240, 405 & 625

[Ray Cooper]

Originally Posted by PaulM

...It's an interesting thread, this, if very short on hard facts and evidence!.

That's because, as you stated, it's all about politics and not engineering. And in politics, there are no hard facts and evidence: merely different viewpoints.

[peter_scott]

Originally Posted by PaulM

However, sticking with 405/50 was a reasonably pragmatic decision to take - for the very short term - but it was wrong for the medium and long term.

If 405 had not been resurrected after the war then I suspect there would now be an even lower survival rate of pre-war sets. I for one am grateful that pragmatism ruled and that, in the long term, their decision favoured those obsessed with early technologies.

Peter

[murphyv310]

Originally Posted by Ray Cooper

That's because, as you stated, it's all about politics and not engineering. And in politics, there are no hard facts and evidence: merely different viewpoints.

In addition to your comment Ray I would also say I really would like to see some of "This evidence" from PaulM as well as so far there is no real hard facts from him either!

[PaulM]

I really must comment on this:

Re: << . . . . I really would like to see some of "This evidence" from PaulM as well as so far there is no real hard facts from him either! >>

I think that I've said this already, several times, in several posts! There are no real facts at this time, other then circumstantial evidence and opinion. I have already suggested that the way to go on this is finding archive information from:

Cabinet Office papers (NAO)
GPO Archive (they have all the TV stuff, not the BT Archive)
BBC Written Archive (WAC)
RMA Archive (if it exists)
Manufacturer's archives (as available, Pye, Marconi, EMI and the TV set makers).
Anything else, such as newspapers, trade journals, acdemic journals and magazines.
Then there's the international material - this need to be tracked back to primary sources and will need patience and skill (and cash).

Now, all of this takes time, real time, and as I'm just coming to the end of a six year stint on working the 1870-1936 period, it's not for me right now. I may tackle this next (after a rest!), but it will take a long time to get beyond subjective knee-jerk analysis.

I am only too aware that the responses on this have been against a back-drop of thin information. Does anyone else want to take this on? My guess is that it's a 2 year project, possibly down to 1 year if you know where to go and how to work the systems. There are some facts that I know of relating to the pre-war situation which are not yet public which have some bearing on this situation, and I'm not prepared (in fact, I can't) release them at this stage.

Anybody else care to do it?

Best regards,

Paul M

[tubesrule]

Originally Posted by PaulM

Here's another case history: post-war, the Russians went 625/50 and had excellent mass produced sets such as the KVN49 (named for its year). I think that something like 1.3 million (I'd have to check) of these sets were made. I was lucky enough to see one of these, a 1950 model, in a St Petersburg museum a few years ago, still working well with 6 inches of wire in the aerial socket, receiving modern transmissions with very good performance (for the year). The Russians had every reason to hate anything German, but that didn't stop them running with 625/50! That stuck in my mind - if they could 'up sticks' from pre-war, why couldn't we?

I don't think this argument can be supported based on the state of pre-war Russian television. Pre-war their system was a patchwork of older technology mostly supplied by RCA/Zworykin. (I have one of these sets and various original documentation from RCA) The system was based mostly on 343, with Leningrad still running 240. It's no stretch of the imagination to see why the Russians abandoned these systems after the war. For them this became a question of not if they needed a new system, but which system?

And while this may be anecdotal, the only two pre-war systems in the world that survived after the war (not counting short runs of 441 and 455) were 405 and 525? Was this purely a political decision as you purport, or based on the fact that these two systems had the largest installed base before the war? It is estimated that there were 20,000 televisions in Britain and 7000 in the US before the war. All other countries combined do not even approach the US number let alone the British. This may have also played a part in the decision.

Originally Posted by PaulM

We could indeed have waited to re-launch our service - that decision was purely political - especially as the number of sets left from pre-war was tiny (as we know!).

I would like to see a reference for this statement. For instance, there are more pre-war sets known to still exist today than some immediate post-war sets such as the RVN49 that were made in very large volumes. Other than the sets lost in the Blitz, I doubt many sets were disposed of in Britain, and even less lost in the US which could have played a part in the decision to stay with these formats.

