The Rise & Fall Of 405-Line Television | An AMTV Documentary
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- Опубліковано 1 лип 2024
- The first of its kind in the world... This is THE RISE & FALL OF 405-LINE TELEVISION!
In this AMTV Documentary, we take a look at the early days of TV, and how 405-LINE TELEVISION became the dominant system in the UK! How it came about, how it persisted and how it clung on for years after its successor came in, before its eventual demise...
00:00 - Intro & Titles
01:03 - The Birth Of Television
03:13 - The Launch Of 625-Line TV
05:16 - Farewell To 405
07:18 - 405 Around The World
08:57 - Conclusion
10:18 - Credits
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#405 #television #history - Розваги
Back in 1970, as a young trainee broadcast engineer, I found myself working in the telecine department at a regional studio. We still operated dual standard standard at the time, switching between 405 and 625 line as required, though both were still monochrome. One day, we had some American engineers visiting, who were quite complementary about the resolution of our 625 images. They were very shocked to be informed that, at the time of their visit, we were actually operating 405-line...!
405-line was much better than people give it credit for, but by the time we were preparing for 625-line, other improvements had been made to the transmission system, most notably FM audio replacing AM, and negative picture modulation of the vision carrier. Both these gave a huge improvement in both interference rejection and fringe reception, and were at least as valuable as the improved resolution.
We didn't have electricity in our house in Southern England until 1967, when I was 7 years old.
Soon afterwards my Dad rented our first TV set. I remember the times before the TV, all of us sitting around the kitchen table, Dad reading the newspaper, Mum and Nan knitting and us kids playing cards or board games like snakes and ladders or Ludo.
On Sundays we were lucky enough to have a roast dinner and afterwards we all sat around the kitchen table talking to each other... Then the TV arrived and the conversation stopped dead. Everybody's chair was turned to face the TV.
We had 3 TV channels then, BBC 1 and ITV were broadcast on 405 lines, whereas the newer BBC2 channel was 625 lines. Our TV had a switch on the side to select 405 and 625 lines. Of course it was my job to operate this and change the channels. A little bit older now and many years have past but I can still remember that very first television.
I remember when I were a kid growing up in the early 70's, a lot of houses had 2 lots of VHF aerials on the rooftops ; one aimed towards Pontop Pike (BBC) & Burnhope (Tyne Tees) & the other towards Holme Moss (BBC) & Emley Moor (Yorkshire).
In the mid-80's, I remember going on a day out to Lincoln & spotting 3 UHF aerials on a house rooftop. The bloke who lived there told me how, prior to 1974, he could pick up Anglia from Belmont, ATV from Waltham & Yorkshire from Emley Moor. Absolutely amazing
At the beginning of the 70s I worked for a TV shop as a delivery and installation driver, a lot of our customers still had only 405 line sets with 2 aerials a X, and an H, many were venturing into the new colour sets (the rich ones) where they had to have a new toastrack aerial fitted which was also required for BBC 2 which if I remember was always on 625 lines
My grandparents kept their old monochrome 405-line TV until just before the shutdown. I remember watching it in the 80s, not bothered by the lack of colour or less definition. A lot of older houses in the place I grew up had the old aerials for a long time as well. EMI's system really lasted.
Most of those old VHF aerials stayed up on roofs simply because no-one could afford to have them brought down. I remember seeing some of them well into the 90's! Mother Nature eventually provided the, 'service', though as they slowly deteriorated and came down with the help of gravity.
@@j0hnf_uk You still see some of those old aerials on roof tops now, even though it is nearly 40 years after the 405 line switch off. Some of those old aerial riggers did a really good job in installing them.
@@trevordance5181yep. Where I live is a bunch of old terraced houses built in the very early 1900s. There are a handful of 405 line aerials on some near me and no sign on coming down!
By the early 80's some of the 625 to 405 standards converters at the transmitter sites were giving poor conversion quality. Apparently London Ch9 was particularly bad.. Very few people were watching it by then anyway.
@@HughTVDX I've read about that too - on the North Wales coast we had no such issues, the 405 pictures were perfect right up till switch off - I expect the equipment was newer since North Wales would have been one of the last areas to get coverage.
Just for the joke, "high def" in France was imposed in 1948, with a 819 standard. This is due to the fact that the 441 lines system was an inherited from the German system, during the occupation (The occupation TV for German troops was supposed to be destroyed during the retreat, but let intact and fully functionnal). The "low def" 441 system was stopped brutally due to a fire of the transmitter in 1956, and the very small number of tv sets (less than 500) : offering a vouncher to buy an "high-def" system was cheaper for the state than rebuild the transmitter.
The 819 "K" system was developed by Henri de France , was to wide on frequency to add a colour system. And funnily, this is the same engineer who created the SECAM colour system, on the CCITT standard 625 lines "BG" system.
405 lines on a typical 12 inch set of the 50s looked fine, but once larger sets became available the picture was noticeably 'liney'.
The dual standard TVs of the 1960s were notoriously unreliable, but the 625 picture was a big improvement.
You can still see the occasional band I and band III VHF aerials on rooftops, unused for around 40 years.
The trouble with the real old sets, free-standing in mahogany cabinets about three feet tall, is that it took an eternity for the valves to warm up and the picture appear after you’d turned it on.
Oh yes - all that waiting! I remember it well!@@prairiewolfo9274
I remember seeing a transistorised set in the early seventies which had a cathode heater in the tube. Almost instant start-up! I did worry about what an unnecessary waste of energy it was though.@@prairiewolfo9274
@@prairiewolfo9274 Actually it takes my "smart" TV just as long to boot up and display anything sensible!
