At The Dawn of Television

[vacbear58]

It was 80 years ago today, 2nd November 1936, that the first regular scheduled high definition (and in this case high definition is considered a minimum of 240 lines) was launched by the BBC. Previously there had been a regular low definition (30 lines - yes 30 lines - using "mechanical" television) between 1929 & 1935.

The two youtube links below from the mid 1970s and early 1980s have been proved by later research to have been not entirely accurate as they are rather dismissive of the content and quality of the earlier low definition service, later research uncovered that this was not necessarily the case from recordings that were made at the time. These were from both 78 rpm discs (a failed experiment) and Dictaphone type (amateur) recordings made rather later on but still have much interesting material about how it all started out.





Al

 

[gyrafoam]

I cannot remember a time without television----

and yet when I compare what we have today with what was around when I was a child the difference is like night and day.

Back in the late 50's/early 60's my folks got a large color TV. Everybody thought my parents were crazy. In Atlanta at the time, I don't think one of the three networks were color broadcasting yet. But it wasn't long. Slowly but surely everything changed to color.

Now when I see something old in black and white I feel ancient because I remember what it was like! It was a different world.

 

[davey7]

As an aside, among the performers on the first day of BBC broadcasting were American performers Buck & Bubbles.

 

[iheartmaytag]

Wow

How we have improved.   I remember the aluminum foil rabbit ears on top of the TV with the snowy Red Skelton.  Black and White, of course.  I also remember when the TV stations signed off the air at Midnight and didn't come back until 8:00 A.M.  My brother and I would get up to watch Saturday morning comics and would watch the test pattern until the station came on air.

 

 

 

30 lines, I think that's what you get with Cox communication basic service.

 

[vacerator]

Yes,

remember when UHF was a big deal?
I was about 8 when my mom told me we would have pay TV. I thought she meant we'd have to insert a quarter to watch each day.
Heck, $8 a month would be a bargain, even in 1977.

 

[davey7]

What do you mean remember when you had rabbit ears on top of the tv - I still do!

I lived in Norway in the 80s when there was one channel that broadcast from about 4/5 PM until around midnight. There was some daytime programming, but there would be large, long breaks. Sweden was so hoity with two channels (and text tv, which was like schedules, quiz's and games you could play with your remote. Cable was just coming in and since then channels (over the air as well) have multiplied as well as satellite (just like her).

Another TV tidbit, Italy didn't get color service until sometime in the mid/late seventies, well after even some of Eastern Europe.

 

[lordkenmore]

>What do you mean remember when you had rabbit ears on top of the tv - I still do!

I don't have these in service now, myself, but I certainly could see myself using them.

I've actually used rabbit ear antennas in fairly recent history. Like within the last 10 years. I'm too cheap to pay for cable, and the TV I have used since shortly after Clinton began his second term lacks an antenna. A quick trip to a thrift store, and the antenna problem is solved!

Unfortunately, my current location realistically requires A) a pay TV system (e.g., cable), or B) doing without TV. Being cheap, I opted for B...and a quick perusal of the TV listings suggests I may not be missing much...

 

[tolivac]

I use my new LG 4K TV for just watching movies from a 4K Samsung BluRay DVD player---that's it!or view pictures and movies shot with my Sony digital still or video cameras.You can do that thru either the TV or DVD player.

 

[vacerator]

Maybe France

had color tv signals that reached into western Italy?

 

[foraloysius]

"Maybe France had color tv signals that reached into western Italy?"

3 problems: 1. The Alps, 2. The different color TV system in France (SECAM) and 3. The lack of color TV's in a country that doesn't broadcast in color.

 

[vacerator]

Thanks for that Louis.

I though maybe a few color sets had gotten from say Monaco or Nice, to Balogna, Milan, or Turin. Princess Grace had friends in Italy.
Aren't the Alps more north of the Mediteranian, closer to Switzerland?
I guess the haute corniche is also a barrier, if the signal is all FM, like the sound part is. FM signals go in a straight line, not bounce of the ionosphere like AM signals.

