The impact of early color

[Sandy G]

I can't remember the 1st time I saw color TV-I guess it might have been in my grandad's office, he had the Zenith roundie I have now- but I DO remember thinking as a kid that color TV was "the Berries"-as different from regular TV as lightning is from lightning bug. Eckhard, was "Bonanza" popular in Germany ?

[yagosaga]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Eckhard, was "Bonanza" popular in Germany ?

Yes! Very popular. It was a real "Strassenfeger", as we say in German (= blockbuster? street cleaner). And a bone of contention between kids and parents. The kids want to see Bonanza and the parents said, it is a bad thing for bad kids. Kids start to cry and could see Bonanza, and parents enjoyed too, but not demonstrating that they enjoyed it also.
As far as I remember, in my aerea Bonanza was a political thing too. We lived near the East German border, and we could receive West German television and the sovjet infiltrated East German television. For the East Germans, such capitalistic bullshit was strongly forbidden. But most of the East Germans watched the "black channel" (the name for West German television) and Bonanza too. In an East German television report, scenes of Bonanza were shown together with actual scenes of crime and murder from the West German police departments to demonstrate that people which watch Bonanza become criminals and murders. But this could not the East Germans keep from watching Bonanza.

http://www.mdr.de/damals-in-der-ddr/...d-1601149.html

BTW: color television was introduced in 1969 in East Germany. I have seen there the "Raduga" (= rainbow) color tv receiver, a sovjet brand with a shunt reguator. High voltage regulation was incorrectly, and reached more than 45,000 volts in case of failures. So many of these sets burned. Therefore they were usually called the "fire bombs".

Today I know that the first Raduga was a roundie too:

http://www.telesputnik.ru/archive/all/n09/54.html

Eckhard

[Aage]

Originally Posted by yagosaga

Today I know that the first Raduga was a roundie too:

http://www.telesputnik.ru/archive/all/n09/54.html

Eckhard

Be sure you have a good pop-up blocker if you are going to visit that site...

[yagosaga]

Originally Posted by yagosaga

BTW: color television was introduced in 1969 in East Germany. I have seen there the "Raduga" (= rainbow) color tv receiver, a sovjet brand with a shunt reguator. High voltage regulation was incorrectly, and reached more than 45,000 volts in case of failures. So many of these sets burned. Therefore they were usually called the "fire bombs".

Here are some more informations about the Raduga color tv set:

The first Raduga was reported in 1954:

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/r/raduga/raduga_op.html

Chassis:

http://oldradio.qrz.ru/radios/149-app-2.gif
http://oldradio.qrz.ru/radios/149-disk.gif

Schematics:

http://oldradio.qrz.ru/radios/149-shem-gray.gif
http://oldradio.qrz.ru/radios/149-shem-bw.gif

The Sovjets experimented with serial encoded color signals and color wheel in these days.

The next one is from 1962, and it looks like an RCA CTC5:

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/r/raduga/raduga_tw62.html

Some hybrid sets were made in the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps I will get one of these sets in the next weeks. I already have a SECAM converter for it.

Here is one of 1973 with chassis photos:

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/r/raduga/raduga703_704.html

And this one is made in 1986:

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/r/raduga/raduga61tc342d.html

The one which I knew from my visits in East Germany was the Радуга 5. But I did not find a photo of it yet. The Радуга 5 was so faulty that tv servicemen were adviced not to repair them.

Kind regards,
Eckhard

[Captain Video]

Did the russians had color TV in 1954? They got color in the same year as the USA?

No doubt the communist regime failed ... producing consumer goods like those. That color TV from 1954 is so ugly-looking ( while the RCA CT-100 is very beautiful ), presenting such a small picture ... not to mention that it was a dangerous set!

And that color TV from 1986 (!) ... gee, it looks like a clone of the cheap black-and-white sets that were sold by millions here in Brazil during the 1970's!

In 1986 no B/W set here in Brazil looked like that TV, let alone color sets!

[yagosaga]

Originally Posted by Captain Video

Did the russians had color TV in 1954? They got color in the same year as the USA?

As far as I know, public color television was introduced in the USSR in 1968 with SECAM standard. In 1954 the Sovjets used experimental color television with color wheel, similar to the CBS color wheel system.

