Thanks Sampson 159.

Thanks Kevin. Still not satisfied with the green, better but working on it.

With no ability to freeze the images at the moment, I just click away and the majority have movement, blurry, etc. A few shots come out okay.

etype2 asked us to keep the posts related to the set itself, and most of us have since he asked. You might give it a try...

etype2, the green still looks weak to me, but it could be something about your camera, my monitor, or my eyes. Color vision is a surprisingly difficult thing to describe in a very general, quantitative way. Regardless, the set is 99% there. Very, very nice set; I'm green with envy

Thanks Ben. :thmbsp: It's not your eyes, the green is not vibrant. The flower shot with the butterfly is about the best so far. It depends on the program. Technicolor seems to look the best. The green gun has good emission. I'm working on improving it.

Edit: Adding. The green glass oil lamp behind Robert Mitchum in El Dorado, should look more vibrant. More often then not palm trees look more gold then green. Have to improve this.

Lack of green really gives it that "tan cowboy, riding the brown horse into the orange sunset look"...Of course I tend to set up my sets so the blacks favor a mild green tint and the greens are strong and vibrant....When I watch a show with green grass in the winter I want to believe I'm looking at the fresh emerald green grass of spring. :D

Tom,

I understand that point of view. Having lived in Wisconsin the first 33 years of my life .... in winter, the shades of grey and cabin fever. NO GREEN! :D

Its not just a lack of green. Its also a lack of magenta/violet.

This simply means that the I/Q or rather R-Y/Q balance is off seriously.

Look at the SPECIFIED type color bars with your scope and adjust per instructions. Alternatively, use R-G-B-Yellow-Cyan-Magenta bars and
adjust so bars containing a given primary all have the same height at
the CRT grids ... see CT-100 scope traces. Pay particular attention
to the R-Y gain, its non-intuitive.

If this fails, you have matrix resistor issues.

Thank you dtvmcdonald.

"Its not just a lack of green. Its also a lack of magenta/violet."

What leads you to this conclusion?

Why too little magenta? First, cartoon characters tend to have lots of magenta and
violet ... the designers like the whole rainbow. Yours do have a rather drab violet. Second, the overall "look" is the
same as when my CT-100 (pre red gun illness or even now at low brightness)
is misadjusted with the wrong I (or R-Y) gain setting.

Doug,

Okay, that is good to know. We will look into it. I would still like to see some screenshots of your CT-100 prior to the red gun problem, or direct me to the thread where you posted the shots. Thanks.

Here are a few shots displaying magenta, purple and green on my 21CT55. They were captured yesterday on February 21, 2017 from an OTA broadcast on Decades TV of the 1955 Technicolor movie, "Gentlemen Marry Brunettes". The movie is showing its age in terms of quality but this is my magenta and green presently. Of course it varies from program to program.

https://visions4netjournal.files.wor...2/img_3461.jpg

https://visions4netjournal.files.wor...2/img_3441.jpg

https://visions4netjournal.files.wor...2/img_3445.jpg

Edit: I found this screenshot from a remastered CD shown on a modern television. Apparently my green is not to far off from what it should be.

https://visions4netjournal.files.wor...2/img_3479.jpg

https://visions4netjournal.files.wor...2/img_3448.jpg

See attached pictures. The cartoons and girl with hat are off the air

Test pattern is RGB
+I -I +Q -Q

My avatar is also the CT-100

Thanks for posting this. The red in Dorthy's lips is "redder" then my same screenshot. The girl with the hat shot, was that prior to your red gun problem? Looks well balanced.

Note: The first shot in my last post was done with the tint control set for overall best flesh tones on a majority of OTA programs. When I saw the dresses, I assumed they were magneta. It's possible that the dresses are really red.

Might I make a suggestion, etype2?

Post some screenshots from the Eisenhower tape and "An Evening With Fred Astaire". Download the higgest quality copies from say YouTube and burn it to a DVD or stream it via a media server and STB to your 21-CT-55. Those are "known quantities", whereas a Technicolor film could have been sourced from an IB print, the negatives, an Eastman print, etc. Then there's the issue of color correction. For example, there are DVD copies of "The Wizard of Oz" that are sourced from an IB print, and at least two versions sourced from the negative scans but color corrected differently. If you use the Eisenhower tape though, we can all look at the YouTube clip and compare that to the screenshots. It's one less variable to contend with.

Just an idea.

Ben,

I have watched both programs on YouTube. Thankfully Chris Trexler has preserved the entire Fred Astaire special complete with commercials in one clip for all of us to enjoy and many thanks to the late Ed Reitan and his colleagues for restoring the Astaire tape in the first place.

