Well, I don't know how they are doin' it, but the guys how are making the movies make at the old tv sets the image to appear in less than 5 seconds.
I saw a movie (Girl, intrerrupted), in whic they shown an '60's color set with recatngural picture tube (i don't know if the set was all-tube, hybrid or soli-state). The image apeard aftre 3 seconds. I wonder how could that happend?
On my 1984 Teleocolor 3007 the image apears after 4-5 seconds. Those guys know nothing about old tv and old radios.

The set in Girl Interrupted I believe is a solid state 1970's Zenith chromacolor II with the older-style 23" picture tube, so it would come on as quick as the CRT warmed up...also it may have had an instant on circuit on the CRT filament for even quicker warm up.

Many of the 60's tube type sets had a circuit to keep the tube filaments lit at lower voltage when the power switch was off to indeed allow them to come on in a few seconds.

The really old tube radios with directly heated tubes are instant on---as soon as the filament's glowing, the tube is working, same with battery powered tube type radios.

Yeah, I grew up with early-mid 70s era Sony TVs that were instant on. The picture would literally spring! to life as soon as you pulled the power knob. The CRT heater stayed lit 24/7.

Before instant-on, sets took about 25 seconds to make a recognizable picture. Instant-on was a feature for consumers,a nd could get a picture in a couple of seconds, depending on how hot the tube were kept - but anathema to the Energy department and EPA. When sets went solid state and fast-heating CRT cathodes were developed, instant-on was dropped, and typical picture turn-on went to 12 seconds or so.

By the way, when I was at Motorola in the late 60's, we developed an instant-on circuit that eliminated one extra power switch pole by bucking two transformer windings against each other in the standby mode. With this simplification, there was no separate switch section for the pilot light, which was put on the same circuit as the filaments. The design was not approved for production until several executives had taken sets home to see if they could see the pilot light in standby mode in the dark of their bedrooms.

The Magnavox color sets purposely keep the tuner indicator light on at low brightness when the "quick picture" swich is enabled, to let you know that the set is in standby mode for instant on...I guess Motorola did not want to remind people that the set was consuming energy when off with an indicator light on!

Yeah - that is a good question. How is it that some old sets only take five seconds, whereas I've got a couple old sets and the picture takes much longer to appear. In fact, I've got one here that I've been waiting for at least two hours for the picture to appear. <grin>

But seriously, I'd noticed that too - I was suprised at one set I found, an older Mitsubishi solid state color set, probably somewhere in the early 70's, as it had a continuously vairable UHF tuner as opposed to the newer click-stop type mandated later. When I found it, I was wondering why someone had installed one of those in-line power switches into the cord, the type with a little rocker switch that clamps onto a power cable, commonly used for lamps. My assumption was that the power switch was broken. But, the power switch worked perfectly. Came back a bit later and turned on the set again to test the color with a test tape, and the picture popped into existance almost instantly. Looked in the back and noticed the picture tube filament stayed lit even with the power switch off. So _that's_ why that extra switch was there. Some previous owner probably didn't like that 'feature' either. Sounds like a good way to reduce the life of your picture tube and waste power. On a side note, this set is in very, very nice condition, and works well, just needs the convergence touched up a bit - looks like the previous owner took good care of it.

I've heard of the instant on sets that kept the filaments to the other tubes lit when "off", and I've heard different schools of thought on this. Some people say that leaving the tubes hot all the time is easier on them, since it's not the running time that wears on the tubes, it's the cycling from hot to cold. Others believe that running the tubes all the time will shorten their lifespan - I for one believe the latter. Typically tubes don't fail from open filaments, the emissions just drop or become unstable. If you burn the filament all the time, you're just wasting those electron emissions. But, then again, I'm no expert - but one thing I do know is that power is a good deal more expensive now than it was in the 60's.

Now what I think is funny is the very modern electronics that seem to take a while to "boot up" - stuff that should switch on INSTANTLY, stuff like amplifiers and DVD players that sit there for a couple seconds before doing anything, or providing any sort of feedback. No click, no feep - nothing. From what I've seen the plasma TV's seem to do this to. Or what about those annoying peices of consumer electronic cra^H^H^H value-priced equipment that goes into "attract" mode like some sort of video game when switched "off" - incredibly, incredibly annoying.

</rant>

-Ian

The Magnavox color sets purposely keep the tuner indicator light on at low brightness when the "quick picture" swich is enabled, to let you know that the set is in standby mode for instant on...

OMG! We had a Sanyo that did that in the late 70's after our Zenith's high voltage section literally went up in smoke one day, making the whole house stink of burning insulation. Dad (and the whole family) thought the Sanyo was defective because the VHF channel numbers stayed lit when the set was off! He took it back to the store and raised cain about it, and they took it back after the salesman "saw reason". This was before there were xx-day return privileges. In retrospect, that was a shame... I remember the picture was gorgeous! NOW I find out the set was fine! Jeez!

Within a week, we replaced the Sanyo with an out-of-focus RCA black and white 19" portable that gave us headaches whenever we watched it. Smart. THAT set we kept for 6 years!

Tom

Ups. I made an eror. At my "Telecolor" the image apears in 2-3 second.
The ideea, is that, in movies in which they are showing old b & w sets, the image apears in a few seconds, and I know that at that old tvs the image apears after more than 10 seconds.

I think another thing that causes TVs in older movies/TV shows to come on so quickly is that they're not really coming on at all. TVs are hard to film, because the lighting washes out the picture, & the scan rates are different for film vs electronics. I think most of the time when an operating set was shown, it was trick photography. The ones I like are when they show a color picture on an obviously B&W set. Good grief, Charlie Brown !! <Grin>-Sandy G.

