Continental Television Receivers

[Andy - G8MNM]

Last year at a Vide Maison (Empty the house sale) I picked up some copies of 'Paris Match' from the 50s and 60s. Very interesting adverts for all sorts of delectable collectables! Many adverts for period TVs in the pages, I have photographed some and here are a couple. The Ribet Desjardins 'Sidéral' table model from 1958 with 43 or 54 cm screen, with antiglare protection. Automatic picture control. Two eliptical speakers and tone control. Automatic interference suppression on sound and vision. All housed in a cabinet of light or dark wood - to your taste.

The second one is an Italian made 'Teleavia' from 1956. Multi - channel with 43 or 54 cm screen. Very high fidelity sound. Very bright screen etc. You can translate the rest if you want!

[Edward Huggins]

That curved cabinet styling really took off in the UK. A pity then that we did not follow the Continental's taste for providing good quality TV sound as well.....

[German Dalek]

Bonjour!
The Teleavia is a french set and was made in France.
It is possible, that some sets were exported to Italy and Spain,
but I am not sure about that.
However this set in question has the same chassis like the Teleavia
on legs:
https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/teleav...ramic_111.html
There is no italian Teleavia production line.
This set was nether sold in Italy.
Don`t believe in Wikipedia.
Anyway, France was nether a big TV/radio seller on international markets.

Regards,
German Dalek

[German Dalek]

Originally Posted by Edward Huggins

That curved cabinet styling really took off in the UK. A pity then that we did not follow the Continental's taste for providing good quality TV sound as well.....

It seems that they saw no reason before "Top of the Pops" to do something
for the TV set sound.
But from the mid 60s on, the sound of the TV sets was mostly worse worldwide.

Regards,
German Dalek

[peter_scott]

..and got worse still when CRTs disappeared.

Peter

[patrickgnl]

In the UK on 405 line and in France on 625 line, i think i am right in saying the sound would have been AM. So in the UK at least the quality would have improved with FM on 625 line system I. Continental European 625 B/G and D/K would have been FM all along.

I seem to remember in my teens you could buy TV tuners, to attach to a hifi system in mono of course. The big leap was Zweiton in Germany and elsewhere in the early 80s and NICAM in 1989 in the UK. Prior to that Radio 3 sometimes had simulcast classical concerts on TV.

[Nuvistor]

Originally Posted by patrickgnl

In the UK on 405 line and in France on 625 line, i think i am right in saying the sound would have been AM. So in the UK at least the quality would have improved with FM on 625 line system I.

The sound on 405 was indeed AM but why would a change to FM give an improvement? AM sound would be more prone to ignition interference but by the 60’s that was rare.

[Andy - G8MNM]

German Dalek,

The information was not from Wikipedia but from : https://forum.doctsf.com/t/histoire-televia/29078

This is from the Teleavia website :

Téléavia, aesthetics also matter ", this is the formula associated with the productions of designer Roger Tallon that best defines the beauty of the brand's productions.

To ensure TELEAVIA's success, Thomson called on the famous designer (Minitel, TGV, etc.) in 1963 for its living room model and in 1965 for its portable TV, a true landmark best-seller. "The form was very popular because of the flexibility it inspired. The form, the function and the material are absolutely merged ”declared Mr. Tallon to explain his success and its longevity. It is in this predominance of design that all the quality and resonance of Téléavia resides today.

More than ever, as Plasma and LCD make television everyday life trivial by hardly innovating in design, a product with an astonishing aesthetic will find its mark to wear it: TELEAVIA.

It would seem that 'Téléavia was aquired by Thomson at some point. Whether it was Italian or French who knows?

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by Nuvistor

The sound on 405 was indeed AM but why would a change to FM give an improvement? AM sound would be more prone to ignition interference but by the 60’s that was rare.

405-line TV sound was indeed AM - but the sound channel on a typical 50s 405-line TV had a bandwidth vastly greater [to accomodate drift....there was no AFC back then] than that of MW/LW AM broadcast-radio.

Which meant that the transmitted audio frequency-range could be vastly greater; also it made possible the use of noise-limiters to an extent that was not possible on narrow-band AM. The problem with narrow-band AM is that the sharp transients from the likes of ignition-interference, motor commutators, lightning-crashes etc essentially get lengthened on their way through the selective tuned-circuits, which makes the usual diode-clipper or DC-level-following noise-limiters rather ineffective. The broader-bandwidth/lower selectivity of a 405-line AM TV sound-channel did not cause this pulse-lengthening effect anywhere near as much, so a simple noise-limiter could be much more effective.

[murphyv310]

Hi.
The sound on 405 lines was actually very good indeed. I remember well Bush TV128s and the CTV25 having excellent 405 line sound. I've a 21 inch Ekco Console with an 8 inch speaker, only 2 Watts but a very nice audio.

[Nuvistor]

Re Posts #9 and #10, yes agree completely that’s why I asked the poster why they thought there would be improvements.

[Maarten]

Just by the name of it, Téléavia would have been French. Radiomuseum.org names Téléavia as part of a French aircraft builder, established in 1956. Thomson took over before 1966, probably before 1963 from the information on the doctsf forum.

[German Dalek]

The quality of sound is of course not only a question answered by
the TV standard.
The audio output stage, speakers and controls for treble and bass
are importent parts to make music on television heartful.

There were table set TVs made with speakers which a common in
portable radios.
No question, these kind of sets have no support for stronger bass!

I recognized the difference since I started watching music on television.

