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  #16  
Old 04-03-2015, 11:18 PM
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I Have a LOT of 1970's set. Just acquired a 1973 TS-938 Quasar set from Doug a couple of weeks back. It is the one with the SMPS_-WAAYYY before those became "common". Last one I had was in 1988 maybe 89....till now.

1980' sets...a FEW interest me...but not a lot of them. I have one of the RCA CTC-133 sets with that "square tube" from 86 I think, and a couple of the non-dimensia CTC 131 sets. But the Zenith sets from that era do NOT interest me that much.. Most had the 9-160 chassis, or 9-181 or 214 module till maybe 1985 or so...and those do NOT interest me. Shitty flys, Hot chassis, a LOT of wires connecting boards. The tubes were often pretty good though. After those came the 9-516 chassis --cold, but STILL a LOT of long wires running everywhere...

I also have a NAP 25C8 set--from 1987 or so. Good tube--think it works.

But a LOT of 1980's set had hot chassis....and that is a turn OFF for me.
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  #17  
Old 04-03-2015, 11:30 PM
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I have only two 1980s sets now, the Electrohome that is identical to one we had when I was a kid, and the Zenith console with the 9-516... I guess I got a decent one there.
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  #18  
Old 04-04-2015, 01:20 AM
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Really cool that this thread took off. A lot of great facts and opinions. One thing I saw more than once was people saying that they liked watching programming as old as the sets on their sets. I think that there is something to that as I have long thought that they really did a great job with color programming in the early years, or we'll say the 60s to be more specific. I think to a degree that quality dropped off in the 70s and improved again somewhere in the 80s. I've seen a lot of 70s sit-coms where the video quality is lousy; probably that more than the actual color. But check out something like Dragnet, Bewitched or other 60s shows and the video quality and color are spectacular no matter what set you are using.

We ended up talking about set build quality of later years such as the 80s when things became pretty iffy and remained that way or frankly evolved into garbage all the way up to today's flats. Your age sort of dictates what is "old" to you I think, so to me an 80s set is just another TV set. I say this because although I have absolutely no desire to start filling up my already cluttered electronics home/warehouse with 80s sets or much of anything else frankly. I have enough to keep me entertained for the duration I think! LOL! In my defense, most of my sets are older than me!

I do have an example of how well sets COULD be made (if desired) by the 80s. It's a 19" Panasonic that only says Compufocus on the front. This set was given to me years ago by someone who can justify the upgrade and discard mentality. I'm here to tell ya that the thing often plays around the clock! I work swing shifts and got into the nasty habit of sleeping with a TV on so I don't hear my neighbors' dog collections and lawn mowing addictions during the day when I need to sleep. I know; I can't expect the world to stop so I can sleep. But I keep waiting for SOMETHING, anything to go wrong with such a heavily used set. Not a thing so far. Bright and perfectly converged picture, the works.

Point being is I think electronics engineering reached a plateau of sorts by that time and they could build almost bulletproof sets. Of course we have seen that achievement turn 360 deg. and most of the industry turned to what I call planned obsolescence and/or failure just to keep us buying more. So only a few years ago you could still find one CRT model set at Wallyworld and going back into the 90s a set MAY last 5 years before the tube was shot.

Man, a lot of good things have gone away since the days of the "roundie." Not just things, but ways of thinking as well. I'm glad we are here on VK sort of keeping the torch lit!
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  #19  
Old 04-04-2015, 01:51 AM
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Roundie sets don't put off better pictures than the solid state stuff from the late 1970s and early 80s or the current stuff... Roundie and tube stuff in general also wasn't as reliable.. I can say some of these 70s, 80s sets put off a better picture than some of these cheapo flat screens produced today... Now putting a roundie set side by side with a current flat screen depending on the image the sets are viewing I would say it can be comparable and may even look better with certain images..

Not knocking the roundies as I love to collect them and think they are neat, but they don't produce as good as a pic as the newer solid state stuff and current stuff.. I notice with roundie sets, a dark screen with a bright image in the middle effects the whole screen next to the bright image image.. A dark screen with white words you'll see the screen is darker next to them.. I don't know what you call that, but I think the resolution is not as high as when they started to make solid state stuff, with a VHS or Beta tape you'll notice at the end of a movie with credits you'll see the same effect on any TV..

I notice with roundie sets or even the early rectangle sets, Video tape does not look good on them, either a big bend on the screen and/or a black bar running across the screen

I look at old color programing from the 60s and even early 70s on any TV and notice the colors aren't as vibrant and very dull seeing how that was the technology at the time.. You take a color roundie and hook it to current television programing, I would say that the set is viewing current programing nicely compared to what it was viewing in 1965.. I wonder why that is, maybe the video cameras they were using in production in those times weren't great?

This Hitachi set from 1981 here in the pic below, I use as my daily set, I bought it back somewhere around 2010, and I have been running it pretty much non stop and it's still going.. Tho it's starting to show signs of problems.. When brightness is turn down a little one side of the screen is brighter than the other side, and it has snapped and popped a few times.. But hey 5 years of non stop running, I doubt a new set could handle that...

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Last edited by tvcollector; 04-04-2015 at 02:42 AM.
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  #20  
Old 04-04-2015, 02:40 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tvcollector View Post
I notice with roundie sets or even the early rectangle sets, Video tape does not look good on them, either a big bend on the screen and/or a black bar running across the screen
They can't handle the lousy sync produced by a VCR. A time base corrector would take care of the problem.
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  #21  
Old 04-04-2015, 07:09 AM
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Plasma's have the closest picture characteristics as the crt, deep blacks no angle degradation truer color reproduction and no pixilating like the lcd's/leds.

