Auto TV Picture Adjustment - VIR In the Digital Age?

[thekma...@gmail.com]

In the 1970s, GE devised a method to automatically correct
luminance and chroma imbalances occurring in the broadcast
chain between studio, transmitter, and consumer receiver:


https://books.google.com/books?id=CgEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=%22vertical+interval+reference%22&source=bl&ots=FS5yReiiMN&sig=Z-BKLSSQvDNzuT0WlmUEp0LHEqk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lsU8VbfELciagwT2qYDYAg&ved=0CEUQ6AEwDA#v=onepage&q=%22vertical%20interval%20reference%22&f=true


For whatever reason, by the mid-1990s, the system fell out
of favor, and consumers were once again left to their own resources
as to where their TV picture adjustments should be set.


Considering how modern digital TVs appear as shipped from
manufacturers, and considering just how high a level of
inaccuracy the viewing public are presently unwittingly willing to endure,
could such an "automatic calibration" system, similar to VIR
above, be implemented today?

[N_Cook]

What chance have they got for sorting that out when they can't even get
lip sync right in the UK. Surely the digital set-top pictures should
hold the picture back until audio and video are in sync?

[Keimah]

"N_Cook" <div...@tcp.co.uk> wrote in message
news:mhl3ud$hd3$1...@dont-email.me...

A few years ago, a relative of mine bought a Samsung LCD TV along
with a DTH satellite system. The TV's picture controls don't work
when used with the DTH set. The default settings of the set-top
box had contrast and colour waaaay too high and did not remember
user settings. I couldn't find any provision for manually saving
the settings either. Whenever power is turned off and on and even
when changing a channel, one had to adjust the picture settings
all over again. I remember thinking "How can such clever people
(the manufacturers) be so stupid in other things?"

[Bruce Esquibel]

thekma...@gmail.com wrote:

> Considering how modern digital TVs appear as shipped from
> manufacturers, and considering just how high a level of
> inaccuracy the viewing public are presently unwittingly willing to endure,
> could such an "automatic calibration" system, similar to VIR
> above, be implemented today?

I don't think there is a point anymore.

That VIR system was more of a gimmick to me, basically added an indicator
lamp that gave false-security to the owner that "something" was working. My
point is, it only made sure the transmission from studio to the home was in
order, but it didn't know anything about the condition of the set.

If the picture tube was aging and had like a blue tint to it, the VIR did
nothing to help that. If the set wasn't calibrated well, needed convergence,
gray scale tracking, same thing, VIR did nothing.

Remember when that was developed, everything was analog, from the camera
recording in the studio to tape, copying the tape, pumping the signal up and
down from satellite, the franchise tv stations who may of received tape
copies in the mail, to their own equipment, studio and transmitter. Anything
in that chain could alter chroma, phase problems with that, black levels
which changed the brightness to contrast ratios. The VIR was there (not being
altered with all that) to act as a reference.

The problem was, most people never noticed a difference with VIR stations
and non-VIR and like I said, it didn't compensate for out of spec tv's.
Things were not that bad really with most stations having engineers that
mostly did quality control, monitoring the "AIR" signal, live.

With the way things are now, everything is digital, bits-is-bits and except
for dropouts when the error rate is exceeded, I don't think a digital signal
from the studio can be altered all that much, no matter how it's transported
from A to B.

I think what you need to do is explain why you think it's needed? I mean
there are crappy lcd/led tv's and good to excellent ones but like they say,
you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Bruce Esquibel wrote: "I think what you need to do is

explain why you think it's needed? I mean
there are crappy lcd/led tv's and good to excellent

ones but like they say,..."


I believe it's needed(but like VIR can be disabled)
because the vast majority of set owners, since
2000 anyway, don't even know their flat panels
*have* menus, let alone know how to set picture
adjustments or anything else in them for that matter.


I'm a huge advocate *for* accuracy in picture &
sound, but also an opponent of "personal
preference". Personal preference to me is
like visiting the Great Pyramid or EIffel Tower
and wishing they could be colored green, or
pink. They are the colors they are, and those
colors/surface textures should be rendered
accordingly on a well set-up display.


I first calibrated an old CRT with Avia 10 years
ago, and after seeing the results, I never looked
at TV the same way. Now when I see display in
default mode(usually Vivid or Dynamic), or
user preference(Sports mode), i just can't look
at it for more than a few minutes before realizing
something needs to be done! The guy reading
the network news does not wear eye shadow!
(sharpness cranked too high). LOL

[Leif Neland]

thekma...@gmail.com formulerede spørgsmålet:

> Bruce Esquibel wrote: "I think what you need to do is
> explain why you think it's needed? I mean
> there are crappy lcd/led tv's and good to excellent
> ones but like they say,..."


> I believe it's needed(but like VIR can be disabled)
> because the vast majority of set owners, since
> 2000 anyway, don't even know their flat panels
> *have* menus, let alone know how to set picture
> adjustments or anything else in them for that matter.

How would this work?
Unless the tv have a camera to see the lighting condition, the only
thing it can do is to adjust the contrast, hue, etc to a preset level,
which could just as be done at the factory.

But then again, many sets are probably adjusted to look good in the
shop, not in the living room.

--
https://www.paradiss.dk
Ting til konen eller kæresten.
Eller begge.

