TV: Magic in the air
 

A intresting docuementary about "R.C.A." & N.B.C. telvision from 1941: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV0Ra...eature=related

That is a great promo! I think the projection TV is an RCA TRK-12.

Thank you!

Kind of interesting to see the iconoscope camera and the TRK-12/120 on screen while at the same time the announcer is describing a 525i picture standard.
Thanks for sharing the link Telecolor, good stuff.

In 1941 441 lines was the standard, no?

In 41 the 525 standard was established by the FCC. RCA was making and selling 441 sets until the FCC standard was established, then trying to retrofit sets and transmitters as well as design new sets to meet the new standard.

525 line was high defition back then. Like 625 in Europe (this standard was introduced a bit later).

There was no retrofitting required for the sets. They work fine on 441 or 525. We run our prewar sets on 525 with no problem.

I bet TV WAS "Magic in the Air" then...Remember, then, RADIO had only been around 20-25 yrs or so...And now The Wizards has went 'n' added Pitchurs to it ? Don't THAT beat all ?!? (grin)

TV in the air is STILL "magic" to me. Satellite or terrestrial, just pointing hunks of metal around and getting signals is cool indeed. Sending your own signals to others is really cool.

It's Still Magic
 

Old enough to remember when UHF was a new (and often financially fatal) experiment, yet young enough to remember the first test of Galaxy I (the first high-power C-Band bird), and still reckless enough to experiment with digital video and audio...

Yeah, you're right...Even tho I mostly understand how TV works 'n' all, there STILL is a little bit of 5-yr-old wide-eyed Boy in this tired, disgruntled old Pharte 55 yr old that thinks it STILL may REALLY be Majick...

I remember that too. The one where people said "it is so high-powered, you can almost just point an LNB at it and get a signal". Then, they sold "tiny" 5-foot or 6-foot (1.5 meter or 1.8 meter) dishes with no motor just for use with Galaxy 1 only. Right about then was when Videocipher scrambling started if I remember right.

In our woodsy-hilly area without cable, the 12-foot dishes were a great novelty in 1984 or so. 12 or so satellites each with 24 channels IIRC. Videocipher put an end to this fun in a few years, but you did pay only for what you wanted. Cable finally came all the way out from the suburbs 10 years later.

We got 4 VHF channels and no UHF on a new (in '71) Chromacolor. It was frustrating to have this great TV and NOT have all the fun cartoons, movies and re-runs on the three Philly UHF stations that were around since 1965. Then the antenna guy added a Blonder-tongue amp and 4-bay bowtie WITH a rotor.
20 more channels instantly and my fascination with aluminum-fueled DXing was started!
I got a DTV tuner in 2005 and started the fever all over again. The paid programming and other crap is quite a discouragement, though.