Shape of water film - vintage US TVs galore!

[stevehertz]

I recently watched the excellent 'Shape of Water' film and was enthralled to see so many vintage TVs from 1962. It's set in the USA, so no British sets obviously, but still eye candy for VTV enthusiasts. At one point there's a shop full of them on display! Throughout the film some of them are shown 'working' although it may well be the usual DSP tricks. One thing though, at one point a set is shown being controlled by a (as far as I could see) a wireless remote control (non-wired). Is that right? Did the US have such remotes at that time or was it a case of 'licence' for the sake of the scene. If they did then they put us to shame as ours came much later. In the photo below the remote can be seen on the settee.

Anyway, watch it if you can, lots of sets are featured, nearly all with 'round', double 'D' screens. Plus it's a very good film in its own right, well worth watching - in my opinion.

[Tractorfan]

Hi,
There's a small box on top of the TV with two round knobs(?) I wonder if that's some kind of early 'set top box', or something to do with the remote controller?
Cheers, Pete.

[newlite4]

The remote control would have used vibrating reeds which would be plucked by the large buttons on the top surface. An ultrasonic receiver in the TV front panel would decode the brightness, volume and channel sound waves. The set top box looks like a UHF to VHF converter common to this late '50s to early '60s period.
Neil

[G6Tanuki]

Yes, I saw them in that movie [I won't call it a 'film' since no celluloid stock was used in its production!] and was intrigued.

"Pinger" wireless remote-controls using tuned reeds were certainly a feature of US TVs from the 1950s: https://www.zenith.com/remote-background/

Before the 'pingers' there were light-beam-activated controls.

[usradcoll1]

Zenith held the patents on the ultrasonic "Pinger" type remote.
Motorola, RCA and a few others used a transistorized ultrasonic type transmitter to produce the tones needed to perform the functions. Some manufacturers still used wired remotes. Hospital sets still seem to use some form of wired remote.
Around 1980, all regular sets went with infrared remotes.

[hans]

Originally Posted by stevehertz

One thing though, at one point a set is shown being controlled by a (as far as I could see) a wireless remote control (non-wired). Is that right? Did the US have such remotes at that time or was it a case of 'licence' for the sake of the scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHkvpZ1HiCM

[Graham G3ZVT]

I knew what that would be before I clicked it!

At Granada Rentals the first remote controlled set we offered was in 1975 a Salora, we called it the Finlandia C22NZ3.

It had an ultrasonic remote that used a single C cell. It was multifunction and gave a lot of trouble, the oscillator was free running and, if I remember correctly, switches put various values of Suflex capacitors across a coil.

We engineers worked to rule, and threatened to go on strike unless they paid us extra for this "New Technology", but I don't recall much coming out of it.

[music-centre]

I had a Philips G11 with the Ultrasonic remote control around 15 years ago and that worked well, it wasn't just step up and down for the stations, if I remember right there were 6 station buttons and as well as the volume it was probably brightness up and down?

Of course they are a lot later than the US sets - 1977 or so?
Steve.

[Heatercathodeshort]

Ekco and Philco [Thorn] produced models in 1961/2 that employed a light beam to change channels and mute the sound.

Murphy did it with a pair of reeds like a tuning forks to carry out the two functions.

Early American receivers employed servo motors to actually turn the conventional rotary pots. Not much new in this world. John.

[Argus25]

I enjoyed seeing the Vintage TV and video monitors too and realized that they had quite a bit of help from somebody with knowledge of period correct television.

Their manfish concept reminded me of a late 1960's episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Probably few people would pick up on this, because he only appeared in one episode of many at the time and the idea of a manfish like creature faded from memory, even for most who watched the original series. Photo attached from this episode shows him having a fight with scuba divers. Of course in those days there were no computer generated special effects just latex rubber suits and other makeup.

[simpsons]

I believe that it is either an early UHF converter box or cable box sat on top of the television.

Chris

[cheerfulcharlie]

There is an early wired remote seen in this old play about 2.26 in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKQPe7oWntA


Was it truth or myth that ultrasonic remotes could upset the dog and you could change channel by dropping your bunch of keys?

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by hans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHkvpZ1HiCM

Great ad, thanks for the link, lovely vintage stuff. And what a lovely TV set that is? I wouldn't mind that now! Not with NTSC though..