[John-Del]

On Monday, April 27, 2015 at 8:21:33 AM UTC-4, Bruce Esquibel wrote:

>
> That VIR system was more of a gimmick to me, basically added an indicator
> lamp that gave false-security to the owner that "something" was working. My
> point is, it only made sure the transmission from studio to the home was in
> order, but it didn't know anything about the condition of the set.
>

That's true, but the VIR TVs were all solid state, and were amazingly consistent from sample to sample as opposed to 60s TVs which took at least a half hour of dealer prep to get right. Back then, they came out of the box fairly well calibrated and even so, a good portion of them were sold by servicing dealers who would tweak them.

As far as the VIR circuitry, it was gimmicky in nature but was not a gimmick from a technical standpoint. They did indeed work and considering the IC technology of time, were actually amazing. I can't recall though if the customer could add or subtract some chroma to get the VIR adjusted levels more to their liking, but I do recall some customers back then had bizarre ideas of what good color looked like.

I do recall them not being trouble free though, and GE provided a simple way to bypass the VIR module if it crapped.

[jurb...@gmail.com]

>"That VIR system was more of a gimmick to me,..."

Not really a gimmick. It did work but only adjusted the chroma level and phase. (color and tint) It could have done more, like keep the gain and pedestal (contrast and brightness) right, now that sets had DC restoration. They decided not to do that and I think I understand why. Nowhere in the world did people adjust their TVs like here. Some had the color too high. Alot of them, and I mean quite alot of them had the faces too red with the tint (or hue) control. Those people would say I set the faces too green.

Over in Europe, with a slightly more modern system there was no hue or tint control. The phase errors in NTSC were caused by vulnerability to frequency response errors and a few other things to which PAL for example was immune.

The VIR or VITS (slightly different but very similar) was not intended to set the color on people's TV sets. It was intended for the stations to use. In NYC there was a control room for the major network, let's say NBC. They originated the shows on the network, like the national news and other nationwide programming. The loop went all the way around the country and it was of course degraded by the time it got back. And delayed of course.

But the VITS or VIR was hat told them alot more about the signal quality. It had one line of NTSC color bars, one line of staristep and one line of multiburst. (later, closed captioing was right under it) They could have used the stairstep for ghost cancellation I think but never did. The technology was not cheap enough for consumers. Phillips DID develop a ghost cancelling system and I think the stations did start =sending its specified signal during vertical retrace, but I never saw it in operation and have doubts as to whether even one single unit was sold. But Phillips built TVs had a video in/out loop for it just like a tape monitor on an audio amp. (for a few years only)

On a scope with dual time base you could separate those lines out from the vertical retrace interval and see the actual waveforms. When TVs had a vertical hold control you could roll it down and have a look. Another cool thing that was in there was a signal for the commercials to start.

That was a white rectangle at the upper left of the frame, so far up in the corner that no TV of the time would show it due to overscan and/or not a quite rectangular screen. It was only on network programming, obviously that tells the local stations to cue their local commercials which would be interspersed with the national commercials. I am pretty sure those (imperfect) commercial "zappers" used that signal.

Damn do I have alot of useless information ! All of this is completely obsolete.

[jurb...@gmail.com]

>"How would this work?
>Unless the tv have a camera to see the lighting condition, the only
>thing it can do is to adjust the contrast, hue, etc to a preset level,
>which could just as be done at the factory. "

A bunch of them actually had light sensors and would adjust to lighting conditions.

Hmm, not sure if I ever saw onee with that AND the VIR system. the only two brands I can think of ith VIR were GE before they got bought by Thompson and Sylvainia, GTE Sylvania, not Phillips. Both of them did have the light sensor in some models but stillnot WITH VIR as far as I can remember.

Hmmm, it's a conspiracy !

[Bruce Esquibel]

thekma...@gmail.com wrote:

> I believe it's needed(but like VIR can be disabled)
> because the vast majority of set owners, since
> 2000 anyway, don't even know their flat panels
> *have* menus, let alone know how to set picture
> adjustments or anything else in them for that matter.

Yeah but you are talking about two different things.

What you want (or is more along the lines) is something like the modern day
surround sound receivers where they come with a microphone and some kind of
software in the receiver.

After you install the receiver and hook the speakers up, you plug the mic in
and place it where you usually will be sitting. Then when the receiver is in
the setup mode, it plays different white noise, sweep tones, shifting around
speaker to speaker. Then when it has all the info from the mic, it can set
the EQ and volume levels per channel by itself.

Probably not all that accurate (although the one in my Yamaha did say one
speaker was out-of-phase, and it was internally) but better than having
nothing.

To make the tv generate patterns or color sweeps is probably trivial and
cheap, but what would you use for a camera to feed back to itself? You can't
exactly include a $1000 hd camera with a $400 tv but the idea would be the
same, point the camera at the screen from where you normally sit, let the tv
run the tests, the camera feeds back to the tv and let it adjust itself to
room settings.

It may not even has to be a camera in the conventional sense, just some kind
of optical sensor that can detect white/black and color intensity or
something. As long it know what to expect from the tv (and when), it
probably would come closer than playing around with the menus manually.

