In Germany, TV test programming using 625 lines began in 1950 - programmes were available 3 days a week until 1952, when a regular daily service was launched. In both The Netherlands and Denmark, regular 625-line broadcasts began in 1951.
UHF wasn't used until 1957.
One slight annoyance is we cant get ITV HD here, as Channel TV only broadcast in SD, it is possible to "download" it on Sky but its only of use if you watch it live, which I rarely do as I tend to watch ITV recorded.
BBC regional news spends half the time on Jersey/Guernsey/Sark then the rest on Devon and Cornwall. BBC radio Jersey is good though, listen to it in the car a fair bit.
I echo the comments of a previous poster about the range of digital TV. France uses up some of the channels but we are still wasting channels on Gay Rabbit, BBC Parliament and C4+1 when I would much rather some of the other channels instead.
One slight annoyance is we cant get ITV HD here, as Channel TV only broadcast in SD, it is possible to "download" it on Sky but its only of use if you watch it live, which I rarely do as I tend to watch ITV recorded.
So ITV HD is still not available on the DTT DVB-T2 mux ?
I guess your only 'fully functional' option is a Freesat HD PVR, set to a mainland postcode ?
In Germany, TV test programming using 625 lines began in 1950 - programmes were available 3 days a week until 1952, when a regular daily service was launched. In both The Netherlands and Denmark, regular 625-line broadcasts began in 1951.
But no clarification of how a signal could have been received in Jersey when the nearest transmitters were either Brighton or Paris (on a different system).And how did they achieve a 625-line version of a signal originating in 405 ?
There were increasing problems with the channel 2 reception from North Hessary Tor, due to co-channel interference (CCI),
The ITV feed to Fremont Point being broadly similar, an ''off air'' receiving station on Alderney which picked up channel 9 from Stockland Hill - 80 miles away - and passed it over a microwave link to FP.To avoid interference with French stations both Stockland Hill and FP had to use channel 9 and the signal towards Alderney had to be restricted to 200 watts to ensure there was no interference with the signal from Stockland Hill meaning many viewers on Alderney had to receive a less consistent signal from Chillerton Down on channel 11.
But no clarification of how a signal could have been received in Jersey when the nearest transmitters were either Brighton or Paris (on a different system).And how did they achieve a 625-line version of a signal originating in 405 ?
Well, we've established NOS Netherlands started a TV service in Oct 1951 on 625 lines. The primary site for that was Lopik, Ch 4 Band I 100kW. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that it was that being received, in a burst of 'ducting' ?
And how did they achieve a 625-line version of a signal originating in 405 ?
here you are:
READERS will see from our route map of the Coronation relay to Europe (following page) that the British 405-line signals are converted to the continental 625-line
standard at Breda in Holland. The converter equipment, designed by the Philips Research Laboratories at Eindhoven, is basically the same as that used by the B.B.C. at Cassel last year for changing from French to British standards—a c.r.t. monitor displays the incoming picture and this is viewed by a camera working on the new standards. The situation is rather different at Breda, however, in that the pictures are going in the opposite direction and are being converted from a low number of lines to a higher number of lines.
The first known case of ''upscaling'' a picture ? I wonder what it looked like when it reached 625 lines ? Even more so when it reached 819 lines in Paris ?
The first known case of ''upscaling'' a picture ? I wonder what it looked like when it reached 625 lines ? Even more so when it reached 819 lines in Paris ?
Notice how the line structure is clear on the screen and that it's quite obvious it's a screen because you can see the curviture of the tube? (This is even clearer when watching the DVD in full quality on a TV set)
(This is one of a handful of ITV 405 line videotapes that were converted to 625 optically rather than electronically - the effect is much the same as in the situation being talked about)
So how do the signals reach the Channel Islands these days - I assume SABRE has been abandoned in favour of either fibre or satellite ? I know the BBC have a reverse feed because I have seen live 2-ways with the Jersey studio.
So how do the signals reach the Channel Islands these days - I assume SABRE has been abandoned in favour of either fibre or satellite ? I know the BBC have a reverse feed because I have seen live 2-ways with the Jersey studio.
All three muxes at Fremont Point are fed by fibre from mainland coding centres.
CTV receive their network feed from Chiswick, and return their output to the coding centre by fibre.
The Beeb in Jersey are linked to BBC Plymouth for opt outs, contributions, and 2-ways by, fibre.
Thanks for that Mark. Is SABRE in a museum somewhere ? I have an old ITV Handbook somewhere with a picture of it.
I'm told the SABRE panels at Alderney are still there, and looking rather battered !! The later, and smaller array at Cherbourg has gone (presumably because Arqiva were being charged for its presence)
Further to my post on 28th January, here is the letter from Mr. F.N. Foster, Director of Fosters Limited, that was published in the (Jersey) Evening Post on Saturday 10th February 1951. It is complete apart from the last paragraph, which I didn't have time to transcribe. Please note that the the phrase "in certain parts of the island" was highlighted in bold in the original publication, so I have highlighted it in bold here too:
The position re Television reception
Dear Sir,
We feel that a clarification of the position regarding television reception in this island is opportune at this moment.
Following various Press references to this during the past three years, it is not unnatural that public interest should be aroused to quite an extent.