I think that the picture can be more pleasing because the video levels aren't driven so hard as to diminish the color quality. I guess today's viewer's would disagree, but then most of them don't understand what an acceptable picture should look like
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  #22  
Old 04-04-2015, 08:08 AM
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To fix the shading you just need to replace the filter cap on the
200 V line. Usually a 4.7mfd use a 450 V. One of the most
common problems on ANY color TV.

73 Zeno

Quote:
Originally Posted by tvcollector View Post
This Hitachi set from 1981 here in the pic below, I use as my daily set, I bought it back somewhere around 2010, and I have been running it pretty much non stop and it's still going.. Tho it's starting to show signs of problems.. When brightness is turn down a little one side of the screen is brighter than the other side, and it has snapped and popped a few times.. But hey 5 years of non stop running, I doubt a new set could handle that...

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  #23  
Old 04-04-2015, 10:27 AM
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Last edited by andy; 11-20-2021 at 03:36 PM.
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  #24  
Old 04-04-2015, 12:43 PM
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My late friends girlfriends dad had a RCA 25 incher from the early 1960's that had beautiful color on it and this was in 1980's when I was watching it.
The set had a long life.

My parents had a Motorola -Quasar 19 inch set in the early 1970's which i still have here that put out awesome bright color then.I got to restore it someday.

The Quasar had it issues with its plug in modules getting loose and intermitting connections.
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  #25  
Old 04-04-2015, 01:59 PM
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One thing with modern flat screens is that they use excessive "coring" (a form of noise reduction, where small variations are suppressed, but allowing large amplitude variations go thru. Makes people's faces look cartoonish. And most of these sets don't let you turn this coring off. So this is a reason why I've used CRT VGA computer monitors for HDTV display (assumes the ATSC tuner has an analog VGA (RGB) output) I've set to 1080i. And a reason why old TV sets may look better than the modern flat screens.
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  #26  
Old 04-04-2015, 02:53 PM
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I grew up in the late 40's and 50's. I saw early color in stores and relatives homes in the mid 50's. We did not have a color set until I started working and at 18, purchased our first color set, a 1966 RCA CTC 19 Danish modern consolette. It was a rectangular set. In the 50's we would go the movie theater and watch beautiful Technicolor movies in a rectangular format.

IMHO a roundie was a technology compromise utill rectangular color tubes could be made. If we are used to watching movies in the theater in the rectangular format, we should be watching color movies in the home on a rectangular TV. I did not like the fact that the images were cut off at the corners on a roundie.

In the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's, beautiful filmed Technicolor shows were broadcast such as Bonaza and Columbo. There is just something about the warmth and depth of a Technicolor movie that is lacking in today's programs. Most of us remember seeing those shows on roundies. That is why we have a fondness, it's the nostalgia. We remember our first experiences with color television and it was usually on a roundie and it was great!

Unlike the past, most kids grow up with color TV from the time they first turn a set on. It has become mainstream, not a big deal. If you grew up before color TV was invented and lived for 9, 10-18 years with black and white, it was a big deal to have your first color set.

I do not agree that a properly adjusted color roundie looks better than a properly adjusted flat screen. I did an experiment. You may remember Ed Reitan's screenshot of Dorthty from the Wizard of Oz. It was taken off a CBS field sequential color set which at the time was considered to have better color than RCA. Last year, Turner Classic channel rebroadcasted that movie and I took a screenshot of the exact same frame as Ed's photo from my 70 inch calibrated flat screen. There is no comparison. If you compare image to image from a more modern properly adjusted 1964 RCA CTC15 roundie to my 70 inch calibrated flat screen, there is no comparison.
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  #27  
Old 04-04-2015, 02:54 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by andy View Post
You're seeing the transition from film to video tape. Most shows from the 60's and earlier were all shot on film, so they looked great. That's also why they have been able to sell HD copies of shows like Star Trek. HD masters exist for all those shows. It's too bad they haven't released more of them.

Shows like All in the Family were shot on tape using not so great tube cameras and early VTRs.
I have noticed that All In The Family, Sanford & Son, Maude, etc from that era all have pale color. I thought is was just because these shows are so old now the master recordings were worn out but I guess it was the video tape. Cheers and Taxi which were shot with film still look great and of course the '60s Classic shows still look good.
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  #28  
Old 04-04-2015, 02:56 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wa2ise View Post
One thing with modern flat screens is that they use excessive "coring" (a form of noise reduction, where small variations are suppressed, but allowing large amplitude variations go thru. Makes people's faces look cartoonish. And most of these sets don't let you turn this coring off. So this is a reason why I've used CRT VGA computer monitors for HDTV display (assumes the ATSC tuner has an analog VGA (RGB) output) I've set to 1080i. And a reason why old TV sets may look better than the modern flat screens.
So that is why low end flat screens always look cartoonish. Even our Panasonic plasma has a shimmering cast on some scenes similar to a CRT with low emission. Plasma is the closest to CRT but is not perfect.
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  #29  
Old 04-04-2015, 05:04 PM
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Last edited by andy; 11-20-2021 at 03:36 PM.
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  #30  
Old 04-04-2015, 05:10 PM
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I would LOVE to see someone figure out some way...to show an HD program on a roundie tube. I just WONDER what that would look like?
Here you go. Look at post#8 on this page.

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=262853
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