Just saying it would have to be more along this line than anything like VIR
being added in.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Bruce Esquibel:

The original premise of VIR is that the TV would be aligned
with a luma/chroma/phase/peak signal sent 60x sec from
the station on a specific scan line.


VIR was not something done in the home, with test patterns
and a camera or sensor mounted to the screen. That is called
calibration.


The key phrase here is: "aligned with the station". Of course,
there could be the option, in this glorious digital age, of user
override of certain adjustments, such as the Backlight on
LCD/OLED TVs, to compensate for specific in-room viewing
conditions, day vs night, etc.


But at the very least, the color, hue, and sharpness would
be locked in automatically.


And it would still be up to the user to locate and disable non-
standard eye-candy such as "auto skin tone". "noise reduction",
or "motion sensitive lighting". Basically, all just effects that add
nothing(useful anyway!) to the image.

[Leif Neland]

Efter mange tanker skrev thekma...@gmail.com:

> Bruce Esquibel:

> The original premise of VIR is that the TV would be aligned
> with a luma/chroma/phase/peak signal sent 60x sec from
> the station on a specific scan line.

This would not be neccessary on european PAL (Phase Alternate
Line),where alternate lines are in opposite phase, cancelling any phase
shift in the chroma signal, only in the US NTSC (Never Twice Same
Colour) system.

> The key phrase here is: "aligned with the station". Of course,
> there could be the option, in this glorious digital age, of user
> override of certain adjustments, such as the Backlight on
> LCD/OLED TVs, to compensate for specific in-room viewing
> conditions, day vs night, etc.

> But at the very least, the color, hue, and sharpness would
> be locked in automatically.

This is digital, it is unchanged from mixing console to tv, the only
variable is how the pixels on the screen responds to the signal, so VIR
would not help here. The only thing which needs adjusting is this
response and allowance for lighting conditions in the wieving room.

Leif

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Leif:


Sorry if the premise of this thread was not clear. The
primary target of a digital version of VIR is the consumer
end. My whole focus is exposing as many home viewers
as possible to an accurate picture.


The "factory default" settings, such as they are, do
absolutely nothing for home/office lobby/hotel foyer
TV viewing. Digitally transmitted VIR would "reach
inside the consumer set, and automatically adjust the
contrast, brightness, color, hue etc, regardless of
where the consumer or factory adjusted them to,
to match and pass through the station's output
directly to the screen.


Local override of backlight and black level could still
be allowed to compensate for any viewing conditions
from pitch dark to high noon.


VIR would still not apply to auxiliary inputs(VHS, DVD,
Blu Ray, HDMI, etc.).

[Leif Neland]

Den 28-04-2015, skrev thekma...@gmail.com:
> Leif:


> Sorry if the premise of this thread was not clear. The
> primary target of a digital version of VIR is the consumer
> end. My whole focus is exposing as many home viewers
> as possible to an accurate picture.


> The "factory default" settings, such as they are, do
> absolutely nothing for home/office lobby/hotel foyer
> TV viewing. Digitally transmitted VIR would "reach
> inside the consumer set, and automatically adjust the
> contrast, brightness, color, hue etc, regardless of
> where the consumer or factory adjusted them to,
> to match and pass through the station's output
> directly to the screen.

The analog VIR was to override transmission errors and ensure that the
hue the station sent was the same as what the receiver got, regardless
of distance, atmospheric conditions etc.

You still had to calibrate your tv-set, but theoretically just once,
not every time the disturbances changed.

In the digital age, when the mixer sends 75% green, 20% red, 15% blue,
the tv gets the same.

Even if your "Digital VIR" tries to set every receiver to 65%
brightness, 50% contrast, 68% colour saturation, you have no way of
being sure the pictures are looking the same on Sony, Samsung or
Chevrolet TV-sets, new or old, plasma, LCD, LED etc.

Unless you have an equally calibrated sensor/camera at the VIR's
disposal.

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Leif: Read the article again: https://books.google.com/books?id=CgEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=%22vertical+interval+reference%22&source=bl&ots=FS5yReiiMN&sig=Z-BKLSSQvDNzuT0WlmUEp0LHEqk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lsU8VbfELciagwT2qYDYAg&ved=0CEUQ6AEwDA#v=onepage&q=%22vertical%20interval%20reference%22&f=true


You're not getting what VIR *also* did.

It also internally adjusted the picture controls to
proper levels, regardless of how the kid screwed
up the knobs on dad's new 25" console.

[Leif Neland]

So it is basically a "reset to preset values"

[John-Del]

On Wednesday, April 29, 2015 at 1:30:03 AM UTC-4, Leif Neland wrote:

> So it is basically a "reset to preset values"
>

When the GE VIR equipped TV picked up the VIR signal, it would set it's chroma level and phase to what the broadcaster set it for, not any preset value. The theory is that it didn't matter what happened to level and phase during transmission, retransmission and final reception at the TV. The VIR signal told the TV what level and phase to set the chroma to.

It was defeatable with a switch. I remember one station where the color went all green on every VIR TV I saw for a whole summer.

[Leif Neland]

John-Del skrev:

Again, when digital, the level and the phase of the chroma at the TV
(if that even makes sense in the digtal world) is always the same as
the broadcaster sends.

You can't set all receivers to the same colour, saturation and hue
values, because TV's varies, both between models and manufactures, but
also ageing.

