RCA Stereo Roundie near Boston but for a price.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by compucat

I think the only way these huge combos would be practical to own is to have it as one's main entertainment unit in the livingroom. Practically all the large sets we collect today were intended as solo pieces of furniture in a room. Most of us collect TVs and radios the way others collect coins or stamps thus making larger peices less desireable because of the sheer sqare footage needed to store, display and use them. I would love to restore and use a Zenith roundie combo or a Manavox Astrosonic but I would have to throw out our entertainment cabinet and solid state SPC TV and the wife would never go for that.

A good friend of mine has an entertainment center with his stereo system, TV, VCR, etc. and I swear, the entertainment center must be seven feet tall. My friend lives in a large house with an equally large living room; the ceilings are perhaps eight feet high or more. His entertainment center goes from the floor to close to the ceiling. It's a good thing his house is as big as it is (he lives in a rural area east of Cleveland); if he were still living in the city (he and I grew up together in a Cleveland suburb), he would never have had the room for anything as large as the entertainment unit I just described.

Is your living room really that small that a roundie TV or combo unit wouldn't fit? I could understand your situation if you lived in an apartment (I live in a very small one-bedroom unit and certainly have no room for consoles here, as I had when I lived in a three-bedroom house with a basement in the suburbs; my TV and related equipment sit on and in an oak utility cart, and my stereo is on a stand next to my computer), but I can't imagine your living room being that short on space.

[vintagecollect]

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[zenithfan1]

Originally Posted by compucat

I think the only way these huge combos would be practical to own is to have it as one's main entertainment unit in the livingroom. I would love to restore and use a Zenith roundie combo or a Manavox Astrosonic but I would have to throw out our entertainment cabinet and solid state SPC TV and the wife would never go for that.

I have one of each of those, the Maggie is rectangular though. I too wanted one in the living room but like you said, the woman will never go for it.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I remember Friday Night Videos on NBC, but never knew until now that the audio was also simulcast over local FM radio. I don't remember seeing anything in the local newspaper, TV listings, etc. at the time as to which of the 20 or so Cleveland FM stations was carrying the show's sound track. Was this done nationally, or only in cities with NBC owned and operated TV stations? If the latter, I am surprised that nothing was ever said about FNV's stereo FM simulcast (that I was ever aware of, anyway) in the Cleveland area, as the NBC-TV affiliate there (WKYC-TV channel 3) was owned and operated by NBC at the time.

It was probably available around the country, but I don't remember how it was publicized at the time. I do know that the FM station in Chicago that had the Friday Night Videos stereo audio was the NBC-owned rock station there, so maybe having the radio station owned by NBC was the key to simulcast availability.

One interesting side note about the simulcasts is that a rival FM rock station in Chicago bought commercials on the NBC TV station during the show, so their commercial's audio was played on the competing station. Soon after, the station with the simulcast was ready for this, and when the commercial came on, they dubbed in their own parody audio for the commercial, with things like a toilet flushing when the competitor's logo came on screen.

I still have several Beta Hi-Fi tapes of those music videos, including a couple of complete Friday Night Videos shows. They would be fun to pull out and play if I get a Beta VCR hooked up again.

[vinljnkie]

I was in college in Providence, RI during 1983-4 school year and remember watching Friday Night Videos on my 12" Sharp B&W and listening to it in Stereo on WBRU which was Brown University's Station if I'm not mistaken. Had the sound coming out of my Sanyo ghetto blaster usually with a cassette tape loaded and waiting on pause for a good song to record. Yes if you wanted songs for free back in the day you had to record them off the radio since there wasn't any internet yet. Actually I know that I still have that tape around somewhere.