@@sundog486
Wow!
I remember our TV with the two channel dials! One was for 405 and the other for 625. A blast from the past. Thanks Adam
My pleasure! Glad you enjoyed!
We rented a B+W tv from around 1977 until 1980, a Philips (210 chassis). I had no idea at the time that it was dual standard, 6 push buttons on the front only. The big giveaway was the 2 aerial sockets on the back and I had no idea what the VHF aerial socket was for, only that if I plugged the aerial in there I got a very grainy picture. Turns out that the push buttons could be configured individually for UHF 625 or VHF 405, the mechanism to do this was on the back of the tuner inside the set. Obviously being a rented set all the buttons were set to UHF. I only found out in later years when I picked one up off the local tip and tried to get it going.
In North America, for a while, many sets also had 2 dials, one for VHF and the other UHF. However, both were 525 NTSC.
Thanks for this really interesting & excellently put together video.
As a retired electronics engineer who started off in the 405 - line only days, on domestic television, so seeing in the evolution to 625-line UHF monochrome & then colour TV gradually being taken up by the general public, it was fascinating to re-live part of it. Shortly after the introduction of colour, I moved into the broadcast engineering sector, where I remain almost until retirement. And still the technology marches on, with most people being totally unaware of the constantly evolving electronics behind it all.
Me too mate! Studio and location sound.
Not only in screen resolution and display but compression, transport and decompression technology. Marches further still as interactive, webTV and streaming become more widespread.
The bulk of if not almost ALL tv sets manufactured and sold in the UK until the JAPANESE imports, were some of the worst electrical items that we Brits were subjected to. Unreliable, overheating and overbearing let alone as we would have said; over here... absolute and utter garbage. The first time I bought a JAPANESE tv set I realized there were those who were capable of making something that WORKED, WAS RELIABLE and worth every penny...
The transmitter, PO and studio engineers all lamented that the studio picture leaving the 405 transmitters was far better than any of the domestic TV sets and that comment could be said about the domestic colour 635 line sets.
I lamented the switch off of the analogue signal because the replacement SD digital service didn't come anywhere close when viewed on a good well adjusted receiver. And there's still fall off the cliff edge issue with weak signals or fringe reception while you always got something with PAL, even if it was fuzzy monochrome.
I was a television engineer in 1985 when the 405 system was switched off and had managed to find an old Murphy dual standard black and white set that I got working and watched the shut down on 405. The set was on its last legs but having managed to unsolder the system switch that would give so much trouble as the set aged and were often soldered up by engineers to be permanently on 625 and replacing a couple of capacitors it actually gave a reasonable picture. I think I had to rejuvenate the crt, something that used to give a few months life to a well used t.v. I don't recall what happened to the old Murphy but I no doubt it's been consigned to landfill.
The geographical coverage of the 405 line VHF transmitters was phenomenal - many viewers could receive pictures from two or even three ITV companies. For example ATV/ABC Midlands could be seen as far south as parts of Surrey from the Membury transmitter and as far north as Liverpool from the Lichfield transmitter. UHF 625 line coverage was much patchier at the start - many people had to resort to installing masthead amplifiers to get a strong enough signal - particularly for an adequate colour picture.
The VHF coverage, especially band 1, caused us to suffer a lot of interference, often from 1000 or so miles away. It was common to get interference fro Scandinavian stations, Southern European stations and Soviet stations.
Yes indeed. I used to pick up Band I European stations really clearly during particular atmospheric conditions.@@sundog486
Yea I was always turning my home made antenna around good old days
there were enthuiasts who received pictures from other countries they took photo of a very snowy mush and when photo developed it came out perfect HD b/w image with no lines
@@jagmarc Not sure what you are getting at, but the far off signals were often as or stronger than our local ones; Sometimes wiping out the locals for a period of time. Not sure if you've seen any such pictures but they were neither noisy nor HD. There were various propagation modes for these signal, the most common being Sporadic-e and Tropospheric propagation. I received many in the 1960s with home built aerials and modified TVs to accept 625 lines. They were interesting times, but then I discovered girls - there was no competition😉
My first TV was an old 405 line monster with a glass panel in front of the tube. And a dead spider in there. It had frame linearity problems, which seemed to be very common on this vintage of equipment. When I got a Thorn 1500 mono 625 TV, it seemed such a leap of technology. Thankfully I never had dual standard TV, they were unreliable with all those big switches in there.
The 1400 dual standard predecessor was a pretty reliable set. I had a few of them in good working order right through the 405 line switch off, quite often used on 405 in the bedroom with a piece of wire for an aerial.
I remember the introduction of 625 line TV. It really seemed a quantum leap in viewing quality. Also after the introduction of colour the US programs like The Rowan & Martín Laugh In were still 525 lines with black bands top and bottom. The standards conversion equipment used by the BBC was big and expensive, Worth a video maybe? Thanks for the nostalga. Subscribed!
In the early days of BBC 2 625 lines Black and white on Uhf the tuners used valves, if you had even a vaguely marginal signal,there was a sort of foggy, grainy effect on 625 pics. 405 pics in comparison had real 'ooomph' (to use the technical term!).. Things changed quickly though after 1969 when all 3 networks were 625 and colour. Valve Uhf tuners were rapidly replaced with much better transistor ones. .
Fabulous documentary! It must have been amazing to see 405 line TV in the UK years before decent quality TV programming occurred anywhere else! regards for Canada!
Thank you so much! It may seem primitive now but I think 405 deserves all the credit!
@@AdamMartyn Primitive yes, but when you think about it, all the higher resolution analog formats were just scaled versions of it in either vertical or horizontal resolution, so brilliant original concept. I'm a bit surprised they even tested the lower resolution mechanical TV again the all electronic 405 line - the advantages seem so apparent.
