Predicta on American Restoration
 

Did anyone see this episode recently on the History channel? Someone brought in a 1960 "Continental" Predicta for them to "restore". The owner wanted it gutted and an LCD put inside. Rick quoted them $2500 to cosmetically restore it and convert it. Wow, what a deal! At that price why not just get a Telstar replica second hand for probably less than $1000?

glad I missed it. Seems like a real hack job (from reading the promo). Now if they would film a Banderson restoration that would be worth it. These stupid shows are worthless IMHO.

I was warned about that episode and skipped it. I just missed out on getting a "Continental" at an estate sale last year and would get really PO'd seeing one destroyed.

After watching about a dozen other episodes of AR, it seems to me their specialty is removing rust, welding and painting. The electronics and engines get farmed out.

...And the guy who owned it claimed to be the owner w/his dad of a TV production house...You'd THINK somebody who was at least peripherably "In the Business" like that would know enuff to know THAT was a BIG No-No..

I've met several folks over the years from the "creative" side of the TV/radio business who have absolutely NO respect for the hardware or the technical side of the industry whatsoever. They view such things as annoyances they need to deal with with to do their work, nothing more.

I had to look up the episode just now since I missed it. I haven't watched all of it yet, but the guy who brought it in wants to use it to display a corporate highlight reel in the lobby of his office. Seems like kind of a waste for such a cool TV, but I guess it's his choice.

i was sickend over the whole mess ! there's nothing restored on that show ,just repaint and cheap inturnal parts put in ,and he farms out so much of the work that the price when he gets done is a joke.

Well, on the plus side, they did make the cabinet look fantastic.

The thing I hate, though, is that they acted like the 'had to' modernize it for it to be able to play DVDs. Well no, they didn't. They could have used an RF modulator, or they could have done like I did with my Zenith and pipe in composite video just after the IF stages (though depending on the what the Predicta's circuitry looks like they might have needed an additional input amplifier for the video).

I think the real reason for the flat panel was because the thing was going to be on all the time, and you'd have greater energy cost and more maintenance to do on a tube set under those conditions, but I still think it's a dumb thing to use a Predicta for.

Wonder if, for some strange reason, he KEPT the guts & didn't shit-can 'em ?

The destruction of the set, and all the dumb ass factually incorrect comments really ticked me off!

If it is really 'the rarest TV'(yeah right!:rolleyes:) then why the hell would you gut the electronics?:screwy:

If I lived in Nevada, and had stupid money to waste I think I'd bring in a electrically restored metal cabinet set and have him restore the cabinet just to show the public that the electronics in these are perfectly restorable, and that collectors will turn their nose up at cabinets without the original electronics.

I've thought the exact same thing, haha. I think they'd be able to do a great job with my Zenith cabinet, but as someone who neither lives in Nevada nor has much money, I'll have to take care of the cabinet myself.

This show and others, like Counting Cars, etc., are talked about on car forums a lot too. All of them are pretty bogus, full of incorrect info and inflated prices. Some guys say they have seen their work on stuff that was in a show. They say it looks nice on tv; but in person it's sloppy, done cheap and fast.

I've got a friend who had a little dealing with the Pickers. On the show they make it look like Danielle in Iowa gives them leads and they show up without knowing what's in store for them. The truth is everything is done out of New York City by a producer. Before they go anywhere, they have to have photos and descriptions of whats there, which is forwarded to the guys. They sometimes even pick out what they are going to buy on camera before they get there. All the arrangements are made out of New York. It's all staged!

I catch glimpses of TVs & radios all the time on "Pickers" that I just CRINGE that they pass over..

ONE time they picked up a Predicta, and then they traded it for something that I didn't think was nearly as cool straight out of their van on the same trip! Why?

Just watched the episode.

Well, at least it wasn't fishtanked. It still lives on as a TV set. Was kind of hoping that the dad's reaction during the unveil was "What the $%&^ did you guys do to that beautiful, rare original set?!?!"

The cabinet work actually looked pretty good to me, but then I'm not a great woodworker/cabinetmaker. Didn't care for the DVD loading slot through the grillecloth. I might have tried to make the bottom wooden molding removable, and hide the DVD player behind it. In a corporate lobby application, why not just have provided a signal input, and put the DVD player in the reception desk or office area?

The mounting bezel for the flatscreen was pretty nicely done. I probably would have taken the flatscreen apart, as mounting a bare LCD panel would be easier and take up less room than dealing with the plastic cabinet. A larger LCD might have fit inside the CRT housing if they removed the LCD cabinet.