We, Fosters Limited, in common with a number of other firms, have been conducting experiments in television and have received a degree of success far beyond our expectations, in certain parts of the island, i.e. in the northern parts where ground is high in several places. We have also received a signal at fair strength in the Portelet and St. Aubin’s area, although at the latter the Paris station came in with sufficient strength now and again as to block the London transmission, in one case sufficiently strong to push the line synchronization part of the apparatus so strongly into a condition that the normal line frequency of the London transmission, 405 lines per picture, was superseded by the Paris transmission for a few minutes, which, of course, is being transmitted at 625 lines per picture.
Our success on the north coast was sufficient to justify a group of Jersey radio traders approaching the General Post Office with a view to erecting a low-power repeater station, sufficient to cover the Jersey area. After protracted correspondence it eventually evolved that, due to the monopoly the B.B.C. held in the matter of radio and television transmission, such a repeater station would be cutting across the government policy and would require a special legislation, which was not thought by the General Post Office to be essential, due to the small population of the Channel Islands.
Summarizing, may we say that at any high point on the north coast results of our experiments allowed us to assume that reception would be a strong possibility, but a continuous good strength signal can nowhere be guaranteed.
At other parts of the island, reception is definitely improbable from any of the mainland transmitters until such time as a local repeater station would be erected.
F. N. Foster, Director.
Two queries:
1) Given what has been said in the letter, does anyone think they were actually able to watch pictures from Paris or would it have been impossible to do that on a set presumably only equipped for 405-line transmissions (or would they have had a set capable of receiving both?). What if a 625-line picture was being transmitted on VHF at that time rather than UHF- could it have been received that way on a 405 line VHF set or was it just impossible?
2) He mentions Paris as being 625 lines- do we conclude then that he must have been mistaken about this?
The BBC and French TV (RTF) jointly mounted ''A Week in Paris'' in August, 1950.The programme originated in 819 lines and was fed from Paris to Lille then Calais where a BBC standards converter was installed and the picture became 405 lines for the remaining journey to London.As far as is known at the time of the Coronation the French only had transmitters in Lille and Paris, both operating on 819-lines.
At the time of the Coronation the good people of the Isle of Man asked the BBC to install a temporary transmitter so they could watch the events and the BBC did. Clearly the Channel Island authorities took a different view.
Comments
UHF wasn't used until 1957.
BBC regional news spends half the time on Jersey/Guernsey/Sark then the rest on Devon and Cornwall. BBC radio Jersey is good though, listen to it in the car a fair bit.
I echo the comments of a previous poster about the range of digital TV. France uses up some of the channels but we are still wasting channels on Gay Rabbit, BBC Parliament and C4+1 when I would much rather some of the other channels instead.
So ITV HD is still not available on the DTT DVB-T2 mux ?
I guess your only 'fully functional' option is a Freesat HD PVR, set to a mainland postcode ?
Well I thought as much.
NOS TV and DR both started started 2nd Oct 1951
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederland_1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danmarks_Radio
Co incidence, or something deeper that they both launched the same day ?
Nice article about how the international live broadcast was done and which transmitters were in use at that time.
Correct!
But no clarification of how a signal could have been received in Jersey when the nearest transmitters were either Brighton or Paris (on a different system).And how did they achieve a 625-line version of a signal originating in 405 ?
There were increasing problems with the channel 2 reception from North Hessary Tor, due to co-channel interference (CCI),
The ITV feed to Fremont Point being broadly similar, an ''off air'' receiving station on Alderney which picked up channel 9 from Stockland Hill - 80 miles away - and passed it over a microwave link to FP.To avoid interference with French stations both Stockland Hill and FP had to use channel 9 and the signal towards Alderney had to be restricted to 200 watts to ensure there was no interference with the signal from Stockland Hill meaning many viewers on Alderney had to receive a less consistent signal from Chillerton Down on channel 11.
- ITV Handbook 1963
Well, we've established NOS Netherlands started a TV service in Oct 1951 on 625 lines. The primary site for that was Lopik, Ch 4 Band I 100kW. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that it was that being received, in a burst of 'ducting' ?
here you are:
http://www.thevalvepage.com/tvyears/articals/coronation/stanconv/stanconv.htm
Something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8kQyZ76mCk
Notice how the line structure is clear on the screen and that it's quite obvious it's a screen because you can see the curviture of the tube? (This is even clearer when watching the DVD in full quality on a TV set)
(This is one of a handful of ITV 405 line videotapes that were converted to 625 optically rather than electronically - the effect is much the same as in the situation being talked about)
All three muxes at Fremont Point are fed by fibre from mainland coding centres.
CTV receive their network feed from Chiswick, and return their output to the coding centre by fibre.
The Beeb in Jersey are linked to BBC Plymouth for opt outs, contributions, and 2-ways by, fibre.
All a bit dull these days really.
I'm told the SABRE panels at Alderney are still there, and looking rather battered !! The later, and smaller array at Cherbourg has gone (presumably because Arqiva were being charged for its presence)
http://tx.mb21.co.uk/features/sabre/index.shtml
http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/alderney.php
And the Cherbourg SABRE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0DJtopioSM
Two queries:
1) Given what has been said in the letter, does anyone think they were actually able to watch pictures from Paris or would it have been impossible to do that on a set presumably only equipped for 405-line transmissions (or would they have had a set capable of receiving both?). What if a 625-line picture was being transmitted on VHF at that time rather than UHF- could it have been received that way on a 405 line VHF set or was it just impossible?
2) He mentions Paris as being 625 lines- do we conclude then that he must have been mistaken about this?
At the time of the Coronation the good people of the Isle of Man asked the BBC to install a temporary transmitter so they could watch the events and the BBC did. Clearly the Channel Island authorities took a different view.