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Thanks John-Del for clarifying that. That all-green situation sounds
like PEBCAC.

[Leif Neland]

jurb...@gmail.com forklarede den 28-04-2015:

> That was a white rectangle at the upper left of the frame, so far up in the
> corner that no TV of the time would show it due to overscan and/or not a
> quite rectangular screen. It was only on network programming, obviously that
> tells the local stations to cue their local commercials which would be
> interspersed with the national commercials. I am pretty sure those
> (imperfect) commercial "zappers" used that signal.

Here, there is station logo when the "real" program is send, the
station logo is turned off during commercials.

I really wish my PVR could use this for pausing recording or for
skipping during playback.

Leif

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Leif:

We get it, we get it, we get it! Digital transmission stays
intact from transmitter to receiver. Fine.


But that's NOT what we're talking about, not me at least.


Folks, please let Leif believe what he wants to, and not
argue with him.


Interesting thing I'd like to point out: I posted this topic also to
rec.video and alt.video, and guess what: NO traffic there. That's like
a Pacquiao V Mayweather thread getting no comments on a
BOXING newsgroup. smh...

[Michael Black]

I was using a Commodore monitor with a VCR as a tv set in the until I got
an LCD DTV set in 2011. And one of the Commodore monitors I used
displayed that white block very cleanly. I didn't know about it, but soon
realized it was an indicator of a commercial, really useful. But I think
I only noticed it on one station, or maybe "not all stations". And then I
had to change the monitor to another Commodore, and it no longer showed
that corner with the white block.

Michael

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Just for kicks, I did a search for "calibration" on the
newsgroup rec.video. Now answer me this:

WHY hasn't the subject of display calibration been
brought up since the year 2000?!

[Bruce Esquibel]

Hmmm, because that is about the time CRT's started to get phased out?

I mean I know anything today can be tweaked to be "a bit better" but it's
not going to be anything as dramatic as the CRT days.

What was the name of that group, SFS or FSS something, they had like classes
to do complete calibration on projectors, tv's and other display devices
back in the 1990's. Seemed to fade away about the same time from being
relevant. I seen them mentioned recently, guess they are still plugging away
with front projection systems.

This thread is getting silly anyway, people seem to be in search of an
answer to a problem that doesn't really matter anymore. I can see
differences in technologies, plasma vs. lcd vs. led vs. oled but within each
family, not so much to matter, to me anyways.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Bruce Esquibel:

The name of the group, in my reply just
before yours, is REC.VIDEO.


The problem still exists today, just from
a different end: The consumer's display.


Due to consumers either not knowing or
just not caring, their modern digital/HD
TVs are left in, ironically, the WORST
modes ever contrived for a TV in the
history of television. This may be called
'Vivid' or 'Dynamic', by different manu-
facturers.


And many set owners don't even know,
or care, that that a menu even EXISTS
for them to get a more accurate picture
by just turning off a few things, and
adjusting a few others. Plus, their TV
will consume less energy and last much
longer.


But all that doesn't matter, Bruce, does it?
Nor does the fact that an Imaging Science
Foundation exists, along with standards
set long ago by both them and the SMPTE.


They must just be out of their mind, stark-
raving CUCKOO for all some of us care.

[stra...@yahoo.com]

That's all well and good but VIR applied to analog TV broadcasting which was turned off - permanently (YEA) - in June 2009. VIR had a preset amplitude and phase (hue) subcarrier riding on a defined amplitude pedestal to set brightness, contrast hue and saturation and nothing more. Keep in mind that this does NOTHING about bias and gain on the display (back then CRT) device. How your TV was aligned was up to you and your repair tech.

That's ALL that VIR could and did do.

G²

[John-Del]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 5:39:42 PM UTC-4, stra...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> VIR had a preset amplitude and phase (hue) subcarrier riding on a defined amplitude pedestal

It was a bit more than that. It wasn't a preset value; the broadcaster would set the saturation and phase, even changing it to compensate for different film systems or video tape variances from program to program.


>>>....riding on a defined amplitude pedestal to set brightness, contrast hue and saturation and nothing more.

My recollection is that it did not adjust brightness or picture (contrast)

>>>>Keep in mind that this does NOTHING about bias and gain on the display (back then CRT) device. How your TV was aligned was up to you and your repair tech.

That's true, but grey scale and black level were amazingly close from sample to sample. I would say that the grey scale adjustment of the average GE from that era was quite close to perfect. The Japanese TVs of that era were shipped above 9000 k.

[thekma...@gmail.com]

6:53 PMJohn-Del wrote:
"That's true, but grey scale and black level were amazingly close from sample to sample.
I would say that the grey scale adjustment of the average GE from that era was quite close to
perfect. The Japanese TVs of that era were shipped above 9000 k. "

Were sets really that close to accurate(6500) 30-40 years ago? And does that suggest
that the trend toward bluer-brighter-oversharpened TVs is relatively new - post-millennium?


If that was so, then my notion that calibration and accurate adjustment matter more than
number of lines or pixels is right on. And I wish I had one of those old knob-clicker-tuners
sitting around the house - perhaps underneath my LED smart TV as a base for it! :)


Of course, calibration is a taboo subject on these newsgroups, despite the factory settings
of modern flat screens meaning that calibration is needed NOW more than ever in the history
of television!

