Do "roundie" color sets make a better picture than later sets?
 

I have always sort of liked having a working "roundie" color set around for decades now, but i'm not sure why really. I personally think that they can make as decent a picture as most anything else I have seen, but I also think that the flat screens everyone has gone nuts over don't look that great really. Or not great enough for me to spend the money that they at least once commanded at retail.

So what do some of you think the attraction is to these sets. I know some will be people who were kids when these were new and it was a BIG deal to have any color TV. So they will say they have fond memories of those days. As for me; I am almost 46 and there were certainly a lot of those sets around and remained in use until I was well into my teen years, but in my life most families had a color TV. For us screen size could be impressive and remote control was impressive, and projection sets with wall screens were impressive (or the later huge single unit projection sets).

So this may be interesting. Do they actually make a better picture in any kind of way than later sets, or is it all nostalgia? Maybe simply the love and interest in vintage tube type electronics as a lost science as is a bit of the case with me as well. Waddaya think?:scratch2:

I can't quite put my finger on it.....but there is SOMETHING about a roundie set. Particularly the Zeniths. I have watched enough shown on them to KNOW...there just look "different". I have seen things on a well working 25MC33 zenith..that just looked "out of this world" in picture quality !! (of course--this was over 30 years ago).

Maybe it is THIS. (just my opinion)...

Keep in mind...the gun structure of round color tubes is MUCH larger than rect. tubes. ESPECIALLY in-line ones. In FACT..ONE gun from a 21FBP22 or such....is LARGER--than all THREE guns physically of a mini-neck in line tube !!

This of course would seem to mean there would be a BIGGER--STRONGER beam to the phospor--which would seem to light it "better". Not necessairly brighter...just more vivid and lifelike.

Of course...NONE of this may be right..just my opinion and observations.

I would LOVE to see someone figure out some way...to show an HD program on a roundie tube. I just WONDER what that would look like?

Interesting ideas! Good to start the show with a Zenith fan. Mine is a Zenith 5111. I have posted before about every thread seeming to be RCA related, but was told and now have seen that there isn't as much to say about Zeniths' as the need far less repair. However, I have also heard that the RCA supposedly had superior picture quality. That I don't know and it's off topic anyway.

I'm an Italian guy, here the color television began in 1977, before this year only transmission tests was made in color. We are born with the rectangular television and almost never we had roundie screens (except few Zenith roundie sets that were imported in first seventies years in Florence because a famous italian technician transmitted a french station coming from the french coast). In 1983 I began to repair tv sets and I already had a great passion for tube color tv sets, and they were really rare, because almost all the tv sets at work were already solid state.

For me the roundie color sets give pictures exactly as the rectangular screen, but they are so "vintage" that they are more and more interesting that every other set!. I have a great plasma screen in living room, but if I should choose to have only a tv set in my home, I'd prefer to watch television on my Zenith Parkhurst (25MC33) that I keep in another dining room! And yet I had it only in 2006 through an ebay auction.
Before the digital television I kept a lot of old tv sets also from the 70-80 years, because they were more usable with their perfected remote controls. Now that all is flattened by the use of digital decoders, I keep only very fine tv sets and the roundies are for me the better expression of the historic color television.

The roundie sets are simply more handsome tv sets! :yes:

The roundie sets were made at a time when color tv was a premium product and it shows in the build quality. Most roundies have metal crt bezels and control panels where later sets started using all plastic. I like Zenith for the hand wired chassis which seems to hold up far better with tube technology, no pc boards cooked with tube heat. I have a 25MC33 Zenith and the picture quality is very impressive. If I could only have one color tv a Zenith roundie would be my choice. The flesh tones on a Zenith seem to be warmer with more emphasis on red. Many RCA sets I have seen tend to be heavy on green. Zenith builds a better tv but I think RCA has nicer cabinet styles.

Great thread - I submit that because the gun arrangement, convergence, deflection, shadow mask and screen are round and without pincushion correction in particular, there are few compromises to overcome.

A perfectly set up roundie has fewer possible geometric distortions which result in near-perfect purity and convergence. Few rectangular delta-gun sets produced mid-1960s through the end of the 1970s could converged without some issues at the corners.