What is STB? Your suggestions are good ones. BTW, We were lucky to win Ed Reitan's Worthington CTC-7 several years ago at the ETF convention. The Worthington first introduced in 1958 was the same year as the Astaire special. We would like to pay tribute to Ed Reitan and play that special on his set, (We are just the custodian for now) then make a video of our own and publish it on YouTube.

So yes, we would very much like to take up your suggestions. Thanks.

STB= set top box

You can use a Raspberry Pi with an XMBC-centric distribution as a set top box. Then run an XMBC server and stream the data over your network. Or, just burn the videos to a DVD and play them back through a decent DVD player connected to a decent RF modulator.

The XMBC solution is more elegant though because you can turn the actual color burst on and off, etc. Much better for diagnostic purposes. And it requires only the use of your existing network, either wired or wireless. Fewer coax cables strung about.

Both specials would make subjectively "better" programming for comparison purposes in my opinion. I don't know how "The Wizard of Oz" became a sort of pseudo-standard for demonstrating early color sets, but I wish it hadn't. Other, better, options exist.

I'll be doing nearly the same thing with his Gilfillan prototype, if and when I ever get around to making it work.

The correct method for comparing color rendition is as follows.

It requires a modulator and a box, usually a Blu-Ray player, that will
play from memory sticks.

1) Obtain suitable jpg file of subjects that illustrate want you think matters.

2) copy those to your memory stick.

3) play them to your TV.

4) take pictures of the TV

5) transfer the pictures to the computer the files came from

6) one at a time, open the pictures of the TV in a photo editor
on the computer. At the same time, have the picture showing on the TV,
set just as it was when taking the picture.

7) edit the photo on the computer until it looks just like the TV
(that is, the image on the computer screen looks like the TV)

8) save the edit picture.

You then upload both the original picture you played on your TV
and the edited picture you took off the TV

Because you edit the picture of the TV on the computer to match the TV,
if you show the original and the TV picture on the same computer,
you will see the difference the TV made. This will also be true
of doing the comparison on ANY computer since you will have the
two files to compare.

There are three pairs of pictures made using this method
here:

http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=262176&page=6

One of them is three bicycles, another is purple flowers.

I've attached images of a standard test pic.

Doug

Doug,

Thank you for this great step by step explanation. I now get it. I resisted you in the past because I misunderstood what you were saying. You were talking about Photoshop and I heard manipualation. Manipulation to me is photo editing to make the photo look better then it was and that's still true. In the context of what you are now saying it's not manipulation. I don't have a computer at the moment, so I'm using an iPad Air.

In my post#50 above, photos 3,4 and 5, is in a way the same test, but we did it backwards. We took all photos first. Then we got the idea to see if we could see pristine photos of the same movie. By luck and pure chance, we found a near identical pristine widescreen screenshot of my image #3. You can see it comes close to the original pristine photo but the roundie 21CT55 cuts off almost 50% of the image! If We had the pristine photo first, we could have adjusted the saturation a bit lower on the 21CT55.

I'm hearing rumors of a new iMac coming soon to replace a now two year old model. We will purchase at that time. We moved to a new home last May and we didn't bother hooking up the old PC because it's too slow.

Just an FYI for anyone interested, I downloaded the highest resolution copies of the Edsel Show tape, the WRC tape, and an evening with Fred Astaire from Youtube. I then used some light denoise, corrected an issue in the WRC tape chroma, scaled it down with a top notch scaling algorithm, reencoded/remuxed it to a DVD compliant TS stream (2 pass, VBR), built a little DVD menu for it, and have the ISO for anyone interested.

It still looks like sh*t on a flat panel (like most SD material) but looks very nice on an analog set. Short of getting access to the whatever Ed Reitan and co. dubbed the specials to when they played back the tapes, my lightly cleaned copies are probably the best looking out there.

If you want it, PM me.

I think ya'll are way over thinking this. Just adjust the set so it's a respectable representation of the colors as you see them in nature, and boom you're done. :D

I'd be interested. Can you burn a DVD? Will send you a private message.

I uploaded two additional videos to YouTube.

First: https://youtu.be/EOKXCV35q7Y

About all the movement. I was not that shaky. We used a stabilization upgrade in YouTube Capture and it made the video much worse then original. The video is a bit over saturated.

Second: https://youtu.be/21DrJUTek6Q

This video was done to show the entire cabinet. Choose 1080p or 720P

I think your set looks great. However everyone's perception of color rendering is varied, just we all hear things differently.

Kevin,

Thank you. Absolutely!

