TVs used as professional monitors

[ppppenguin]

There's a long history of using modified domestic TVs as professional video monitors. You can see EMI 12" mirror lid sets (901 or 702) in use on the studio floor before the war. The attached photo shows several Pye D16T at the 1948 Olympics. The Ekco TMB272 was used later as a compact OB monitor. I wonder if its 12V power option was used in practice.

The Thorn 2000 chassis was modified by the BBC to become a colour monitor. Probably RGB only, with an external PAl decoder if required.

All these sets had double wound mains transformers. A whole variety of other sets were used as industrial/commercial monitors by fitting an isolating transformer.

Eventually most sets had video inputs and now all do, HDMI as well as analogue. The Ferguson MCO1 was a monitor version of a TX90 based TV. Possibly one of the earliest domestic TVs with video input fitted as standard. Or at least semi-standard.

Stories and insights very welcome.

[Murphyv310]

Not broadcast admittedly but I do remember a 12 inch modified Murphy V200 languishing in one of British Relays stations, it had a mains transformer and PL259 sockets.

[ppppenguin]

Seems a perfectly sensible use of a V200. A decent set fitted with isolating TX and video input to give an indication. It didn't need the superior geometry, black level etc of a professional monitor and it was a lot cheaper.

Professional monitors were very expensive, and still are. So there's an incentive to use modified domestic sets in less demanding applications. These days almost any set can be used as a monitor. It may not have perfect colourimetry etc but it will be good enough for many purposes. Today's TVs are probably as good as all but the best of pro monitors of a few years ago.

[peter scott]

There's a long history of using modified domestic TVs as professional video monitors. You can see EMI 12" mirror lid sets (901 or 702) in use on the studio floor before the war.

Hi Jeffrey,

I too can recall seeing a 901/702 on the studio floor but I can't think where I saw it.
I have pictures of a 702 in the AP EMI control gallery and another along with equipment at Radiolympia but could you point me to the studio floor image?

Peter

[ppppenguin]

There's a shot in Television Comes to London with a 901/702 shown. I'm sure I've seen others but can't immediately think where.

[Brunel]

Yorkshire TV had racks of "naked" Thorn 2000's

[peter scott]

There's a shot in Television Comes to London with a 901/702 shown. I'm sure I've seen others but can't immediately think where.

I had a look through Television Comes to London but the only studio monitor was just a glimpse of what I think is a T5.

Peter  

   

[ppppenguin]

The dust cover of "Here's Looking at You" by Bruce Norman has an artist's impression of a scene on the studio floor. There's a mirror lid set which might be a 901/702.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heres-Looking-Y...0563201029

None of the plates in that book shows a studio floor monitor.

[peter scott]

I'm sure that in the past I have seen a busy studio view with a 702/901 on one side.

Peter

[ppppenguin]

There's a shot in Television Comes to London with a 901/702 shown. I'm sure I've seen others but can't immediately think where.

I had a look through Television Comes to London but the only studio monitor was just a glimpse of what I think is a T5.

Peter  

If it's a T5 I hope that wasn't in the M-EMI studio. In any case, it's a domestic TV on the studio floor.

The 3rd photo on this page is well known. http://www.terramedia.co.uk/media/televi...hannel.htm At a guess the monitor that's being viewed by Richard Dimbleby is a Pye D16T, even though you can't see any of it.