When I started high school in 1978, I wanted a round-screen color set as a semi-daily watcher.
What I had was an RCA Nordholm(?) GG643 with a CTC 16XL chassis and a Channel Master rebuilt 21FJP22 that was already going weak on red.
(RCA's tended toward cyan for sure, Compucat)
I brought this TV into high school shop to follow Carl Babcoke's Tab RCA Color Service Manual book to do color set-up with the equipment I did not have at home.
I rejuvenated the CRT to near equal emission and cut-off, then carefully followed the purity and convergence methods in the book, likely copied from RCA factroy info.
After a week or so of repeated set-up adjustments, I brought it home and I swear it looked as good as my parents' 1971 Zenith 23V" console, which was hard to beat.

I saw many a Zenith roundie working beautifully and ocasionally had to fix one but I never HAD one for myself until getting a Zenith 5304 - ch.24MC32 (thanks again, Tim) last year.

I think the roundies were better till the black matrix tubes
( chromacolor etc ). Still there is something about the roundie.
A perfect one in a dark room & older content just look "right".

Another thing about roundies is most were clones & when right
they all came close in pix. Latter sets were rarely clones &
the pix quality varied a LOT brand to brand. Also the wear out
time varied. Some sets after a while just had so many little
problems you couldnt money wise make them like new.
Up til the 70's RCA & Zenith were the high end sets.
Middle sets were Maggies & Sylvanias. Low end was GE, Emerson
& most store brands. Time has proven that, just see what
has survived

73 Zeno:smoke:

The Roundies were from the era where the dealer was sposed to come to yr house & "Set it Up". If you got the guy who typically installed fridges, you might not have had as good of a picture as the TV was capable of delivering. I remember seeing a LOT of Roundies back then that the convergence left a lot to be desired. Another problem was that you could be depending on the signal quality of yr own antenna. Here in Greater Bugtussle, we were at least 50 miles away from the nearest TV station, so that was going against us, along w/ the problems of being in "The Mountains".

1st time I recall seeing a color tv, think it was a roundie, saw a BW show (typical of the time, not a lot of color programming).

it was so badly converged I could see the color fringing all over the place on a BW image, I was just a kid, and thought so this is color tv? was not impressed.

i always did and still do prefer roundies
 

I like the rectangularies too for certain programs but i love the roundies especially when watching period correct shows like all the early color broadcasts.
i lost my '64 rca home entertainment center , the antionette with remote control and no uhf. Ctc15 low hours, It was awesome with a new crt from hawkeye i spent like 700 on that crt. The knife is still slowly twisting in my mind's gut over that loss. :tears::drool::tears::no::sigh::tears: it'll likely drive me to :smoke::tears:

The green phosphor was originally "greener", but not as bright as the newer phosphors (these being more yellowish). Which makes for a smaller range of displayable colors.

One thing some more modern sets had was better chroma-luma separation, using a comb filter. This reduced the high frequency luma from contaminating the chroma (crawling rainbows on referee's shirts). A roundie with the old phosphor fed by an S-video source (and modified to accept the S-video) should look very good.

The roundies seem to have more depth to the picture and the colors. Most sets were not set up properly when they were delivered, and I think that caused lots of people to not be impressed with color television. You could take an RCA CTC16XL set and do a complete IF and color alignment, and with a rare earth crt and proper setup get a picture that you could almost walk off into. It was second to none when done right. This was true of lots of the roundies. I never liked the Zenith crt's because they used a orange/red phospher. Pure reds were not as nice in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, the Zenith sets did make a good picture and I certianly would not turn one down. I own 2 of them. My 1964 model Zenith works great. I like period programing on the roundie. Thats the way it was intended to be seen in my opinion.

This would describe for my Zenith 25MC33 set--from late 1981---1982. I watched a LOT of shows on it...and it looked VERY impressive !!

I've never seen a roundie in person so I can't compare.

As long as the picture doesn't look totally crappy I don't really care. Also, electronics from the 70s were still commonly used by most people I grew up around, so I guess that's where my preferences came from.

Either someone collects what I do or that part of history would be forever lost.