I hope that they at least saved the guts for future restoration work or gave them to somebody who will. If the owner was dead set on using an original Predicta 8 hours a day in a commercial setting, conversion was probably the smart way to go. Those sets weren't all that reliable when they were new, and limited repair parts availability makes maintaining a "daily driver" an iffy proposition. I agree that one of the Telstar repros would have been a preferable choice to what they did, and maybe cheaper?

Had to laugh at the comment about remote controls being a lab curiosity at the time of the Predicta. Guess they never came across a Flash-Matic or "Lazy Bones" Zenith then? Cringed a bit when the guy had the bare CRT (which might have been in great shape for all we know) sitting on a workbench, tilted back onto the neck...:yikes:

Same here. There was an episode a while back where they were in this warehouse that had belonged to someone who tore buildings down, and there were glimpses of this rack of tube broadcast equipment that judging by the tri-colored knobs was likely an early piece of color TV gear...Maybe a TK-41 CCU....

They could have just bought this 24" color reproduction. It's been kicking around on ebay for a few months now.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Predicta-Dan...-/130927258054

...

I really don't know why WE'RE carping quite so bad-A good third, if not HALF of the membership of this board could EASILY have restored that Perdition THE WAY IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN, & had it rigged to where it could have easily run a VCR, cable, Blu-Ray, whatever. I think Rick does a tolerable job on "Mechanical" stuff, but we ALL here know that a much better job could be done on electronics, & likely cheaper than what he wants for stuff...

We certainly could have got it working, but I would bet they wanted a COLOR display.

And a set that can run all day every day unattended....

Yeah, & I think that I've read "Between The Lines' a bit, & Predictas were "Maintenance Hogs", even for the standards of 1958..We ARE kinda spoiled nowadays..

Back at my college Syracuse U in the 70's, a guy down the hall of my dorm was majoring in TV and movie show production (we had a journalism college there, newspapers and TV news productions and such). I mentioned to him I was majoring in electrical engineering. He said something to the effect that "Technology should not get in the way of my creativity". He complained that some TV graphics he tried to make, with the color yellow, didn't come out right. Today I'd know that yellow is a color that NTSC can easily get wrong, back in the 70's.

Every so often, film director majors would try to make movies shooting them inside the dorms. These would probably make some of those bad 50's movies look good... One guy didn't put the film in the camera right, so all his efforts, and others, were for naught. I imagine none of these are around anymore, ought to search youtube when I have nothing better to do....

Keeping the original electronics intact and maintained may have been a good way of showing clients that they actually care about what they do, thus generating more business.

P.S. Anyone recall the Predicta's appearance in Revenge of the Nerds? I suppose they weren't as collectible in 1984, and production wanted to put something in there that would be thought of by the general public as old, cheap junk. Also, I have seen Philco "Directa" ultrasonic remotes on eBay. Do they operate Predictas?

Predictas were not remote-operated sets.

Here's a screen cap from the 1982 film 'Eating Raoul'

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr...6obyo1_500.jpg

Poor Predicta. Had a sketchy reputation to begin with. :P

I'm having trouble "picturing" an LCD set inside the CRT case on a predicta looking worth a darn. Maybe with some one way tint or something so that you only see a picture when the screen's lit up or something....

I knew exactly where that episode was headed when I started watching it. Totally ruined the set as far as I'm concerned.

Sure, assuming they had a qualified electronics person on staff to do the work. And more importantly, if that was what the client wanted. The client wanted a set that "just worked", in the lobby of his business. It needed to run 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Even a brand-new Predicta, like other sets of the period, typically needed a service call a couple times a year to change tubes or tweak adjustments that drifted out of spec. Nobody is going to find that acceptable nowadays, even if you could find a qualified repair tech to keep the set operating. And repair parts availability would be limited at best once you get beyond tubes and basic resistors/caps. At best, you might get a couple years out of it before the unobtanium CRT went soft, assuming that the flyback or similar part didn't go out first. A fully restored original Predicta would be practical for a museum or private collection where it might be run for an hour or so at a time once in a while, but it just wouldn't make sense for what the owner wanted to do with his set.

The towel steamer that they restored in the same episode seemed like it would have been a prime candidate for a refit from gas to electric heating (again, making the unit more practical for modern use, and not requiring a gas hookup wherever you want to install it), but the subject was never even brought up with the client. Makes me wonder if they have anybody on staff who has a clue about electrical stuff at all.

I have to confess I watch that show now and then. However, is it my imagination of do they over-restore everything? And don't their prices seem ridiculously high?

Here are some threads from another forum concerning Rick Dale's "restoration" of an Edison phonograph and an Atwater Kent Model 37

http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/...p?f=2&t=196097

http://antiqueradios.com/forums/view...p?f=2&t=192244

Somebody oughta take him a Quaranta...He'd likely strip the chrome off the chassis, & metal-flake it..