French color TVs 1969-1970

[Telecolor 3007]

In Romania we had colour television only in 1983. Well, you could watch color broadcasting from sourinding countries before that. In Iugolsavia they subtitled movies (in Romania too) so you could watch forgein movies if you knew French, English, probably German and Italian. But I didn't see no black and white French set either (except for two with French components, assambled in Romania - V.S. 43-611 - metal case and one V.S. 54-612 or V.S. 43-613 - wooden case; 43 was the diagonal in centimeters; those sets with French compoments where extremly rare, so that's why I've seen only 2). Oh, Romania and former Yugoslavia used P.A.L. from the beging.
So if "Philips" had a picture tube manufacturing plant in France probably most of them used "Philips". "Videcolor" made picture tubes in France?
Other Europeanen countries had smaller, 21"-22" (54-56 c.m.s.) or smaller color tvs, so they where more apealing in terms of price. You can find some British one here: https://www.oldtechnology.net/colour.html
Yeah, that "Pizon-Bros" company was smart. I wonder if they got more sales with that.

Found out that forum on the links page of a French old tv site - remember there where 2 with orange.fr and found one of them. Maybe I will register there.

Having a transfomer wasn't bad. Transformer meant that if the heating filament of one lamp went down, since filaments where connected in paralel (not in series) you hand't had too look what electronic tube went down, you could see the simptoms and guess which went down. If the trasnformer was a transformer and not an autotransformer you could be also protected form electrocution when touching the chassie or the antena. Soviet tv's didn't had the best picture tubes, but most of them had a transformer and that was good.

Later edit: in that catalogue there is one tv set with 2 picture tubes? Why? One was for color television, the other for black and white so not to use unecesarly the color picture tube when watching black and white?

[AlanInSitges]

Spain has entered the chat.
-------------------------------

This is an interesting topic and I decided to do a little research before just posting "we picked PAL" and...wow! I uncovered a fascinating story of international intrigue and cold-war politics that I didn't expect to find.

The Spanish newspaper El País published in 1978 a story finally revealing what was behind the decision and how it came to be. Spoiler: Spain picked SECAM first! So in the mid-1960s the French government made an alliance with several other countries to use the SECAM system, though no broadcasting began. Two years later the Spanish government casually mentioned that they would be using PAL, but did not publish this decision in the BOE, effectively not making it official. It turns out that in the intervening years, the German government offered a loan to the Spanish government of 200 million DM that came with a condition to use Telefunken's PAL. But this was never made official because the French were in the process of their own bribe, in the form of a business deal for Thomson (the inventor or SECAM) to purchase the General Electric Española television factories and business for 300 million pesetas and the possibility to support Spain's bid to join the EU. A double cross!

In the end Spain ended up with PAL, France ended up with a Spanish TV factory*, and the Spanish government ended up with a pile of cash. Here's the full article, which reads pretty well using Google Translate: https://elpais.com/diario/1978/09/28...01_850215.html

I had always made the assumption that since PAL was most similar to the various flavors of CCIR black and white in use at the time, it was chosen for expediency vs. the weird French system by most of the countries that adopted it. As Spain was not an important market, relatively speaking, in the 1960s all of this political machination leads me to wonder if something similar played out in the other countries. In the end SECAM was only used by France and their territories, some other dependent nations, and...the USSR. This would be a fascinating story to hear!




*Someone up thread was wondering if anyone actually produced entire CRTs. I can report that GEE (the Spanish division of GE) indeed had a CRT factory in Madrid and I have seen a 21" tube stamped FABRICADA EN ESPAÑA with the GEE logo on it. This is the same GEE that Thomson wound up with. Incidentally, none of these GEE sets were based on American designs, unlike the Philcos and Zeniths of the day. They were all home-grown, near as I can tell, and there are very, very few in existence. All the advertising at the time was focused on how only GEE sets had a "black screen" that allowed you to watch for hours without hurting your eyes.

I have a GEE set up on the bench right now, produced in 1968, that I need to finish up and make a post on. What's curious is that THIS particular set was built neither by GEE, nor by Thomson, but by Miniwatt, which near as I can tell, was actually owned by Philips. I have seen this same GEE-labeled set sold under the Emerson, Westinghouse, Kolster, and Iberia brands in Spain and under at least one brand in Germany. Pre-EU Europe sure were a promiscuous bunch. Incidentally every Spanish-made set I have also sports a metal "luxury tax" plaque riveted to the chassis.

I'm not aware of seeing any Thomson sets here that were made prior to the BPC era. I'm not saying there were none, but they sure are scarce.

