Anyone know of a 1970s Broadcast Monitor? ~20"

[vintage.digi]

So, I have a Conrac CYB17 which is a great representative of the 50s/60s era broadcast monitors, and a Sony BVM-1900 which exemplifies the 80s era of broadcast monitors and the point at which the market became entirely dominated by Japanese companies.

What I have not ever seen in person, or ever available for sale, is a broadcast monitor from the 1970s. Not merely a commercial monitor with composite input from a VTR such as a Sony CVM, but a bona fide broadcast-grade monitor in line with those produced by RCA, Conrac, and the Sony BVM line.

I've seen a couple low-res photos of Conracs from the era. I've also seen Barcos in American movies from the 70s, despite being European monitors. Network is an example of a movie that I've seen recently that I'm certain had a Barco.

Has anyone seen anything like this in recent years? I would love to have a broadcast monitor from this era in my collection.

[jr_tech]

Perhaps a Tektronix 650 ?

https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/650

jr

[ppppenguin]

In the UK and Europe Barco (made in Belgium) were the dominant brand. We use a lot of them in the BECG as they are generally reliable and easy to service. This is more than could be said for the British made Prowest monitors. Their PM22/7 could give very nice pictures but they were not reliable and awkward to maintain.

From the little I've seen of the Tek 650 series they were excellent.

A note on colour monitor usage in the 1970s. Because of the high cost of colour monitors in the 1970s and the lack of compact 14" units it was usual to have just 2 colour monitors in the stack of a control room or OB (remote) truck. One for transmission, one for preview. All the others would be monochrome.

[ARC Tech-109]

Would an RCA Lyceum or Zenith Chromacolor-II qualify? Dominant school monitors in my day, we had a good number of these on the big rolling carts with either the Sony VP-2000 U-matic or Panasonic NV-3120 EIAJ open reel and many survived into the 90's running top loading VHS decks. They were bona-fide monitors with the SO-239 and that 8-pin jack for the video inputs on the rear... They always looked like crap in class. Can't say I've ever seen a real "broadcast" monitor from the 70's despite my efforts. I was involved with Studio North during the mid-80s and did come across a few 19" Zenith System-3 monitors that were used for the talent but everything else was Sony PVM and Panasonic WV series going back to the late 70's. Component video didn't really come around until the early betacam days, I can't recall anything prior to this having anything with component video other than the 3-tube camera.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by ARC Tech-109

Would an RCA Lyceum or Zenith Chromacolor-II qualify? Dominant school monitors in my day, we had a good number of these on the big rolling carts with either the Sony VP-2000 U-matic or Panasonic NV-3120 EIAJ open reel and many survived into the 90's running top loading VHS decks. They were bona-fide monitors with the SO-239 and that 8-pin jack for the video inputs on the rear... They always looked like crap in class. Can't say I've ever seen a real "broadcast" monitor from the 70's despite my efforts. I was involved with Studio North during the mid-80s and did come across a few 19" Zenith System-3 monitors that were used for the talent but everything else was Sony PVM and Panasonic WV series going back to the late 70's. Component video didn't really come around until the early betacam days, I can't recall anything prior to this having anything with component video other than the 3-tube camera.

Those "educational" models would not qualify as broadcast monitors. Broadcast monitors would have more stable sweep/high voltage, precise and stable black level; calibrated color demodulation; and special features like pulse-cross display to view the vertical and horizontal sync/blanking. On the other hand, a broadcast monitor might be more finicky about the sync stability of the incoming signal.

[ppppenguin]

I don't know about US usage, but in the UK we used to classify monitors into Grades 1, 2, 3. Grade 1 were top quality broadcast monitors, much as described by @old_tv_nut in the previous post. Grade 2 monitors were also very good but might lack some of the absolute accuracy of a Grade 1. They were often capable of higher brightness than a true Grade 1. Grade 3 was everything else, often derived from a TV receiver. Grade 1 monitors were very expensive, used mainly by "racks" operators who were responsible for keeping the colour accurate in a broadcast. The transmission and preview monitors in the stack might be Grade 1, but possibly Grade 2.

As technology improved, a later Grade 2 would be the equal of an older Grade 1 design. The main exception might be colourimetry, which is difficult to control precisely.

There were many problems when flat panel plasma and LCD displays became common. Getting them to match the colourimetry of a CRT was difficult. Even then, they could often only do it over fairly narrow viewing angles. Very few LCD displays maintain anything like accurate colour over a wide viewing angle. CRT monitors have no such problem.