I have always been fascinated by TV and its history (particularly the technical aspects) - you channel is great - keep up the good work!
@@ElectromagneticVideos i'm wondering if at that time all electronic systems were viewed with some scepticism, there were some limitations with the early cameras (though nowhere near the problems and limitations of baird's system) and cinema at that time and for decades afterwards was based on a mechanical process.
@@michaelmcdonald2348 I never thought of that! I'll bet your right. And with vacuum tubes aka values being so new back then it probably wasnt nearly as obvious which was going to be best as is it to use looking back!
Couple remarks: a. 405 line service was paused in world war two. So even if it started in 1936, only a few homes had a set. For standardisation or backwards compatibility it was not really needed to stick to that norm. TV service did not resume until at least 1945. b. The coverage in early TV was not national, many relays didn’t start until late fifties and tv sets were still expensive and scarce. c. Countries in mainland Europe started regular tv service in 1950 since they first needed attention on the rebuild, but did this then straight from the start in VHF 625 like in the Netherlands and Germany. 625 in 1950 was technically already possible. They never had the disadvantage of being (or feeling) locked to one system. The late fifties and early sixties was when tv sets were finally selling by the millions.
During the 1950s, before BBC Divis (Northern Ireland) was opened in 1955 people the only signal possible in central Eire was to receive BBC TV from Northern England. A teenager (BATV fan) in 1960 I was surprised by the number of Band 1 aerials I saw on houses in Port Laoise, Abbeyleix and further south. Reception was usually not possible till after dark and the 3-element aerials were at roof level. I remember looking at several single channel 12" sets at a repair shop in Abbeyleix (1959) that had been recovered as people installed tall masts and switched to ground wave reception from Divis about +100 miles distant. I also vividly remember hearing NYC taxis breaking though on my uncle's 405 TV (41.5 mHz sound curtesy of the high MUF 1960 sun spot cycle).
Interesting post, I remember visiting Ireland in the 80s and seeing many large Antennas on tall masts that appeared to be aligned for reception of British TV , and thinking how popular it must have been, considering the expense it must have incured to install the quite elaborate systems with large masts and antennas, Although I guess once installed there was no real future costs.
I guess many still survive in situ today?
The vision modulation on a 405 line set was the opposite way round to that of a 625 set which gave quite a different 'feel' and contrast to the picture, particularly in weak signal areas.
Typically a 405 line set with no signal had a dark screen - the signal created the light parts of the picture. (The same was true for the French 819 line system.)
With a 625 line set the screen without a signal was typically white and the introduction of the signal created the dark parts of the picture.
The positive modulation on 405 also tended to create very noticeable interference problems if unsuppressed electrical devices were used nearby, or if cars without a good condenser passed nearby.
I grew up with 405 lines tv and the black and white pictures it showed were very acceptable with a good contrast between light and dark and the definition was sharp especially when viewed on the screen sizes of the day. Also using a comparatively small number of transmitters almost all of the UK's population could receive the service.
I never saw an actual 405-line broadcast, but I have seen recordings of, say, earlier episodes of _The Avengers_ compared with later ones. Look at the Cathy Gale episodes, all of which are monochrome, and compare with the first Emma Peel season, which is also monochrome, yet the difference is astounding. I think the earlier shows were recorded in 405-line video, while Emma Peel was on film. By comparison, those earlier episodes look positively murky.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 I would image some of those old video recordings are pretty much worn out by now and are nowhere near the quality they were when first broadcast. As you say the later episodes with Diana Rigg used film for international sales which has been much better preserved and also used many more outside locations and switched to colour filming too.
@@trevordance5181 Worn-out video doesn’t get darker, though.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 The biggest problem when evaluating earlier episodes of programmes like The Avengers is that the conversion was performed by pointing a 16mm cine camera at a monitor. Videotape was expensive so would be wiped and reused. The film transfers could be easily duplicated and used in other markets with differing line standards. Telerecording as it was called had other issues like inaccurate geometry, but in many cases is now the only surviving medium for these older episodes. The later series were made on film purely for sale overseas (particularly the USA where it was popular), later episodes were also made in colour for the same market, while in the UK at the time there was no ITV colour service. The upside is that the episodes made on film can now be seen in high definition in a way not possible at that time.
I remember the TV of my childhood having a 405 / 625 line switch.
I vaguely remember watching the 405 line transmissions in the early 80s as a kid. We had a sony b&w portable tv that received both 405 & 625. When watching tv up in the bedroom I found that the 405 reception was pretty much perfect on a crappy pull out aerial compared to the 625 b&w picture. Though it noticeably had lower resolution and lines, it was overall clearer. I remember being disappointed when 405 was switched off as the portable then only received the snowy 625 uhf picture. The colour tv downstairs was fine - having a proper rooftop aerial.
Thank you very much. I was working at MTV Finland as a senior video maintenance engineer and was always wondered that your 405 line system. We admired the BBC picture quality which was the very best of all the countries.
I had an old 405 line TV given to me as an 11 year old back in 1981 and it gave good pictures, BBC1 and ATV (Central after 1982) only but I never watched BBC2 anyway!
It lasted until 405 closed down in January 1985 and I shed a tear that day.
Thank you for covering 405 line television, one of my favourite topics. I'm currently restoring a 1937 HMV 900 and this is inspiring me to get on with it (it is a very big job!).