Finally I'm not sure who sold the first color sets in Spain - there are almost none for sale today. One I have found is a Zenith four-tube PAL console that pops up for sale from time to time but the seller never answers any messages. I really, really want to get my hands on that!


Edit: here is a link to another retelling of the PAL vs. SECAM story: https://www.radiomuseum.org/forum/45...elevision.html

[NowhereMan 1966]

I know a little off topic but here in the U.S., I think we crossed the 50% color TV line in 1972. We got our first color set in 1971 so we were among them. My aunt had an old RCA CTC-14(?) roundie since 1962 or so. I lived and grew up in the Pittsburgh PA area and I'm still nearby in the Ohio Valley jsut to the west and Pittsburgh had the last only Black and white TV station. It was WQEX, channel 16, sister to WQED, channel 13. WQEX used the short lived WENS UHF transmitter from the early 1950's until it died in the late 1980's, broadcasting in black and white only. Most of the time it seemed that WQEX was a black and white broadcast version of "Britbox" showing a lot of British programs like Dr. Who and so on.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by NowhereMan 1966

I know a little off topic but here in the U.S., I think we crossed the 50% color TV line in 1972. We got our first color set in 1971 so we were among them. My aunt had an old RCA CTC-14(?) roundie since 1962 or so. I lived and grew up in the Pittsburgh PA area and I'm still nearby in the Ohio Valley jsut to the west and Pittsburgh had the last only Black and white TV station. It was WQEX, channel 16, sister to WQED, channel 13. WQEX used the short lived WENS UHF transmitter from the early 1950's until it died in the late 1980's, broadcasting in black and white only. Most of the time it seemed that WQEX was a black and white broadcast version of "Britbox" showing a lot of British programs like Dr. Who and so on.

From what I understand there was no CTC-13/CTC-14 or they existed as a 32VDC farm set version of the CTC-12. The main difference between the 12 and 15 was the switch from octal to Novar/Compactron type sweep tubes.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

From what I understand there was no CTC-13/CTC-14 or they existed as a 32VDC farm set version of the CTC-12. The main difference between the 12 and 15 was the switch from octal to Novar/Compactron type sweep tubes.

Hmmm, I do stand corrected then, it has been a while but I always remembered her as the "Aunt who had a color TV" until we got color in 1971. I'll jave to ask her if she remembers when they bought it.

[TV-collector]

Originally Posted by kf4rca

Barco is really Dutch. Once worked at a station that had Barco monitors. They were 100% modular. You could change the standards just by swapping boards.

No sorry, BARCO is from Belgium/ City called Kortrijk)! They produced not only
broadcast equipment, they were wellknown for their radios
and TV sets.
Somtimes they produced TV sets which were sold under different labels!
My collection covers some of these sets.
https://www.barco.com/en/about-barco...campus-belgium

BARCO timeline:
https://www.barco.com/en/about-barco/history/timeline

Regards,
TV-Collector

[kf4rca]

Thanks for the correction! I had it confused with Philips.
Silly American I am!

[Telecolor 3007]

I wonder what cameras French colour television used in it's early days.

[jhalphen]

Hi to all,

The link below leads to the yearly special issue of French magazine "Le Haut-Parleur" (the Loudspeaker). It covers for the year 1962 the state of the art of products available and to come on the French market.

Exhaustive listing of table radios, transistor radios, B&W living room TVs and portable TVs. No color yet, Sorry !

There are interesting technical articles covering the choice of a future FM Stereo system, the current and planned TV transmitter network pending the introduction of the UHF 625 service (started in 1964) and much detailed info on the Telstar satellite.

It's all in French, Sorry ! but tech is universal, right ?

@Old_TV_Nut : Pages 106 through 125 show all the TVs, if a pdf extraction of only the concerned pages is possible, it might be interesting to store the TV only data.

An interesting TV is on pdf page 117, the Radio-Celard 8" all-transistorized B&W TV (see pix). No mention of Sony yet !

Total file size is 66Mb, so please be patient if using a low bandwith data connection.

http://www.retronik.fr/revues/haut-p...ro_Special.pdf

Best Regards
jhalphen

[kf4rca]

A CTVM 3/51 from the 80's. The module extender has its own slot in the module bay.
It has a Delta gun CRT that was much sharper than anything Sony had at the time.
Believe the Barco USA office is only 2 townships up the road from me.

[jhalphen]

Hi to all,

@Kf4rca, we had several of these Broadcast quality Barco 21"/51cm monitors in the Video Lab at the Ampex facility in France.
We found out the hard way that the flybacks would fail if the monitor was not run with an active video or black burst sync signal present at all times.
This advice was given to us by the Barco Service dept after sending several units for repair.
Apparently the un-synced line oscillator would creep up in frequency and go into some form of runaway which in turn destroyed the flyback.