Darryl

[Andy Green]

Originally Posted by PaulM

Now, just who else followed our 'lead'? Eire (eventually) and Hong Kong (briefly) - a real vote of confidence in enduring British technology there then!

Interesting thread, and I can see both sides of the argument, both have valid points, both though are getting stuck on patriotic issues, I feel, which should have little place in a cold analysis of the facts.

Actually "Eire' (or The Republic of Ireland as it is called here, when using the English language) only used 405 lines, simulcast with 625 lines for areas that had good reception of UK TV, such as Dublin and the border areas with Northern Ireland.
RTE started in 1961 with 625 lines nationally, all done using VHF.
As an aside, they managed to broadcast two 625 lines system I channels nationally on VHF, initially using both bands 1 and III, but after the 405 line relays closed on band III only.

[PaulM]

Darryl,

Re:

For them this became a question of not if they needed a new system, but which system?

This is where this discussion began! I made the point that *if* the UK had gone with the 'films to the home' model, rather than the 'pictures with the wireless', and 240/25 (or a more advanced variant) had won, we probably wouldn't have been stuck with 405/50 post war as the choice would have been *obvious* to move on.

Re:

Was this purely a political decision as you purport, or based on the fact that these two systems had the largest installed base before the war?

Again, this has already been covered - there were few operational sets left in the UK after the war (it's always been assumed), and in any case they could have been bought out or compensated (or modified?) at relatively low cost. Do please remember that television was not something that occupied the average Brit's mind at that time! We had a problem feeding ourselves and keeping warm - rather more important than middle-class aspirations about owning a TV and having something to show on it. We were in a bad way compared to the US, that is something that is not in dispute (at least, I hope it's not). I wasn't around, but I'm pretty sure that this would have been the case, and I have seen some newspaper coverage of the 1946 re-opening of television which paraphrase to: 'things are getting back to normal - TV is back' - clearly, things weren't back to normal!

Re:

Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulM
We could indeed have waited to re-launch our service - that decision was purely political - especially as the number of sets left from pre-war was tiny (as we know!).

I would like to see a reference for this statement

ALL decisions of this type are political - people drive technology, not the other way around. This is a firmly accepted view within HST (History of Science and Technology). There are numerous references on this concept. For concrete evidence of what went on it will be necessary to visit the NAO at Kew in London to view the Cabinet Office papers on the subject - as I've also said several times. If you are talking about the number of sets left, the secondary sources can be consulted on this. If you want a 'concrete' figure (or more likely, an estimate), then you will have to visit NAO and/or the GPO archive an/or the BBC WAC. It is 'assumed' that the writers of the legendary secondary sources have done this, but, in all honesty, they probably didn't! It seems like a reasonable assumption to me.

Re:

still exist today than some immediate post-war sets such as the RVN49 that were made in very large volumes.

I only cited one model, and having visited Russia many times now and having had visits to three specialist museums there, and talked to some of their TV historians, the answer to this is that there are many reasons! One is that such sets in the USSR were run well past their 'dispose of' date (a consequence of economics and their insight in going 625 in the late 40s), another is that many were turned into 'parts' and 'spares' and finally, there's a lot more out there than you might think. It's finding them that's tricky, but I'm told that there's probably quite a lot still to be had - if you can get round the export issues.

The post war US situation is not something I know a lot about, and I wouldn't like to comment on that. All I can say is that it was very different to the situation in war ravaged Germany and France, bankrupt Britain and the traumatised USSR. Also, remember that this was the start of the Cold War - the public records of which the historians of all kinds of disciplines are now only recently seeing. I'm not suggesting that this had a direct effect on post war television, but the financial constraints on countries such as Britain in having to design and make things such as the Vulcan, the Valiant, the Victor and their pre-cursor the Sperrin would have drained our coffers to the last penny. Then there was the cost of the nuclear developments to put in those aircraft . . .

