Colour TV

[Richard1978]

Re: Colour TV

My gran was the first person I knew to have a remote control TV, not sure of the set make but the controller was fairly hefty even by the mid 1980s.

I used to be interested in the pattern created when a TV was turned off & would take a few seconds to fade away.

[PC66]

Re: Colour TV

I used to be interested in the pattern created when a TV was turned off & would take a few seconds to fade away.

That would vary from model to model, depending upon the design of the circuitry. On some sets the vertical and horizontal fields tended to collapse more or less simultaneously, resulting in a picture shrinking "evenly" toward the middle. With some other designs, one timebase would collapse more rapidly than the other, resulting, for example, in the picture initially collapsing down to a thin bar or even a single bright line across the middle of the screen before it would then collapse inward from the sides a moment later. And with colour, since the convergence would then be all over the place with a shrinking image, you could sometimes see various colour patches in different parts of the remaining frame before it faded.

[Richard1978]

Re: Colour TV

That would vary from model to model, depending upon the design of the circuitry. On some sets the vertical and horizontal fields tended to collapse more or less simultaneously, resulting in a picture shrinking "evenly" toward the middle. With some other designs, one timebase would collapse more rapidly than the other, resulting, for example, in the picture initially collapsing down to a thin bar or even a single bright line across the middle of the screen before it would then collapse inward from the sides a moment later. And with colour, since the convergence would then be all over the place with a shrinking image, you could sometimes see various colour patches in different parts of the remaining frame before it faded.

The ex-rental set my Aunt & Uncle had in their back room used to fade into a multi coloured circle for a couple of seconds before vanishing. Me & my cousin were a bit merzerised by it.

[staffslad]

Re: Colour TV

Our first colour TV was a 22" Pye model, bought late in 1973. It was not reliable and every time we came back from our annual week's seaside holiday it would fail to turn on, requiring a trip to the TV repair shop. We got a 22" Bush model 7 years later and the Pye was put in my bedroom for a while. I hooked up our first VCR to it but when you tried to play a tape the picture would gradually start to bend and made it useless for watching tapes, so it was consigned to the attic.

[darren]

Re: Colour TV

Pretty sure either my gran or we had one like this.

[staffslad]

Re: Colour TV

If I remember correctly those Pyes were valve TVs. The one we had gave a good picture but you just couldn't depend on it.It cost £220, a heck of a lot in 1973. My parents saved up for it for over a year to afford it, and it was probably the worst TV we ever had. The Bush we bought in 1980 was better--all transistor I think--but still gave us a fair bit of trouble. When I started working I saved up and bought a 14" Sanyo colour portable in 1985 or 86. I remember it cost £180, but I used it for over 20 years and never had any trouble from it. The only reason I got rid of it was we needed the room.

[zabadak]

Re: Colour TV

We rented from Radio Rentals back in the day...

[staffslad]

Re: Colour TV

Zabadak. I bet you got a better deal from Radio Rentals than we did buying that Pye and the slightly more reliable Bush. I remember our neighbours rented their TV and VCR and they always had the most up-to-date set and no repair bills, while we were stuck with, especially, that Pye with its old technology and repair bills, and no TV for days when it went kaput.



A previous post mentioned remote controls. The first R/C TV I saw was in 1980 at Comet. It was when we bought our 22" Bush. There was a, I think GEC 22" with a remote for nearly the same price, but my dad was wary of it and went for the Bush instead.

[Richard1978]

Re: Colour TV

I remember my parents used to rent a set from Granada, then in late 1984 we bought a set on credit from Comet.

It was a Philips 15 inch set with remote control which seemed space age compared to the wooden case & push buttons the old one had.

The battery for the channels eventually went but it was in use for at least 20 years.

[marc]

Re: Colour TV

We must have been one of the last families in the street to have colour TV, late1984 or early 1985. I can't remember what make it was, but possibly from Rediffusion. It seemed brilliant all that colour! On the plus side, being with Rediffusion, we had free Cable for a month or so has a trial period. There was a black box on top of the TV. We were lucky living in the South Wales valleys, transmission was bad, so most houses had their TV connected via a white box on the wall. This box had letters on it, ABCDEFGH. A and B were radio stations. C was BBC Wales, D was BBC2, E was BBC1, F was HTV. The rest were spare. An external cable ran outside from this box to a central box elsewhere.
Seeing a lot of films free, in colour, was fantastic. All I remember about the TV, was it was very heavy by todays standards. In the end, it made a crackling noise, then give up the ghost.

[Richard1978]

Re: Colour TV

I've heard of a few early cable systems for low reception areas, often the companies operating them also rented the only TVs that would work with them!

[staffslad]

Re: Colour TV

Interesting to hear about early cable TV. I didn't know it was available quite that early. Just to clarify...for areas where aerial reception was very bad, were cable boxes supplied free? I mean, was it covered by the licence fee?

[marc]

Re: Colour TV

Interesting to hear about early cable TV. I didn't know it was available quite that early. Just to clarify...for areas where aerial reception was very bad, were cable boxes supplied free? I mean, was it covered by the licence fee?

There is a site called Remembering Rediffusion. Visit it. It will answer most of your questions.

[Arran]

Re: Colour TV

Mastervision cable television from Abingdon in the 1960s and 70s.

http://www.aeolian-hall.myzen.co.uk/mva.htm

[staffslad]

Re: Colour TV

I have a vague recollection of hearing that our area was going to get cable TV, but this would have been in the late 80s, and so far as I know it never came to pass. I don't think I have ever seen anyone with cable TV around here.