1970s sets are well worth collecting. Quality did not start to take a serious drop until the 1980s although some '80s were well built such as the Sony's.

I Have a LOT of 1970's set. Just acquired a 1973 TS-938 Quasar set from Doug a couple of weeks back. It is the one with the SMPS_-WAAYYY before those became "common". Last one I had was in 1988 maybe 89....till now.

1980' sets...a FEW interest me...but not a lot of them. I have one of the RCA CTC-133 sets with that "square tube" from 86 I think, and a couple of the non-dimensia CTC 131 sets. But the Zenith sets from that era do NOT interest me that much.. Most had the 9-160 chassis, or 9-181 or 214 module till maybe 1985 or so...and those do NOT interest me. Shitty flys, Hot chassis, a LOT of wires connecting boards. The tubes were often pretty good though. After those came the 9-516 chassis --cold, but STILL a LOT of long wires running everywhere...

I also have a NAP 25C8 set--from 1987 or so. Good tube--think it works.

But a LOT of 1980's set had hot chassis....and that is a turn OFF for me.

I have only two 1980s sets now, the Electrohome that is identical to one we had when I was a kid, and the Zenith console with the 9-516... I guess I got a decent one there.

Really cool that this thread took off. A lot of great facts and opinions. One thing I saw more than once was people saying that they liked watching programming as old as the sets on their sets. I think that there is something to that as I have long thought that they really did a great job with color programming in the early years, or we'll say the 60s to be more specific. I think to a degree that quality dropped off in the 70s and improved again somewhere in the 80s. I've seen a lot of 70s sit-coms where the video quality is lousy; probably that more than the actual color. But check out something like Dragnet, Bewitched or other 60s shows and the video quality and color are spectacular no matter what set you are using.

We ended up talking about set build quality of later years such as the 80s when things became pretty iffy and remained that way or frankly evolved into garbage all the way up to today's flats. Your age sort of dictates what is "old" to you I think, so to me an 80s set is just another TV set. I say this because although I have absolutely no desire to start filling up my already cluttered electronics home/warehouse with 80s sets or much of anything else frankly. I have enough to keep me entertained for the duration I think! LOL! In my defense, most of my sets are older than me! :)

I do have an example of how well sets COULD be made (if desired) by the 80s. It's a 19" Panasonic that only says Compufocus on the front. This set was given to me years ago by someone who can justify the upgrade and discard mentality. I'm here to tell ya that the thing often plays around the clock! I work swing shifts and got into the nasty habit of sleeping with a TV on so I don't hear my neighbors' dog collections and lawn mowing addictions during the day when I need to sleep. I know; I can't expect the world to stop so I can sleep. But I keep waiting for SOMETHING, anything to go wrong with such a heavily used set. Not a thing so far. Bright and perfectly converged picture, the works.

Point being is I think electronics engineering reached a plateau of sorts by that time and they could build almost bulletproof sets. Of course we have seen that achievement turn 360 deg. and most of the industry turned to what I call planned obsolescence and/or failure just to keep us buying more. So only a few years ago you could still find one CRT model set at Wallyworld and going back into the 90s a set MAY last 5 years before the tube was shot.

Man, a lot of good things have gone away since the days of the "roundie." Not just things, but ways of thinking as well. I'm glad we are here on VK sort of keeping the torch lit!

Roundie sets don't put off better pictures than the solid state stuff from the late 1970s and early 80s or the current stuff... Roundie and tube stuff in general also wasn't as reliable.. I can say some of these 70s, 80s sets put off a better picture than some of these cheapo flat screens produced today... Now putting a roundie set side by side with a current flat screen depending on the image the sets are viewing I would say it can be comparable and may even look better with certain images..

Not knocking the roundies as I love to collect them and think they are neat, but they don't produce as good as a pic as the newer solid state stuff and current stuff.. I notice with roundie sets, a dark screen with a bright image in the middle effects the whole screen next to the bright image image.. A dark screen with white words you'll see the screen is darker next to them.. I don't know what you call that, but I think the resolution is not as high as when they started to make solid state stuff, with a VHS or Beta tape you'll notice at the end of a movie with credits you'll see the same effect on any TV..