[thekma...@gmail.com]

See? Soon as I mention the "c-" word everyone runs under a table
nearby or folds up like a two-dollar suitcase.

[isw]

In article <8f6a4d92-e907-407f...@googlegroups.com>,

thekma...@gmail.com wrote:

> 6:53 PMJohn-Del wrote:
> "That's true, but grey scale and black level were amazingly close from sample
> to sample.
> I would say that the grey scale adjustment of the average GE from that era
> was quite close to
> perfect. The Japanese TVs of that era were shipped above 9000 k. "
>
>
> Were sets really that close to accurate(6500) 30-40 years ago? And does that
> suggest
> that the trend toward bluer-brighter-oversharpened TVs is relatively new -
> post-millennium?

Bluer, or just closer to white than you're used to?

Isaac

[stra...@yahoo.com]

From Wikipedia. I know this is correct because I used to maintain this equipment at the CBS affiliate in Madison WI, WISC TV 3.

VIR (or Vertical interval reference), widely adopted in the 1980s, attempts to correct some of the color problems with NTSC video by adding studio-inserted reference data for luminance and chrominance levels on line 19.[25] Suitably equipped television sets could then employ these data in order to adjust the display to a closer match of the original studio image. The actual VIR signal contains three sections, the first having 70 percent luminance and the same chrominance as the color burst signal, and the other two having 50 percent and 7.5 percent luminance respectively.[26]

The signal was NOT altered by the local broadcaster. It was intended to correct black level, gain, phase (hue) and saturation errors that may occur during transmission. In Channel 3s case, a Tektronix 1440 (?) video corrector processed the incoming CBS network feed to maintain those parameters. At the time network came via terrestrial microwave and was extremely consistent even without the corrector.

IF your TV referenced VIR, all it did was those 4 parameters. Any bias (black level) and gain adjustments AFTER the VIR processing may or may not be calibrated correctly. What it DID ensure was that it would be consistent. That's all.

G²

[thekma...@gmail.com]

isw wrote:

"Bluer, or just closer to white than you're used to?

Isaac"

Closer to white than I'm used to? White is not
supposed to be bluish. Today's TVs ship to retailers
with the color temp closer to that Japanese standard
mentioned a couple replies back(9,000K), which
renders material produced at 5400(old B&W movies)
or 6,500K(broadcast) most inaccurately - bluish.


Question: Have you seen an accurate or calibrated
accurate TV? Or one with at least the Basic-Five
controls set correctly with medium or warm color
temp setting?

[Chuck]

On Tue, 5 May 2015 15:53:24 -0700 (PDT), John-Del <ohg...@aol.com>
wrote:

You are correct that VIR only set saturation and hue. Those PM
chassis GEs were awesome. It is a shame they abandomed them when they
boughrt RCA. GE was in the process of selling an oil based consumer
projection tv when the division was folded.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
http://www.avast.com

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Chuck: "oil based projection tv"


????

[Chuck]

I shouldn't have said that the VIR signal didn't have a reference for
luminance adjustment. I believe the PM chassis VIR circuitry didn't
use these values.

[Chuck]

On Wed, 6 May 2015 06:21:37 -0700 (PDT), thekma...@gmail.com wrote:

>Chuck: "oil based projection tv"
>
>
>????

Look up professional 1980s GE projection televisions for closed
circuit events like fights on Google . They were oil emulsion based.
GE put out a sheet of products that were going to be released in the
next year and that set was one of them. The division folded a month
later.

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Chuck:

Some kind of lubricant..

I know what oil-based paintings are, but
oil-based TV? That one through me, lol!

[John-Del]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 11:00:27 AM UTC-4, thekma...@gmail.com wrote:

>
> I know what oil-based paintings are, but
> oil-based TV?

Refresh rate must have sucked.... [rimshot]


Well, it's not April 1st so I looked and:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/eidophor.html

[John-Del]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 7:35:27 PM UTC-4, thekma...@gmail.com wrote:

>
>
> Were sets really that close to accurate(6500) 30-40 years ago? And does that suggest
> that the trend toward bluer-brighter-oversharpened TVs is relatively new - post-millennium?

In the tube era, TVs came out of the box a mess. I was just a kid but learned to converge and grey scale RCAs and Zeniths (Zeniths were better prepped out of the box) in a hurry before delivery. Delta tube convergence was hit or miss, but RCA's adjustments had less interaction than anyone.

Once the solid state XL-100 hit the market in 1971, things changed. These came out of the box almost perfect and the Zeniths and GEs showed big improvements as well. The Sonys and Panasonics were consistent, but consistently blue.

RCA always specified 6500 Kelvin for their grey scale.

[jurb...@gmail.com]

>"I shouldn't have said that the VIR signal didn't have a reference for
luminance adjustment. "

It did. As I said there was a line of the NTSC color baar standard, stairstep and multiburst.

Though the VIR equipped sets only used two bars of the NTSC color bars, it could have done alot more. There was just no money in it. I don't recall exactly how it worked but it only adjusted the phase to make two of the bars the same, or at a specified differential level. And there were settings fo it, it is just they were referenced to those levels.

