Sky reveals HDTV launch lineup

"Sal M. Onella" wrote in message
news:[email protected]

"Ivan" wrote in message
...
. I
remember being severely ****ed off expecting to see the Moon landing in
colour, only for it to be shown in 405 lines B\W on BBC1.



You really didn't miss too much.

The very first lander carried a B/W camera. The US prelude coverage was
in
color, but grainy
images of Neil Armstrong stepping off the ladder were definitely
monochrome.
The big surge
to color in the US had just passed in 1967/1968 (or so) and our TV
networks
were all exclusively
in color. IIRC, we knew in advance that the images would not be in color,
since, at that time,
a small-enough/light-enough color video camera did not exist to make the
trip.

They took a "car" on later missions. :-)))



Thinking back I was probably miffed because it wasn't shown on BBC2, where
at least the talking heads and panel of 'experts' would have been in colour!
(in my area BBC 1 and ITV didn't switch over to colour until 1970)

Sal M. Onella wrote:
"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
om...
In article , Jc wrote:
The vast majoirty of people in the UK got their sets in the 1970's!

If the vast majority of TVs in this country were really 30 years old
they'd be black and white, mono and the high street retailers would
be out of business. What utter rubbish.

You must be very young. We did have colour TV in the 1970s you know.

Rod.


Heck, even before -- 1967 to be exact.

Ref: Pearce DW. Macmillan dictionary of modern economics.
Macmillan Press Ltd, London, 1992

I saw it on display in a shop window and I have not been in the UK
since 1968.
I recall thinking it was a good, clear picture, accurate colors,
albeit soft and subdued.)

(Yes, I know Baird's work in the 1920s and 1930s. Spare me :-)

The BBC experimented with NTSC transmissions originally, in 1963 they
sold some of the RCA Victor televisions they'd been using. My father
bought one and converted it to PAL, so I can remember watching some of
the earliest, PAL test transmissions. I lost count of the number of
times we saw a film about the damming of the Zambeze river. That set was
still working when dad put it away in the cupboard, so presumably it
still works.
--
Adrian A

In article [email protected], Sal M. Onella [email protected]
ood.poisoning.org writes

"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
. com...
In article , Jc wrote:
The vast majoirty of people in the UK got their sets in the 1970's!

If the vast majority of TVs in this country were really 30 years old
they'd be black and white, mono and the high street retailers would be
out of business. What utter rubbish.

You must be very young. We did have colour TV in the 1970s you know.

Rod.


Heck, even before -- 1967 to be exact.

Ref: Pearce DW. Macmillan dictionary of modern economics.
Macmillan Press Ltd, London, 1992

I saw it on display in a shop window and I have not been in the UK since
1968.
I recall thinking it was a good, clear picture, accurate colors, albeit soft
and subdued.)

We were building all the transmission and studio gear for colour at the
old Pye TVT works in 66-67)...

(Yes, I know Baird's work in the 1920s and 1930s. Spare me :-)



--
Tony Sayer

tony sayer wrote:

We were building all the transmission and studio gear for colour at
the old Pye TVT works in 66-67)...

Was that in Weybridge?
--
Adrian A

"Sal M. Onella" wrote in message
news:[email protected]

"Ivan" wrote in message
...
. I
remember being severely ****ed off expecting to see the Moon landing in
colour, only for it to be shown in 405 lines B\W on BBC1.

You really didn't miss too much.

The very first lander carried a B/W camera. The US prelude coverage was
in
color, but grainy
images of Neil Armstrong stepping off the ladder were definitely
monochrome.

Not much colour on the Moon anyway!

And the image went fuzzy every time anything moved, so I suppose they
averaged out the image over time in some way to reduce the noise.

--
Max Demian

On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 09:16:08 +0100, Roderick Stewart
wrote:

In article [email protected], Sal M. Onella wrote:
Actually, not really. 576/480 = 1.2, whereas 720/(576 * .7) = 1.8
(.7 because of Kell factor). Also, because the 576 countries usually
use 50HZ, they need a worse KEll factor blur to avoid worse flicker.

"Kell factor blur"? There is no such thing. In any case, the Kell factor
has nothing to do with the frame rate.

I don't understand all of that. I know the 480 number to be the
count of visible scan lines in NTSC and 50 Hz to be some countries'
systems frame rate . I will look up Kell factor, but I think I will need
some help in determining what 576 means. I don't recognize it.

There are 575 active picture lines in the 625/50 system. One of them is in
the form of two separate half lines, at the end of one field and the
beginning of the other. Some equipment that includes buffer storage can cope
more easily with this by providing storage for 576 lines. You could say
there are 576 picture lines per frame, though two of them are only half the
duration of all the others.

Just to be pedantic, the lines are all the same duration. In the analogue
world, the 2 lines are half blanked to give 2 x 1/2 active lines.
In the digital world, the lines are full width, giving 576 active lines.

In article , Adrian
writes
tony sayer wrote:

We were building all the transmission and studio gear for colour at
the old Pye TVT works in 66-67)...

Was that in Weybridge?

No, Coldhams lane Cambridge.....
--
Tony Sayer

"Max Demian" wrote

The very first lander carried a B/W camera.

And the image went fuzzy every time anything moved

The deicision to use black and white was more to do with bandwidth than
cameras!

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 16:15:04 -0500, Doug McDonald
wrote:

Sal M. Onella wrote:

"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
you have to consider that standard definition TV

is hardly very high resolution now (ignoring the interlace factor):

720 pixels x 576 lines = 414,720 pixels


My definition of SDTV is a 480-line picture with 400 or so vertical lines of
resolution -- US standard and it's not so good, I guess, measured against
others' SDTV.. That's half the number of pixels described above. We are
getting more of an upgrade with HDTV because our SDTV resolution is crap*
compared, to UK.


Actually, not really. 576/480 = 1.2, whereas 720/(576 * .7) = 1.8
(.7 because of Kell factor). Also, because the 576 countries usually
use 50HZ, they need a worse KEll factor blur to avoid worse flicker.

I think what Mr. Onella meant by "We are getting more of an upgrade
with HDTV" was that 480 - 720 or 1080 is a bigger improvement than
576 - 720 or 1080....

Charlie

--
Remove NO-SPOO-PLEASE from my email address to reply
Please send no unsolicited email or foodstuffs

On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 17:17:30 +0000 (UTC), "fred_eg_bowinatuck"
wrote:

"Max Demian" wrote

The very first lander carried a B/W camera.

And the image went fuzzy every time anything moved

The deicision to use black and white was more to do with bandwidth than
cameras!

ISTR that the first colour picures from the moon were obtained by
putting a spinning 3-colour filter wheel in front of the lens of the
monochrome camera.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK