Retro Thing

Turn Your Old Tube Television Into A Smart TV

The Toshiba Childcrusher 100 XL

I'd like you to meet my new bedroom TV.

It's not fancy and it's not a flat screen, but I'm ecstatically pleased to save it from the landfill.

Like millions of tube sets around the world, it was banished into storage almost 10 years ago. I told myself that perhaps it would be useful at some point in the future, when the truth was that I just couldn't bear the thought of recycling a perfectly good 5 year old TV. And so it sat inside an old entertainment unit, patiently gathering dust

It was my Netflix addiction that encouraged me (Okay, us. It's not the sort of thing you can lug around the house by yourself) to drag it up from the dark, moldy depths. For years, I was unable to use it with streaming services -- my Apple TV is too pretentious and upmarket to offer analog output connections, and the idea of watching VHS tapes in the evening seemed a bit too quaint, even for a retro junkie like me.

But then Roku stepped in to save the day. Their little Roku 1 streaming box (which I have) and the brand new $50 Roku Express Plus offer old-fashioned composite video output in addition to a new-fangled HDMI connection.

Yeah, the remote is bigger than the Roku.

Now you can stream content to almost any old tube TV made in the last two or three decades. The picture might not be quite as clear as you're used to with a newer TV, but it'll do as a second or third set. Roku even includes cables in the box.

Minutes after my Roku arrived, I cheerfully connected it to the TV and waited for evening like a young child on Christmas Eve. As soon as the sun dipped below the horizon, I eagerly hopped onto the bed and started streaming Stranger Things. Because what could be more appropriate than a sci-fi / monster / conspiracy show set in the early eighties?

The Roku Express Plus sells for $49.99 at Amazon and other major retailers.

Learn Cut-Out Animation With Terry Gilliam

Before the Monty Python boys created their landmark show that changed comedy forever, they worked on other shows. We've written about "Do Not Adjust Your Set" and "At Last, the 1948 Show" before (what remains of both series is available on DVD). The guys all got together and agreed that they wanted to do something very different with comedy. They had tired of the conventional structure of setup-punchline, setup-punchline. They liked the idea of creating a premise without having to wrap it up in a neat bow every time.

"Do Not Adjust Your Set" showcased Gilliam's trademark cut-out animation. Partially this was a method to save on time and budget, but mostly it was a quirky style Gilliam made his own. Traditional animation is more or less set in stone long before the animator snaps the movie camera's shutter on the first frame, but with cut-out animation you have room to improvise your "performance" while clicking away. You're not simply recording sequential drawings as in conventional animation. You toddle little paper figures around before the lens, inviting you to make impromptu tweaks. The process is almost musical that way.

The Pythons credit Gilliam's unhinged animations with inspiring the freewheeling creativity at the core of the Monty Python show, and also with providing them with a method of segueing between sketches. Again, the animation is a mix of the artistic and the totally practical. Maybe it's this pragmatic yet freewheeling approach that continues to inspire animators today. What is South Park, and practically every Flash animation you've seen, if not an outcropping of Gilliam's work from (gulp) 40 years ago?

This video clip features Gilliam on Bob Godfrey's "Do It Yourself Film Animation Show" in 1974. Gilliam talk you through the steps he takes to created his demented animations, but notes that it's all about the story. My favorite quote:

“The whole point of animation to me is to tell a story, make a joke, express an idea. The technique itself doesn’t really matter. Whatever works is the thing to use.”

You know who gets this idea? Young animators and filmmakers on YouTube. While I rue the absence of classic cartoons on broadcast TV, YouTube offers such an amazing and inspiring collection of animation styles. You used to have to wait until an animation festival his the local artsy movie house to get a load of so many new visual ideas. Yes, there's sure a LOT of junk out there, but creative visual artists do get that it doesn't matter whether you create your project with a camera phone, Flash, or a 16mm Bolex, your piece is going to stand or fall on its story.

We've seen Gilliam give voice to his warped imagination through animation, acting, filmmaking (I decided to go to film school after seeing his film "Brazil"). It matters less how he says it, it just matters that he has something to say.

A side note: sadly I can't imagine a presentation as simple as this video clip on broadcast TV today. The "lesson" would be so dumbed down as to be useless, the segment would be 3 minutes at the most, and the "personality-driven" hosts would keep interrupting. When will today's TV producers realize that frenzied panic is not the best way to tell every story?

Television's Future - A Prediction From 1981

"The decade that just ended, may mark the finale of television as we have known it, an industry dominated by three corporate mastodons, geared to the mass market. Crowding the horizon are new creatures - videocassettes, videodiscs, pay television, satellites, a growing public-television system, ad hoc networks, superstations."

"The television of today will probably be transformed into the home video center of tomorrow which will harness the new technologies into one all-purpose unit. Even Ma Bell is steadily creeping forward to grab a piece of the telecommunication action."

"For the first time since television entered our homes, the territory monopolized by the three networks is in danger of shrinking. The question now is whether the interlopers, if successful, will transform the wasteland into a forest of genuinely diverse vegetation or litter it with more of today's trash."

- From the introduction to "Up The Tube", Sally Bedell's 1981 book on the 70s TV landscape under TV network executive Fred Silverman.

Except for the references to videocassettes and video discs, this could almost be an assessment of TV today. Sure there are some shining spots, but network tv is slowly fading to black. I just started reading this book telling the story of Fred Silverman's amazing career which winds its way through network TVs most powerful days. As with so many historical accounts, I find myself scratching my head at how many similarities there are to today.

It's also interesting to see Bedell's prescient view of TV's future, though some parts of her prediction took until recent years to take root. The very idea that a telecommunications company would be involved with broadcast content must have seemed outlandish in 1981. The past few years have seen a number of old media/new media conglomerations like AOL-Time-Warner, and MSNBC. Apple's content deals pave their long-rumored path to the living room... and even stodgy old Intel has their sights set on television. Not content to merely power other people's products, Intel wants to provide content just like a broadcast network. Rumors are that they are engineering a product that operates less like a computer or DVR and more like... you guessed it... television.

The national and international views made possible by television back in the 50s is still one of the best tricks ever in retro gadget-dom. It's just unfortunate that executive bravado, lowest common denominator programming, and just plain ignorance of what the audience wants is pushing network TV further and further on the back burner, displaced by technology companies.  It seems like when broadcast TV strikes paydirt, it's in spite of what network execs do, not because of what they do.

Broadcast TV's stubborn evolution/diminishing relevance is edging closer and closer to Bedell's prediction from 30 years ago. So for about half of TV's existence, this prediction has been on the table, and now that it's here, TV executives are caught as if by surprise? What I'd like to know is just how much longer the old guard can hold out...

Is A Fake Security Camera Like A Scarecrow For People?

Some parts of the world keep a watchful CCD eye on the people all the time. It hasn't quite happened here in the states yet, but obviously some places are old hands at it. Stores and banks have always had a secret room in the back that's a nest of wires and a sleepy art school student keeping a bleary eye on a row of black and white monitors.

The tech may have changed to tiny discreet cams and a single computer, but has always been tremendously expensive to set up a real security camera network. Some places will mix a few fake cameras in with the real ones to save money, then someone discovered that as long as the staff can keep a secret (and the bad guys never open a Radio Shack catalog), ALL the cameras can be cheap fakes and still be an effective deterrent.

This camera is far too heavy to be a fake. I can't tell too much about this cam. The only information is a sticker on the back and "Video Surveillance System" helpfully stencilled on both sides. The sticker is for "Advanced Metal Technologies" in O'Fallon Missouri which looks to be more of a manufacturing company than a security service. The camera is a heavy sucker, so let's open it up to see the technology powerhouse keeping our lives safer.

Whoops...

Let's review... we've got a fake camera that sees nothing, does nothing. Oh wait, to be fair, it does blink a little red LED on the front. I expect that giant lantern battery kept that little flashy LED circuit going for months, maybe years! I can't tell when exactly this phony camera is from, but I'd guess the 70s or perhaps a misguided 80s. Real security cameras were ugly affairs, and this fake sure qualifies. So even though this camera looks quite fake, I think that in the dark it might just pass. Just.