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I wonder if any tube company ever did some research on the effect of keeping the heaters lit all the time? With no voltage applied to the tube, it shouldn't be wearing much at all.
this was found to cause a condition called sleeping sickness.
seems to be a reaction between the cathode and the emissive coating.
caused a high resistance between the cathode and coating.
ibm had trouble with this in the tube computer days iirc.

The slowest set I know of is an early 70s series string color set (can't recall the chassis right now) I really need to time it next time I switch it on. These days if someone found one and tried it they would give up on it as junk, not knowing about tube warm up times and all. Perhaps its why I only had to pay $5? UPDATE: I turned it on last night, its a CTC-53A. Audio came up at 12 seconds, video came up at a smokin'-wait for it (literally!) 42 seconds!

I bought a bunch of stuff from a semi-retired Admiral dealer once; he tried to talk me into buying this Zenith he had but he wanted like $75 for it. I thought at the time it was solid state but looking back it was probably a tube or hybrid Chromacolor. Beautiful cabinet, great picture. Anyhow, he told me that he had installed instant-on himself on this set, and that he did the conversion quite often. Its been some years since I've had an instant-on set but I recall they were faster than anything else I've seen.

I once saw a panasonic instant on B&W set. They really meant it, too. You had a picture before your hand was even off the knob. Oh yeah, tube, too.

When my parents replaced their RCA color portable (early 70's, tube) with a Colortrak2000 in the 80's, I remember sitting in front of the TV turning it on and off just to see the novelty of a picture comming up right away :)

got curious and timed my hybrid Zenith Chromacolor. It took 28 seconds to come up. My Zenith System 3 took 15 seconds. My new Toshiba, 5 seconds.

Guys - with modern TVs with "standby" (ie, switched from the remote), does this do the same as instant-on, ie, keeping the filament on the CRT lit? My Sony Trinitron is NEVER left in standby (I loathe that function - and it costs up to £20 a year more in electricity!) and takes about 25 seconds (iirc) for the picture to appear (you get the "frying pan" degauss sound, and the picture only appears once the tube's fully warmed up (ie, a full-brightness picture, rather than one that fades in)).

It's had a hard life - I got it at just over a year old as ex-display from Dixons in Reading, so it was probably cooking for 8 hours a day 7 days a week. In MY house it gets maybe 10 hours a week tops and that includes DVD. I've had cable since last June, and probably watched no more than maybe 30 hours of TV (barring VHS/DVD/LD) since then... Just goes to show how much **** there is on British telly these days.

Bruce had it right when he sang "57 channels and nothing on"!!! :)

AS far as I know, NO set made after, say 1976 or so, had instant-on.I think the NYFD, in the '70's, started a lot of commotion, about some of the I-O sets, causing a LOT of fires in NY, and, with the SO CALLED "energy crisis" of the mid-'70's, they did away with I-O.

I had an RCA Xl-100, from '73,in the '80's, that was I-O, and the CRT would come up so fast, you could SEE the degaussing action, on the screen. Looked kind of funny!!My current '92 model ctc-169, of course does NOT have I-O, and takes about 10 seconds for a picture to appear, and another 20 or so, for the brightness to fully stabilize.(of course, like any modern, digital-controlled set, it does have a standby ckt)

As for Sony's "popping" on, that is normal-- it the action of the IK ckt-- it keeps the CRT in cutoff, until it is fully warmed up.

Just goes to show how much **** there is on British telly these days.

What about Coronation Street, Antiques Roadshow, and re-runs of "Are You Being Served?" I wager that American TV is worse. :thumbsdn:

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In modern sets the standby current is only for the remote control - the CRT uses fast-warming cathodes that can get working in 10 or 12 seconds. Digital sets are a little different in that they will also run the tuner at times in standby mode to accumulate the program guide information.

got curious and timed my hybrid Zenith Chromacolor. It took 28 seconds to come up. My Zenith System 3 took 15 seconds. My new Toshiba, 5 seconds.

Sounds about right, I have an old Chromacolor I like to fix someday, a 1970 23" Zenith I like to fix someday. I remember back in 1981 when President Ronald Reagan was shot, I was in 8th grade. I got home from school, turned the Zenith on and I heard a lot of commotion from the ABC special report as the sound was coming on and I kept saying to the set, "come on, picture warm up, I wanna see what's going on!" IIRC, when you turned the Chromacolor on, you heard a quick buzz from the transformer.

What about Coronation Street, Antiques Roadshow, and re-runs of "Are You Being Served?" I wager that American TV is worse. :thumbsdn:

Two out of three aren't bad, but CORRIE? Are you SERIOUS? AWFUL programme - hated it since I first stumbled on it (my parents are avid fans). I was an Eastenders boy, but have weened myself off of ALL soap operas now.

Don't forget "Are you being served" is a re-run, as you mentioned. Most of the decent Brit telly was over by the early 90s, when the rash of pants "reality TV" and home improvement programmes started poisoning our listings.

Some US stuff *is* actually better, or was - e.g. McGuiver, A-Team, Miami Vice, Freinds, Southpark, Frasier, Cheers etc etc. About the only decent stuff I've seen that's been real Brit (rather than imported) recently was "The Rotters Club" on BBC2, and that was only 3 episodes - but brilliant.

At my soviet "Rekord" (which when I get me more money I want to restore it) the image apears after 1 minute (60 seconds). At my hybrid "Normende" Color Prasident with 4 tubes the image apears afet 32-33 seconds.

I was worng. At my "Normende" the image aperas after 35 seconds.