Videokarma.org

Go Back   Videokarma.org TV - Video - Vintage Television & Radio Forums > Television Broadcast Gear

We appreciate your help

in keeping this site going.
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 06-11-2015, 07:41 PM
Aussie Bloke's Avatar
Aussie Bloke Aussie Bloke is offline
VideoKarma Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSW, Australia
Posts: 560
Latest on my homemade Iconoscope camera

G'day all.

I've been doing a lot of work on my homemade RCA 1846 Iconoscope TV camera in the past 2 months and have improved the picture quality significantly since the camera first outputted video! Firstly I was kindly donated a spare proper deflection yoke for my RCA 1846 tube by WWII military TV camera collector Maurice Schechter http://www.qsl.net/w2vtm/mil_television_history.html and I replaced the vidicon yoke with it and fired it up and got a better picture but it was more horizontally stretched. I realized that there wasn't enough current going to the horizontal coils and the beam was scanning a narrow horizontal area of the tube's plate so I lowered the resistance between the +15V rail and the horizontal drive section of the deflection board to increase current, had to of course use higher wattage resistors and pot, and voila the beam now scans the full width of the tube's plate and more!

Then the next step was to straighten the picture and reduce the noise so I rotated the yoke and the tube a bit to straighten the picture and then I positioned the video board as close as possible to the tube and cut the target lead much shorter. Then I wrapped aluminium foil around the tube and connected the foil to the camera's chassis, this worked nicely and I now have almost noiseless pictures!

I have also enclosed the camera with the tower case cover and plastic front/rear paneling and lots of gaffer tape around the lens carriage to prevent as much unwanted light to the tube as possible. So now the camera is working so much better and is more practical for usage and I've made a load of videos from the camera and have uploaded them to YouTube. Here's are the links to the more interesting videos made from the camera where the pictures are very watchable:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p_Fq1mNKmY (myself talking in front of camera)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQyzVEQI1p4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr-6QBA9WME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF-2DW5Tzsg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7um0czG9uA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBqtQ2dDNnc

I also have successfully made some tri-chrome colour video stills of still objects by placing red/green/blue filters in front of the lens and adding them on top of each other in Photoshop, see attached pictures. So back in the 30s/40s it was possible to make a three Iconoscope tube colour camera like a RCA TK-40/41 in the 50s or single tube with spinning colour wheel!

I am yet to update my site on my camera but intend to within the next few days,

A lot of work is still needed on the camera for it to make a really good picture, the camera needs the following:
horizontal/vertical centering
keystone correction
blanking
shading correction
A lens with better depth of field (still using magnifying glasses at present)

Richard Diehl of http://www.labguysworld.com/ has helped me out so much with my camera so I owe a lot of credit to him. He in recent times has successfully restored his bomber camera to working condition and has made a couple of off-screen video recordings and the picture is fantastic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osnzoSXKzg0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-EeZ6sDzww
http://www.labguysworld.com/RCA_CRV-...estoration.htm
http://www.labguysworld.com/RCA_CRV-...storation2.htm
http://www.labguysworld.com/RCA_CRV-...storation3.htm

So that's the latest on my camera and I am stoked at how good the pictures are looking now and getting a taste of how television pictures looked in the 30s/40s! Have attached some images of my camera in its more completed form along with video stills from my video recordings.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg ike (1).jpg (75.1 KB, 20 views)
File Type: jpg ike (2).jpg (59.1 KB, 18 views)
File Type: jpg ike (3).jpg (42.7 KB, 13 views)
File Type: jpg ike (4).jpg (56.0 KB, 14 views)
File Type: jpg ike (5).jpg (90.2 KB, 21 views)
__________________
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!!!!! OI OI OI!!!!!
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 06-11-2015, 07:48 PM
Aussie Bloke's Avatar
Aussie Bloke Aussie Bloke is offline
VideoKarma Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSW, Australia
Posts: 560
Also to tag onto the thread I've recently taken the camera out on remote powering the camera and gear from my car battery and here are some remote videos I did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0DkVFwQ1JU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyhk4OBNVnw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJULiU2E-_0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIiY3jIaE-s

And attached are the colour video stills and other video stills from my camera from the previous post too.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg color1.jpg (79.5 KB, 16 views)
File Type: jpg color2.jpg (102.0 KB, 16 views)
File Type: jpg color3.jpg (87.2 KB, 11 views)
File Type: jpg bw1.jpg (58.3 KB, 8 views)
File Type: jpg bw2.jpg (60.1 KB, 14 views)
__________________
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!!!!! OI OI OI!!!!!
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 06-11-2015, 08:57 PM
old_tv_nut's Avatar
old_tv_nut old_tv_nut is offline
See yourself on Color TV!
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Rancho Sahuarita
Posts: 7,184
Congratulations on the great work!

Regarding the possibility of using an iconoscope for color, it wasn't done for two reasons.
1) the signal is inherently AC coupled, so there would be a varying color caste depending on the scene content
2) the low sensitivity

The large size would have made the optics prohibitive for a simultaneous three-tube camera. A single tube sequential system would be more reasonable, but would still suffer from (1) and (2).
__________________
www.bretl.com
Old TV literature, New York World's Fair, and other miscellany
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 06-14-2015, 10:06 AM
Aussie Bloke's Avatar
Aussie Bloke Aussie Bloke is offline
VideoKarma Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSW, Australia
Posts: 560
Thank you!

Thanks for the info about colour and the Iconoscope tube. Taking away factor 1 if orange and cyan filter wheel was used it would probably work as a bi-chrome colour camera given the fact those filters look less dense than red and blue. I might sometime try the orange/cyan bi-chrome colour filter trick with my Iconoscope as I've already done it using a CCD camera and B&W monitor with successful results though very crude setup.

Anyways I have now made major updates to my website http://troysvintagevideo.0catch.com/ on my Iconoscope project. All the updates can be seen on the following pages:
http://troysvintagevideo.0catch.com/...eproject6.html
http://troysvintagevideo.0catch.com/...eproject7.html
http://troysvintagevideo.0catch.com/...eproject8.html

My camera is now worthy for taking on remote location for making on location videos and I have made videos on 5 locations so far!
__________________
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!!!!! OI OI OI!!!!!
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 06-14-2015, 11:58 AM
old_tv_nut's Avatar
old_tv_nut old_tv_nut is offline
See yourself on Color TV!
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Rancho Sahuarita
Posts: 7,184
It is interesting to go to the locations on Google Earth and compare their ground level photos to the iconoscope videos.
__________________
www.bretl.com
Old TV literature, New York World's Fair, and other miscellany
Reply With Quote
Audiokarma
Reply


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 08:40 AM.



Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
©Copyright 2012 VideoKarma.org, All rights reserved.