Rewalistically, had they wanted to they could have compensated for bandwidth problems, maybe even multipath using the stairstep and/or the mutiburst. But again, there was no money in it.

Broadcasters may well have made adjustments manually, it doesn't matter. The thing is it was adjusted to that test signal. The video is the video, if it looks shitty it is not our fault, that is how it is. Our equipment is fine.

the real problem is that this has become much ado about nothing. when I was young we only had a few TV stations. I mean some people had UHF convertors. On Friday night we had to look at the TV guide that came with the local newspaper and decide what to watch. Choosing from a whopping five channels in the days of the new UHF band.

Now there are 300 channels and the best button is "power off".

[Chuck]

On Wed, 6 May 2015 09:34:39 -0700 (PDT), John-Del <ohg...@aol.com>
wrote:

This is another good site that explains how it works.
http://lampes-et-tubes.info/sc/sc041.php?l=e

In the mid 80s we were one the larger GE television dealers in the
country so we might have gotten information about coming attractions
that weren't widely disseminated. I can't remember if we received a
sheet on the product or it was mentioned by a GE representative at a
seminar.

[stra...@yahoo.com]

They actually DID do bandwidth correction with Ghost Cancelling Reference (GCR) which was one line of continuous sweep from 100 KHz to 4.2MHz Any frequency response variation between the insertion point and recovery point was corrected. Keep in mind that multipath (ghosts) manifest as response deviations. We had bad ghost on KCBS 2 in LA from antenna feed and the GCR box cleaned nearly all of it up. The surprise came on KCET 28 which had no ghosts at all but when the box locked up the detail 'popped' - that dramatically.

I don't know if home TVs looked at VITS bars as the line number was not fixed and decoding a line of bars is sort of silly. The VIR was specifically designed for this task as the subcarrier (in the line, not the burst) was a defined phase and amplitude on a fixed level pedestal to set luma gain.

Gotta tell ya though, I do not miss analog TV and all of its myriad flaws and limitations with illegal colors and video levels. AND, aligning a low band VHF transmitter for response, Incidental Carrier Phase Modulation, delay and efficiency was tedious getting the 3 or 4 linear amplifiers that followed the exciter all behaving properly.

G²

[isw]

In article <ade570a9-e48a-4521...@googlegroups.com>,

Short answer: "Yup".

Long answer: Significant experience with NTSC and participation in the
development of MPEG and HDTV.

Isaac

[isw]

In article <a119d441-ea99-4135...@googlegroups.com>,

thekma...@gmail.com wrote:

> Chuck: "oil based projection tv"
>
>
> ????

Google "Eidophor".

Isaac

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Again isw/Isaac:


We're talking about the sets themselves, not
NTSC or ATSC transmissions. Those have 6500K
as the grayscale and D65 as the illuminant. If you
see a lot of blue from those marks then something
is wrong with what you are viewing them ON.


Most current Consumer TVs out of box are NOT
set for accurate viewing by either standard. A lot
of them may have an accurate preset(Movie or
THX), but are not set to that at the factory.


They are put in the bluest, brightest, over-
saturated, oversharpened mode possible, with
a bunch of edge enhancers and "noise reducers"
enabled, and most consumers don't even bother to look
for a menu where they can change that.


And trying to explain that to them, as it has
been trying to explain to some on here, is
akin to explaining it to a lamp post. It seems that
I must be the ONLY usenet participant on either
sci.electronics.repair, rec.video, or alt.video
who gives a crap about display accuracy and
calibration, because no one else cares to
bring it up.


JOE KANE where are you when we need you????

[Leif Neland]

thekma...@gmail.com skrev:

> Again isw/Isaac:



> We're talking about the sets themselves, not
> NTSC or ATSC transmissions. Those have 6500K
> as the grayscale and D65 as the illuminant. If you
> see a lot of blue from those marks then something
> is wrong with what you are viewing them ON.

You still don't get it.

You want to replace the factory presets with your own presets.

You can not get a more correct image without looking/measuring the
resulting output, as an absolute value of 50% red 50% green 50% blue
might have different result on different makes and models of screens.

> ... who gives a crap about display accuracy and

> calibration, because no one else cares to
> bring it up.

You cannot calibrate without looking at the screen. It cannot be done
remotely.


Leif

--
https://www.paradiss.dk
Ting til konen eller kæresten.
Eller begge.

[jurb...@gmail.com]

>"You can not get a more correct image without looking/measuring the
>resulting output, as an absolute value of 50% red 50% green 50% blue
>might have different result on different makes and models of screens. "

Early color TV did not work that way. Monochrome cameras were set up to pickup that as well as possible, and that was something like 72 % green, and whatever was left, mainly to the red but about a third of it to the blue. Something like that. In fact there are a few different colorimetries.

They were never equal simply because the way the human eye works and now, that is not going to get better. Like someone said, doens't anyone care about the accuracy ?

Well the fact is, I don't. Not that much. I am happy with a 1990s TV, CRT type. Standard def. I don't mind seeing the scan lines. The HDTV is nice, but I simply do not need it for three hours of viewing a month or whatever it is. If I get a hnakerin to watch the tube I will go to that, ummm, yeeah HULU and go see my old buddy Matt Dillon. and his buddy Doc.