Cheers
I remember it being so much easier to get a good 405-line picture than a 625 one, but that's mainly because coverage was so much better on VHF. Also, on-screen noise due to a weak signal tended to result more in lack of contrast rather than snow, so you could turn up the contrast to make it a bit more watchable. Obviously, 625 lines was better, as long as you had a good aerial in a reasonable reception area, but 405 wasn't at all bad, and it didn't really look a lot different on smaller screens. Of course, they did experiment with colour on 405 lines in the 1950s (using a version of NTSC adapted for positive modulation) - no idea what that looked like.
Sounds more of a UHF/VHF issue than the number of line. Ireland of course broadcasts 625 on VHF... (or it did until analogue switch-off).
@@ttrjw Yes, and an issue to do with the use of positive modulation rather than negative (regarding the different appearance of on-screen noise).
The early UHF tuners used short lived valves which often meant weak pictures lacking in contrast and often the 405 VHF pictures would be visibly clearer and sharper. Things improved once transistorised tuners were developed, but it was much easier to get good VHF reception than UHF.
Who remembers the big H shaped TV antennas used for 405 TV''s.m
Big H and X shaped aerials for VHF Band 1 channels and the smaller 'Toast Rack' shaped aerials for VHF Band 3. In strong reception areas a bit of damp string would work! In some areas where signals overlapped you could get an extra or maybe even two extra ITV stations from a neighbouring region which was very handy when the different ITV programme companies often had completely different schedules.
Great video. In Ireland, most of the 405 line transmitters were switched off by 1978, to make frequency space for Ireland's second channel, RTE 2. The last place in Ireland to turn off 405 line transmissions was in County Donegal. I think this was due to poor signals of 625 line signals up there until a new transmitter at Holywell Hill (very close to the Northern Ireland border, which in turn make RTE 1 and RTE 2 accessible to people who lived in Derry / Londonderry city and county) was built in 1981. This spelled the end of 405 line transmissions in 1982. Even though we had 625 line television about 2 years before Britain, Ireland didn't have full time colour broadcasts until 1976, with Studio 1 of RTE Television Centre in Dublin being the last studio to get colour equipment.
When Ireland first hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 1971, not only did RTE not yet have colour television facilities, they didn't have the ability to transmit a strong enough signal to the European mainland. Luckily, their colleagues at the BBC came to the rescue, lending colour cameras, and an OB unit, which broadcast a signal back to London, which was then retransmitted across Europe. Which, considering how tense things were politically in Ulster at the time, was quite an achievement in itself.
I recall in the mid 1960s as a student in a marine radio college we had a class outing to RTE in Donnybrook. Prior to RTE's TV service, many households in the east of the country tuned in to British TV services. Most TVs were on the 405 line system whereas the new RTE service was set up on the 625 line system. So RTE supplied a 405 signal to the east of the country and 625 to the bulk of the country. I asked an engineer how this was accomplished. He took me to what appeared to be a broom cupboard. On a stand was a 625-line TV, and on a tripod facing the 625 TV was a 405 camera whose signal went to the 405 transmitters!
@@fitzperfect I suppose by that time, 405 line technology was becoming obsolete. 625 line was the future. I think the broadcasters knew that, so they were ready for the new technology. Down in South Africa, when they first got television in 1975 or 1976, they had colour equipment from the start.
Amazing video! As a collector and restorer of our lovely vintage televisions, and one of 12 owners of one of the rarest pre war TVs in the UK, it’s exciting to see someone shedding some light on our entrance into “high definition” television!
I’m surprised that it took the UK so long to dump the 405 system.
Great video thank you for making it! The info is very much appreciated to a ludite on this topic like myself.
Back in 1985 when 405 line transmissions ceased, I arranged with the IBA as it was then for a friend to have the redundant 625 to 405 line standards converter from the Mendelsham transmiiter in Suffolk. It was several 7ft equipment bays of electronics including a lot of diode matrix modules. An interesting day out. I can't remember now what happened to it in the end, but I still have a note from the IBA about it.
Mm in Oct 2016 I was pleased to attend, in Ally Pally, celebrations re the 80th anniv of the 1st hd UK TV transmissions, from 1936 and of course then on 405. There, with a live b+w BBC 2 feed of a concert on HD, they had a computer converter. Turn the dial and one then had the feed reduced to 625 (with reduced res). Turn it again and now BBC2 was displayed on 405, which of course it never originally had! Then turn again and now simulated Baird appeared, with its flicker!! Wonderful..!!
Well memories! I was a sound engineer at HTV Wales (now ITV Wales) during that period. I was on the news crew covering the shutdown at the St Hilary transmitter outside Cardiff. We did an interview with the cheif transmitter engineer, got some pictures of the old equipment and then took the executive decision that we needed to see the 'big switch' thrown and the monitors go blank. Se we cued the engineer to switch it off. Several hours early. When we got back to base the switchboard had blown up with complaints! Bonus facts. The predecessor to HTV was TWW. the scene at 6:13 was from the studio that I spent my first years at; Pontcanna in Cardiff. Also the coming of stereo sound. We were the generation who trained up for its launch, we got a pay rise for the extra complexity.
Brilliant documentary, as ever ❤ The standard to which you create them is so high 🎉
Thank you so much my love 🥰✨️❤️
I was living in the Crystal Palace area during the time when 405 lines was transmitted from the BBC tower up there. As a result I remember well the RF interference that would come through audio equipment loud and clear (not good). Playing your electric guitar through an amp would ensure you were accompanied (quite loudly) by whatever was currently on BBC1. You could get some relief from this by wiring an RF choke into your guitar lead (but nothing completely remedied it). I remember a rehearsal room in Sydenham where they had tried to build a faraday cage around the room with chicken wire to minimise the effect this had on an entire band transmitting BBC1. I can also remember this problem affecting some hifi equipment (the cheaper stuff, I recall). And clearly remember Eddie Waring's voice blasting over the PA during an open air gig (Mahavishnu Orchestra, Yes & Lindisfarne) at Crystal Palace Bowl one Saturday afternoon.
