I finally got around to taking pics of the ford roundie that I picked up from the next door neighbour.

Judging by my arm, you'd think i was sacha baren-cohen... that's not really the case. :D The door won't stay shut. Have to work on it. I think the gray bar above the tuner dial used to have something that said "colour television" or something.

Didn't fire her up 'cos I was only going to take pics - the garage is too stuffy for roundie-watching :)

nice score! that is exactly like the first roundie my dad bought in 1966. he didn t
go shopping very much,but when he did,he bought the best.this set really worked well and we had much fun with it.the philco ford crt was so bright it was amazing.worked well until he bought a d-16 sylvania in 1972 or 3.the philco was given to a poor family on our block and they had it until the mid 90s.congrats on your find post pics in operation.

ours had the green tuning bars.everything else is the same though

I remember them touting the tuning indicator (EM84/6FG6) tube, and featuring Red Buttons on an actual screen shot.

Fix Or Repair Daily indeed.

So, after having watched a strong spanish station with no antenna for 15-20 minutes when the lady had it plugged in next door, a few weeks ago, today I go out and buy one of the matching-VHF transformer thingies and plug it in to teh TV to maybe play Kingdom Hearts II on it in Roundie Colour for awhile.

The POS won't show a picture now. It'll show snow, but when you make it "lock on" to a good source the picture goes blank. I tried picking up the strong spanish station again, the snow tears out and the picture goes black and the audio comes in. I connected a sony VCR with the OSD on the screen, it showed a faint snowy outline of that but when you adjust the fine tuning it goes black again. Also, the tuner indicator lamps are dead,

I tried messing around with it for a while, maybe thinking it was the fine tuning, or the switch was partly in service mode, no dice. Then it started being pissy and I heard the characteristic snap of HV, so I decided that was that and turned the thing off. Now I have two dead TVs around the house.


*SIGH*

Any chance the AGC adjustment got diddled with while you were moving it? Sounds like the AGC is getting overloaded with strong signals. Also, check all the tubes and make sure none have wiggled loose. Any time that you move one of these old sets, there is the potential for minor mishaps.

-Ian

Any chance the AGC adjustment got diddled with while you were moving it? Sounds like the AGC is getting overloaded with strong signals. Also, check all the tubes and make sure none have wiggled loose. Any time that you move one of these old sets, there is the potential for minor mishaps.

-Ian

I'll check that maybe later. Don't think it got messed with, it's an adjustment hidden on the back IIRC. Would it still get overloaded even with an off the air, normal station (with no antenna connected)? I don't live right next door the tower or anything; it's just a decent, solid signal you can pick up while in a garage. If you turn everything up to full blast you can sorta kinda see a wavy, distorted image flying by (almost like hsync is lost)

Sometimes the signal doesn't have to be all that strong, just stronger than it was before might be enough to push it over the edge. Yeah, the agc is the first thing I'd check 'cause it's real easy. I had this issue with my Zenith roundie and found some bad tubes in the IF & video circuits. It behaves much better with those tubes replaced.

:D

Should I just pull them and replace them all? I've gotten a bit rusty in identifying discrete sections of the TV :)

ok guys, sorry to dredge up such an old thread. I dug the philco out of storage and powered it on. I tried attenuators in various strengths and combinations, from 6db to 20db... is it possible to spin the hell out of the fine tuning so much that channel 4 is now channel 3 and vice versa? When adjusting the fine tuning to get a somewhat acceptable picture (even at full strength) I noticed that I was on channel 4 selected, but channel 3 was on the VCR output!

I've attached some pics of the chassis, all the tubes have 1967 as the date and say Philco Cool Chassis TV. I'm almost afraid to touch any of that dust for fear of being zapped... there's a local TV shop that's been around since the 50s that only charges $40 for a diag and may be able to help me. I'm guessing a retube is probably not out of the question, eg replace tubes in the chassis since I have no way of testing them, but finding NOS tubes will be a PITA.


I can very occasionally get a "watchable picture" with smashed highlights and exaggerated colour. Seldomly it will flash and give hints that the 21fbp22a it has will give a glorious picture, but most of the time it has fits and won't lock on the picture. When it does, it looks like a weak signal, noisy and blurry.

It displays snow just fine! LOL

It's Alive!!!

I bet if you go through the horizontal adjustment proceedure in the Sam's manual for this set (maybe replace the paper caps in the horizontal osc. stage beforehand), and tweak the front adjustments carefully you will have a very good picture.