 

[iheartmaytag]

Yes, I had an external antenna until a few years ago.  After the digital conversion, I could not get a stable signal so had to get cable. 

 

However, the entire sentence was "I remember the aluminum foil rabbit ears on top of the TV with the snowy Red Skelton."  Going on to say "In black and white, of course."  We didn't have color TV until about 1974. 

 

[davey7]

I get a huge number of channels on my rabbit ears (not even the "digital" kind but just the old black ones from before "conversion") - in excellent clarity too, I might add - despite not facing the Sears tower.

Well, RAI made up for lack of color with spectaculars! Europe's campiest TV by a long shot - Mina, Raffeala, Gemelle Kessler, Lola Falana...

 

[ronhic]

Rabbits ears take me back, though my parents had a coil style aerial about 2 feet long.

So, Canberra didn't get colour TV until 1976...Sydney and Melbourne were earlier.

I distinctly remember going to Harvey Norman at the Woden Plaza on Saturday morning and my folks buying a Thorn furniture model TV - 25" I think. Dad had seen the football broadcast in colour that Friday and was determined to have one for the following weekend or not at all!

Mum recently found the receipt for it - $1300...that's about $7,700 today - OUCH!

 

[vacerator]

A bit later

than the USA, but still "rugby, meat pies, bbq and Holden cars"
Our TV commercial was baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.

 

[iej]

RTE Irish Television - behind the scenes in 1961

Interesting, little piece (Flash required)

A day in the life of RTE Television in 1961 - tons of behind the scenes footage of very early 60s equipment and studios.

It was for a programme called Discovery, which did a special about how TV worked.

http://www.rte.ie/archives/2015/0402/691552-behind-the-scenes-at-telefis-eireann/

It's in B&W 625 line. PAL colour TV didn't launch here until 1969.

All blandly now MPEG4 on DVB-T

 

[cornutt]

The FCC decided to experiment on our town and decreed it a "UHF island", with no VHF channels being licensed. This was back in the late '50s, when most TV sets did not have a UHF tuner. Needless to say, those models did not sell well here. Other models had a space for a UHF tuner which was supposed to be a dealer-installed option, at extra cost. Well, this town is full of engineers, so generally you'd just get the UHF tuner in a box and install it yourself. Some people had a side business installing UHF tuners for other people.

And because our geography is uniquely bad for UHF transmission, there was a land-office business in large outdoor antennas and rotators. One local electronics shop had someone fabricate "Huntsville special" antennas tuned for the UHF channels in use here. If you wanted to receive all of the available area channels, you needed an outdoor antenna on a pole with a rotator. The rotator had a little box that sat on top of the TV that controlled it. There was a circular gauge that showed you which way the antenna was pointed, and a switch that caused it to rotate one way or the other. It came with little stickers that you placed around the outside of the dial to show which way the different stations were. The wiring for the rotator motor went to a special jack in the wall behind the TV, where the control box plugged into it.

 

[norgeway]

We had

A 1962 Silvertone 21 inch black and white console when I was a kid, we also had a Alliance "Tenna Rotor"with the control box on top of the tv, you held a bar down and the needle would swing from north to east or whatever you wanted as the antenna turned, we got channel 3 which was WBTV in Charlotte, Channel 9 which was WSOC in Charlotte, channel 7 which was WSPA Spartanburg SC and 13 which was WLOS Asheville.

 

[ptcruiser51]

We Were Lucky

To live in a TV saturation area. Our house in East Orange, NJ did fine with just rabbit ears for many years because of our close proximity to NYC. Our 1948 RCA console was upgraded to a 21" rectangular chassis around 1957, since the RCA factory was only a couple miles away and they offered a special price for the upgrade. This set lasted until about 1962.

We had our choice of Ch. 2 (CBS), Ch.4 (NBC), Ch. 5 (DuMont),Ch. 7 (ABC), Ch. 9 (WOR - independent), Ch. 11 (WPIX, independent), and Ch. 13 (WAAT, independent). Always something to watch.

Nowadays it's like Bruce Springsteen lamented: "57 Channels and nothing's on".