It was an absolute relief when this all came to halt on that fateful day in 1985 when 405 ceased. Good riddance!
There was an amusing newspaper advert that appeared in 1964 with little explanation at first. All it said was the mathematical equation 'pi times 625 = 1964'. It was eventually revealed to be an advert for Pye televisions ready for BBC2's 625 line service if you use the usual approximation of pi as 22/7.
France had broadcast at 819 lines in black and white from 49 to 83...
They kept that up for a very long time! Possibly a future video topic! 👀
Originally with the ~11MHz bandwith it needed, but latterly reduced to compatible (with the rest of western Europe) channels, which must have looked horrible.
@@G6JPGThe French Belgians had 819 with the 7Mhz channel width from system B
They also had 441 line from 1939 to 1956
I noted last year, while visiting various areas of the UK there are quite a number of Band 1 and Band 3 VHF TV antennas still in situ, when you think although the 405 line system lasted as explained until early 1985, it was running simultaneously with the UHF system for several years, I can't think there can have been many VHF TV antennas installed after say the mid 1970s?
This meaning those remaining antennas must have in situ around 50 year now, certainly a tribute to qualify and some excellent aerial riggers using quality gear!
One thing that should be an added advantage of the 625 line system vs. 405 line is the audio. 405 line was used an amplitude modulated sound carrier in the mid 1930’s frequency modulation was in it’s infancy still was an R&D project at RCA in the United States. By the time 625 was introduced in the mid 1960’s FM television audio was the standard and brought sound with better frequency response not well heard with the quality of speakers used TV sets, and better dynamic range over AM sound used in 405 line television.
The AM audio for 405 was high bandwidth so there was barely an improvement in FM audio over AM audio.
The other advantage of FM audio with television is that with lighting from storms, only the video would get noisy interference, while the audio would stay clean without static crashing sound. That was certainly true in north America with NTSC, but I understand SECAM used AM audio modulation before they added NICAM digital audio. My friend who would visit family in France during the summers growing up talked about hearing static during thunderstorms on TV, mind you at his grandparents house, suspect they had older TV well past NICAM introduction.
@@stickytapenrust6869 Agree. The AM sound transmitted was as good as the later FM. In fact most receivers of 625 FM intercarrier sound suffered from a buzz caused by poor performance in coping with the vestigial sideband system.
@@marcusdamberger The incidence of thunderstorms powerful enough to create interference on AM sound were few in the UK. More common was impulse interference from passing cars, this affected video too, as it was transmitted "positive image". Some sets had an impulse inverter circuit to turn the white spots black.
One of the disadvantages of the AM sound was that it meant the modulation system was the same as that used by the picture. Therefore, poor fine tuning or an out of alignment TV easily ended up with 'sound on vision' and/or 'vision on sound' interference. The later FM sound mostly got around this problem alhtough some TVs still suffered form a picture dependent rattly buzz on sound through poor design. The FM system (particularly when receivers used the intercarrier system) had the advantage that the fine tuning could be adtusted to get the clearest picture because the sound remained clear thorugh the whole tuning range of the picture.
Something to bear in mind about 405 lines is that the surviving programmes from that era are not always indicative of the transmitted picture quality. Surviving programmes are usually telerecordings (kinescopes for our American friends) and these are often of considerably lesser quality than the original video feed, Telerecordings in which the line structure is visible are usually the result of the telerecording operators placing the camera too close to the monitor.
I've seena few examples of VT of 405 and it looks generally very good.
One thing I remember growing up with a 405 line telly. It didn't work when the vacuum cleaner was being used. Don't know whether this would happened with a 625 line one!
Our telly was 19inch. Remember when my friend got the first 26 inch screen colour telly in the area. You did need HD for such a large screen!
From what I know 405 was better than VHS at displaying a test card typically type C. The image also was more solid . The lines were obvious if thinking about them. They seemed to disappear if the programme was interesting. I constructed an exact frequency single element aerial for London ITV. It received at 60 miles distance. I often used 405 as my preference due to the better program choice. Hannington that had the mystery alien interruption was 42 mikes away on 625 lines. It required an 18 element aerial for inferior reception. 405 was a practical system. The. Sony TV 9-90 was about £120 if I remember circa £1500 now. 100% reliable over 15 years. 625 often looked washed out in black and white. Perhaps 405 had better contrast. The Sony showed this.
Very early television is so interesting, thank you! BTW, David McCallum the famous actor (who sadly just passed on, RIP) said in an interview that his father placed an order for a TV before WW2 started and it was delivered unexpectantly in 1945 at their door! I love the way earlier TV is different in each region. I was in London 10 years ago and learned that they have some TVs with coin boxes on them to watch them. I was watching a program about people on UK public assistance who would rig the coin box, lol.
I don't know if this would merit a whole video but the BBC, as far as I know, was the first in the world to broadcast digital audio to the public. From what I've heard they had been using NICAM encoded audio in their backfeeds to transmitters and decided that they could just as easily broadcast it to the public so everyone could enjoy digital stereo audio. This happened right around when American television networks were finally beginning to broadcast _stereo_ FM audio.
My memory is and not always reliable. BBC used SiS (Sound in Syncs). But it was never used for public use, only BBC in house links and Tx links. NICAM was based on the need for multiple sound channels going down one multiplex (Approx 30 HQ audio channels IIRC) and the idea was adapted for public use with NICAM728 being developed along with a upgraded SiS system (DSiS Dual Sound in Syncs) for the transmitter sites.