Tom C.

Your horizontal frequency is off a bit, tweak the hold control till it comes in. If you can't get it, the pots will need to be cleaned/replaced as required. Mine did the same thing, I'd just replace the front panel controls since they are very low quality. After that, you'll probably get a very watchable picture. Mine didn't even need a recapping job, it works just fine with original parts.

Did you tweak the AGC? Yes, it isn't hard to mistune so that channel 3 shows up on channel 4. Easier on some sets than others.

A wholesale tube change is overkill. For the most part, those aren't hard to find. A number of us on here could set you up with any you need.

Yes, I tweaked the AGC back and forth thru its range of operation, it doesn't seem to have any effect. The H-V hold pots on the front of the TV have limited effect. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and spend the $40 to have the local TV shop take a look at it... with my level of patience I don't trust myself to do anything beyond twist knobs to this set, and especially because I don't know which parts are hot with voltage.

Especially since i don't know how to get the tuner back into alignment or check and see how well it IS tuning... i'd rather leave that to someone who knows what they're doing. I wish I had the knack to get old beasts like this running again.

Hey guys! It's been a little while...

I took the TV to a local shop which has been in business since the fifties.

After a month and a half of waiting in line the old man figured out it was the tuner which is completely shot.

He wants $300 to either:

A) rebuild the tuner
B) sell me his beat up 70s "subtuner" (which is what he calls it)

now, i was able to find a TV tuner bypass/substitute unit which apparently hooks right into the IF section on ebay for $20. It has manual gain control. Are there any modern alternatives to those old units?

He kept promising he would find something that would be automatic but then finally admitted he couldn't.

And btw what is the official term for those tuner bypass boxes?

wow, cant fix the tuner? its just not that complicated assuming its even at fault.

So a tuner subber was tried and we KNOW its the tuner. I would be looking at AGC voltage, tuner tubes, and voltage checks to know for sure its the tuner (I guess this was done by the shop). One last place to check is the balun, I had a smoked one on a set that killed the pic.

Did you ever clean the tuner? its not that hard.

I'd sure look into cleaning the tuner. It's not hard to do... $300 for a tuner repair? Sounds like he doesent want to work on it.

hmmm looking closer that may have a solid state tuner, so even less likely to be the prob.

cleaning involved removing the knobs, removing a few screws that hold the tuner/controls (it comes out as an assembly), removing the metal cover on the tuner (prob the hardest part of the process), remmoving a few tuner strips by pushing them back so they can pop off (do 8,9,10 stay away from 3 and 4), then using some tuner cleaner on a q tip wipe the fingers that run on the strip contacts, use more q tips to clean the actual contacts, put it all back together, and replace the cover (again the hardest part).

while its out examine closely the ant balun for any hints of burned wiring, check with a meter for continuity.

The Most important part of working on any old set is to not force things, (like screws and plastic parts). Ham hands will def do more damage than a light touch. Those plastic tuner strips have small coils on them, that's why I recommend only removing those channels that are not used for gaining access to the take off fingers.

if its a snowy weak pic that can be momentary fixed by careful movements of the tuner (not the fine tuning but the actual channel changing knob help partially between channels) then its no doubt just cleaning required. I agree
with the other poster, he prob does not want to work on it.

These old sets are somewhat labor intensive, that and the fragile nature of hard to get parts would make most folks want to steer clear.

here is a pic of the tuner on my philco, with the cover off

under the heading of "assume nothing", are you sure you have the ant hooked up to the VHF leads and not the UHF leads?

:no: UMMMm , , , , My Spidey senses are screaming "RUN FOREST , RUN !!!!"

That the price for either , vastly different "solution" , just happens to be the same $300 , , , Sure makes it sound from here that the repairman needs $300 to pay some bill or another , and thats why he's now finally willing to finally tackle the job ... I'd be bringing my tv home from there PRONTO , , finding a more honest shop , , , or be learning the nuances of tuner repair myself , were it MY tv .....

Yea , Really .............

It isn't very difficult to clean a tuner, I've done two tuners (both 50's Zeniths), and it was easy. The first one I did was much more complicated than yours (my old 53' Zenith has a super complicated mounting scheme compared to most newer tube sets including yours), but was still at worst only time consuming. It is not rocket science, just care, some finess, patience, and a bit of common sence.

