in the warehouse & that they didn't get date coded until they were ready to ship. Either that or demand was so great that the General had to put them back into full production.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

$1000 doesn't sound like so much today, but back then that was about more money than the Good Lord had..no wonder not many CT-100s were sold.-Sandy G.

George Jetson once lamented that "A thousand a week sure don't go far anymore..." I got paid about that back in 1991, working for the phone company (AT&T Bell Labs).

Back in 1968, my english teacher mentioned, as they prepared to go on strike, that he got paid only $6K a year. In 1971, when I got my license, gas went for 35 cents a gallon....