Wow! This is amazing! I really love analogue TV and B/W TV and all these fab documentaries are very interesting to me, Keep up the great work Adam!
Thank you very much, I appreciate every kind word! ✨️
Yet another amazing documentary as always!
Thank you so much pal!
any plans for history of irish tv (both northern ireland & republic of ireland)?
Eventually yes!
@@AdamMartynah, Irish TV be good one as well the UK's ones
Looking back now the pictures look quite fuzzy, but at the time we didn't really see that, not did we miss colour - black and white tv was all we were used to and it was 'the best' as far as we kids were concerned. Of course, when colour came out it was magical. I remember seeing my first colour tv programme - Dad's Army - and being immediately amazed by the coloured titles. One thing I do remember about 405 lines is that my father made his own tv antenna (aerial) - it was an 'H', made out of bamboo canes and copper wire, and was inside the roofspace. When 625 lines came along everyone had to buy a new aerial - a metal thing shaped like a trumpet. Another thing I remember is that my grandparents had Rediffusion, which was a cabled radio and tv service - something I hear nothing about now.
A nice documentary. Thanks for uploading.
My pleasure!
A very interesting video, thank you.
You've got to love an AMTV documentary!
Thank you!
Something i just realised:
Colour tv has always existed we just havent had the right cameras until the 70s when it started
Or the right picture tubes and decoders in the TVs…
This was really good to watch. TV history is fascinating. ✌️❤️🙂
Really glad you enjoyed it! 😁
What an excellent job you have done Adam!
Thank you Roger!
@@AdamMartyn No worries!
Really good TV history, Thanks Adam
Much appreciated Philip! Thank you!
Love that in the background near the end of the clip is the old ITN news theme. Happy memories of hearing that with the early evening ITN bulletin on my nans Sobell b&w set in the 60s
Hi, your videos are the best!
Thank you!
I once had a dual standard television, it was fascinating to switch between 405 and 625 lines and note the difference in quality!
Nice video Adam. Rhodesia also had 405 line long before South Africa turned tv on in 1976. The original vhf transmitter (converted to pal )channels were still in use untill quite recently. Im not sure if this is still the case with digital migrations. 😊I transferred some films shot in the 60s of the studios in Harare. Very interesting
I remember being very sensitive to the 10.125 kHz line whistle.
Being just a teenager in the mid 70s I could hear the 625 line oscillator frequency at 15,625 Hz, be lucky to hear anything above 10 KHz now 😀
I recall the London area in the 405 Line era only need one transmitter to cover the whole region with the coming of 625 a lot of relay stations had to built as the UHF transmitter did cover the whole region with a strong signal. Likewise in the Midlands during the 405 line days there where three transmitters to cover the region with the coming of 625 many relays had to be built plus two further main transmitters.
Nice documentary.
Thank you!
I love the big triodes at 5:42. I have one, made by STC. Sadly, low emission when I tested it.
liked 405 line TV it was good got half a dozen of them still running perfectly i use a standard converter to run them and just to say I'm a collector📺📺 thank again other great video😊
HI ADAM PLEASE COULD YOU DO THE HISTORY OF REDIFFUSION TV COMPANY
I worked for them in the '60:s.
Me too, from 1976-1982 still remember the cable carrier vision frequencies of 5.9 and 8.9 MHz.
Very interesting, thank you. Bizarre to think that what we call High Definition channels are still limited and buried way down the list on freeview - legacy systems are still sticking around!
I saw you on chris's channel just wanted to say hi🎉
I remember living near to Ringway ( Manchester ) Airport as a kid. Every time an aircraft flew over our house the 405 line single was affected and the picture went "wavy". Never had the same issue with 625 lines.
2:35 a very young Petula Clark.
I still remember it & colour tele appearing. Match of the day.. "for those of you with black & white sets, Leeds are in the yellow shirts" 😁
Use to love looking around on vhf 405 years ago watching regional services as some times different programs would be showed to your local service
I could receive 2 ITV regions at the time (and would probably have been able to get a third with the right aerial) and it was great having an alternative programme (or sometimes one you missed in it's regular timeslot in your own region). Ironically now it's easy to get any ITV region via satellite TV, but the only variations now are local news opt-outs and adverts.
Experimental colour transmissions were made by the ITA on 405 line from the Croydon transmitter circ.1964
Interesting piece of history. I'd just add that 625-Line and the switch to UHF were just coincidentally combined. Plenty of countries broadcast 625 Line and PAL on VHF.
Ireland for example had PAL I on both UHF and VHF (Band III in later years but originally on Band I too) until well into the 1990s. The current DVB-T system only uses UHF.
Australia used VHF/UHF with PAL B/G and now uses DVB-T on both VHF and UHF.
I remember, as a child, our very modern large screen TV that had a lever (think old railway signal), that would swith it from the VHF 405 lines to UHF 625. It was a dramatic change, especially when viewing the Olympics that were being broadcast by satellite, which virtually impossible on 405.
I remember being disappointed with the first dual-standard 405/625 tvs. They produced a picture that was inferior to our single standard 405 line tvs. Dual-standard sets were introduced in the UK before the advent of modern comb filters etc So to reduce the patterning and interference from the colour subcarrier and to simplify the mechanics of system switching, manufacturers chose to limit the vision bandwidth. This compromised the video resolution of both 405 and 625 pictures. While we got less noticeable lines with 625, particularly on larger sets, the pictures were not as sharp as our single standard 405 sets. The move to 625 only Tvs, coupled with finer shadow masks etc, allowed later 625 colour sets to demonstrate better resolution of 625 over 405.