Originally Posted by Captain Video

No doubt the communist regime failed ... producing consumer goods like those. That color TV from 1954 is so ugly-looking ( while the RCA CT-100 is very beautiful ), presenting such a small picture ... not to mention that it was a dangerous set!

This small color tv set from 1954 was a modified black and white tv set with a color wheel in the housing and a magnifying glass in front. Some of these sets still survived, and the full manual and documentation is available here:

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/r/raduga/raduga_r54_11.djvu

For those which are able to read Cyrillic, here are some more informations and photos (see forum). Note that the words radio, television, televisor, apparat, and so on are the same in Russian:

http://www.radiomuseum.ru/index2.htm
http://www.tvmuseum.ru/
http://radio1.borda.ru/

Photo of an early Sovjet sets:

http://foto.mail.ru/mail/rostov-servise/569/570.html

- Eckhard

[cbenham]

Originally Posted by yagosaga

BTW: color television was introduced in 1969 in East Germany. I have seen there the "Raduga" (= rainbow) color tv receiver, a sovjet brand with a shunt reguator. High voltage regulation was incorrectly, and reached more than 45,000 volts in case of failures. So many of these sets burned. Therefore they were usually called the "fire bombs". Today I know that the first Raduga was a roundie too: http://www.telesputnik.ru/archive/all/n09/54.htmlEckhard

The early Raduga pictured near the bottom of the article is a field sequential
color set from 1953. More about it on the ETF website here:
http://www.earlytelevision.org/raguda.html

[Telecolor 3007]

jhalphen: do you have any pic with early French color tv sets? When the last hybrid tv sets where made in France?

yagosaga: from where did you get that old "Rubin" Soviet color tv set? I tryed to find hybrid (not necesearly Soviet made) color tv sets, and I always found about people who had them after those people dumped them The only color hybrid that I could find was an "Normende" ColorPrasident, but I couldn't radjust the color at the Delta tube.

[Telecolor 3007]

Here, in Romania, they intended to introduce color television since the '70's. But due to pollitical reasons and the P.A.L. vs SECAM battle (all of the countryes in Eastern Europe, except former Yugoslavia used SECAM) we had color televison only in 1983. There where 2 reasons for introducing P.A.L. system in stad of SECAM:
1) Since SECAM was introduced by Soviet Union, by introducing P.A.L. Ceauşescu had one more reason to be anti-Soviet
2) West-Germany sayed that it'll reduce Romania forgein debt if we introduce P.A.L. (this may be true, since some one talled me that the 1st color televison cameras in Romania where "Bosch")

The 1st "Romanian" color tv set was Telecolor 3006 made by "Electronica" Plant from Bucharest. The 2nd was Telecolor 3007. Don't know what the difference between the 2 was. I sayed they where "Romanian" because most of the components where foreign made (most of the semiconductors where made in East-Germany, the picture tube where either: "Unitra" - Poland, "Videocolor" - Italy or "Toshiba" - Japan - these where 2nd qualty - special for Romania). The sets could work both in P.A.L. and SECAM. Since in the '80's from modnay to friday the Romanian televison broadcasted only 2 hours (later 3) - because of "comrades, make electricity economy!" + Ceauşescu alway apeared on tv - Romanaian watch forgein televisions. In Bucharest, people watch Bulgarian television; in Moldavia they watch even Soviet televison!
The price of an color tv was from 15,000 lei up to 17,000 lei (a sallary was then around 1,500-4,000 lei; bigger for other people, like those working for the secret police). Hoewer Romanians where mad to get them a color tv set
The "Telecolor" 3006 & 3007 wheren't the only color tv's salled on the Romanian market. Later version of Telecolor where made. For eg the 4.... had V.C.R. input via the same D.I.N. socket used for audio tape output (at the 3007 that socket was used only for audio output). Later camed the 5601, 5602 and 5603. This where the worsest Telecolors. They had an awfoul new programmer, the latest bad Romanian electronic components (in the '80's Romanian made electronic components becamed worser and worser)...
Other tv sets where the Cromatic (also asambled by "Electronica), and the Soviet "Elcrom" and "Alfa" (which where fitted by "Electonica" with P.A.L. - SECAM converter). With all the big prices of the color tv's, Romanians sometimes waited even 2-3 yrs. to get theyr hands on a color tv set. You couldn't test the tv before buying it. If it worked fine; if not, fine too. In 1989 about 10% of the Romanians got an color tv.
Some one talled me a story: Romanians tryed to manufacter color C.R.T'... The first one had an b & w image; the 2nd one just few colors; the 3rd one just blow up!