[colortrakker]

I have a feeling RCA was out of the control-room broadcast monitor market by the early '70s at the latest, with Conrac becoming the 800-pound gorilla of that part of the industry. Speaking of which, the Conrac RHA may be what you're after.

[ARC Tech-109]

Other than the aforementioned RCA and Zenith models the Conrac is about the only one I can think of from the era.

[ppppenguin]

Conrac monitors certainly got used in the UK. I don't recall ever seeing RCA or Zenith here.

I've also seen Electrohome monnitors (Canadian?) in the UK. Not sure if they did Grade 1 monitors.

Melford was another UK manufacturer. Possibly a little later, 80s rather than 70s. I have pile of their 12" monochrome monitors here which I'm overhauling for the BECG's ABC-Thames project: https://becg.org.uk/projects/abc-thames/ While we have some Melford colour monitors we'll probably use Barco for the colour monitors.

Valve (tube) colour monitors? I've seen a few from the 1960s made by Bush in the UK. Also the remains of a massive monitor in a metal cabinet that must have used a round CRT. In the UK and Europe we were comfortably into the era of rectangular CRTs when colour services started in 1967. A few roundies were used for experimental work in the 1950s and early 1960s. When you guys in the USA had a colour (color) service from 1954.

The oddest colour monitor I saw was an experimental one made at EMI, probably c1960. Three monochrome monitors, about 14", mounted in a huge cabinet with big dichroic mirrors to combine the RGB images. Presumed destroyed.

[zeno]

One odd ball monitor from abt 1970 was a Sony built by Admiral of all people.
It was a 19" all tube chassis with a jack pack added for VTR's.
I have seen two of them, one at Sony factory service & the other
at a regular shop. I would guess the reason behind it was that trinitrons
were 17" at the biggest back then. Why they went with Admiral is
beyond me. Other MUCH better sets at the time. Zenith, RCA, S-C etc.
I believe someone on the list has one.

73 Zeno
LFOD !

[ppppenguin]

That's a typical Grade 3 monitor of the time.

Since a lot of TVs from the 60s and 70s had live (hot) chassis they also needed an isolating transformer to make them into a monitor.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by zeno

One odd ball monitor from abt 1970 was a Sony built by Admiral of all people.
It was a 19" all tube chassis with a jack pack added for VTR's.
I have seen two of them, one at Sony factory service & the other
at a regular shop. I would guess the reason behind it was that trinitrons
were 17" at the biggest back then. Why they went with Admiral is
beyond me. Other MUCH better sets at the time. Zenith, RCA, S-C etc.
I believe someone on the list has one.

73 Zeno
LFOD !

I'm surprised Sony bought Admiral monitors in the 70s. I have a 19' Setchel Carlson made Sony badged industrial monitor. Nearly all tube with S-Cs famous modular tube color chassis. That monitor did see some use in broadcast monitor duty, but it was more common rebadged under various industrial brands... Apparently it was used with early CNC systems.

[Mi40793]

Some rackmount monitors in 70’s, Conrac was a very solid purchase. Ikegami also made very good monitors with good clamping in chroma channels. Ball Brothers Research, an aerospace company, TCB-14, 14 inch rackmount SS color monitors. Miratel, div. of Ball Bros, 19 in., rackmount, were lower cost. Tektronix 650 Trinitron was popular. Many others, Lenco and Videotek, etc. sold lower cost monitors.
RCA TM-21D, ~1963, probably the last RCA built color monitor.

[kf4rca]

I rescued TWO of these as they were headed to the dumpster. They were 25 years old and had been in service 24/7. New tubes were installed in the early 90's.They still worked when they were removed from service. The station had gotten their money out of them. Everything was going to HD in 2005. I hated to see technology go to the trash.
The first one I ever saw was at WCSC in 1973. It was in the transmitter control rack connected to a 1450 Demod.

[kf4rca]

Attached is a VM12Pro. It has a 12 inch tube. It never had a very sharp picture. I used to see them in cable TV facilities.
I don't know why CE's buy this crap. (On second thought, I don't know why I rescued it on its way to the dumpster.)
Probably because they were cheap. I think this was the first monitor to break the $100 dollar price point. At $99.95 it was a favorite of low-budget installations.
Opening it up, its really a Sony inside, which was probably a selling point.