Hello All,

I have an RCA Television set which was Manufactued in June 1993. It was one of the Very first model that came out with a built-in Cloesd Captioning Decoder. (intergrated in a system control IC). It was a very useful feature for the Hearing-Impiared Viewers to understand better while watching a programs on TV.

I think that FCC made the rules a while back that the Televisions Sets which were manufactured on June 1993 and later are to have that feature.

Back in Early 80's there were a television was for sale at Sears that has a built-in Closed-caption Decoder and the set was selling for $700+ Dollars for a 19" models.

Any Thoughts of Television sets with that feature?

I think your RCA television is definitely worth keeping, being that it's one of the first sets to have that closed captioning decoder, and also because RCA was still making good quality TVs in the early 1990s.

Yeah I think up to 1995 RCA still made good sets. I know around 1998 the CRT's started getting weak and it went all downhill from there.

Yeah I know that Sears model. It had a two-knob tuner, no remote. The closed caption decoder was in a shielded box on the side of the chassis. It was a woodgrain-printed metal cabinet set made by Sanyo (I believe all Sears sets of that vintage were Sanyos). The date on the one I saw was mid-1980. I currently have TeleCaption I and II boxes which I believe are also Sanyo creations. The I has a 2-knob tuner and the II is remote controlled and cable-ready, channel display is red 7-segment LEDs. I believe those were also sold through Sears. I have a memory of seeing a I on display at Sears when I was a kid. There was a III which had the same features as the II but was scaled down in size, I've never seen one in person.
Is your RCA one of the models with the tuner built-in to the main board? (See here: http://repairfaq.org/sam/rcatune.htm) Those are notorious for developing cold solder joints in the tuner which cause all sorts of havoc (bad tuning, no sound, etc.), but if you touch up the ground solder connections up they will run forever. I used to find those thrown out, would redo the ground solder connections and they would work perfectly afterward. If you start seeing symptoms don't let it go too long before fixing it, eventually they will start reprogramming their EPROMs and you have to replace the chip at that point.
RCA had a lot of innovative features around that era. I had an RCA with really cool PIP, you could move the PIP window anywhere on screen with the menu buttons (not just a few preset locations like most PIP sets).

Yeah I know that Sears model. It had a two-knob tuner, no remote. The closed caption decoder was in a shielded box on the side of the chassis.


I repaired one of those metal Sanyos with the built-in CC feature in the early 90s, but that's the only one I've ever seen. I bet it'll be a collectors item!

Charles

As a side note, I think the CC mandate also marked the end for knob tuned TV's. I remember seeing a few knob tuned off brand sets by such names as Samsung, GoldStar, Megatron, and KTV that were made up until '93. By that time, I'm sure manufacturers decided it was not cost effective to design a knob tuned set with CC function, especially since the knob tuned sets were no longer in demand. I'm sure the reason they stayed around as long as they did was for the senior citizen market who did not want change. I remember some customers who would come to me and ask if I had any knob tuned sets because they were afraid they might mess up something with those buttons.

Hey,

I've thought about this myself. And to be honest it has crossed my mind that just about ANY knob-tuned set with closed captioning built-in will be collectible to SOMEONE someday. Just my 2 cents...

I've never heard of a knob tuned CC set, until now. I think the only knob tuned post '93 sets that I've seen were those cheap 12" B&W's. They were able to get away with not having CC because they were one inch under the FCC requirement of any TV 13" and larger must have CC.

Remember the so-called "V-Chip" for parental control? That was a misnomer because it was just a bit of additional programming on the microcontroller, similar to closed caption decoding. I remember when those were mandated, a few years after closed captioning was mandated - I'm thinking 1998. That was also when they started superimposing parental ratings (e.g. "TV 14 D S V") at the beginning of programs.
Some of the low-end TVs (like Orion or Coby) that came out shortly after the closed caption decoder mandate advertised "CCD" in big letters ("Closed Caption Decoder" of course, not "Charge Coupled Device" as you would expect).
Wish I had a picture of that 1980 Sears. I might have taken one at some point, have to search my collection.

Yes, I remember the "V-chip" mandate. I still hear/see ad's promoting "V-chip" technology. It goes without saying that I get very angry when I find a dead TV somewhere, fix it, only to have certain programs that are blocked and me not knowing the password to remove the ratings block. When I was little, my parents were the "V-chip"; but, that's for another discussion.

Alright, I found a scan of the Sears catalog page with the original TeleCaption TV and decoder box. (I see that there are already a few boxes on eBay so they are probably moderately common, but I have not found any instances of the TV with built-in decoder.)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33158682@N06/4315351572/sizes/o/
Also here are a couple of interesting sources for information about closed captioning history:
Popular Science (http://books.google.com/books?id=ySZhMJrzhw4C&pg=PT70&lpg=PT70&dq=sears+telecaption+tv&source=bl&ots=5r4tJY4Ydo&sig=W2K5x3wtaTK9winvCvY4gjesXmQ&hl=en&ei=FpGzS_LZKIP_8Aas_NH_AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=&f=false)
WGBH (http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/mag/resources/archive/techfacts/cctechfacts5.html)

I forgot to add, if you check out the WGBH link I posted, apparently those first-generation TeleCaption decoders are obsolete. They changed the standard to add enhanced text options. However, the TeleCaption TV was apparently able to display color captions, which the separate TeleCaption I/II boxes were incapable of (they only did white text). Newer TVs with built-in decoders will also do color captions.
I wonder what programming would or not work with the first-gen decoders. I suppose I could do come experimentation with my TC I box...

rpm1200,

Thank you very much for posting the pic of the Sears Television with the Built-in Closed-Captioning and the Eternal Closed Captioning Decoder. The Pic of the Television set was the Exactly what I have see at the Sears Dept. Store. It was the First Television in the world to have that. Also, Zenith has a Television with a built-in Closed Cattioning. I think it must be a 1991 model before the law took effect for June 1993. It must be a 19" model.