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Post by Dirty Epic on Jan 8, 2020 10:41:52 GMT
Came across this on the BBC News website about a TV enthusiast who's keeping many of the older B&W and Colour sets running. 
It's interesting he can still run Freeview off those set's too, suppose the box he uses is like when you tuned your VCR to CH36 or something in order to pick up the feed. Nice to see these set's in use and being preserved  although when things move on to the next HD evolution not sure if these sets will be able to work with that? Already a lot of equipment is ditching Scart's for HDMI's and not sure any kind of by-pass/connector would work with these veteran set's let alone send a watchable signal to them? 
You're so used to LCD Widescreen's these days you forget how these old CRT sets looked and worked in comparison. |
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Jan 8, 2020 15:23:18 GMT
Came across this on the BBC News website about a TV enthusiast who's keeping many of the older B&W and Colour sets running.
It's interesting he can still run Freeview off those set's too, suppose the box he uses is like when you tuned your VCR to CH36 or something in order to pick up the feed. Nice to see these set's in use and being preserved although when things move on to the next HD evolution not sure if these sets will be able to work with that? Already a lot of equipment is ditching Scart's for HDMI's and not sure any kind of by-pass/connector would work with these veteran set's let alone send a watchable signal to them?
You're so used to LCD Widescreen's these days you forget how these old CRT sets looked and worked in comparison. He'll have one of those Modulator boxes - you can pick them up for about £20. You can connect newer items (Games Consoles / Video Cameras / DVD Players etc / Freeview / Sky) to old UHF TV sets with only an aerial input. Obviously the new Tech won't feature a Modulator.
He'd struggle to get them to work on an old 405line VHF set though - unless he's built a box to do it.
It's how they did Video Walls using CRT TVs years ago (Kenny Everett Show kind of thing)
Though, something off the shelf back then wouldn't have been available - so it would be left to the TV stations Engineering department to knock something up. ATV and LWT designed and built no end of custom stuff for their studios - which ended up on sale for one and all to buy.
The old sets in theory, should work with an HD signal piped through the appropriate gadget - but the quality will be only as good as the set itself - and it's possible the box would need to convert the HD signal to a lower resolution/interlaced signal too. Never tried that method.
I have tried it the other way round - when digitising old VHS tapes - I have used an Upscaling Box, designed for connecting Games consoles to HDMI TVs etc. The quality is frighteningly much better than the usual "prescribed" way. All I do is connect a VCR to the box, and the HDMI port to the computer capture it.
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Post by Sam Tyler on Jan 9, 2020 12:51:47 GMT
He'll have one of those Modulator boxes - you can pick them up for about £20. You can connect newer items (Games Consoles / Video Cameras / DVD Players etc / Freeview / Sky) to old UHF TV sets with only an aerial input. Obviously the new Tech won't feature a Modulator. He'd struggle to get them to work on an old 405line VHF set though - unless he's built a box to do it. It's how they did Video Walls using CRT TVs years ago (Kenny Everett Show kind of thing) Though, something off the shelf back then wouldn't have been available - so it would be left to the TV stations Engineering department to knock something up. ATV and LWT designed and built no end of custom stuff for their studios - which ended up on sale for one and all to buy. Would they really have used modulators for a video wall Sparky?
I'd have thought they'd have direct RGB inputs to the CRTs in the video walls to eliminate the modulators / demodulators and the inherent noise that these two processes would introduce? The PAL signal wasn't the best of quality and any discrepancy between the tuning into the carrier frequencies would surely have shown up on such broadcast standard displays? It was only a few years later that we were using TTL and CMOS switching for the CGA computer displays that were on general release and that used very similar horizontal and vertical scanning frequencies (15.625kHz & 50Hz). I certainly remember using TTL open-collector logic chips to develop 8-way CGA video splitters for displaying multiple monitors from a single PC output at a computer exhibition in '86.
Sam.
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Jan 9, 2020 13:44:38 GMT
He'll have one of those Modulator boxes - you can pick them up for about £20. You can connect newer items (Games Consoles / Video Cameras / DVD Players etc / Freeview / Sky) to old UHF TV sets with only an aerial input. Obviously the new Tech won't feature a Modulator. He'd struggle to get them to work on an old 405line VHF set though - unless he's built a box to do it. It's how they did Video Walls using CRT TVs years ago (Kenny Everett Show kind of thing) Though, something off the shelf back then wouldn't have been available - so it would be left to the TV stations Engineering department to knock something up. ATV and LWT designed and built no end of custom stuff for their studios - which ended up on sale for one and all to buy. Would they really have used modulators for a video wall Sparky?
I'd have thought they'd have direct RGB inputs to the CRTs in the video walls to eliminate the modulators / demodulators and the inherent noise that these two processes would introduce? The PAL signal wasn't the best of quality and any discrepancy between the tuning into the carrier frequencies would surely have shown up on such broadcast standard displays? It was only a few years later that we were using TTL and CMOS switching for the CGA computer displays that were on general release and that used very similar horizontal and vertical scanning frequencies (15.625kHz & 50Hz). I certainly remember using TTL open-collector logic chips to develop 8-way CGA video splitters for displaying multiple monitors from a single PC output at a computer exhibition in '86.
Sam.
Yes, you're right Sam.  If they used conventional CRT TV's they would have a modulator fitted as standard. So an additional box wouldn't be needed.
Most TV studios mostly used Composite / RGB split monitors.
Doing video wall stuff back then was awkward as you couldn't buy the kit to do it - you had to design and make various video splitters and amplifiers.
Central TV had some mad contraptions built to interface TV studio equipment with conventional TV equipment. They had a Closed Circuit TV system - using various old school CRT TV's dotted around the studio complex (Canteen, Waiting Areas, Reception etc) - which could tune in to the transmitted output, or what was going on in any of the studios. The same system also broadcast "Centel" too - which was their own internal Teletext service, and could also receive similar services from other ITV areas too - bulletin boards of the day. All the TVs associated with it had either been customised in some way, or had some magic bespoke box bolted to the wall along side it.
Thinking back - today - such a network of TVs would be really easy to set up and operate.
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although when things move on to the next HD evolution not sure if these sets will be able to work with that? Already a lot of equipment is ditching Scart's for HDMI's and not sure any kind of by-pass/connector would work with these veteran set's let alone send a watchable signal to them? 