I notice with roundie sets or even the early rectangle sets, Video tape does not look good on them, either a big bend on the screen and/or a black bar running across the screen

I look at old color programing from the 60s and even early 70s on any TV and notice the colors aren't as vibrant and very dull seeing how that was the technology at the time.. You take a color roundie and hook it to current television programing, I would say that the set is viewing current programing nicely compared to what it was viewing in 1965.. I wonder why that is, maybe the video cameras they were using in production in those times weren't great?

This Hitachi set from 1981 here in the pic below, I use as my daily set, I bought it back somewhere around 2010, and I have been running it pretty much non stop and it's still going.. Tho it's starting to show signs of problems.. When brightness is turn down a little one side of the screen is brighter than the other side, and it has snapped and popped a few times.. But hey 5 years of non stop running, I doubt a new set could handle that...

http://vintageelectronics.betamaxcol...lct1900a_1.jpg

They can't handle the lousy sync produced by a VCR. A time base corrector would take care of the problem.

Plasma's have the closest picture characteristics as the crt, deep blacks no angle degradation truer color reproduction and no pixilating like the lcd's/leds.

I think that the picture can be more pleasing because the video levels aren't driven so hard as to diminish the color quality. I guess today's viewer's would disagree, but then most of them don't understand what an acceptable picture should look like

To fix the shading you just need to replace the filter cap on the
200 V line. Usually a 4.7mfd use a 450 V. One of the most
common problems on ANY color TV.

73 Zeno:smoke:

...

My late friends girlfriends dad had a RCA 25 incher from the early 1960's that had beautiful color on it and this was in 1980's when I was watching it.
The set had a long life.

My parents had a Motorola -Quasar 19 inch set in the early 1970's which i still have here that put out awesome bright color then.I got to restore it someday.

The Quasar had it issues with its plug in modules getting loose and intermitting connections.

One thing with modern flat screens is that they use excessive "coring" (a form of noise reduction, where small variations are suppressed, but allowing large amplitude variations go thru. Makes people's faces look cartoonish. And most of these sets don't let you turn this coring off. So this is a reason why I've used CRT VGA computer monitors for HDTV display (assumes the ATSC tuner has an analog VGA (RGB) output) I've set to 1080i. And a reason why old TV sets may look better than the modern flat screens.

I grew up in the late 40's and 50's. I saw early color in stores and relatives homes in the mid 50's. We did not have a color set until I started working and at 18, purchased our first color set, a 1966 RCA CTC 19 Danish modern consolette. It was a rectangular set. In the 50's we would go the movie theater and watch beautiful Technicolor movies in a rectangular format.

IMHO a roundie was a technology compromise utill rectangular color tubes could be made. If we are used to watching movies in the theater in the rectangular format, we should be watching color movies in the home on a rectangular TV. I did not like the fact that the images were cut off at the corners on a roundie.

In the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's, beautiful filmed Technicolor shows were broadcast such as Bonaza and Columbo. There is just something about the warmth and depth of a Technicolor movie that is lacking in today's programs. Most of us remember seeing those shows on roundies. That is why we have a fondness, it's the nostalgia. We remember our first experiences with color television and it was usually on a roundie and it was great!

Unlike the past, most kids grow up with color TV from the time they first turn a set on. It has become mainstream, not a big deal. If you grew up before color TV was invented and lived for 9, 10-18 years with black and white, it was a big deal to have your first color set.

I do not agree that a properly adjusted color roundie looks better than a properly adjusted flat screen. I did an experiment. You may remember Ed Reitan's screenshot of Dorthty from the Wizard of Oz. It was taken off a CBS field sequential color set which at the time was considered to have better color than RCA. Last year, Turner Classic channel rebroadcasted that movie and I took a screenshot of the exact same frame as Ed's photo from my 70 inch calibrated flat screen. There is no comparison. If you compare image to image from a more modern properly adjusted 1964 RCA CTC15 roundie to my 70 inch calibrated flat screen, there is no comparison.

I have noticed that All In The Family, Sanford & Son, Maude, etc from that era all have pale color. I thought is was just because these shows are so old now the master recordings were worn out but I guess it was the video tape. Cheers and Taxi which were shot with film still look great and of course the '60s Classic shows still look good.

