Italian Simple-PAL TV sets

[WellInformed]

Dear Collectors,

as known, in Europe during the early days of PAL color TV introduction in the second half of the 1960's, there have been sold SIMPLE PAL TV sets on the market.

SIMPLE PAL means, that there was no expensive glass delay line installed to cut the costs.

• Most known is the for european standards adopted and modified GE Porta Color as German KUBA CK211P with different tube and circuit setup.

• Further in Italy the CGE TPC279/11
• and just mentioned at RM.org a TELEFUNKEN Italy TELECOLOR T479 with the same chassis but with a slightly different housing. And where you could see a model number "747" at the rear side?

Question: Did any collector know more about any real TELEFUNKEN (Italy) SIMPLE PAL TV set? Was it just a prototype? Are there more labeled GE PAL versions sold?

Please: Just SIMPLE PAL TV sets were requested. Not PAL TV sets with delay line in general.

Thanks for your support.

Wolfgang

[Penthode]

In 1982 I remember visiting a friend in Croydon Surrey UK who had in the kitchen a very early Sony Trinitron 26cm screen PAL portable TV. I recall it had a tint control on it. Sadly I never adjusted it!

Whilst working for the BBC, I recall the Melford studio monitors had a simple PAL switch. When adjusting the PAL demod phase (otherwise known as tint on an NTSC monitor) you could adjust for minimum visibility of the "Hanover Bars".

I would assume the simple PAL receivers hue adjustment would display the Hanover Bars if misadjusted.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by Penthode

...I would assume the simple PAL receivers hue adjustment would display the Hanover Bars if misadjusted.

Interesting - I never thought about that.

[WellInformed]

Dear Penthode, thanks for your reply.

But years ago, I was thinking the same way and found out Iam wrong.

The Sony KV-1300- 1310E and their UK versions were using the tint control just to avoid the PAL Telefunken license fees by modifiying the PAL decoding circuit. At least, they also using Delay Lines as of "real" PAL devices.
See circuit extract and photo of the device in the 1310E with Tint control.

[Penthode]

Thanks. Do you know I have occasionally wondered about that early little Sony PAL set for 43 years. Thanks for answering the question.

[ppppenguin]

The early PAL Sony Trinitrons were designed to avoid infringing the PAL patents. These were owned by Telefunken and in the UK were assigned to EMI. They were also used to prevent import of Japanese TVs to Europe.

The Sony design converted PAL to sort of NTSC (this is a very simplistic explanation) which was then demodulated as though it was NTSC. Hence a hue control was needed.

Simple PAL was different. You could demodulate PAL without using a delay line to average adjacent lines. Any phase errors then gave Hanover bars. When PAL was invented by Bruch at Telefunken a one-line delay was a difficult and expensive item. Hence the idea of a simple PAL decoder. Then Philips designed the original DL1 ultrasonic delay line which was cheap enough. AFAIK, no simple PAL sets were marketed in the UK.

Strictly speaking, in NTSC, if both the coding and decoding are done accurately then no hue control is needed. Even into the late 1960s and early 1970s the required accuracy and stability was not feasible.

[old_tv_nut]

A further complication was that although the burst included in the signal followed any phase or amplitude distortion of the chroma, it had to be replaced by a clean burst meeting FCC signal specs before broadcast or distribution on an analog cable system. If the re-inserted burst phase didn't match the incoming (which happened often), the error was baked into the signal receivers saw.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

A further complication was that although the burst included in the signal followed any phase or amplitude distortion of the chroma, it had to be replaced by a clean burst meeting FCC signal specs before broadcast or distribution on an analog cable system. If the re-inserted burst phase didn't match the incoming (which happened often), the error was baked into the signal receivers saw.

This was a problem with the VIR auto color system too...it fed a line of color bars in the closed caption area to calibrate the TV off of...broadcasters didn't have to ( and really should not have) replace the VIR signal in network feeds, but they often did making the system do the opposite of what it was designed to do.