If a repair guy told me it cost 300$ for a tuner cleaning I'd have to invite him to try my 100$ a job car wash.

At least it's a turret strip tuner and much easier to deal with than a wafer switch type.

I'd follow DaveWM's approach with the addition of using a little vasoline on the contacts. Put the cover back on to minimize attracting any dust/dirt and the petrolium jelly will help prevent the contacts from tarnishing.

:no: UMMMm , , , , My Spidey senses are screaming "RUN FOREST , RUN !!!!"

That the price for either , vastly different "solution" , just happens to be the same $300 , , , Sure makes it sound from here that the repairman needs $300 to pay some bill or another , and thats why he's now finally willing to finally tackle the job ... I'd be bringing my tv home from there PRONTO , , finding a more honest shop , , , or be learning the nuances of tuner repair myself , were it MY tv .....

Yea , Really .............


Precisely, because he had been pushing the idea all along when I'd call to ask about the progress, that he was "looking" for a replacement tuner or another solution. When he called to say that he "had bad news" I said, "OK, $300 for rebuilding the tuner; now, how much to just drop in the tuner sub box?" Erm, well, $300, due to the expense of finding another sub tuner box and the labour of putting it in! is what he said. So then I knew he was full of it.

OH. OH. I called in today and played stupid, i said "well, if i ever find another one of those tuner boxes like you have, how much would you charge to wire it up?" and he said "$150 for the labour" LMAO! It didn't look THAT complicated, just a RCA-style type connector that connects to the IF section, pulled off the tuner.

I visited the shop and saw the TV running with the tuner subber box, it has a thrift-store-TV kind of passable picture, and needs a convergence. after that it will definitely have a watchable picture. It was an old box but could generate a crosshatch, shows severe misconvergence in the lower right hand part of the screen. the focus on it is a bit soft, however. the convergence doesn't really scare me as I have an old Sony PJ that converges with pots. it does suffer from a bit of overbrightness.

One thing I noticed is that when I would change the channel on the tuner sub box, I'd have to retweak the gain on the box and the colour settings on the TV to get it looking "good" again. I had him reassemble the set and put the tuner back in the way it was.

I really don't want to have anything to do with the tuner; I don't have cable and would prefer to feed it a component source, since that's all I really watch TV for is laserdisc or dvd movies. and to answer other questions, yes, I did have it connected to the right place :P

There are ways of feeding component video to these sets, and bypassing the tuner.
Miniman82 has a somewhat decent scheme to feed component video in to his Philco roundy. I believe that he had/has a timing issue that he plans to butcher an old delay line from another set, and build an amp scheme to compensate for the timing issue at some point. If I were him I'd try playing with different lengths of coaxial cable on one or both of the channels to resolve the timing issue (maybe I should suggest this to him at some point if he doesn't read this post).

Fuji, I don't know if he's still in business, but there was a guy here in Texas that was popular for rebuilding old tuners for a reasonable price. I think there may have been someone here on this site that used his services. Hopefully someone here will read this and know who I'm talking about and speak up.

For giggles, I did search and found this guy...

http://godard.delhi.la.us/qualitytuner/stangle.htm#pagetop

This may be the person I'm thinking off. Give him a call... might be worth it.

Also, I think you may find it beneficial to get those circuit boards cleaned. Your photo shows a lot of dust in there. My Curtis Mathes had a good coating of dust like your set... wouldn't show a picture at all. I got in there with a small paint brush and a vacuum to get most of it cleaned up, and then some compressed air for places I couldn't reach. I was really surprised when I turned on the power and there was a pretty decent picture (had a weak green gun so that didn't get fixed till later).

I figure if there's enough dust in there to hide the color codes on resistors, then it's time to do some cleaning.

Had a similar issue with an old radio.... I could only get static from it. Put all new tubes in it and still only static. Pulled all the tubes again and cleaned out the dust around the tube sockets... then the stations came in just fine.