Know one time Doc told this guy if he saw him beat his pregnant Wife again he would kill him ? Subsequently he caught the MF at it and then shot him. Some other guy, I think Newly who was one of the deputies said "you killed him" and Doc replied "I meant to".

Now that I like. Not ghosts, goblins and all that bullshit.

And the other thing is that when we had three TV stations, we had to look at the TV guide to see what to watch. MAKE A CHOICE.

Now we got 300 stations and nothing to watch. When the best thing on is Gordon Ramsay and this is costing you a hundred bucks a fuckoing month, someting is wrong.

Bottom line, make the picture as perfect as you want, but of what ?

[thekma...@gmail.com]

jurb...@gmail.com wrote: "Well the fact is, I don't. Not that much. I am happy with a

1990s TV, CRT type. Standard def. I don't mind seeing the scan lines."

So would I be - once I set at least the basic controls properly. Standard or
high-def doesn't matter. Getting the grayscale, chroma, dynamic range
and peaking right is more important than lines or pixels. Once I saw
accurate, I was hooked. Nothing else would satisfy me! :)

[jurb...@gmail.com]

Some sets you simply couldn't. They played woith the color demnodulation angle sometims, prety much for flesh correction I thingk sometimes based on the engineering department's refereces.

And then there were those elcheapo NAPs with the phosphor optimized for flourescnt lighting in the stores that were shit once you got them home.

[John-Del]

On Friday, May 8, 2015 at 8:05:59 AM UTC-4, jurb...@gmail.com wrote:
When the best thing on is Gordon Ramsay and this is costing you a hundred bucks a fucking month, something is wrong.
>

Gordon Ramsey? I think I would rather be forced to watch the Kartrashians than this foul mouthed coward (in fact, I heard he's trolling tech newsgroups...).

But you're right that's there's nothing much to watch. If it weren't for History and History2 on cable, I'd drop cable. And even then half the time they're running "reality" programming about truckers, loggers, swamp rednecks, and other dim wits. They make it up though with excellent documentaries about the Nazis, Egyptians, WWII, American Civil War, pirates, etc. Just wish they'd spend more real time with history than garbage.

[jurb...@gmail.com]

History channel ? Flawed of course but better than nothing. Of course it seems to be holocaust appreciation month of some shit as if WW2 is the only thing that ever happened.

Actually I like foul language and really wish they wouldn't bleep it out. I also want to see people smoking cigarettes and driving cars without seat belts.

Yup, when we had three channels people argued about what to watch. Now there are 300 channels and the most watcheed is the TV guide channel, or preview guide or whatever.

[hrho...@sbcglobal.net]

I put myself thru college in 1953-57 doing Admiral tv repair in Fort Pierce, Florida. There was tremendous variability in how sets came from the factory. There was also tremendous variability in what various consumers wanted as the color of "white". We aimed to keep our customers happy and would set "white" to whatever was their preference.

The nearest tv station was in West Palm Beach 50 miles to the south, all others were in Miami, 120 miles to the south. Atmospheric conditions determined the quality of the signals received at those distances. The yagi antennas used had back lobes that would also pick up Jacksonville 200 miles to the north, on the same channels as Miami, under certain atmospheric conditions. The resulting signals gave strange effects.

The white block in the upper left-hand corner of the picture signalling a switch to a commercial was a holdover from motion pictures. When the reel of film was almost over, like about 10 seconds from the end, the white block was a signal to the projectionist to switch to the alternate projector which picked up the "story line" at exactly the end of the film in the first projector. Since early tv used a lot of film-based programming, the white block made the transition to tv in that manner.

[thekma...@gmail.com]

hrho.. wrote: "tremendous variability in what various consumers wanted as the color of "white". We aimed to keep our customers happy and would set "white" to whatever was their preference. "


B B B bbble chhhhh!!!! (K-man kneeling before
the American Standard vomiting)


How awful! And that word "preferences". There's
only accurate - and innacurate!

[jurb...@gmail.com]

>"B B B bbble chhhhh!!!! (K-man kneeling before
>the American Standard vomiting) "

Might as well. These new shows and movies seem to want to make you think your TV is screwed up. The blacks are green, and I lknow it is not the TV because it isn't there when you turn the color down. And then they blue out things. And recently I saw a show in which when they changed certain scenes they made it look like you have a horizontal sync problem.

In sound, if you have a properly miked concert and goood speakers, maybe you want to leave the tone controls on flat. But synthesized music ? Electric guitars. All highly equalized before it ever gets there.

Accurate to what ?

[thekma...@gmail.com]

jurb.. wrote: "Accurate to what?"


I'm not even going to entertain that
question. It shows how little folks care
about calibration on these supposedly
"technical" newsgroups.


Google "display calibration" and "SMPTE"
and learn about it. Learn the significance
of 6500K color temperature and illuminant
D65, and what color bars are for.

[jurb...@gmail.com]

>"thekma...@gmail.com 4:57 PM (3 hours ago)

>jurb.. wrote: "Accurate to what?" I'm not even going to entertain that question. >It shows how little folks care about calibration on these supposedly "technical" >newsgroups. Google "display calibration" and "SMPTE" and learn about it.
>jurb.. wrote: "Accurate to what?" "

It was a purely rhetorical in nature. My point was you don't watch a test signal.