We have found through the years, it depends on program material. Some of it is good, some not so good. Looking at programming, especially the nostalgic stuff today, the video color quality varies from very good to poor. The same series can look great one night, the next night, not very good because the stations are broadcasting episodes which can be years apart, night to night. We are disadvantaged at the moment without the ability to display DVD content. We know the quality of DVD content on an old roundie is better then converted OTA broadcasts generally speaking, there are exceptions.

I feel very satisfied with the results of our restoration. I think we got it as good as we can knowing the limitations of 62 year old technology. Yet there is always that quest to get it better. I appreciate all the VK members that helped in our restoration, including you Kevin. Stay tuned. :-)

Out here you can get a DVD player and a RF modulator for under $10 at thrift stores....The local Goodwills have 5-20 DVD players for sale on any given day. Drop in and grab a cheap used one.

Hell, the last time I was in a Walmart, which has been a while, they had a cheapo DVD player on sale, new, for $15 or so.

I'd recommend using a BT modulator though.

Ben,

There was a problem with the private message, so I sent you my reply by email with address. Thanks very much.

Tom: I have several DVD players, need a good modulator.

The BTs are great performers.:thmbsp: Though the number of BTs that need a recap is unsettling for a SS product.

You can pick up a BT BAVM-z on ebay for well under $50. I recommend the fixed channel BAVM series over the AM40/60 mods. The BAVMs seem to run cooler and have a lower DOA percentage when buying un/partially-tested units....Make sure you pick one set up for a channel your set can tune, and that you want to use. The BAVM series can transmit up to a few hundred feet (about a block) if feeding a dipole ant cut to the 1/2 wave wavelength of the channel's center frequency....If you choose to go the wireless route (as I have) I recommend selecting a channel not used by any tuneable local DTV stations...If you pick a active local channel you'll interfere with those close by trying to tune the DTV station and the DTV station will interfere with you.

Definitely wireless. Then I can operate my micros around the house and my three other roundie's.

Is it best to choose a lower channel or a higher one? Any advantages either way? You are the third person to recommend BT.

It really doesn't matter. Back in Michigan I had a setup that broadcast on channels 2, 4, 7, 9, and 12.

Back in the stone-age, Detroit was 2, 4, and 7 on VHF, Windsor was 9, and Flint was 12.

I've found 2 tends to have a bit less maximum range than all others, and 7 tends have the best range on VHF*...Both covered my whole house and grounds, and then some with no signal strength issues.

*It may be my antenna's...I followed Shango66's youtube video on making antennas, but I lack the IIRC VSWR meter he has so all I can do is grind the math, and cut off the same percentage of length as he did...IIRC from my college antennas elective if you want to change the effective impedance of a dipole at a frequency you can do it as a percentage of length, and it will hold for dipoles of other freqs as long as the impedance change is the same and the percentage is the same....At any rate my work is in the right ballpark to function decently, and that is what matters to me.

I've not set up a UHF BT rig, but have been wanting to get to that for a while now...

I loathed "traditional" E&M in my undergrad, so I'm afraid I wouldn't be of much help with the antennas. My area of study has primarily been medical imaging (MRI, PET, X-ray, CAT, etc), with brief forays into electrophysiology of cardiac tissue and a purely mathmatical treatment of disease transmission (HIV) in a population. Hyperbolic sines and cosines show up in the weirdest places...

I'm into the best quality possible and don't mind spending extra to get the best. (Retired and want to enjoy the fruits of my labor, maybe 12-15 years left) I would imagine hard wired offers the best video quality, but would be an inconvience and I would loose the ability to use my micros wirelessly. I recall reading about or seeing on YouTube that some had problems with over modulation and someone recommended getting a modulator with adjustable modulation feature.

Our home is one story, 2200 sq. feet on over one third acre. I don't care about going beyond our home, but want the best quality so should I get the higher power models anyway? Will I see a degradation in video quality with wireless as compared to a direct connect to the roundie with a good quality DVD player? Edit: I guess there is not any easy way to connect a DVD player without a modulator?

You can build an adapter to feed the 21-CT-55 composite video from the DVD player and bypass the RF/IF sections entirely.

BT mods over the air can produce about as good quality as commercial NTSC broadcast did....There are some pit falls to avoid in order to achieve maximum quality. Ground loop hum is a big one. My mods are powered off an isolation transformer so I don't have to worry about the ground level in all the different gear in my A/V sources racks not playing nice with the grounding in the BT cord and PS.
A good TX antenna is essential (an average RX antenna is useful). Shango66 has a good video youtube video on making a TX antenna that I can find for you later if you want. Good TX antenna placement is important (that is trial and error). In setting up the TX an 80's or newer portable TV set can be very useful in checking signal strength, quality and range.
Setting the video and audio levels for no over modulation is important...Start at zero, crank till the over mod lights come on then back off till they stay near constantly out.
Buying a modulator in good shape (or having it repaired) is important. Many have bad lytic caps and such bad power supply hum that you can ground the input terminal to the chassis and the over modulation lights will still come on.
Also be mindful that large pieces of metal or other highly RF reflective objects in your home (other than the TV) may cause multipath reception issues.
If you do all that right and use an empty channel to send all should be good with an hour or two of experimenting with the initial set up.

