Some East-German (G.D.R.) small screen tv sets from the '50's
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg3x8wSsp5g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqcx7w6zKAg&feature=relmfu + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MenkYkL4jU&feature=related + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AemzyUKCY0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzEndb40hZA&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFWlfc1GgI8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2kcJcsLfOk

For sale on German ebay:
http://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=rafena&_sacat=See-All-Categories

Curious: did the GDR use 625 lines like West Germany? If so, signals would be easy to obtain.

My 1940's RCA TVs work fine on 625 line with little or no modification. (I slightly increased the vertical hold control series resistor to facilitate 50Hz scanning). I used a US channel 4 modulator to maintain the 4.5MHz sound/vision carrier spacing. For the PAL 625 line source video, I inserted a 4.43MHz trap to attenuate the PAL color subcarrier to US sound carrier beat.

Yes, they used 625 lines too. In fact all Europe (except U.K./Britan) used 625 lines. I heard that the Soviets propoused the 625 lines sistem. The French had aslo the High Definition (H.D.) syistem with 819 lines (737 lines forming the image).
I want that dark cabinet tv set... but 500 euros is way too much for me.

I hate to tell 'em on that one set on their Ebay-I think its KAPUT, looks like the CRT lost its vacuum.

Were the smaller picture tube sizes more common in countries behind the iron curtain?

Did GDR tv sets look like those from Poland, Czech Hungary, etc?

US manufacturers sold 21" floor models by 1954. Some were larger but not commonly found.

Up to around 1956-1957 small screen was the standard. Around 1957-1958 43 c.m.'s (17") became the standard. In the '60's they introduced 47 c.m.'s (18-19") and 54 c.m.'s (21") picture tubes and even 59 c.m.'s (23") tubes. In the late '60's they also introduced 63 c.m.'s (23"-24") and 65 c.m.'s (25,5") tubes.
In Romania 20" and 21" where the most common after 1940. Before that 17" and 18"-19". In 1960 there where only around 50.000* tv sets in Romania. In 1965 there where around 501.000 (we still hadn't had 100% television coverage of Romania - I don't know if some people where there wasn't television watched neiberghour's television).

Anyone is going to buy one of those old tv sets? :scratch2:

* in 1957 there where only 2.588 sets in Bucharest, and only 13.881 in 1958.
1st tv sets where salled in 1957, when regular broadcasting started (1st broadcasting on 625 lines took place on December 31st, 1956). But even you had the money (a tv set was about 6-11 normal sallaryes (wages)), in order to be one of the 1st people to buy a set (the great guys from the Party and Secret police had tv sets before that) you had to be a member of the police (normal or secret), party activist, artist of the people, foremost people in industry. In 1961 we started to asamble tv sets in Romania. The tv brodacaster from Bucharest was huge and a pain in the ass. It ocupyed 2 storyes on a buiding not designed for that and it had often problems (and the persoannel serving it was blamed for this). The Soviet equypment was lifted with trolleys (I don't know how the got it down in 1981), because that big buidling dind't had service elevators!!! (the equypment that was installed later was climbed on stairs). The bulding was/is Casa Scînteii (House of the Spark) = Casa Presei (Libere) (House of the (Free) Press). Most people don't add Libere (Free) at the name. The motormans (tram (streetcar) drivers) are calling Piaţa (P-ţa) Presi Libere (Square of the Free Press) P.P.L.
In 1959 an tv realy was erected in Iaşi (Jassy) are, in order to cover Iaşi and Bacău areas (the brodacasting equypment was in fact the equypment used at in 1955 and 1956? for experimental broadcasting; it was concived in Romania. In 1960 it was replaced with an Soviet "Vesna"). At Muzeu Ştiinţei şi Tehnicii "Ştefan Procopiu" ("Ştefan Procopiu" Museum of Science and Technics) you can see 2 '50's tv and early '60's broadcasting equypment. We have some old tv's in Bucharest, at Muzeul U.P.B. (U.P.B. = Universitatea "Politehnica" Bucureşti = Bucharets "Politehnica" University), but the oldest one is from 1961 (1st Romania tv, V.S. 43-611: http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=92378 ).

...The French had aslo the High Definition (H.D.) syistem with 819 lines (737 lines forming the image).
...

That's pretty close to the American HDTV 720p scan. Though at 60 frames a second. But I think the French system was interlaced.

Yes. 737/819i.

In the '50's aproximatevly 20,000 (twenty thousand) East-German Rembrant FE-852 tv sets where imported in the former U.S.S.R. The imported model was named FE-852D because one of the knobs operated a different function that at the German version. Some of the sets where equyped (coul be equyped) with Soviet 31ЛК2Б (31LK2B) picture tube (C.R.T.), in stead of the original HF-2963.
I didn't fully understood what the guy from the site sayed, because google transaltion isn't very good.
B.t.w., the loudspeakers could only reproduce an audio frequency between 120 and 4000 Hz. That's worse than a 2 dollars computer loudspeakers :puke:

http://rw6ase.narod.ru/000/tw/rembrant.html

...
B.t.w., the loudspeakers could only reproduce an audio frequency between 120 and 4000 Hz. That's worse than a 2 dollars computer loudspeakers :puke:



Many American made TV sets had equally crappy speakers, with response similarly bad.

RW6ASE has a great website, at least has lots of nice pictures of interesting radio and TV equipment. But, like most white trash Americans, I can't read Russian or anything other than English :D, but I'll add it to my links page at my website.

"White trash American" one who doesn't belong to an ethnic group.

It would appear there are at least a few of our compatriots in the old Soviet bloc who are as nutso about old TVs as we are...That's pretty nice, when you think about it...

I dodn't know Russian (ha-ha, I'm one mad guy who wanted to learn Russian in school) but I know to read they alphabet.
Why the loudspeakers where so crappy in U.S.A. too?
The good thing about those early East-German tv sets was that they had power transformer. The later version dind't... they had those bloody hot chassies and electronic tubes (valves) mounted in series.

Why the loudspeakers where so crappy in U.S.A. too?


The manufacturers figured most consumers (who grew up on 5 tube AM radios) wouldn't care about the fidelity of the sound. Few people in the 50's and early 60s had FM radios, and thus didn't know how good FM sound could be. TV was going to use AM for the sound carrier at first, but our FCC decided FM would be better, to RCA's Sarnoff's great joy... (not) Anyway, many TV shows soundtrack was mostly voices, and music was mostly background, made hifi TV sound unimportant. Oh, the top of the line models had good speakers, but you paid top money for those TV sets.

The sound systems for US TVs was poor in general till the the 1970s when TVs went solid state. FM limiters were only used in a few high end sets and most sets used the quadrature detector or ratio detectors which are prone AM buzz from the video sync signals(especially when connected to a strong as from the DTV converter boxes etc.).