I've been wondering for some time what the meaning of the term "Sentry 2", as applied to certain models of Zenith color televisions of 1990s vintage, actually was. I have one of those sets (19" table model), but see no reference in the instruction manual to any kind of automatic color correction schemes, so I honestly don't think this set has anything like the old (ca. 1970s) Color Sentry system. My set only has two options in the video OSD menu for color control, Preset and Custom.

BTW, my Zenith Sentry 2 set also has a menu option for teletext. I have owned this set close to eleven years, and the only thing I have ever seen when I switch the teletext decoder on (I used the TV mostly on cable the four years it was my main set) is a black box covering much of the lower half of the picture. Was teletext ever used on a regular basis by US or Canadian television stations and/or cable systems? I remember reading somewhere that Atlanta's WTBS (the local TV station, not TBS Superstation) was running a teletext test some time in the '90s, but I could never find any information on it as to what was contained in the test broadcast (if any) or anything else pertaining to such a test. If there was nothing to be seen on teletext anywhere in this country or in Canada, I honestly have to wonder why Zenith put a teletext decoder in the TV in the first place. :dunno: Later models of Zenith TVs, say from the late '90s to now, do not have teletext decoders to the best of my knowledge; I don't think the new Zenith-branded LG sets have this useless feature either. Perhaps by then Zenith saw the light and realized the teletext decoder was a frill just about everyone could do without.

Most closed caption decoders or closed caption capable sets I have seen have 4 modes: Caption 1 and 2 and Text 1 and 2...most c.c. capable sets can display the text but I have never seen any actual text on them either.

I have been trying to use Telecaption caption decoders to get closed captions on old TV sets but these units must have a lot of bad caps or something as I cannot get good caption performance from any of them. I have 2 manually tuned ones and 1 digital tuned.

The text mode on that TV is for the closed caption text that can be used for viewing simple text data such as a weather report. The teletext broadcast by WTBS was a much more advanced interactive system similar to what's used in Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext

Zenith did make some sets that could receive this signal, but it never became popular.

The "Sentry 2" name is meaningless. It's just a name to sound a little less than the higher end "System 3" models.

The TBS teletext was carried on the local cable system in Schaumburg IL at the time, and I had a Z set that had it. It was mostly carrying truckers loads available info for a while. One publisher (Knight-Ridder??) had an experimental service with miscellaneous info like horoscopes and recipes, and so few people were using it, you could give them a thrill by calling and asking them to put stuff up for you. In Chicago, one of the stations had an experimental teletext broadcast, and for most of its existence it had things like "test page for Steve" (i.e, some engineer at Zenith). It just never took off with the public, while Zenith spent a lot of effort on standardizing it.

Most closed caption decoders or closed caption capable sets I have seen have 4 modes: Caption 1 and 2 and Text 1 and 2...most c.c. capable sets can display the text but I have never seen any actual text on them either.

Chad -

Thanks for the info on teletext. However, I have another question: You mentioned that most TVs with closed-caption decoders have teletext capability as well. My Zenith Sentry 2 (1995) has it (as I mentioned in my post) as Text 1 and Text 2, but my RCA/Thomson CTC185 (1999) has CC1 and CC2 on the OSD "screen" menu. Nothing for teletext that I can see. CC1 works as expected, as a standard closed-caption decoder; however, in almost seven years of owning the CTC185, I have never seen anything on CC2, not even Spanish CC text. There are no other options on this menu, except the usual ones to add or delete channels from the scan list and an option to set on-screen channel labels.


Update: I was watching The Tonight Show on NBC All Night tonight (a late-night repeat of NBC's 11:35 EST showing of the program) and, out of sheer curiosity, switched on my RCA TV's closed-caption decoder. CC1 produced normal English captions, as expected. However, when I switched the decoder to CC2, I found Spanish captions, so the CC2 mode does work--at least for NBC programming; the network apparently puts Spanish-language captions on its broadcasts as well. I'll have to look at NBC Nightly News tomorrow to see if that broadcast is also captioned in Spanish (it is captioned in English). I understand ABC's World News Tonight has had a Spanish language SAP subchannel for some time, so the program should also have Spanish captions.