It's surprising how the quality of TV programmes is inversely proportional to the quality of the technology by which to view them!
I think that the real meaning of "high definition" is simply "higher definition than you are currently using". But we've now reached the stage where the resolution available is so high that it is actually pointless except on very large screens viewed at close quarters.
Was there ever a "set top box" way of accessing 625 broadcasts on a 405 TV to enable people to watch BBC2 without changing their set? I'm guessing not, but it wouldn't surprise me if a company had found a way to keep existing TVs as usable as possible rather than just throwing them away. After all, TVs were a lot more expensive and less disposable than TVs are these days.
I imagine a high end VCR (that came with both 625 line input and 405 output) would have been able to. My first TV was a B/W Matsui from the 80s - no remote, and I used to change channel using the VCR remote using it as a set top box.
@@joeynebulous816 I didn't realise VCRs were around early enough to need to be compatible with 405 TVs, but I guess there would be a few very expensive ones which might. But then again, if you can afford a VCR, you could probably also have afforded a 625 TV too!
No,in the mid 50's there were set top converter boxes that converted the ITV band 3 signal down to a band 1,channel so the older band 1 only sets could receive ITV,, could easily end up with patterning on the pictures though.
No. Line standard conversion required a lot of electronics - I recall an IBA talking about it, he said the converters used at the transmitters (the feed being 625 lines) had 2000 transistors in them.
Video recorders probably wouldn't have issues with 405 lines. The drum was synced to the field frequency, the line frequency isn't an issue and being black and white there was no colour sub-carrier (which, if I remember correctly) is a multiple of line frequency) to consider - a VCR cannot convert 405 lines to 625 lines or vice versa.
Band III to band I conversion is relatively straight-forward, any patterning on the picture is purely down to manufacturing quality.
Dual-standard sets used switches to switch the set electronics to suit the required standard, unfortunately these were generally not up to the task and wore out (arcing as the switches made and broke being the main cause).
We had a 405 line (only) set from 1963 to 1979, I was told that my parents never got around to having the 625 line part installed. In its final days I had a look inside and found that the rotary on-off switch had a stop which limited it to the role of on-off, when I removed the stop and twisted the switch further the set switched to 625 lines, however the tuner assembly (which consisted of windings and ferrite cores on a rotating drum) didn't have the UHF components installed.
@@r.h.8754 The main problem with band 3 to band 1 converters was that you were trying to convert a band 3 channel to the same band 1 channel frequency as the local BBC station, that often resulted in breakthrough /patterning of BBC on the converted ITV picture, especially if the local BBC channel was v strong.
Another problem was the band 1 TV tuner local oscillator harmonic being close to the band 3 signal.. More patterning!
Lots of articles on the subject in Practical Television. Go to the world radio history site and the mags are there.
405 is easy to record as an AV in out signal on a 625 vcr, done it many times here. No vcr tuner /modulator used of course.
The one thing I wish I could see what it looked like on 405 line television is the first Harlech (HTV) logo, because I read that somehow there was no moiré effect on 405 line tv, and I wish I knew what that look like. But I don't think it can be replicated in a digital video. :(
405 is before my time but I remember the old UHF well and even have some videos of the old signal before digital
405 line tv signals had a much longer reach. I remember my dad struggling to get a decent picture on our temperamental set only to discover it was in Welsh!
It's argued that the Sony KV1800 although PAL compatible was really a NTSC set. It had fabulous colour. If right it had a 90 degree defection tube. Delay line model KV 1810 was less impressive. Lucy an archive lady from the BBC told me NTSC recordings on big.reals were very high definition. Ruined when NTSC to PAL converted. She did the Doctor Who 405 line transfers. A beautiful lady with a technical mind and Saab convertible. I upgraded a Garrard 401 for her. She was a friend of the lady who wrote the Dr Who music. I have some 78 BBC programme records if the my boss kept them form Lucy. The Clitherow Kid recorded on Tottenham Court road was one. About 20 introductions per side looking like an LP. Lucy archived these things also. The 401 had two pick up arms. We had a group of new Sony 405 video recorders in boxes with monitors for Lucy. Some idiot threw them away! I think that they were 1964 imported by Debenhams.
not forgetting the 405 line whistle
Pleaseeee do SED TVs next
This is a really nice Documentary, In the states, we had NTSC, And unlike 405, VHF Stations can handle Color, without needed to use Strictly UHF.
NTSC colour was adopted in tests on UHF 405 line, but the result was too poor to be used.
Ntsc I believe stood for 'Never The Same Colour' as it use to have colour drift, hence the hue adjuster. The uk held back for Phase Alternate Line (PAL) colour system which eliminated the problem
VHF stations can handle colour, it's just that in the U.K. the VHF band was already in use for monochrome 405 line TV, colour was only broadcast in 625 lines so a different channel allocation was required.
There were plenty of stations across Europe broadcasting 625 line colour on VHF but the U.K. already had an established 405 line service on VHF.
@@fattomandeibu some of the reports from that time suggested that 405 line NTSC was actually very good, though opinions could have been formed based on seeing a colour picture for the first time. Lew Grade was pushing for that system to be introduced, presumably to increase production of valuable colour material that could be resold overseas.
Most countries outside UK started in 1950-1952 on VHF straight away in 625 lines and could convert to colour on VHF in the late sixties without problems.
Did I hear "The Baird 240 line system was closed down in January 1957?" Methinks it was twenty years earlier.!
Also why are references to 240 lines accompanied with visuals of Baird's earlier 30 line efforts?