Gonna need a pretty long run of coax to make up for that delay,assuming that's the fault. hey also, haven't seen you at ak or vk in ages, fujifrontier. Dont get overwhelmed; these things sometimes turn out to be minor fixes like adjustments.
I personally would NOT suggest that you perform the mods necessary to inject component video into it yet. Reason being, if tuner troubleshooting makes you bat an eye this will be much more involved (to do safely on a tube set)

Forgot to mention... I have a spare Philco roundie chassis.... I think the tuner is still on it. I'll check and see what the number is... I'm sure it will be the same as yours. I don't know the condition of the tuner; I never tried the chassis. Just had it for parts since I have a Philco roundie that uses the tuner with the green bar indicator (I don't think the spare tuner has this). I'll look for it tomorrow. You're welcomed to have it if you like. But hopefully, you can get somewhere with that guy I mentioned earlier.

one last thing, depending on the set, you may be able to just connect the composite video directly to were the video detector diode out is. there should be a test point there (used for scoping the video out for test purposes).

this will give you a pic, you would also need to connect the audio to the correct place (on the audio pot). this bypasses the tuner and IF completly.

the only issue may be the the direction and power of the composite video.

if its too weak you may get a weak snowy pic, and if its reversed from what the tv wants you get a negative pic.

Before trying it I would check the voltage at the test point (to ground) just to make sure its at 0 potential, it prob is, but would not hurt to check before putting the composite video there.

I just checked my philco, it looks like you want test point B and it 1.5v pp which may be more than what your DVD comp video puts out (think they are about .5v pp IIRC).

the test point is on the sweep/sound board at looking at the 6MG8 chroma amp/video cathode follower sync amp tube, right by the tube at the 4 o:clock posistion, near the side of the board.


this is where a nice adjustable video amp (with a phase invert option) would come in handy.

The ant balun was brand new.

At this point, because of my zero expertise with actually working on the electronics part, doing tests, etc (I don't have a VM or any schematics or repair books; this TV apparently seems to be rare because I can't find any info) I want to be rid of the tuner and just use the tuner sub box, I'm a little frustrated with it at this point.

The channel quality did NOT improve with slight twists of the knob or going back and forth quickly. The audio was always solid, and it would occasionally tune in an unwatchable picture if you kept twisting the fine tuning in either direction for awhile. I'll try taking it apart and cleaning it when I get the set back. I use external speakers so no audio would be fine if I went that route of injecting composite.

I suppose right now I kind of feel like the blonde pointing at the car with a blown radiator hose and saying "but it doesn't goooooo!!" and I have the you guys the mechanics telling me "well it has a blown radiator hose" and what I need to do to fix it. I really do appreciate the shared expertise, I'm more of a visual learner and apologise for not comprehending immediately what needs to be done. If I had a diagramme or something that actually illustrated these points where to measure/test, etc I'd be a lot more at ease.

the tuner subber is prob the easiest solution, they are on ebay all the time, however worst case is you get a bad one, so dont spend more that 15-20$

I think most are battery operated (to allow use on hot chassis sets). but still not a huge deal.

Fuji: I checked further into that site. If you click the color banner at the top of the page, it goes into more detail. Sounds like he does a tuner exchange (if he has yours already) for 25 dollars. That sounds like an awesome deal to me. Look on your tuner and get the part number and see what he has in stock.

If you send me your email, I can give you a copy of the diagram for my set. Mine is the 19MT79 and will be damn close to the one you have. My set is just a little newer and uses the tuning eye... most of what's on the chassis will be the same.

that sounds like a great solution. You would still have to install it but there is not much to that.

Many tuners only have three wires asside from the coaxial one with the RCA jack. the wires usually are B+, AGC, and a 6.3 source for the tube heater and any indicator bulbs.
The outer lead of the coax serves as a common ground for the entire tuner, and it's center lead caries the IF a/v carier signal to the IF amps that feed the signal on to subsequent stages.

^that was a great, accurate explanation:yes::thmbsp:

united tuner service is still in business here in columbus,ohio.martin is fully operational at his facility.not sure of pricing but he did a tuner for my sylvania gt matic a couple of years ago for 25.00.it might be worth it to ship the tuner here.we have all dealt with him for years and his work is top notch.

Does United Tuner service also do Mallory Inductuners?

Well I'm feeling a bit more confident today. Got the set back, and unmounted the tuner without the set killing me :p Took some pics!

