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P.S.: Whats with the rounded corners on the screen?

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The French seem quite keen on rounded corners, many Goumont cinemas had them in the days before moveable masking, and the Pathe formats had larger radius corners to the frames than the Kodak ones. On Pathe 'Rural film the space in the corners was used to contain a small, almost square perforation, giving a relativly large frame area on the narrow (17.5mm) film.

Come to think of it, the French seem to do just about everything differently, le Cinematographe Lumière used one round perforation on each side of each frame, rather than the four rectangular ones which everyone else used. It is possible to run conventional Edison type film through a Lumière machine, I've seen it done, the pins just fit one pair of holes per frame, the third ones down I think. Just crank the handle a bit faster, mask down the gate a bit, and rig up some form of sound head, or a DTS reader would fit quite nicely on top, and you could run the latest feature on the thing.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-03-2003, 08:53 AM:
 
Richard,
I know what you mean by rounded corners on floating frames but those corners are REALLY rounded. Reminds me of the ole rounded corner aperature plates Simplex used to make.
Mark
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-03-2003, 11:15 AM:
 
Remember when TV's used to have corners soooo round that they were practically a circle instead of a square? Maybe Philippe is longing for those days.
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 01-03-2003, 11:30 AM:
 
Early color TVs had round picture tubes. Here's a 1961 RCA:



Talk about overscanning and cropping! Those round tubes cut off a whole bunch of the available picture.



My family waited to buy a color TV until rectangular tubes came out. I think we got our first color set around 1966. It was a 25" Admiral, probably chosen more for its nice furniture-quality wood cabinet than anything else. One thing I remember about that set is the picture tube blew out about every year. We had to replace the tube numerous times.
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-03-2003, 11:33 AM:
 
Imagine trying to play videogames on that TV!
 

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Posted by Lionel Fouillen (Member # 1475) on 01-03-2003, 02:32 PM:
 

quote:

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Imagine trying to play videogames on that TV!

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Joe, I think the old arcade game Gyrus would do fine...
 

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Posted by Gordon Bachlund (Member # 124) on 01-03-2003, 05:15 PM:
 
Mark:

Those old aperture plates that Sumplex used to make were likely influenced by the style of screen masking that prevailed in many theatres of the 20s and perhaps even early 30s. Without the need for movable masking, the screen's appearance could be "refined" by rounded corners.

Mind you, I am not speaking from personal experience, but rather based on photos of early cinemas.
 

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Posted by Darren Briggs (Member # 1071) on 01-03-2003, 05:21 PM:
 
The screening room looked great and i bet it sounds good also.
I wonder what the film was showing to the large audience?

Darren
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 01-03-2003, 05:31 PM:
 
Great screening room! Where's the SRD reader? There's a DA20 in the rack, but I don't see a cat 699/700/701 in the picture.
 

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Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 01-03-2003, 06:07 PM:
 
The Dolby reader is in one photo with the "new' feed and takeup plates. On a better monitor in my office the screen rounded corners lokk painted on, maybe not a wrap around.
 

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Posted by Serge Bosschaerts (Member # 298) on 01-04-2003, 03:58 AM:
 
I've been in Phillipe's screening room and can confirm that the corners are round.
The frame of my screen also has round corners but I'm planning of using a masking system.

A lot of cinema's in Europe don't use any masking any more because they say they don't need it (read to expensive ) and instead use a screen frame with round corners.
 

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Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 01-04-2003, 04:18 AM:
 
Mark: is that your TV set? I have one from late 1960 with a CTC-10C chassis. It has its 2nd kine that I installed in 1975, and it continues to run 'till this day. Yours looks like it has the bonded safety glass on the tube. Mine has a piece of glass in front of the tube.

Your set has much better color than mine. Imagine watching 2001: A Space Odyssey on that screen. It's been done.

My first rectangular screen was a 23" Motorola. It ate 4 picture tubes in the first 3 years. We junked it on the next one, and bought a Magnavox. It ran for 13 years. My mother bought it because of the nice cabinet.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-04-2003, 05:20 AM:
 
Bruce, No.....I don't have anything newer than 1950 so that alleviates any color sets for me.......here is a 1946 RCA 630 TS that I rebuilt several years ago though. The photo is before IF alignment but right after capacitor replacement. Round CRT it is, 10BP4, the most common crt of the era. Also they had no implosion protection built in so you have to be really careful with these babies. All of my "vintage sets have round crt's. I don't restore anything with rectangular tubes......I'll try to find the shots of my restored RCA 721TS...man, the picture on that set is sharp as a tack and both the 621 and 721 have true dc restoration to boot. RCA left that out of all sets after the 721.
There is a group of guys that restore the first color sets(Westinghouse, Motorola, RCA) and they are having a hell of a time getting new electron guns manufactured for their early 15" crt's. Many tubes have lost the seal at the face plate and are not usable, although rebuildable if they can get the new guns made. Those first 15" color sets used the I-Q color decodong system, same way the studio cameras generate the color signal and they actually had superior color as compared to sets of today. The later sets went to the B-Y/G-Y, etc system of decoding as the crt's, and circuitry was easier to make. I remember replacing many of the 21" round color tubes back in my TV repair days...late 60's early 70's. 21AXP22 comes to mind.......
Mark

 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-04-2003, 05:49 AM:
 
For those that have never seen a first generation color tv this is an RCA CTC 100 set, $2000.00 to buy in 1955....actually the 2nd color set ever to be manufactured for the mass market. Westinghouse beat RCA to the feat even though the Westinghouse set used the RCA color CRT!! Pretty good pictures for a set thats almost 50 years old. RCA never made a dime of profit on color tv till the late 60's when sales finally began taking off.
Mark



 

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Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 01-04-2003, 07:37 AM:
 
Nice images, Mark!

BTW, I ment for my color TV remarks to go to David. I've lost my mind this morning.

My CTC-10C needs caps. Other than that, and a touch-up of the burst transformer (I got the one I have from a junked set at the dump, REALLY!) My set looks really nice for a 42 year old box of tubes.

It really warms the room when it is left on for a few hours...
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-05-2003, 11:39 AM:
 
Please continue this discussion in the Yak thraed "Sneak Preview".
 

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