I would ask people to think in context, and to realise that there's so much more to this than the technology - much, much more. I know that this strikes a blow to the hearts of engineers (like me!), in that we're not the centre of the universe, but once you accept it and work with it, all sorts of mysteries can be explained - and proven, once you know what you're looking for in the archives.


Cheers,

Paul M

[tubesrule]

Paul,

Addressing just one point so as not to become tedious, I read your original statement about Russia choosing 625 as a post-war system as purely a forward looking decision, and I believe this was your intent. My response was that this was driven more by the fact that they had no viable pre-war system to continue with. What if their pre-war system had been 405 or 525? Would they then have been so bold to go with 625? Of course we can only speculate, but I don't think the decision would have been as clear cut as you propose.

I also agree that getting accurate counts of existing KVN49's in Russia is difficult, and while many have have been cannibalized for parts or lost through attrition, with over a 1 million produced, there should be a healthy number still in existence.

I am also a 50 something engineer and an armchair historian with research into many pre-war documents, mostly US based, and am always looking for the real truth, but it is rarely black and white. Just knowing how decisions are made today in a technological environment, and then trying to extrapolate out how future generations would view these decisions from our emails, I shudder to think of the conclusions they might draw.

I look forward to viewing your papers and references when they become available.

Cheers,
Darryl

[PaulM]

Darryl,

If they had had 405, my gut feeling is that they would have moved on. The Soviets were (are) good TV engineers and it would not have looked like a 'progressive' approach to have stuck with that, plus it would have 'looked' goose compared to the 525 of the USA and the up-coming 625 in Europe. I believe that if it had been 525 (unlikely, given the 50 Hz mains), they might still have moved on to trump the USA. They got a good headline and a good system with 625/50. It's served them very, very well.

Research in Russia is complicated - as you might expect, and it's not just the language. I have been helped by some personal friends who are physicists, and they not only understand what I'm looking for, but 'know' people and how to work the system. My work has been all pre-war, looking at figures such as Grabovsky, Krusser, Schmakov and Termen (Theremin to you and I). In addition, I now know more about Boris Rosing, but I've run out of time (and money - a whole book needs translating!). Another time, perhaps.

Strangely, perhaps, post-war research could be harder still - the archives might be closed and the people less co-operative. I could be wrong about that, I hope so.

FYI, not much of the pre-war installation remains, just the Shukhov Tower (a 1922 radio tower used for the 1938 TV tx aerials), and that is under threat.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shukhov_Tower

and: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykLxCs6SPSw

and: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...-russia-foster

Look at the video if nothing else! Now there's where some political influence would be really useful!

In general, on this whole issue of post-war 'standards', (which should be politically neutral in themselves, but never are, because people decide them), I would say that there are no easy answers on any of it - you have to start with hypothesis and see if it stands up. So far, on this thread at least, I'm not shaken! It will take a lot of work to unravel some of the questions raised in this thread and elsewhere - and I'm not currently free!

It's much more complicated than just the technology.

Cheers,

Paul M

[Ray Cooper]

Originally Posted by PaulM

...I made the point that *if* the UK had gone with the 'films to the home' model, rather than the 'pictures with the wireless', and 240/25 (or a more advanced variant) had won, we probably wouldn't have been stuck with 405/50 post war as the choice would have been *obvious* to move on....

Hmm. I read that last bit as, 'since we did have 405, the choice to move on was not obvious.'

And you keep banging on about this 'films to the home' model being a viable alternative. Honestly, I can't see that it ever was. The 'pictures with the wireless' model was the one followed by us, and all other countries: they didn't have to follow our lead on this one, we were not handing out any vouchers. Yet nobody did adopt the 'films to the home' concept (with the possible exception of the Germans before the war, who used television to distribute propaganda material to viewing-halls of the population and military. And why they did that always eluded me: it would have been far simpler, and cheaper, to have done it via conventional cinema. Seems like an application looking for a job, to me...)