BTW, I was surprised and almost shocked to find out the lyrics to one of the songs the music group on Leno's program was singing tonight. I cannot make out what these rap groups are saying when I listen strictly to the audio, but seeing the lyrics on closed captions is a real eye opener, to say the least. No wonder so many parents these days are up in arms over the content of most rap music, and why some of the stuff is rated as unsuitable for children under a certain age (I think it's 17).

For Kaye-Halbert TV (Charles) : Yes, many people are baffled when they lose their TV sound for English broadcasts, only to find that the SAP mode was left enabled by mistake. Turn the SAP decoder off and the problem is solved, but a lot of folks don't know how to enable or disable the feature. I know at least one person who knows only how to turn their TV on and off, adjust the volume, and change the channels--everything else on the TV set is Greek to this person. In fact, I think most people who own TVs with fancy features such as CC decoders, teletext, or even SAP decoders (all sets with MTS stereo sound have them) are not even aware the features are there, let alone how to operate them.

Stereo sound on most table-model TVs is a joke anyhow, IMO, because of the puny speakers used in most sets and because table models are nowhere near wide enough to provide even the minimum acceptable stereo separation. Consoles with MTS stereo are little better. If TVs were still being made in seven-foot-long real wood cabinets, the stereo effect might be noticed, but not with today's small consoles in pressed-wood cabinets and photo-finish faux wood veneers. My RCA CTC185 looks as if it has MTS stereo (there are actually two speaker openings and grilles below the CRT), but it doesn't. The left speaker opening is empty; if you look through it you can see straight through to the back of the set. The TV's speaker is behind the right grille. I think RCA (Thomson) must have used the same basic cabinet for its mono and stereo table TVs when my set was new almost seven years ago, though probably all of their CRT-based sets, and certainly all their flat panels, have MTS stereo sound these days.

The effect caused by leaving teletext on when there is no content (a black box covering almost the entire bottom half of the picture) leads many people to believe their TV picture has shrunk, as noted. My Zenith Sentry 2 will do that, but I know it's because the teletext is on. Many people don't know the teletext feature is even on their set (on my Zenith the feature is enabled/disabled via a small OSD menu), so if their kids, for example, start playing with the front-panel buttons (the Sentry 2 models do not, to the best of my knowledge, have child lockout settings for the panel controls), they can unwittingly engage teletext/CC or even foul up the color adjustments, etc. The parents won't know it until they turn the set on and see the picture in some weird combination of colors, the screen half blanked out by the teletext box, or even the sound volume being up so high it all but blows them out of the room (if it doesn't pop the speaker[s'] voice coils first). :eek:

Oh boy, did that Teletext fiasco ever cost me a lot of housecalls! I would get at least 2 calls a week "My Zenith works great for 5 seconds, then all you get is a big black box covering almost the whole screen!!!!!" The first time I got one of those, I spent an embarrassing amount of time troubleshooting for a bad cap or something in the blanking circuit :no: I finally overcame stupidity and turned off the Text mode.

NOBODY (including me) seemed to have read the owners manual on those sets at the time, so as to even think of Text mode. Even after knowing about that problem, I still got plenty of false housecalls that I went out on because of bad descriptions from customers. Almost as bad as "My TV has no sound on Channel (?)!!!", which came up daily when SAP was a new feature :thumbsdn:

Charles

The text mode on that TV is for the closed caption text that can be used for viewing simple text data such as a weather report. The teletext broadcast by WTBS was a much more advanced interactive system similar to what's used in Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext

Zenith did make some sets that could receive this signal, but it never became popular.

The "Sentry 2" name is meaningless. It's just a name to sound a little less than the higher end "System 3" models.