And you guys are right-on with that solution of the guy that charges $25 for a tuner exchange. I'll first see how satisfied I am with the tuner subber, if I ever overcome my morbid fear of soldering (I've never been able to successfully solder a connection in my life) then I'll totally disconnect it and send it in to the guy. It looks like I might have to, to get the set working on its own without the subber, because one of the wires broke off (I suspect it's the one that provides the 6,3v to it [it's mounted with 2 other wires on a board with a small cap on it]). It's chassis 17MT80. It also has an interesting logo underneath the glued-on metal plate, says "S[]S COLOR" on it.
So, what kind of signal is output exactly from the tuner to the RCA-connection that goes into the IF? How does it differ from the composite connection output by, let's say, a DVD player?

the IF is an intermediate freqency signal 44mhz. All the tuner does is takes the entire old TV broadcast band and selects a channel within that band and converts it to a single freqency, allowing for a better amp (only has to deal with one freq) to work. From there the AM modulated video signal is detected by a diode and the result is the composite signal. this is the same signal you get from the yellow rca lead on the DVD or converter box. the only difference will prob be the amplitude which is prob greater from the IF amp/detector diode vs. the DVD video out.

Ahhhh. For giggles I fired the set up and connected the tuner-out RCA line to the DVD player. No dice. I can't wait for my subber to get here.

I also thought it was rather convenient that the old man restored the tamper-proof metal thing that retains the cord in the set's particleboard back cover. It was loose when I brought it in and I mentioned offhand when I went to see it running with the subber that I could handle the convergence myself when he was backing away saying "nooo noo it's got plastic knobs and those things can break."

I'm a little annoyed I let the set sit with him so long. he apparently has moved on to bigger and better things as the shop is FILLED with flatscreens. He probably makes a killing replacing inverters, ccfl backlights etc. I feel a little cheated and let down that having all the old remnants of a 50s TV shop like carts that say "It Pays to Say RCA," a forgotten tube caddy just sitting there and a large file cabinet labeled SAMS PHOTOFACT, none of the original talent or expertise would be around to consult.

fujifrontier --->"How does it differ from the composite connection output by, let's say, a DVD player? "

The IF out is greatly different from Composite video. The tuner takes the carier radio frequency that has been amplitude modualted by the video signal, and frequency modulated by the sound at the transmiter, and filters out all but the carier frequency of the channel of your choice then mixes the signal with an oscilator whose frequency when subtracted from the frequency of the transmitter is is the IF frequency (there is also some amplification that happens in most tuners). To sum it up the tuner takes a station and lowers it's carier frequency to the fixed frequency of the IFs.

The signal then goes down the RCA cord to the IF amps which greatly amplify the fixed IF frequency that the tuner puts out(here the IF is still modualted in the same way as the transmitter signal at this point).

Then after passing through all the video IF amps the signal(containing both modulated audio and modualted video) is sent to the video detector. The video detector DEmodulates the video part of the IF and outputs composite video (but in most sets this signal also contains modulated sound that is split off and sent to the sound IF at this point) the remaining audio carier is filtered out here and the cleaned composite video is sent off to be split into Synch, color video, and monochrome video which after being processed by their respective circuits form the image you see on the screen.

You would see nothing resembling a picture if you connected that RCA IF cable to your DVD players composite out. So don't try it.


If any of this is confusing I can clarify (I could also deccribe the video circuits after the detector if your curious). The tuner IF and detector of a TV are a specalized type of "superhetrodyne reciever" circuit (google what is in the "" to learn more) with the tuner doing the job of all stages between the antenna and the IF(IF is short for intermediate frequency by the way).

Hope you found this enlightening.

again, if you want you can connect the composite video out to the test point I mentioned before, the inner part of the cable there, the outer part to the chassis ground. Its the stake that is at 4 o clock from the top of the cathode follower tube I mentioned before. It may work, will depend on the PP requirements of that tube. If you have a sams it shows you the test point. this will only give you video, for audio you would need to connect the audio out to the volume pot.

before connecting anything its best to test with a multimeter to test for DC potential.

there is another tuner repair guy in texas. his name is Louis Stangle from Quality Tuner repair services in Longview texas his phone is 877 753-3204 or 903 753-3204. I have use him in the past. request to talk to him Personally.
quality work!

is there a phone number for United tuner service?

I used Louis a couple years ago, nice work. But I was thinking that somebody tried calling him in the past year and his number was disconnected? When I had talked with him it sounded like he was running out of work.

Fuji: The front of the set say SS Color because approximately a third of your set uses transistors. You have four transistors in the tuner and six more on the chassis operating the video IF strip, video amp, and two for AGC. The rest of the set (color, deflection, sound) runs on tubes. I guess they thought they had enough transistors in there to say it was Solid State Color (even though the actual color circuits are tubes).

That's also part of why they call it a Cool Chassis... far less tubes in there, so not as much heat being produced.