So that is why low end flat screens always look cartoonish. Even our Panasonic plasma has a shimmering cast on some scenes similar to a CRT with low emission. Plasma is the closest to CRT but is not perfect.

...

Here you go. Look at post#8 on this page.

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=262853

I am guessing that the writer is referring to this topic in relation to his specific age group. With that I would agree, but I'm not positive that's what he means. It actually backs up one of the possibilities I mentioned in starting this thread of why the specific "roundie" color set has such a big fan base. The age group that saw all of this come along could easily want a piece of a fond old memory around. Inversely, I mentioned I think in a second post that most of my sets are older than I am. So, being a kid in the 70s, my memories of these sets were just that they were just another set. Or later junk... yep.

By the time I took my high school electronics training in the early 80s. our donation area in the classroom was well populated with them. However, even then I remember specifically wanting to work on those just because they seemed more interesting than the other almost as old rectangulars which I had no interest in. I still think there is more to this than nostalgia really. I mean how many people want their first touch tone phone or cell phone back? Or their first computer for that matter. I think a lot of us have some training in electronics and simply enjoy the challenge of getting an old TV or radio going again and preserving it for whatever reason. That would sort of explain me, but I have never been able to explain even to myself the love of TV and radio in some cases much older than I am. It just comes naturally.....:thmbsp:

I wasn't around when roundie CRTs were being made, I really wasn't even around when vacuum tube sets were being produced, everything was pretty much solid state when I was born in Feb of 1978.. My mother had a cheap B/W tube set when I was a baby, it's in a picture somewhere I believe.. But she said I use to go in the back of the set and mess with the knobs.. I may have even broke the set LOL.. But there is something about roundie and old sets I really like.. I like them from the beginning to the early 80s, when they started to become digital, I didn't care for them... I do like some of the early digital Zeniths with the digital tuners and green display readout, which I have one of those sets.. But I remember always wanting a color roundie as far back to the late 1990s when I got my first B/W roundie I believe from that guy that owns this site: http://www.vintagetvsets.com/ pretty sure it was this site or maybe someone related to it, I remember viewing that site in 1998, or 99.. It really looks no different.. But it was a guy out of Long Island New York.. I never recall ever seeing a color roundie working as a kid, and all TVs I saw in the junk back in the 80s were early rectangular sets.. Web surfing in the late 1990s and seeing actual pictures of color roundies actually made me want one, and it was only up until about 3 years ago until I saw one operating in person...

I'm guessing that rectangular delta-gun sets were a technology compromise as well considering that the gun setup doesn't fully cooperate with the screen geometry. The smaller tubes must have been easier to design inline-gun systems for; I noticed that many 19" screen table sets got inline tubes before larger-screen consoles.

We always had a color set when I was growing up, but I didn't have access to it most of the time (now the Electrohome is totally mine, haha). I had a small B&W set which I hated, so it was still a big deal to me to get my first color set. I wouldn't want that particular model back though, they were becoming BPC by the time that was made.

You are right, it's about the age group before color TV was invented. Let me respond. Yes that is exactly what I mean, it's nostalgia for me. As I tried to explain, at the time I was a bit younger than the core group of guys who were able to buy their first color sets in 1954, 1955, 1956 etc. I was not able to buy my first color set until almost 19. That means it was 1966 when I purchased my first color set. At the time, I thought roundies were old fashioned. Who would want one when the new rectangular tubes were just coming out and the roundies cut off the corners of the image! To a buyer like me at that time, roundies were being phased out.

Two years ago, I was able to find the exact same color set as the one I purchased in 1966. Even the same cabinet. I had long ago disposed of it as junk, but now at my age, I searched until I found the same exact set. It was not that I thought it was superior, just the nostalgia of possessing the first color set you owned. After that, I really wanted to find an RCA CTC 5 to go back as far possible to the very first sets. On the way to that search, I found a beautiful 1964 RCA CTC 15 roundie.

To put it another way, for me, it's similar to wanting to find a 1963 Pontiac GTO, the very first muscle car and I was just old enough to drive and wanted one badly. That car is not a better car then today's car, but it's all about the nostalgia.