Obviously it's all about saving money on an elaborate security system while still fooling the non-distinguishing criminal element. One shabby video store I used to go to employed the fakeout camera, but were a little too cheap about it. They nailed up an old super 8 camera. Perhaps the bad guys aren't also camera connoisseurs, but it does seem a bit of a giveaway to have a big bolt sticking through the word "Kodak".

Today's security conscious don't need to concern themselves with a phalanx of expensive fakes. There are dozens of models of fake security cameras out there, many for just a few dollars. More elaborate models have what looks like a glass lens (instead of a shiny black plastic fake like most cheapies), and use a motion sensor to start panning and blinking a light when someone lurks nearby. Even the cheap ones look relatively convincing, and the light and motion may draw the potential thief's eye and enourage him to pack up his stripey shirt and domino mask, and head back to the hideout.

It may even be easier than that to make your place look more secure. So many genuine security cameras look like a little golf-ball webcam, and no one expects those to move or beep. You can just hit the thrift store and dot an armload of webcams all over your store and hope for the best. Though it stops working if someone nips in and steals the webcams...

Convergence X: Fake Camcorder Does It All - Except Shoot Video

Flea markets aren't jst a lot of second had stuff. You'll also find lots of strange new products that come from far off lands (I'm trying to be nice here...). I've seen this Nokina camera countless times, usually priced at $30-50. It looks like just another castoff 90s camcorder, but why so cheap?

Looks like Nokina has learned that the cheapest way to make a camcorder is to leave out the camcorder part. This is a 35mm still camera. The fixed-focus lens has a filter thread, an what looks like auto-exposure electronics. You can line up your shot in two ways - neither of which actually work very well. Either use the hokey viewfinder which gives you some vague idea of where the camera is pointing, or fold out the hokey fake side "monitor" to get a misty and vague idea of framing via a mirrored (that's right... the image is backwards) upright finder.

Four AA batteries juice the camera's powered film advance and rewind (a surprise luxury in an oddball unit like this). So when you're buying film don't forget to pick up some batteries... and cassettes - audio cassettes. Yes, there's a built in tape player. A little door pops open on the side where a video cassette would typically go, but it's really a Walkman type mechanism. You can either listen to music via headphones, or built in crummy speaker. So I guess you can use music to soothe your subjects before you snap a pic.

So there you have it. A fake camcorder that is really a somewhat advanced 35mm point and shoot and walkman in one. The viewfinders are both so crummy and misaligned, that maybe they actually DO give you an accurate preview of the rotten photos you're likely to get with this thing. The Nokina has some heft though, so I was curious what sort of image processing power was weighing the thing down. Turns out to be a metal weight inside. Always the sign of a quality product.

So who in the heck is this for? I can only imagine that it's for duping people at flea markets, or duping your family that you splashed out for a new 90s camcorder? The Nokina is too expensive to be a novelty or a toy, and clearly a lot off work went into creating such a bad idea... so who is the market for this?

50 Years of Satellite TV

The Telstar 1 communication satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on July 10, 1962, ushering in the modern age of intercontinental broadcasting and telecommunication. It was owned by AT&T and developed at Bell Telephone Labs as part of an international project sponsored by the USA, UK and France. Its $3 million trip atop one of NASA's Thor-Delta rockets was the first commercially sponsored launch.

Telstar was placed in a medium altitude elliptical orbit that circled the earth approximately once every 2 3/4 hours. This resulted in a short 20 minute window during which intercontinental communication could be established between Andover Earth Station in the United States and Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station in Cornwall, England or Pleumeur-Bodou in France.

Goonhilly became the first ground station to receive a live intercontinental TV feed on July 23, 1962, although the French were the first to receive a patriotic American test image from Andover, Maine.