BT mods can be fun to play with and set up if you, do it right, and know enough about troubleshooting.

All BT modulators I've seen have RF output level control. Also, I've got AM60(strongest RF), BAVM(middle), AM40(weak) and all are capable of sending at least 100' wirelessly with a decent TX antenna.

Thanks for the advice, both of you. We will try a modulator first and see how that works out. Checking them out now.

I think Tomcomm did the adaptor to bypass RF/IF. Interesting.

He did. It's a very simple chassis, but sort of "cheating". I would personally use a BT modulator hardwired to your sets, but that's just my preference. I can echo Tom in that channel two seems to be weaker, but I usually got better performance with higher channels, thus 12 was strongest, followed by 9, 7, 4 then 2.

Yesterday, we pulled an old good quality Sony DVD player and found a cheap Radio Shack wired RF modulator in my pile of stuff. No wireless purchased as yet. Popped in the Wizard and got very good results. The obligatory Dorthy shot now has less of a blue cast and very good geometry.

Several more shots within the movie were captured. This time I had freeze frame and I could set each individual capture exposure by eye to match what we were seeing on the screen. The camera is an iPhone 6 Plus. The green is improved but could be better. We are working on that. I didn't want to take up a lot of space with the shots on this forum, but you can see full resolution shots on my site.

https://visions4netjournal.files.wor...2/img_4098.jpg

https://visions4netjournal.com/vinta...tv-page-two-2/

We have green! and a new “Dorothy” reference screenshot.

So we went out and purchased the old version of Joe Kane’s Video Essentials on DVD. We have the Blu Ray version, but it was not compatible with my current DVD player hooked up to the 21CT55. Using the supplied blue filter film, we calibrated the blue gun of the 21AXP22. If the color decoder is working correctly, the other two colors should “fall into place”. Our green gun was not displaying green as well as it should and in our latest adjustment/calibration, we took a different approach. This time instead of increasing the green gain, we decreased the green gain and increased the green background controls to get proper color balance on the SMPTE-C color bars displayed by the DVD. This greatly improved the green reproduction on the various programming we viewed after the calibration.

We tested using the Wizard of Oz, The Red Shoes and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, all great Technicolor films. The recently discovered Red Shoes film from 1948 is a gem of a movie to evaluate an old color roundie television. The color is simply beautiful and there is one scene in particular that replicates the standard “Dorothy” facial shot from the Wizard of Oz which many collectors use to judge their televisions. The color tones and gradations are superior in this authors opinion. The scene we are referring to is the lead actress in the film. We will be using this movie, The Red Shoes, to evaluate current and future color televisions in and for our collection. Below, the first screenshot is what we call the “new Dorothy reference screenshot” and additional screenshots from the three movies. The scenes have more depth and look less flat now that we have good green reproduction. We still see color decoder errors, but Marilyn’s pink (a difficult color to reproduce) satin dress is reproduced reasonably well for a 62 year old television and it’s technology. Trees, shrubbery and scenic scenes now have good green color reproduction. Full resolution screenshots can be seen here: https://visions4netjournal.com/vinta...tv-page-two-2/

Very large page. Scroll to bottom for latest update. You need a medium to fast internet speed to view. 20mbps.

https://visions4netjournal.files.wor...2/img_4417.jpg

https://visions4netjournal.files.wor...2/img_4484.jpg

https://visions4netjournal.files.wor...2/img_4485.jpg

https://visions4netjournal.files.wor...2/img_4486.jpg

https://visions4netjournal.files.wor...2/img_4487.jpg

https://visions4netjournal.files.wor...2/img_4488.jpg

Some of us have been using "The Red Shoes" all along... not exactly a newly unearthed film. Good luck getting anyone else to use it for reference shots. :lmao:

Green does look much better though, etype2.

"The Red Shoes" has some very nice color, making it a good demo piece, but IIRC, does not have the variety of greens and yellows that Oz has. (I don't have a copy to verify that, but I saw the restoration release at a SMPTE meeting a few years back.)

Use of Oz reminds me of the stereo hi-fi engineers at Motorola in the 60s, who used Tijuana Brass records for testing, not because they had the most beautiful music, but because they had instruments in every frequency range.