On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 18:02:17 +0100, Dave Plowman
wrote:

In article ,
Don Pearce wrote:
If your old TV had a delta tube rather than a modern in-line gun, then
it used the old phosphors. They weren't as bright as those used now,
but they gave far better colour rendition - particularly skin tones.

Some later shadow mask tubes had rather orange 'reds' to increase the
brightness, though. But you're correct in principle. I stayed with a
(rather modified) Philips 25" G6 for about 20 years because no newer set
came near it in either colour rendition or resolution. Only the advent of
S-VHS forced me to change.

My old TV was a Phillips as well. In its time I gave it two new tubes
(wasn't the game of snakes and ladders on the convergence board fun?).
But the second tube was pretty certainly a recon, even though I bought
it as new. I had to switch to a new TV then. Sigh!

Squint your eyes as you look round any TV showroom today, and all you
will see is purple, particularly in the Sony section. And that is with
UK-sourced material; once you get into NTSC conversions purple and
yellow are all you get.

Surely purple could be tweaked, since it's a mixture of red and blue? I'd
agree the reds still aren't as good as the old NTSC phosphors, but they're
much better than they were.

You'd have thought the purple could be sorted out - it always looks
particularly bad in the shadow areas. Somehow that colour seems to
have been adopted as a sort of standard. Truly horrible.

Incidentally I was on the design team for the first single standard,
single board TV from Rank Bush Murphy. Not sure I should have admitted
that! - my first job.

d

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