http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1025143/Pictured-The-51-year-old-television-set-wired-digital-age.html

As interesting as this article is, it makes me bitter for some reason. First off, they say the set was "converted" to receive digital signals. What? You mean you hooked up a converter box? That's not converting the set, that's just plugging a box into it.

They also say the "experts" replaced 13 capacitors and the brightness knob. Wow! That's a lot of work for a 51 year old set! What experts! It must have taken forever to swap out 13 caps! :boring:

And they act like nobody's ever heard of a TV from 1957, it's officially the oldest TV ever "converted" to digital. This is the part of the article that gets me.

What do you guys think?

Instead of "Better than AK", I think it's somebody who's never *heard* of AK. :D

:scratch2: Actually, that's a pretty cute TV. And converting a 405-line analog set to 625-line digital has just got to be more complicated than swapping out some caps... I'd like to find out more about the converter that's mentioned. 405-line b/w was on VHF frequencies; 625 is on UHF.
Tom

yeah, never heard of AK.

You all saw my '48 Magnavox playing digital. I hope that "digital UK" meant it was the oldest TV in the UK that was converted.

Although I don't actually see a converter box anywhere. It would be a real accomplishent to actually convert a tube TV to view digital signals with tubes. More than replacing 13 capacitors and a brightness knob, I suspect.

Is anybody running a pre-war off a converter box yet?

Facts aside (flame walnut?), it's a good article. I appreciate one of the last lines:

If it weren't for eccentrics like me nothing would be preserved

Gotta say amen to that.

:scratch2: Actually, that's a pretty cute TV. And converting a 405-line analog set to 625-line digital has just got to be more complicated than swapping out some caps... I'd like to find out more about the converter that's mentioned. 405-line b/w was on VHF frequencies; 625 is on UHF.
Tom

Hi Tom,
It's one of my converters in Richards set, which was the reference to being available from America. They are small enough (about 2" square) that many people just stick them in the set itself. Although I make them for just about every obsolete standard, the British 405 is by far the most requested since they used this right up until 1986 and there are plenty of sets still around.

I do know of few pre-war sets in England that are used on a fairly regular basis for daily viewing from Freeview/Sky boxes or DVD's, so the comment about this being the oldest set is a bit of a stretch. I do agree that that is one nice looking set.

You can find out more about how the converter works by downloading the user manual from: http://converter.home.comcast.net/~converter/

Darryl

I submitted a response to the article, saying about what Darryl said. So far it hasn't been posted.

It would be a real accomplishent to actually convert a tube TV to view digital signals with tubes. More than replacing 13 capacitors and a brightness knob, I suspect.
To make a digital tuner and decoder, it would probably take maybe 5000 tubes, if you use solid-state memory. To add tube-type memory, add 256,000 (or would it be 256,000,000?) more tubes. :D

To make a digital tuner and decoder, it would probably take maybe 5000 tubes, if you use solid-state memory. To add tube-type memory, add 256,000 (or would it be 256,000,000?) more tubes. :D

Oh my aching transformer! :yikes:

If you look at the wood grain on that set, It sorta does look like flames. That may be what they where thinking when they wrote flamed walnut. That is a good looking set but they should replace all the caps.
Ed

Hi Tom,
It's one of my converters in Richards set, which was the reference to being available from America. They are small enough (about 2" square) that many people just stick them in the set itself. Although I make them for just about every obsolete standard, the British 405 is by far the most requested since they used this right up until 1986 and there are plenty of sets still around.

I do know of few pre-war sets in England that are used on a fairly regular basis for daily viewing from Freeview/Sky boxes or DVD's, so the comment about this being the oldest set is a bit of a stretch. I do agree that that is one nice looking set.

You can find out more about how the converter works by downloading the user manual from: http://converter.home.comcast.net/~converter/

Darryl
Thank you, Darryl! That's a very pleasant surprise to see. Much appreciated.
Regards and a tip o' the hat from Tom

I've added a comment, if you see a reference to a 1982 Zenith and a 1964 Sony, it's me. :D

If you look at the wood grain on that set, It sorta does look like flames. That may be what they where thinking when they wrote flamed walnut. That is a good looking set but they should replace all the caps.
Ed

The set pictured reminds me a lot of an old Crosley console I had. I did have to replace just about all the capacitors before the set would work properly.

To add tube-type memory, add 256,000 (or would it be 256,000,000?) more tubes. :D

I read an article about an all-tube 'standards converter' built by the BBC in the late 1950s-early 60s to convert the French 819 line signals to 405 for Great Britain.

I don't mean the earlier ones from 1951 using a camera trained on a CRT either.

This converter, as best as I recall, was built in an entire 6 story building and did the conversion completely electronically, all with tubes! The airconditioning system drew more power than the tube electronics did.

I tried finding the article again [Wireless World?] but no luck. I did find information about a 'line store standards converter placed in operation at the BBC in 1963', but no description of it. If anyone has more info about this converter I'd really like to know.