Looking at your tuner photos, it's rather odd to think that the tuner from your color roundie set says "made in taiwan"

Haha that sure was a derp moment for me. SS= solid state. I'm a whiz when it comes to computers but this kinda thing throws me for a loop.

That is kind of odd to see Made In Taiwan on the tuner in any roundie. I do know for a fact that Philco-Ford had Taiwanese-built sets in the 70s..and maybe earlier .My 1973 19" b/w Philco Ford was made in Taiwan and is a hybrid chassis. Quality set, regardless of where it was made.

That may just be the UHF tuner that is made in Taiwan. I am also very surprised to see it. I didn't know of anything made in Taiwan and sold in the USA before about 1973, and this set is late 60s to maybe 1970, right?

He mentioned that the Philco tubes in there were date coded 1967, and, that model is listed in Sams 885... also 1967. My Philco roundie is from 68 or 69... cant remember which just now, but I will be interested to see if the tuner in mine is marked Taiwan.

I wouldn't suspect anything else in there being from Taiwan, but then ya never know! :dunno:

when my dad purchased our philco roundie it was 12/1966.the philco ford line had just been delivered the day before.spanky mcfarlane was in the store to promote.i have to say,the picture was outstanding.it was the brightest and sharpest in the store.of course,sun didnt sell a top of the line set such as zenith and rca.they did stock a few lower level,base models but their flagship was sylvania a few years later.our set also had tuner issues at the end of our ownership causing my dad to purchase a d-16 slide control sylvania.that set is still in operation at my brothers house.tuner was rebuilt by united tuner in the late 80s and a tripler was replaced.crt is still bright and sharp.now that was a set!

ok.

So, my tuner subber came in the mail. Hooked it up, and aside from some moderate dot crawl, bad colour, and misconvergence, the thing worked and showed a picture which looked A-OK from across the room but terrible sitting about a couple feet away. It had that... I don't know what to call it, but you can see the coloured lines atop the "good"pics. I was going to connect the LD player and use the A Studio Standard disc to do convergence adjustment, but got called away... I didn't want the set to burn the place down so I shut it off and came back about 45mins to an hour later. (MAC/MAC4.jpg)

Fired it up again when I got home and it started being a hateful bastard. (Rest of the pics.) To get it to show a picture I had to leave the 40mhz cable just barely hanging on to the tuner subber, all the way in and it would make a high pitched sound and the picture would act as if it were being fed a super strong signal (even with gain control at probably 5-10%).

The convergence pattern was bleedy and shaky, like a high frequency jello shaking; when a blocky checkerboard was on the screen it did a "flag" moving and shaking on the right side.

I don't know what could have changed in 45mins-1hr!

I can tell that it would have an absolutely GLORIOUS picture if it would behave, so I'm not keen to getting rid of it, but.... SIGH. With the tuner out of the loop I know that it's something else now that's either changing values or just too old to hold its water. Probably a recap?? Also... anyone familiar with the convergence procedure, LOL?

I've seen a few sets from the late 60s with imported tuners, Taiwan and maybe Hong Kong. Philco and Zenith seemed to be some of the pioneers in that.

The Philco-Ford rectangular console I used to have had that 'SS' emblem. I kick myself on a regular basis for getting rid of that one; at the time, before I had learned much about working on sets, that was probably the best working color TV I had owned. Traded it for a Truetone T-O clone and $15!

check your PM for instructions :)

looks like macro vision lines on the top, try a diff video source like that from a DTV converter box.

Yeah Dave I was thinking the same. Fuji, if you have any disc that do not have copy protection (like cheap movies and sometime old TV shows on DVD), try them. The copy protection on most discs will produce those lines.

Sometimes, you can adjust them out by adjusting the verticle hold just slightly, but if you adjust it too far then the hold lets go. Just play with the control and you'll see what i am talking about.

Since you have a Laser Disc player, that will work fine too. Laser discs and players do not have any kind of copy protection. However, on second thought, they do have frame numbers or running time encoded into the vertical interval, so that could show up on older sets maybe.

Macgyver? That used to be my favorite show to watch when I was a kid.
I think if it were me I'd bypass the tuner/IF entirely and go for a direct video/audio input.
I'm going to do this on a Curtis Mathes tube type console. Since analog RF signals aren't used anymore I'd rather not have to RF-modulate a video signal from a DTV receiver and go through oxidized old tuner connections and all those unnecessary IF stages. I will need to build pre-amplifiers for both the video and audio though.