Just that was one of my major points to start collecting vintage TV sets
from the mid 70s onwards as a teen.
Watching Disco, Musikladen, Rockpalast (Germany), Avro`s TopPop,
TROS Top 50, Nederland Muziekland (Netherlands), Top of the Pops
(BFBS/SSVC - British Forces Broadcasting Service in Germany),
Generation 80 (Belgium), teached me that 50s TV consoles with woofers
and tweeters, separate controles for treble and bass, cannot be
beaten!
Watching popular music on mid 60s, 70s or 80s sets is no fun!
O.K., these kind of sets are often colour TV sets, but with an awful sound.

Regards,
German Dalek

[Heatercathodeshort]

Originally Posted by murphyv310

I've a 21 inch Ekco Console with an 8 inch speaker, only 2 Watts but a very nice audio.

I have a 15" Ekco TC196 and the sound is very good. Everyone that hears it both non technical neighbours and vintage guys always mention it.

I think the poor quality arrived in 1959 with the 'slimline' 110 degree when it was only cabinet size that mattered. There was no cabinet space for anything larger than a 5" X 3" speaker. Most of the dual standard receivers had very good sound on 405 especially if they employed the PCL86 amp/output valve.
The problem is the general public had no interest in sound quality and were not prepared to pay for it. Providing it was not actually distorted they were quite happy with it. John.

[patrickgnl]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

405-line TV sound was indeed AM - but the sound channel on a typical 50s 405-line TV had a bandwidth vastly greater [to accomodate drift....there was no AFC back then] than that of MW/LW AM broadcast-radio.

Which meant that the transmitted audio frequency-range could be vastly greater; also it made possible the use of noise-limiters to an extent that was not possible on narrow-band AM. The problem with narrow-band AM is that the sharp transients from the likes of ignition-interference, motor commutators, lightning-crashes etc essentially get lengthened on their way through the selective tuned-circuits, which makes the usual diode-clipper or DC-level-following noise-limiters rather ineffective. The broader-bandwidth/lower selectivity of a 405-line AM TV sound-channel did not cause this pulse-lengthening effect anywhere near as much, so a simple noise-limiter could be much more effective.

The last time i saw a 405 line picture was when I was about 15 (i am now 62), i had assumed that as FM radio sound is superior to AM that it would have been the same for TV. Thank you for the explanation...

[SteveCG]

... don't forget gents that France was using 819 lines at the time of these sets ...

[mark pirate]

I have a 15" Ekco TC196 and the sound is very good. Everyone that hears it both non technical neighbours and vintage guys always mention it.

My Pye D18T also has excellent sound from it's 8" speaker, same goes for my Alba TR9874. Most console sets have a decent sound due to larger speakers & cabinets.

Sadly, modern TV's have very poor sound, unless of course you shell out extra for a soundbar or feed it through a decent audio system.


Mark

[MartinMarris]

My childhood was in France and I was a young electronics hobbyist. One day in the early 1970s I found a large, discarded dual-standard set (819/625) dumped on the pavement at the end of our street, ready for the monthly "large item" collection.

I brought the set home and dismantled it for parts (mainly for the valves), for my amateur radio hobby. I remember that it had a huge mains transformer (so presumably, no heater chain). It had also been fitted at some later date with a UHF tuner for the "deuxième chaine" (the second channel, 625 lines, introduced in the late 60s) and holes had been drilled into the wooden cabinet, not very expertly, for the rotary tuning control.

I also remember the "Téléavia" brand and at the time, definitely considered it to be French.

What I remember of the 819-line picture (from other sets, not the above-mentioned one) is that it was very "smooth" (you had to get quite close to the screen to see individual lines) but not particularly sharp. Maybe this was because of ghosting -- we lived in the Paris area and a fair number of people used a set-top aerial. Subjectively it was better than the 405-line UK picture, especially on a large screen, though less contrasty. (I was able to make comparisons because I spent part of the year in France, and part of the year in England, at that age.)

Of course the 819-line signal took a huge bandwidth (14 MHz I think) although the full bandwidth was only used in a few countries, including France. Neighbouring countries, including Belgium, broadcast some channels in 819-line but with a much lower bandwidth and therefore presumably worse horizontal definition.

On the issue of sound quality: when my grandfather, who lived in Hampshire and was hard of hearing, shopped around for his first colour TV in the early 1970s his main criterion was sound quality. His old B&W set was a Bush 128. He ended up buying a Grundig Color 2000 which, in addition to having a superb picture, also had a nice big speaker and a two-position tone control with "speech" and "music" settings.

[German Dalek]

Hi Martin!
Nice write-up!
But as I remember and just checked it out, that Grundig didn`t had this control (Speach/Music).
https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/grundi...0td2000_t.html
Anyway this Grundig had 2 speakers.
It might be an earlier model.

Regards,
German Dalek

[MartinMarris]

Originally Posted by German Dalek

Hi Martin!
But as I remember and just checked it out, that Grundig didn`t had this control (Speach/Music).
Regards,
German Dalek

It is quite possible that I have the model number wrong. But the TV looked exactly like the one you have linked to. The tone control was a small round knob (with only two positions) that was inside the power switch. The power switch is that big rectangular button at the bottom of the control panel, perhaps 6cm or 7cm wide. When you press it, it actually slides out like a kind of "tray" and you can then reach the tone control that is embedded inside the tray.

It is possible I suppose that the UK model was different from the German one, to receive PAL-I, and maybe the tone control was only on the UK models (although that seems very unlikely). If you know the exact model number let me know! Thanks!!