[Welsh Anorak]

Of course 'we' had the torch remote control in the early Sixties. America favoured (favored!) the pinger.
The first proper remote control I saw was the Saba F series. this was a fearsome beast with rotary controls on the TV which turned mysteriously when you pressed the appropriate button on the ultrasonic remote control! And this a year or two before the G8 and Rank single button 'pingers'.

[emeritus]

In the early 1970's, one of my colleagues at Plessey built a three-channel ultrasonic remote control to control three 13A sockets for a bed-ridden relative so that he could control a light, a radio and a TV from his bed. Only three buttons, toggling On and Off on successive presses. After the relative died, my colleague used it himself. His one certainly could be activated, not only by shaking a bunch of keys, but by the clink of the spoon on his cereal bowl when it was empty.

[Brigham]

I first saw these on The Lucy Show. My father said 'We'll have them here in ten years', and he was more or less right.
Thankfully, not everything from 'Lucy' turned up over here. I really couldn't get used to Jack and Vera Duckworth walking through a doorway into the g'rage and trying to sell 're-treads'.

[egrandUS]

I haven't seen the movie yet, but the set in the photo in the first post in this thread appears to be a 1965 Zenith color TV. So, if the movie is set in 1962 it would be a bit off. I'm not sure what the box on top of the set is. The TV obviously has a built in UHF tuner by the two large knobs on front, and in 1965 all TV's in the US were mandated to have built in UHF tuners. Also, I don't remember seeing any set top UHF tuners with two knobs like that. Maybe it's supposed to represent an antenna rotor?

Here's video of a collector with a similar set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H1caXzHclw&t=312s

I'm not a Zenith collector or expert, but I'm not sure that particular model offered remote control. Zenith was the inventor of the mechanical ultrasonic remote control. They called it "Space Command" and introduced it on the market in 1956. Admiral also came out with a mechanical ultrasonic remote the next year and claimed they developed it independently of Zenith. However, Zenith sued Admiral over it and forced them to pay royalties on their units.

As was mentioned in an earlier post, RCA came out with an electronic ultrasonic remote in 1959. The unique aspect of RCA's system was the remote control receiving circuit inside the set had a switch on the front so you could deactivate the system when the set was turned off. Zenith's stayed active all the time and was known to sometimes turn themselves on if it detected something in the same frequency range as the remote.

General Electric came out with a remote that used radio frequencies in 1959. They had a transistorized battery radio transmitter for the remote. They only offered it for about three years.

[hans]

Originally Posted by Welsh Anorak

Of course 'we' had the torch remote control in the early Sixties. America favoured (favored!) the pinger.
The first proper remote control I saw was the Saba F series. this was a fearsome beast with rotary controls on the TV which turned mysteriously when you pressed the appropriate button on the ultrasonic remote control! And this a year or two before the G8 and Rank single button 'pingers'.

That Saba was early, but Grundig had a (7 button?) electronic US remote at the same time. Excactly how they managed to adjust the settings without "turning the knob" would be interesting to know. It wasn't done digitally.
Philips also had an electronic US remote option, maybe a year or two later, with a large remote with lots of buttons. I think I never saw this remote, but the first RC4 series remotes came with the same housing here.

[Argus25]

Originally Posted by egrandUS

So, if the movie is set in 1962 it would be a bit off.

Here's video of a collector with a similar set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H1caXzHclw&t=312s

In the comments on that youtube link, somebody remarked the this set came out in 1963, if that was correct then they would not have got it very far off. It is interesting in the scene from the movie posted by the OP, it seems to be a monochrome image, maybe they were trying to make it look older too.

In general early American TV sets were always somewhat futuristic in their designs and they were often the first with innovations with various remotes & set top boxes for UHF. I guess with the enormous market there it funded R&D well at places like Zenith and RCA. Many Americans were able to watch color TV in their homes in 1954 on RCA CT100 chassis that employed the round color 15GP22 CRT. So color was already old hat in the mid 1960's for them, that is, if you could afford it. The engineers at Zenith seemed to have a particular knack for creative circuit designs.

[Brigham]

Another interesting observation in the film 'still' is the curious habit the Americans had in the '50s and '60s, of having their 'Teevee' screens down on the floor. It fascinated me as a kid; it just looked so 'wrong'.