In actual fact 240 line non-interlaced pictures achieved a definition comparable to 405 line interlaced pictures
I had a Sony TV9-90 dual standard TV. Often used as props in TV dramas. London ITV was possible in Oxford. 405 was my main choice due to content. Picture quality was very good. The lines were fascinating. I understand 405 was a disguise for secret radar production. BBC were obliged to do it Alan Blumlein beintg a key name. 405 colour was a BBC invention circa 1960 in NTSC. RCA adopted some of the BBC improvements. BBC were told to adopt PAL. Apparently 405 with spot modulation was good up to 18 inches. A typical size then.
I still have one of those now. I've generated some 405 signals just to see how it would have looked.
Philips experimented shortly with NTSC on 625 lines, but that got dropped too for PAL. PAL had royalties to be paid to Telefunken and buying the necessary delay line from them, and NTSC was royalty free by then.
I really like that I'm enjoying this in 1080p, so it's possible to see the progression of lines across the decades.
I would consider that 240 line Baird system to be almost unwatchable.
In North America, the 525 line NTSC standard was set in 1941, but 441 lines had been commonly used before then. After WW2, there were some changes such as FM audio instead of AM and also rearrangement of some of the channels. Other than that, the system remained the same, even with the introduction of colour. The NTSC colour system was fully compatible with B&W. In Canada, those living close to the U.S. border could receive American TV and TV broadcasts here started in 1952. Colour arrived in time for Canada's centennial in 1967.
0:53 I hear "Rhythm Is A Dancer".
1.54.........Baird system.I think the date here was 1937 not 1957.
I heard that too, but on replay I heard 1937. Another thing, I often though he was saying 65, when he was actually saying 625.
I don't know if it is true, but I believe to have read somewhere that for the latter part of the 405 transmissions, the signal was produced by aiming a 405 camera on a "normal" PAL TV.
No, from 1969 all studio production was in 625,conversion to 405 was done electronically at the transmitter sites.
Early 405-625 Eurovision conversion in the 50's and first part of the 60's was done with a camera pointing at a monitor.
@@HughTVDX Thank you! I must have gotten the times mixed up. 🙈👌🏻
That was apparently the case for RTE In Ireland.
That was one method of scan conversion, before electronic methods. However, it wasn't just a matter of pointing a camera at a TV. It was a specifically designed device that contained both the display and camera in one unit.
I think you have over estimated the Baird mechanical timebase it was only ever 30 line, he did develop a electrical timebase system but it was never taken up by the BBC and they chose EMI's
So the 625-line system was the Ultra-HD of it's age. I wonder how 4K video will be compared to 256K video by our grandchildren.
Never underestimate the power of David Sarnoff’s RCA (30 Rock used to be the RCA headquarters.) He tended to squat on new technologies like TV Color and resolution, and FM radio until the corp had everything ready and the affiliates wouldn’t be harmed and bail on him. That way the more nimble wouldn’t take market share.
in the very early 1980s I had a tiny Bush Sigma transistor radio with novelty Air Band but I guess because I lived 12 mikes & in line of sight of Chillerton Down , my efforts to receive Radio Victory from beyond the horizon on 95mhz were always ruined by instead the novelty sound of the tv signal . i checked this against our home tv & it was exactly what was being transmitted on uhf so was this what they called Swamping or Piggy backing ?
In the early 1980s the Band III 405 line signal with amplitude modulated sound was being simultaneously broadcast, some radios sometimes would play this, possibly due to interaction of the 2nd harmonic of the local oscillator with the TV signal audio.
TV History huh? Cool!
Hope you enjoyed! Give it a like and a share if you did!
@@AdamMartyn Yeah.
IMO, the 625/405 difference wasn't great (576i vs. 3xxi): the main reason IMO for it looking better was that in most cases, the 405 sets were pretty old, and not displaying the pictures at their best - soot-and-sawdust, line pairing, and many other reasons. I suspect the main reason for its demise was that everyone else (in western Europe, anyway) _was_ using 625 (apart from the French with their 819!), so 405 was a purely UK system. (And the shortcomings of NTSC colour - which they did try on 405! - were worse at VHF. The rest of EU had 625 on both VHF and UHF.)
625 line TV made TV more accessible to lower income viewers, I remember my dad saying how when he was a kid there'd maybe be 1 TV per street, and important events would see people crammed into the front room of that house to watch. I imagine having a standardised system that would only maybe require a quick swap out of the RF modulator meant sets could be properly mass produced and imported/exported leading to tumbling prices, as well as making sharing footage easier between stations.
I think it was decided to adopt the 625 system to make interchange of TV programmes easier.
@@fattomandeibu It’s not 625 lines that did that but natural progression of cost of semiconductors. There was nothing stopping manufacturers from building a 405 set that was all-solid state. Sony and Teleton did!
@@fattomandeibu the reality was that TV became more accessible to lower income viewers once BBC2 arrived, heralding in the dual standard era, where good working 405 only sets suddenly flooded the disposal outlets and subsequently became available cheap via resellers. The vast majority of popular television at the time was still to be found on BBC1 and ITV.
the only way to see BBC2 "The Goodies" [1st screenings] was on 625 only
8:06 Pronounced Televish-Airon. UTV is also a Northern Irish station, not an Irish station.
Adam, will you be covering NICAM?
Haven’t googled it first but was it Near Instantaneous Complex Analogue Multiplex, PAL was enough to crumble my brain with colour subcarrier, Burst and R-Y and B-Y 😀
If you watch it in the 1080p standards you now on the technical standards of now as suppose to 1935, Important to remember picking from a variety of content probably would confuse peoples minds back then.
I'm sure that was very interesting but it would be helpful if you reposted your comment in English!