Re: Who remembers how bad analogue television was?

"Sylvia Else" <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote in message news:m2a9coFaisuU1@mid.individual.net...

Leave aside the ghosting, which could largely be addressed by having a decent antenna.
>
But my memory of a Philips Colour TV (1984ish) was that it had rubbish automatic gain control (AGC),

Philips' design quality was usually reasonable in my experience.

and odd interactions between brightness and picture position.

EHT breathing?

>
The AGC should have been based on the amplitude of the sync pulses, which was 30% of the total. I'm sure this could have been
done, but my experience was that instead it was based on the average amplitude of the demodulated signal. A black image containing
large white text, such as a title screen, would show a clear darkening to the sides of the text, while being decidedly grey over
the rest of the screen.

I don't recall specific issues like that.
I do recall how bad a picture some people would tolerate before having the set serviced.
I also recall knowing that the quality of the content produced by the TV stations and the technical quality of the TV system were
two completely different things.
You might ask how bad digital television is if you're talking about the content.
I can't remember when I last watched a broadcast TV show at the time it was broadcast.

>
I suspect this same poor AGC was responsible for a shift in the detection of the sync pulse such that the text would be moved to
the right of its proper position, which could result in distortion of the letters as the average brightness varied line by line.
>
In the early days of television, using thermionic valves, it was probably a miracle that these things worked at all, but surely in
the transistor age, something better could have been provided.

Although they have a finite life, valves are good for high voltage and fairly high powers.
And it was easier to stabilize a valve scan and EHT generator just by varying the pentode's control grid voltage.

>
Were studio monitors any better, anyone know?

Probably. They would have to be.

>
Sylvia.