And why not? Because people wanted more than 'films to the home'. They wanted magazine-style programmes, they wanted documentary-style programmes, and they wanted today's news - not yesterdays, thank you very much. Not that they got much of it, pre-war - but the capacity was there, which it clearly wasn't with the 'films to the home' model. I'm quite certain that BTL would have liked to provide such a model, since it was the only model in which their system could have had a fair showing. But I'm not at all certain that the business model for 'films' would have stood up. How would it have ben paid for, for starters? I don't think that the technology of the time was up to 'pay on demand'. But, since there are no details of such a model, this is all speculation and therefore pointless.

The only way to run a 'films' model, is as a supplement to an existing 'pictures with wireless' model. Ergo, you had to have the latter before the former. The Baird 'films' model would have been a dead duck, at the time, methinks. But then, who cares what I think? I'm not an economist.

[tubesrule]

Paul,

Originally Posted by PaulM

If they had had 405, my gut feeling is that they would have moved on. The Soviets were (are) good TV engineers and it would not have looked like a 'progressive' approach to have stuck with that, plus it would have 'looked' goose compared to the 525 of the USA and the up-coming 625 in Europe. I believe that if it had been 525 (unlikely, given the 50 Hz mains), they might still have moved on to trump the USA. They got a good headline and a good system with 625/50. It's served them very, very well.

The point I was making was that your original statement inferred the reason they went for 625 was due to their forward thinking with no mention of their antiquated pre-war system. If they had used 405, or 441, or 455, or any other "high definition" format (525/60 being used only as an example of a contemporary standard remembering they were predominately using 343/60 as supplied by RCA), the decision would not be as clean cut as proposed, gut feelings aside.

This is in no way a comment on the technical prowess of Russian engineers as that is not in debate. After all, where would American television development have been without the likes of Zworykin.

Darryl

[PaulM]

Ray,

Yes, I didn't word that quite right. My head is just too full of words at the moment . . .

I'm sorry that you don't understand the 'films to home' alternative. This was quite a commonly thought of possible application for television - think as your contemporary players would have - don't think as you do now - you know how it all panned out, they didn't. For instance:

And why not? Because people wanted more than 'films to the home'. They wanted magazine-style programmes, they wanted documentary-style programmes, and they wanted today's news - not yesterdays

Just how do you know that? Did you go round doing vox pop in the 1930s? That's a post BBC AP service view - well actually not quite, as there's lot of complaints in the contemporary press about the programmes and the number of repeats!

It was very unclear what television was, let alone what it was for. The cinema industry saw it as a potential threat, as did 'the halls' and the wireless thought that it should be theirs. It was torn between two models and we know which one won. This is determinist history - you start with the result and then work backwards, which is the wrong way round. To understand it, you have start with effectively not knowing the outcome. In that way the political and commercial forces come into focus without the victor's take on the story. It's a fairly simple concept.

I'm not pre-empting my thesis by explaining this brick by brick - I'm way too busy finishing the final item! Suffice to say that as ever, there was nothing inevitable, and no broadcaster had a right to television, or to shape its applications. The whole thing was up for grabs and political influence.

Interestingly, today's television is nearly 100% recorded - you were saying?

Cheers,

Paul M

[peter_scott]

The war was a boon to radio manufacturers but peace time could easily have brought years of low sales and lack of funds for further development. CCIR SG XI didn't standardise the 625 line system until July 1950 and to jump to some yet to be agreed standard during the previous 5 years would have been plain silly.

Instead of 5 years of lost revenues the industry sold more than half a million television sets and public morale was boosted by the marvels of British industry.

(Sources: Asa Briggs "Sound and Vision" and Edward Pawley "BBC Engineering 1922-1972")

Short termism possibly but far from unjustified.

Peter

[PaulM]

Darryl,

Re:

The point I was making was that your original statement inferred the reason they went for 625 was due to their forward thinking with no mention of their antiquated pre-war system.