I don't disagree with you. The people who want their greyscale to be a brownscale or a bluescale are like the people who want to turn the bass or treble up or down on music.

Maybe you are the last purist.

I know all about test patterns. Got no use for them without a TV.

[thekma...@gmail.com]

jurb wrote: ">jurb.. wrote: "Accurate to what?" I'm not even going to entertain that question. >It shows how little folks care about calibration on these supposedly "technical" >newsgroups. Google "display calibration" and "SMPTE" and learn about it.

>jurb.. wrote: "Accurate to what?" "

It was a purely rhetorical in nature. My point was you don't watch a test signal.

I don't disagree with you. The people who want their greyscale to be a brownscale or a bluescale are like the people who want to turn the bass or treble up or down on music."

The patterns are designed to result in accurate viewing of actual material!


Even if ten people strived for correct skin tone by eye, you'd still get ten
different results, all else being equal.


Patterns are standardized. Can't eff up the settings with them!

[jurb...@gmail.com]

So are you ready to take a calibrrated light box and transparency for campare ?

That is really the only way to do it.

[Leif Neland]

hrho...@sbcglobal.net kom med denne ide:

> I put myself thru college in 1953-57 doing Admiral tv repair in Fort Pierce,
> Florida. There was tremendous variability in how sets came from the factory.
> There was also tremendous variability in what various consumers wanted as
> the color of "white". We aimed to keep our customers happy and would set
> "white" to whatever was their preference.

A question linked to a random message in this thread:

Are the colours in Miami as vivid as in the series CSI-Miami?

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Leif Neland:


Of course not. The colors in CSI Miami were produced that way.
Same as the green overtones in "The Matrix".


Think of calibration as an alignment process. After such, the TV
will produce colors exactly as the producers of movies and TV
shows intended them to be viewed. Content that is not overly
produced, and reflects reality, such as the news, will pass through
accordingly.


The content itself is not a calibration source - the patterns on discs
such as Avia, Spear & Munsil, or Digital HD Video Essentials are.


Display calibration is akin to a wheel alignment: It is done in a
shop with precision measuring devices & tools. It allows the vehicle
to perform ideally on the widest variety of road surfaces. Video
calibration is done with industry-established standardized patterns
to allow the TV to more accurately display the widest variety of
program colors and luminance ranges.


To adjust a TV so that CSI Miami colors appear more life-like is like
aligning a car to perform best on the 33degree bank turns at
Talladega Speedway. It will not track true at other venues or
environments.

[Michael A. Terrell]

The 'Cue mark' was the upper right, and in a series of three. They
were made by either scraping away the emulsion, or punching a pinhole
for several frames for each cue mark.

The first to alert the operator. The second was to start the other
projector, and the third to switch the semaphores to switch the optical
path from one projector to the other. I ran a pair of RCA TP66, 16 mm
film projectors at an AFRTS TV station, for a year, back in the '70s.

[isw]

In article <jqudnZToiop6j8vI...@earthlink.com>,

I got myself through college in the early sixties by working in a local
TV station's engineering department. Back then, there was no other way
to distribute movies for things like the local "late movie" than as 16mm
film on large reels. The movies were always provided as packages of a
couple dozen (generally one or two decent ones and the rest dogs). The
cans of film worked their way around, one movie at the time, through a
series of local stations -- you got them from KXXX-TV and sent them on
to KYYY-TV, who then sent them on, etc. Assuming the station(s) upstream
of you were responsible, you got a "new" movie every week.

By the time the film rolls had been around that circuit once or twice,
nearly every frame in the whole film had been punctured with a cue mark
(because every station had their own idea of where the commercials
should be inserted).

All the holes were, of course, bright white, which messed with the
automatic video gain circuitry of the projectors.

Isaac

[Michael A. Terrell]

AFRTS didn't run commercials, and PSAs were only run between
programs, or during our live newscast. The films were shipped from base
to base, via the 'Bicycle Network'. There were typically 13 stations, or
ships in each network, and movies went around twice. We would get
several cases of film each week. It was up to us to select the air
times, but all of them had to be shipped to the next location at the end
of the week. The worst was that damned Kinescope film, that was so thin
that a strong breeze would snap it. Our film chain used a single camera,
so the only electronics in the projector was the sound circuitry.

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Michael Terrell:

"AFRTS"?

[jurb...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 6:09:44 AM UTC-5, thekma...@gmail.com wrote:
> Michael Terrell:
>
> "AFRTS"?

Google is your friend. Armed Forces Television and Radio Service.

[thekma...@gmail.com]

jurb wrote: "Google is your friend."

I don't consider things as friends.

"Armed Forces Television and Radio Service. "

Thank you! Not so hard now, was that? ;)

[jurb...@gmail.com]

>"jurb wrote: "Google is your friend."
>
>I don't consider things as friends. "

Figure of speech.

[Michael A. Terrell]

thekma...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Michael Terrell:
>
> "AFRTS"?

Armed Forces Radio Television and Service, which provides new and
entertainment to our military when there are no local English language
stations

[thekma...@gmail.com]

Thanks Michael!

I'm from an era where acronyms and abbreviations were the
exception - not the rule.

[Michael A. Terrell]

You're welcome.