From reading these forums over the years, I think most here, get enjoyment from the challange of repairing these old sets. I'm not good at repair, so always try to find good working examples. Been lucky so far, takes patience. Love the nostalgia.

As to the micro televisions I collect, that's another story. :-)

I've done this comparison between Oz from a DVD through a first class
B-T agile modulator into both a 55 inch LCD and my CT-100.

There is a comparison. The colors are exceedingly close. The LCD
has, in its normal settings, excessive contrast for film, while
the CT-100 is correct. This can be adjusted out on the LCD set.
The resolution is not exactly the same. The overall resolution is similar,
but the LCD has "sharpening" halos on it, the
CT-100 none, and the LCD has a tad more real
resolution. But very close.

I would love to see screenshots of your comparison test. I think I remember the thread. I could go back and look. I have read in these forums that the CT-100 was possibly the only set that had color phospers that accurately met strict colors standards of that era and up to this day. That means the RCA CT-100 would be considered a high end set of its era and most certainly a better challenge then the field sequential set or the CTC-15. Can the LCD used in your test be considered high end? We're both sets calibrated to the current standard? Today's LCD sets are capable of reproducing a wider spectrum of colors then the current standard. Coming soon, the 4K BluRay group is currently working out the final standards for the new 4K format. LCD manufactures are working to achieve most if not all of the advanced image and color standards of this new format.

My test was comparing Ed Reitan's screenshot to the identical frame captured off my high end Sharp 70 inch calibrated LCD. My LCD model is now three years old. I could post unretouched photos to show what I mean when I say there is no comparison. I can do the same comparison test using a recently adjusted RCA CTC-15 with the LCD. The delta dot structure is much more noticeable on the CTC-15 than the Quatron pixel structure which has 25% more pixels than a standard LCD. It is not as bright. My CTC-15 was adjusted by a retired RCA color technician, but not professionally calibrated. Still the colors do look very accurate.

When the two screenshots of an identical frame are captured from the RCA CTC-15 and the LCD, there is just no comparison in terms of brightness and resolution. The controls for this test are that both sets are in almost total darkness, only the screen light is imaged and captured and the camera is set on auto exposure.

Seeing "Colored TV" was a BIG DEAL when I was a tadpole.. Nobody had one here in Greater Bugtussle, you had to go to the "Big City" to see one, usually in a store. We had some relatives who had one, in Kingsport, & once we went up there to see it, on a Sunday afternoon. There was a football game on, & the men kept goin' on & on about how GREAT it was, but I just didn't see it. It was a green-painted metal cased RCA set, a roundie, & I guess it was 1964, '65 or so.

ok,heres my take on the question.i saw the picture on the first color sets.the 15 inch models and i was amazed.the 19 and 21 inch sets were bigger but the picture wasnt better.still.to a youngster,amazing.nothing exciting for a few years and then the coming of the zenith color sets.never had i seen a picture so bright,clear,sharp and colorful.truly,the finest picture on a roundie.rca later released the ctc15 which was very close to the zeniths in quality.the rectangulars came out and though the picture was good,just didnt stand up to the aforementioned sets.the next huge improvement was the zenith chromacolor sets.whether hybrid or solid state,those sets are still acclaimed as the best ever.the coming of the great sylvanias,hybrid and solid state with the famous 25vdmp22 crt was the very last hurrah for the delta gun sets.all in all,the zenith roundie in my opinion was the most beautiful picture i had ever saw on a crt set.maybe it was the era or maybe it was just my youth but that set was exciting.

It was NOT just you....I still have fond memories of my 25MC33, seeing shows like "the spy who loved me" 2001", Dark star", Caddyshack", Airport 79" Coma", "You only live twice"...along with a LOT of mission impossible episodes and such. ... and MANY others--for about a year--on that wonderful set. It was OTA only, and only a few channels. BUT what we had ...just looked SOOO good !!

Zenith claimed they "had something different and special" in their roundie set--from the 29JC20 on...IMHO....they DEFINITELY did !!

Age group does have something to do with it.. But there are people like me that are one of the younger that like the old sets before our time..