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Post by PAUL WOOD on Aug 4, 2018 16:59:26 GMT
While I cannot remember knowing anyone who had a B&W main set by 1982, many who could afford a 2nd set often had a B&W portable, sometimes into the 1990s. Typically, as soon as someone makes a totally logical statement like this, someone like me throws a spanner in the works! We didn't actually get a colour set until 1982. Prior to that we had been using a Phillips 24" b/w model. We got our first video-recorder in 1980 but the engineer installing the machine switched it to monochrome because we didn't have a colour TV. It was only partway thru season 18 of Dr. Who that a work colleage pointed out (rather incredulously) that the the ariel received a colour signal regardlesss of what type of set it was plugged into. Doh! I changed the setting on the recorder that very night. When we finally updated to colour during transmission of 'Kinda' in '82, I had over a year's worth of tapes to rediscover in all their glory, only having previously watched them in b/w. What became of that TV engineer & his dodgy advice, I have no idea!
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Post by Richard Marple on Aug 4, 2018 17:51:24 GMT
While I cannot remember knowing anyone who had a B&W main set by 1982, many who could afford a 2nd set often had a B&W portable, sometimes into the 1990s. Typically, as soon as someone makes a totally logical statement like this, someone like me throws a spanner in the works! We didn't actually get a colour set until 1982. Prior to that we had been using a Phillips 24" b/w model. We got our first video-recorder in 1980 but the engineer installing the machine switched it to monochrome because we didn't have a colour TV. It was only partway thru season 18 of Dr. Who that a work colleage pointed out (rather incredulously) that the the ariel received a colour signal regardlesss of what type of set it was plugged into. Doh! I changed the setting on the recorder that very night. When we finally updated to colour during transmission of 'Kinda' in '82, I had over a year's worth of tapes to rediscover in all their glory, only having previously watched them in b/w. What became of that TV engineer & his dodgy advice, I have no idea! I'm not sure of the legislation was then, but these days a device capable of recording in colour needs a colour TV licence, even if it's connected to a B&W screen.
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Post by PAUL WOOD on Aug 4, 2018 18:51:15 GMT
In all these years, Richard, that had never occured to me!
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Post by Simon B Kelly on Aug 4, 2018 19:01:47 GMT
8,000 homes in the UK are still buying black and white TV licences, which, in an age of 4K and HD seems almost unbelieveable. Do they really only have a black and white receiver and no recording equipment? Obviously, they must be using some sort of Freeview or Freesat device to be able to decode the digital TV signal to analogue 625 for their 40 year-old TV's. I wonder how many also have an additional box to convert the 625 down to 405 lines?
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Post by garygraham on Aug 4, 2018 19:25:26 GMT
Colour televisions were very expensive. I seem to remember paying £189 for a 14 inch Hitachi colour portable around 1985. Equivalent to about £575 today. A Sony would have cost more.
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Simon Collis
Member
I have started to dream of lost things
Posts: 536
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Post by Simon Collis on Aug 4, 2018 21:00:18 GMT
Colour televisions were very expensive. I seem to remember paying £189 for a 14 inch Hitachi colour portable around 1985. Equivalent to about £575 today. A Sony would have cost more. I've seen 4K televisions advertised for a lot more than that coming up to the world cup, and they're probably the "top end" nowadays (until 8K comes into fashion in a year or so, no doubt...) That said, if we translate salaries then and now, how much of the average wage does that represent? That said, my family had colour sets for years thanks to Granada, and later, Radio Rentals. So colour sets were certainly in the reach of most people even if they couldn't afford to buy them outright. (And renting meant you didn't have to worry about repair bills either...)
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Post by Richard Marple on Aug 4, 2018 21:20:24 GMT
8,000 homes in the UK are still buying black and white TV licences, which, in an age of 4K and HD seems almost unbelieveable. Do they really only have a black and white receiver and no recording equipment? Obviously, they must be using some sort of Freeview or Freesat device to be able to decode the digital TV signal to analogue 625 for their 40 year-old TV's. I wonder how many also have an additional box to convert the 625 down to 405 lines? There is a device called the Aurora which can convert a 625 line signal to a 405 line one. I have an small analogue B&W TV which I can connect to an early Playstation modulator so it can receive signals from an composite source.
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Post by garygraham on Aug 5, 2018 16:53:45 GMT
Colour televisions were very expensive. I seem to remember paying £189 for a 14 inch Hitachi colour portable around 1985. Equivalent to about £575 today. A Sony would have cost more. That said, my family had colour sets for years thanks to Granada, and later, Radio Rentals. So colour sets were certainly in the reach of most people even if they couldn't afford to buy them outright. (And renting meant you didn't have to worry about repair bills either...) Absolutely. We rented from Radio Rentals until the purchase of the Hitachi set.
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Post by Jaspal Cheema on Aug 5, 2018 18:14:47 GMT
That said, my family had colour sets for years thanks to Granada, and later, Radio Rentals. So colour sets were certainly in the reach of most people even if they couldn't afford to buy them outright. (And renting meant you didn't have to worry about repair bills either...) Absolutely. We rented from Radio Rentals until the purchase of the Hitachi set. My father bought a colour Hitachi TV set in 1973,just before Pertwee's final season and I have to say that the colour reception was magnificent with no interference and a superb 625 line colour signal.I enjoyed all the mid to late 70s episode in excellent, uninterrupted full colour.
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Post by garygraham on Aug 5, 2018 19:21:48 GMT
Absolutely. We rented from Radio Rentals until the purchase of the Hitachi set. My father bought a colour Hitachi TV set in 1973,just before Pertwee's final season and I have to say that the colour reception was magnificent with no interference and a superb 625 line colour signal.I enjoyed all the mid to late 70s episode in excellent, uninterrupted full colour. Better picture and audio quality than standard definition Freeview or BBC iPlayer in SD in fact! What progress!
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Post by Jaspal Cheema on Aug 5, 2018 21:04:57 GMT
My father bought a colour Hitachi TV set in 1973,just before Pertwee's final season and I have to say that the colour reception was magnificent with no interference and a superb 625 line colour signal.I enjoyed all the mid to late 70s episode in excellent, uninterrupted full colour. Better picture and audio quality than standard definition Freeview or BBC iPlayer in SD in fact! What progress! Wow Graham, really?
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Post by garygraham on Aug 6, 2018 1:31:11 GMT
Better picture and audio quality than standard definition Freeview or BBC iPlayer in SD in fact! What progress! Wow Graham, really? I reckon so. I have done side by side comparisons of captures of 35 year old VHS recordings with the same programmes shown on BBC iPlayer in SD and there is virtually no difference. It is VHS quality. Someone may correct me but I'm sure UHF audio was superior to the low bitrates of audio on Freeview and iPlayer? Nicam stereo audio which was introduced in the late 1980s was certainly superior and video recorders had HiFi audio recording. I can remember back in the 1980s there was a clear difference between a VHS picture and a broadcast picture on the TV. One could always tell. I put on a VHS now and often I think "wow that is really good" LOL. I have a video projector.
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Post by Stephen Cranford on Aug 6, 2018 6:15:14 GMT
I concur that early off air VHS can look and sound brilliant, even better since HiFi stereo sound was introduced. Take a look at this which I captured from a VHS tape last month - from a 37 year old tape youtu.be/jbi7uRSdQm8
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