Best Regards
jhalphen

[kf4rca]

Thanks for the warning. They were used as TV teleproduction monitors, so they always had a video signal going to them.
As I recall, when we bought our Ampex VPR80's (in the console), they had small 9 inch Barco monitors in them.
BUT, years later we had problems with Ikegami monitors burning up flybacks. The fix was a kit that EVEN changed part of the aluminum chassis in them.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by jhalphen

Hi to all,

@Kf4rca, we had several of these Broadcast quality Barco 21"/51cm monitors in the Video Lab at the Ampex facility in France.
We found out the hard way that the flybacks would fail if the monitor was not run with an active video or black burst sync signal present at all times.
This advice was given to us by the Barco Service dept after sending several units for repair.
Apparently the un-synced line oscillator would creep up in frequency and go into some form of runaway which in turn destroyed the flyback.

Best Regards
jhalphen

I would think the problem more likely was the oscillator running too slow, so the peak (and average) sweep current got too high due to the horizontal output on-time being too long. The first IBM PC color monitors had a similar problem, dying if operated without sync. Those of us in the TV industry pointed and smirked at the IBM design. I'm surprised Barco would make such a mistake. They must have been close to the edge of overheating and/or exceeding the safe area of the simultaneous voltage and current of the output device.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by jhalphen

...

@Old_TV_Nut : Pages 106 through 125 show all the TVs, if a pdf extraction of only the concerned pages is possible, it might be interesting to store the TV only data...
[/url]

Best Regards
jhalphen

Thanks for the heads-up, but I think I will not excerpt part of this to post - there is so much interesting material besides the TV model listings! I recommend those who are interested to spend the time to download the whole thing.

[jhalphen]

Hi to all,

@Wayne B. you're surely in the true about the mechanism which destroyed the Barco's flyback and H out transistors. Our lab guys weren't too interested in the inner workings of monitors, they just made sure the info got around "don't use the Barco(s) without Sync !"
BTW, i made a mistake, it was the 22" or possibly the 25" model which failed. These were carted around standalone for demos or customer training and not nicely wired in a permanent rack.
H out transistors were pricey in the 80s, ouch !

Glad you liked the French magazine !
a group of guys of our forum is scanning back issues. Like the UK mag "Wireless World" it ran from the 30s to 2000, so the database is huge. They proceed by sampling interesting issues in each era. Publication is +/- one every week, see here, 43 page long topic, everything is in pdf so downloadable :

http://retro-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=249295

directory of the scanned issues of Le Haut-Parleur :
http://www.retronik.fr/revues/?dir=haut-parleur

@Kf4rca, yes the VPR-80 came with a CTVM22 9" monitor "side-car" style.
On the VPR-1/1C/2/2B/VPR3 & the Quads (AVR2/AVR3) having a bridge monitor we used the Tektronix 12" Trinitron monitor, then later Trinitron HR.
When i worked at RCA (summer jobs) there was a 12" Conrac, also with Trinitron tube. I got a write-off for a song, fixed it & still have it in the
attic...

@TeleColor3007 : you asked "I wonder what cameras French colour television used in it's early days."

You must define "early days" : 1)Monochrome
30s : Barthelemy mechanical design, CDC (Compagnie Des Compteurs), 30/60/120/180 lines

Mid-end 30s : experimental Iconoscope, (US import), Telefunken licensed Iconoscope, Radio-Industrie cameras.

Mid-end 40s, same as prewar, then CFTH (Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston), then Thomson-CSF. Thomson reigned supreme as a French supplier & state-controlled TV.

2)Color :

Thomson ruled the roost from 1950 to the 80s, then Japanese cameras took over (Sony, Ikegami) via U-Matic news reporting, then Betacam.
From the Jo Flaherty, head of engineering at CBS + Sony venture came the MicroCam, a truely miniaturized ENG camera. Thomson made some improvements and it became a popular product.

RCA (TK-76) was also very popular for ENG. Later, the Philips LDK-14 & Ikegami HL-79. Still later, Sony BVP-300/330.

Before CCDs, camera tubes (Orthicon, Image-Orthicon) were of RCA US construction & later manufactured under license by Thomson & EEV (UK).
Philips made huge inroads with the Plumbicon tubes for color pickup.
Later on, Japanese Saticons, Newvicons were also offered as options in new cameras.

Visit the Camera Museum :
http://www.tvcameramuseum.org/

Best Regards
jhalphen
Paris/France