[murphyv310]

Hello.
I have been watching another thread about the Baird Phosphors, the thread had I felt got quite heated with some 405 knocking and reference to 240 lines as well.

I was always under the impression that the forum was for like minded people that enjoy what we do as a "hobby". Now I really think that we have to respect peoples views but also realise that there are persons on this forum with an outstanding knowledge of old Television systems.

My feeling just because something is old it certainly is not inferior, and just because the 405 line system is old it is certainly not inferior, now that comes with some provisos. When the system was tested on air it as we know was in direct competition with the Baird 240/25p system, the 405 line system won and rightly so, the reason! Simply because of entertainment value the field rate (refresh rate for computer addicts) was too low, the flicker was far to objectionable. Think of it this way, you are a computer programmer and sitting in front of a CRT monitor and the refresh rate is 60hz it would not be too long till you got a headache. This would have been the case if the Baird system had won.
OK I think if the Baird system won it would not have been carried on after the war like 405 did.
The 405 line system was technically advanced, a terrific feat of skills when electronics was in its infancy, the picture quality was excellent with no objectionable flicker and excellent picture resolution.

There was no reason to have a 625 line system after the war, it would have been very unpatriotic for a start and costly, we had a reasonable number of perfectly good pre war sets to recommission and I think the government did the right thing.

Tube sizes were still 9 to 12 inches and even on 14 and 17 inch sets the picture quality was excellent, remember the horizontal definition on 405 is the same as 625.

We then got lambasted by the 625 line brigade headed by Irishman C O Stanley of Pye, for some reason he hated 405 and very publicly made it well known.

I think we all know the rest, my argument will always be for 405, it was "our" system, it produced beautiful pictures often admired by the French, it kept our industry alive, it required less transmitter power so was "greener" than 625/UHF, and NTSC 405 line colour is excellent.

To sum up 405 was and still is a great system 240 was no good, it's as simple as that, 625 is a good system too, like 405 it has drawbacks, 405's biggest drawback is the line structure on large screen sets 25 inch and over, I personally don't like the huge TV sets on offer now and wouldn't have one in my house.
Lastly, perhaps if we stuck with 405 a bit longer perhaps we would still have a TV industry & Trade.