In article ,
Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
When colour started in the UK, it was only on one UHF channel out of
3. The other two were still 405 line VHF. So the first colour sets
were dual standard.

Where they? I have never seen a dual standard (405/625) line TV set on a
website, listed on various collectors pages, nor do any of the people who
have video tours of their 405 line TV collections on youtube have any.

I'm not saying they did not exist, but if they did, people are going to
a lot of trouble to omit them. You'd figure the guy who has one of the
last 405 line TV sets (the model, not the actual set) and proudly shows
it, would have one of the first 405/625 sets too.

You can't have looked very hard. Dual standard sets - both colour and
monochrome - were plentiful at one time.

Given the US never attempted to make sets to the UK mono standard of
405 lines - which pre-dated any US one - just why do you think they'd
have been interested in any other UK market? A few years later, UK
colour sets were UHF only when the other channels went colour.

Well, they would not. But in 1956 back when the UK was still stuck in
the 1930's, you could buy a US color TV off the salesroom floor.

Some could - if they had the money.

If the
BBC wanted to go to color, they could of just adopted the US system, and
let people import US sets with transformers until one with 240 volt
power supplies became available.

If the US makers wanted to sell sets in the UK they could have made them
to UK spec. But your strange logic seems against this.

BTW, what you said about 405/625 line sets in general was not true, BBC
one was a dual service, the second BBC channel was never 405. It started
in 1963, two years before there were color broadcasts.

BBC 2 started off as UHF 625 mono. Because it was planned to start colour
there in the future. BBC1 and ITV were 405 (VHF) only until they too went
colour on UHF.

As for tuners, ALL US sets had UHF tuners by the summer of 1964.

I presume you mean all new ones?

I also doubt any US manufactured set would have been cheaper in the UK
after transport and setting up a service/dealer network, etc. US cars,
for example, have never been competitive here, price wise.

Bad example. UK cars are mirror images of US ones,

Mirror image? Have you ever looked at the design of a car? UK makers
managed to produce pretty well every model in RHD and LHD. As did just
about every other in the world. Another example of 'take what you get or
leave it'?

the only difference between an NTSC set receiveing NTSC signals in the
UK versus the US was the power line voltage. An external transformer
would have been around $25, which on a $1,000 item was trivial.

And even more trivial and cheaper to make a new power supply?

We've long since established that by 1956 the power line frequency did
not matter.

It *can* matter to power supplies.


Your idea that the whole world should adopt US standards regardless of
local conditions was just to protect their home industries says much.

WTF? Now you are projecting. Since PAL is the original NTSC standard as
proposed, the UK had no TV network to speak of (just left overs from the
1930's), why not adpot an off the shelf technology that's already in use.

Because it was so poor. As anyone who had seen the actual results in the
'50s would remember...

People wanted color TVs in 1956, they did not want a british system with
little or no benefit except that it would take nine years before the
first broadcast.

Where did I ever say the US should have used UK technology? It's you who
are saying the reverse.

In the 1950's the concept of COTS (commerical off the shelf technology)
did not exist and I'm not sure it has ever existed at the BBC. To be
blunt, if the BBC had adopted the RCA system 100%, there would have been
color TV in the UK in 1957.

And we'd have been saddled with an inferior system relying on imported
equipment. Those coffins of cameras not suited to UK production methods.

So what real benefit did PAL provide?

The best TV service in the world.

It's the reason why the far east has taken over the manufacture of such
things. They tend to make what people want, rather than what the
manufacturers think they should have.

Actually they did not. They started making what they wanted you to buy,
but at a price so low you could afford to buy it and live with the
missing features.

Look at VHS. VHS forced out all the other systems because the EU was
going to impose VCR quotas. To prevent it, the Japanese manufacturers,
except for Sony stopped making PAL and SECAM VCRs in favor of NTSC ones.

JVC cornered the VCR rental market with VHS. But you could buy a variety
of makes including Sony BetaMax. At the same time as the Philips VCC
system. VHS was the most popular system for all the wrong reasons - as
elsewhere.

They literally sold the NTSC ones BELLOW COST just to keep the factories
running. (look up "dumping" and VCR).

People did not want VHS VCRs, they wanted BETAMAX VCRs. But when the
equivalent VHS VCR was on sale for half of a Sony, they bought them
anyway.

So why didn't your manufactures with that vast economy of scale compete?
You found the money to put man on the moon but couldn't make a domestic
VCR. Even with all the expertise of Ampex.

--
*It ain't the size, it's... er... no, it IS ..the size.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.