The best color sets in the '50's

[Telecolor 3007]

What where the best color tv sets in the '50's beside "R.C.A", from techicall points of wiew.

[reeferman]

If you are talking purely technical (theoretical) aspects with service/reliability not being a factor, one might suggest sets possessing "I" and "Q" demodulation coupled with a 15GP22 crt. If you are speaking of ease of service and reliability, I don't think ANY set would be a candidate.

[Telecolor 3007]

I especally want ot know what other sets besides R.C.A. had also good picture?

[yagosaga]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

I especally want ot know what other sets besides R.C.A. had also good picture?

I think it depends on the adjustments rather than in the technology. Again and again I read in old books and also here in the forum that the early Kinescope crt's have low brightness so you have to wait until evening or you have to dim the room to watch tv.
In a German history book for the development of color tv, Walter Haas, "Farbfernsehen - ein Geschenk unseres Jahrhunderts" (Color tv - a gift of our century), written 1967, I read in a passage about a German foreign journalist in New York 1964, who had trouble with his color tv receiver:
"... It lasts a long time until the licenced t.v. serviceman arrived. 'You need a transformer', he said, while he fetched the beer from the refrigerator. 'Remember the poor people', he added, 'which bought a color tv receiver in 1956. They have to sit in dark rooms. When lovers switch off the lights at that time, they want to see color tv..."
I think the old tv sets are made worser than they really were. With a good and fresh crt and well adjusted circuits there is also tv watching with daylight possible. Here is a comparison with a 1968 PAL hybrid set with a strong Permachrom tube (A66-120X). Remember, the 21APX22A is nearly 50 years old.
The minor sharpness and color fringings on the ctc-5 depends on artefacts while converting the PAL signal to NTSC.
But to avoid a wrong impression: I have a robust NTSC signal source without any drift in the color carrier. The contrast range of the PAL y-signal is larger than in NTSC, therefore I get a contrast-richer picture here than in the U.S.. My PAL to NTSC converter is a 30-EUR-cheap one from the U.K., which only converts the color carrier frequency and lower the video response down to 3 Mc. Color programs in the 1950's weren't as natural as today's programs. Fleshtones aren't reliable enough because of camera technics, and tv-servicemen hadn't the experience in adjusting a set like those in the 1960's or 1970's. What I'd like to demonstrate is to show, that the possibility of true living color reproduction was almost given in the 1950's.

[bgadow]

yagosaga, that is an excellent demonstration!

The first color roundie I ever saw work anywhere near right was my CTC-11. I was amazed that color was really that good during the Kennedy administration. I need to work on the -11 some more now since my CTC-5 actually looks better than it! No, you can't watch these sets outside in the sun-what crt set can you do that with? I find these sets plenty bright. But, oh, they have to be set up right! A thoroughly screwed up color picture isn't too common on, say, a 70s Zenith Chromacolor II or an RCA XL-100. But on a tube set there are just so many adjustments and variables that things can really be thrown way out of wack. Thats the fun of these sets, bringing them back into line.

[Telecolor 3007]

@yagoaga: seems your "R.C.A" haves some a proble with the blue color.

[yagosaga]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

@yagoaga: seems your "R.C.A" haves some a proble with the blue color.

Yes, you are alright. The colors seems not enough "balanced", I will check it. Thank you for your observation.
Do you have a digital camera?
Can you post some photos of color tv sets of your own country?

[Telecolor 3007]

@Yagosaga. As soon as I can I'll send it to you. But don't exepct to see any roundie or unlese hybrid set. First color tvs where manufactured in Romania in 1983.

[yagosaga]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

@Yagosaga. As soon as I can I'll send it to you. But don't exepct to see any roundie or unlese hybrid set. First color tvs where manufactured in Romania in 1983.

Yes I know. I don't expect "Roundies" in Romania. But it is interesting to see what technics you have had. Were the sets imported or manufactored in the country?
Are you the same guy with whom I communicate in the last months, I remember you had a “Nordmende” Color Prasident with a weak crt?

[Telecolor 3007]

@yagosaga: At the fiest models, "Teleocolor 3006/3007", the transzistors where imported from the former G.D.R., some capacitors where Romanians, the picture tube where "Toshiba" (Japan), "Videcolor" (France), "Unitra" (Poland).
You're that guy from Germany, who owns an "Telefunken" PALcolor 708T and 740T, an "Grundig", an "Metz" Capri Color 6285 and some more old tvs.
My "Normende" haves an "Telefunken" picture tube. Someone tryed to adjsut it, but tghe set haves a small electric problem.

[Telecolor 3007]

And that problem prevents me from adjusting the blue color.

[stereofisher]

[QUOTE=bgadow]yagosaga, that is an excellent demonstration!

The first color roundie I ever saw work anywhere near right was my CTC-11. I was amazed that color was really that good during the Kennedy administration. I need to work on the -11 some more now since my CTC-5 actually looks better than it! No, you can't watch these sets outside in the sun-what crt set can you do that with? I find these sets plenty bright. But, oh, they have to be set up right! A thoroughly screwed up color picture isn't too common on, say, a 70s Zenith Chromacolor II or an RCA XL-100. But on a tube set there are just so many adjustments and variables that things can really be thrown way out of wack. Thats the fun of these sets, bringing them back into line.[/QUOTE

Fixed a CTC-10 back in '73. Got her for 10 bucks. Recapped it and replaced the horizontal output,hor oscillator, rectifier and focus tube. Great picture Ran it for three years. It was a lot of fun.

Eric

[RVonse]

Many years ago I worked in a tv repair shop and I saw a lot of earlier "round" sets from the 60s when they were still in common use.

RCA had the best engineering and probably the best picture to my eyes, but the Zenith sets were built with outstanding quality. Motorola and Zeniths were still hand wired which in my opinion was much more reliable than the circuit boards RCA and most others were using. And if the customer accidentally dropped a Zenith chassis to the ground it was likely to survive unlike most others. But in the earlier years of color, I did not think Zenith used as good of demodulator as RCA and the Zenith picture just did not look as natural to me.

Admiral did not have very good color system either, noticably worse then others to my eyes. Always a reddish tint mixed in the whites.

Generally the biggest weekness of General Electric was in their IF amplifier stages which contribututed to smearing in the picture.

Silvertone, Curtis Mathis, and Airline were basically junk. Motorola developed their own chassis but the others based on RCA but using cheaper parts. And you could see it in the picture quality.

[yagosaga]

Originally Posted by stereofisher

Fixed a CTC-10 back in '73. Got her for 10 bucks. Recapped it and replaced the horizontal output,hor oscillator, rectifier and focus tube. Great picture Ran it for three years. It was a lot of fun.
Eric

What kind of crt has it? Is it a Permachrom one? Is it a 110 ° deflection crt? - In Germany we have color tv since 1967. The best tube (hybrid) color sets were built in 1968-1970. Before that time the crt's were weak and the chassis were overloaded. The second generation with the 90 degree deflection Permachrom-crt's was the best. I never saw a bad or weak 90° Permachrom crt like the crt's of the years before or after them.
After 1970, the manufactores changed to 110 degrees crt's. That was too much for tube-based sets. And 1973 came the change to solid state, with many problems too. The first reliable sets after the end of the 1960's appear at the end of the 1970's.
With respect to my comparison of the ctc-5 to a Permachrom-PAL set: This was only a demonstration. For daily use I would drive the set with lower contrast control and brightness. Otherwise I'm worried about lifetime of the color guns in the crt.
The only full tube color tv set in Europe was built by Philips in Krefeld in 1964, the 21KX100A with the K4-chassis, and it was destinated for export to Canada. It is the only European "Roundie". Some K4's survived and one can find them in U.K., the Netherlands, Germany and in Austria, as far as I know.

[old_tv_nut]

RVonse, thanks for your comments. It's valuable to hear opinions from someone who has seen a lot of these sets. I suspect that there was variation from set to set of the same make due to variations in tube characteristics in the high-level stages (video output, color demods or color difference amps), so judgements based on a fair-size sample are important. The '67 Magnavox I recently bought from Doug Harland shows variations when substituting the video out, and when you look at the circuit you see it's running nearly maxed out with very little degeneration, so you would expect max gain (contrast) to vary from tube to tube. Similarly, with the RCA X-Z demods and the following 3-triode common-cathode matrix to make R-Y, B-Y and G-Y, the matrix gains depend on the tube dynamic impedances as well as the common cathode resistor.