A-C Radio and TV color TV display, mid 60s

[Tubejunke]

Originally Posted by damien191

it seems like there would be a relatively high cost in having a "wall of tv's" that are prone to regular failures, especially when i imagine they were designs for 2-4 hours of use per day

TVs were never designed to scrape by just a few hours a day between regular failures being corrected. Perhaps sets in the very early days 30s-40s may have been more prone to problems as it was all developmental at that time. By the 50s television was fairly well developed and color (mid 50s) was an expensive reality.

I would venture to say that durability, and performance was WAY more stringently monitored, tested and engineered. Someone mentioned that you must consider the (now) old sets being completely new. None of the years of use and degradation that we see trying to bring them back to life. I wouldn't hesitate to watch a say mid 50s black and white set all day long if the caps were renewed. So I'm sure that back in time the sets at least could play during store hours with little problems like bad tubes. The vacuum tube was the weakest link then and frankly they are more durable then they get credit for these days. They last a pretty darned long time before becoming damaged enough to effect performance.

Enter the age of the transistor and "Solid State" circuitry and you begin to see why it became perceived that old tube sets were prone to regular failure. One tube a year could be considered regular failure. And once solid state had enough years of engineering under it's belt, many sets were made that all but never failed. People at that point would upgrade when a CRT finally gave out.