Thanks for the info, both on teletext and the meaning (or apparently the lack of it) of "Sentry 2." I had a feeling that name didn't mean anything, like "XL-100" on my RCA CTC185. I called RCA's plant in Indianapolis about XL-100 on their newer sets (many years after the original XL-100s were marketed) several years ago, and was told that the name meant nothing; it was just a model designation, as apparently "Sentry 2" was with some of Zenith's 1990s TVs. I did not realize, however, that "Sentry 2" was a model name used to make their TVs using it sound just a hair down the ladder from System 3s. No matter, to me anyhow. My Sentry 2 still makes a great picture on cable, even after almost 11 years. Sometimes I think its picture is better than that on my RCA CTC185. The Zenith still has its original CRT as well, which amazes and pleases me no end; Zenith seemed to have tons of problems with the CRTs in most all of their TVs made from 1992 until 1997 or so, from what I've read on the TV service discussion forums and web sites on the Internet. I have never had five minutes worth of trouble with mine--never had the back off or any service done on it; the set even survived a 12-mile move from my hometown to where I live now, when I moved here almost seven years ago. Someone here at AK told me the reason my set's CRT is still good after 11 years is that the tubes were made in Mexico at that time (mid-1990s), while CRTs for today's Zenith CRT-based televisions are coming from another offshore plant, far inferior to the one in Mexico.

I hate to think, however, what the reliability record must be for Zenith-branded LG LCD/plasma TVs these days. I'm not really knocking LG, as I have a cell phone made by that company that has served me well since the day I got it about a year ago, more or less. The phone still works even after taking a sharp blow when I fell, face-down, on a sidewalk in my hometown last year, which to me speaks volumes for how LG manufactures their cell phones. I have a feeling that, given time, LG's flat-panel LCD and plasma televisions will be just as reliable (I wouldn't try smashing one on the ground, though). :D RCA's Scenium line has had problems (coolant leakage due to bad gaskets, etc.), but a lot of folks have them, so RCA must be doing something right where flat panels are concerned. I'd probably have a FP set myself today if the large-screen models weren't so darned expensive. As it is now, I could get one tomorrow for under $500 if I wanted to settle for a 15-inch picture. When I eventually get a flat panel, however, I will be looking for a set with a picture at least as big as either of my CRT sets (19 inches)--unfortunately, the FP sets I've seen in that size to date are still well outside my price range. As I said, I won't settle for a picture the size of a postage stamp :no: even if I could get the set for less than $500 or so. Besides, many of those sub-$500 sets are made by Magnavox (and other companies which will remain nameless here to protect the guilty). I would not touch a Magnavox-branded TV, even a flat-panel 19- or 20-inch FP, with a ten-foot pole today :no: given the horrible reliability record of these sets--they are just as bad, if not worse, IMHO, than Zenith-branded LGs. The guts of those "Magnavox" sets are made, IIRC, by Funai, which is yet another strike against them.

I've also heard that "Magnavox" CRT-based TVs these days are so light they can be pushed off a table or stand simply by the act of pressing a button on the front panel. I would stick to operating these sets solely with the remote, as trying to use the front control buttons is, IMO, an accident waiting to happen. :eek: :yikes: This is one place where RCA's CRT sets are still superior to Magnavox-branded Funai sets; the RCA's are heavy enough that one can use the panel buttons without fear of pushing the set off its stand. I've been using the control buttons on mine (occasionally; I normally use the remote) since I got the set; the TV hasn't budged an inch off the stand yet. :yes: Of course, the 19" CRT in my set probably weighs 20 pounds if it weighs an ounce (the entire set feels as if it weighs 50 pounds), so that may have a lot to do with keeping the TV in one place.

Goldstar (now LG) was synonymous with junk in the 80's and most of the 90's, but I hate to admit that they seem to be making some good products now. I'm not sure who was to blame for Zenith's problems in the 90's. It's easy to blame LG, but the bad CRTs came from Zenith's Chicago plant, not a foreign plant.

Consider yourself very lucky with that mid 90's Zenith. Very few of them lasted this long.