There's a lot that we don't know about the Soviet situation, that I will readily admit (we don't even really know what went on the UK at least not right now - anyone booked a slot at the NAO yet?). However, I was simply responding to what I took to be a hypothetical question, which I did. The fact is, they went 625/50 post-war and didn't look back, whatever had gone before, whether it was destroyed or not. You can read Cold War 'one upmanship' in that, but my feeling (and that's all it is) is that they thought it to be for the best and that the PR was a bonus - Brownie points from Comrade Stalin

Cheers,

Paul M

[PaulM]

Peter,

Re: << The war was a boon to radio manufacturers but peace time could easily have brought years of low sales and lack of funds for further development. CCIR SG XI didn't standardise the 625 line system until July 1950 and to jump to some yet to be agreed standard during the previous 5 years would have been plain silly. >>

I make that 4 years from 1946! In any case you didn't have to wait for the standard - you could have helped set it! It could have been done earlier than that. You need to go back to primary - Briggs (and his team) are not without error anyway - he quotes the Mickey Mouse story . . .

Book that seat at the NAO if you really want to know the truth.

Nice try, mind! Keep trying . . . .

Cheers,

Paul M

[PaulM]

Message to all:

If you want to question/interrogate/rationalise/fly kites/trade references/ etc. further on this it will have to wait - sorry. Whilst I don't have any problems answering, I do have problems with time. I will be more than happy to resume this in a few weeks time - after I have finished knotting together my thesis - I'm not putting 6 years of work on the line for a forum!

Sorry, I've not heard anything, so far, that disuades me from my views, and I'd love to research this further in the coming years as I'm sure there's a lot to tell beyond the stories of the 'victors' in 1946.

I hope that some of my many answers about how modern historical research is done might help people frame their own questions on this. I have sensed a bit of a shift already. When I first came by this way of doing things 6 years ago, I was as sceptical as all of you seem to be. It took me a long time to be convinced, but I now 'get it', and so far as I can see, the method works. If you want to know more, pm me and I'll send some reading material notes.

I've enjoyed grappling with your points, but I must now return to more important matters - sorry.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.


Cheers,

Paul M

PS Upon completion of this work, I'm back to the 'nuts and bolts' with 'Project Vivat' - the restoration of a BBC OB truck to operational 1953 status with Marconi MkIIIs (a few years out, actually) and a MkII - one of the actual ones used at HMQ's Coronation. This is a long and tortuous project - although probably not as difficult as the two big ITV colour trucks completed some time ago - and there's a long way to go. It needs to be ready by 2012, or 2013 at the latest.
Guess what? It's 405/50 How much nicer HMQ would have looked in 625

[ppppenguin]

Originally Posted by PaulM

Guess what? It's 405/50 How much nicer HMQ would have looked in 625

I didn't know you had finally decided to go for 405 on Vivat. We discussed it a while ago, in particular the possibility of a 405>625 converter so that the truck's output could be readily viewed on modern equipment.

[PaulM]

Jeffrey,

The bulk of the gear is switchable, or at least 'adjustable', and what's envisaged is actually dual standard working, as much as is practicable. It's a bit of cheat, so shhhh., don't tell the 405 line folk . . .


Best regards,

Paul M

PS There's developments on the project that I'd be happy to share offline.

[murphyv310]

Hi.
Paul I have been watching this from the sidelines as being honest I don't have the all the information some the people have here, the likes of yourself, Jeffrey or Darryl, I am a TV engineer that loves the hobby and what we did.
OK you quite clearly have a certain disregard for 405 which I think is sad. I must admit I am rather unsure of your attitude as I really think you are a little bit "holier than thou" even in the last post you said "Don't tell the 405 folk"!
Please don't come across like this as you will never be able to change a persons opinion like that.
I am always happy to listen and yes learn and I love a discussion but having an "attitude" really just puts my back up as it does others.

Her Majesty would have looked much the same on a Bush TV22 on 625 by the way

[peter_scott]

Originally Posted by PaulM

I make that 4 years from 1946!

But I think government contracts for defence equipment would have ceased in 1945 and the Hankey Committee that decided on 405 held their final meeting in December 1944.

Peter