[andy]

---

[yagosaga]

Originally Posted by andy

I'm too young to have ever not known color TV.

I have made a demonstration of tube b/w tv sets for teenage children. At first they became nervous because they had to wait more than a minute before the picture appeared on the screen. They said if they had to wait such a long time after switching on to see a picture they would probably loose the delight (lust?) of watching television.
Second they realized that the picture was in black and white. They watched their wellknow tv programme in black and white, and they could not understand why it is in black and white and not in color.
One of them found an explanation: "it must be an East German tv set". It was not an East German tv set, but his explanation depends on the fact, that East German programmes appeared in black and white on West German tv sets due to the different television norm.
In total they can't understand how it was to watch tv only in black and white and why it was possible that color broadcasts appear in black and white on a b/w tv set. I tried to explain it with the fact of compatibility, but they don't really understand.
I believe they keep me for an alien.

Eckhard

[Sandy G]

That Soviet article is very interesting. Kinda ironic, too, because several of the "big Daddys" of TV's early development were ex-pat Russians- Vladimir Zworkin at RCA, David Sarnoff-who WAS RCA-Alexander Poniatoff-the guy behind Ampex, & William Paley, the big dog at CBS.

[bgadow]

My parents bought a tube color set before I was born. I was just thinking, I don't recall ever seeing a great color picture on a GE tube set-but then, that old KE chassis I grew up with must have done okay. I guess I didn't have anything to compare it to. In the 70s I had one aunt with a similiar GE, an uncle with a late 60s Admiral-nobody I knew had a Zenith. Some friends of my parents had and early solid state RCA. To this kid, they all looked fine!

I can attest to the reliability issue. It seemed that the repairman was over to our house monthly. I recall once there was a giftwrapped package in the closet and I eagerly asked who it was for. My Mom told me "Bruce". Well, there was a (then) young guy working for my father by that name, but I thought it was for Bruce Meredith, the TV repairman. That I knew him by name, and was not surprised that he would be getting a gift from my parents, well, that speaks for how often he visited! When that set was retired for a solid state GE (post-modular chassis era) the visits stopped. I think they came by once when the set was very new and that was for something minor. In 1990 my grandfather bought a new 19" Sylvania (NAP/US built) and my father bought a new 19" GE (RCA, also US built). Both sets needed repair in their first year but have done fine since and are still going strong to this day.

[David Roper]

If I can veer away from the issue of reliability and comment on the "impact," although I didn't arrive until a decade after color TV did, I remember asking as a kid about those early days of color and the very negative comments made about "green skin" and ISTR that either "terrible" or even "horrible" was the adjective which summed up an impression which was then about twenty years past.

This conversation was at a time when an aquaintance of my grandparents' still refused to buy a color TV, such was the impression left by early demonstrations.

On the other hand, I recall reading an article by critic John Crosby (not an easy man to please) which was published in one of the major magazines in January, 1955 in which he stated almost incidentally to the rest of the piece: "color television is already here and it is technically magnificent." There's no telling which set he was watching, though I guess going purely by the odds it was probably a CT-100. And he would be one who could afford--and would demand--meticulous setup of his receiver in every way with many, many more times the attention to every detail from antenna lead-in to convergence than would be given to the average set on the showroom floor.

So while beautiful living color was of course promised, and under the best circumstances was probably enjoyed, color TV's very slow acceptance can probably be attributed to its lack of impact upon many due to underwhelming results seen in many early demonstrations.

[frenchy]

I remember things drifting out of whack on our early color set, like the convergence, and that annoying sound buzz when white lettering appeared on the screen. Things you would generally put up without calling for the service guy until it got horrible. I don't think our first color set was a roundie though, it might have been though... late 60's I think.