Telstar 1 was successful but short-lived. High-altitude nuclear experiments by the USA and USSR dramatically increased radiation levels in the Van Allen Belt throughout late 1962 and led to the satellite's premature failure the next February. A flurry of activity followed. The first geostationary communications satellite - Hughes Aircraft Company's Syncom 3 - was launched in August 1964, followed by Intelsat 1 - the first commercial communications satellite - in April 1965.

The Telstar name has stood the test of time, with its most recent namesake - Telstar 18 - successfully launched in June 2004.

As of it's 50th birthday, Telstar 1 remains in orbit, enjoying the view.

"Lost" Ernie Kovacs Album Released

Longtime readers of Retro Thing may have picked up on my life-long admiration of Ernie Kovacs, early tv comedy pioneer and genius, no less. Kovacs invented many characters throughout his TV career. One of the most enduring is Percy Dovetonsils, a lithping dandy of a poet who'd bestow his oddball odes on a sometimes bewildered audience.

Percy painted a fine monochromatic picture with his tiger striped smoking jacket and cigarette holder, all while stealing sips from a large martini. Besides the outrageous lisp and wardrobe, it's Percy's eyes folks remember best. What started out as goofy novelty store glasses with painted on half-asleep eyeballs, became just as much a trademark as Percy's self-congratulatory little giggles.

Today it would be easy to point at Percy as being a rather politically incorrect character. Then there are those TV historians who point at Percy as being TVs first openly gay character. The performance is a collection of 50s stereotypes, but charming in a way. I'll leave this issue to the TV historians and sexual revolutionaries to debate. All I know is that Percy is clearly very happy with who he is, bless him.

Percy was one of Kovacs' most popular creations, and Ernie recorded a volume of poems for Vanguard Records back in 1961, along with notes and mockups for the LP's cover. The album never progressed beyond that point, as a tragic auto accident claimed Kovacs not long after. The unreleased album became the thing of rumors and was thought lost forever. Kovacs. We're fortunate that archivist Ben Model discovered the studio tapes recently, and after adding a piano score (Model is an accomplished accompanist for silent movies) the album is available for the first time today!

You can find "Percy Dovetonsils Thpeaks!" on CD, (delicious!) vinyl, or digital download (purchase of either CD or LP also includes full album digital download as well as many extra tracks unavailable anywhere else). I just had to get the LP - the first 1000 are in luscious lavender.

It may have taken decades to dust off the poems within the frilly covers of Percy's collected works, but I daresay it's been worth the wait. Omnivore Records has put together a really classy package. If you use the links below to purchase the CD or LP on Amazon, you'll be helping out Retro Thing as well as showing your love for these thuperb thonnets. Thankth!

Percy Dovetonsils on CD (plus free MP3s)
Percy Dovetonsils on LP (plus free MP3s) - first 1000 LPs pressed on lavender vinyl!

The Last Good Thing About VHS Tapes

When you get into the retro game, you'll meet people who will do anything to justify their devotion to their old favorites. It's subjective; love what you love! You don't have to come with some inalienable reason to justify your retro lust. Sometimes those discussions can be fun and interesting. For example, LP collectors have a whole raft of reasons "explaining" why vinyl is superior and remains relevant today. The CD vs. LP argument will continue unabated forever - fair enough. There are some valid technical points that are worth taking about.

It gets weird when folks feel that same pressure to rationalize their love, and it's for something that doesn't have much going for it. I've met people who try to tell me that cassettes sound better than CDs, or that a well mastered VHS tape looks better than a DVD. Those aren't good arguments to try to make; cassettes are far noisier than CDs, and a VHS tape has about half the resolution of DVD and lots of analog noise in the picture. Nothing is going to change those technical shortcomings. Enthusiasts will never win the argument on technical merit, so they should move the benefits discussion elsewhere.

Like we've always said here on Retro Thing, it's okay to like something just because you like it. Sure, it's great to uncover some hidden and forgotten benefit of something old - we do it here all the time. Recently I've been watching some Laser Discs on a modern high def LED TV. The display is far too precise, and the images look just awful... but the LDs still have a distinct (and admittedly odd) benefit in this modern world that has nothing to do with image quality. They're often mixed in with LPs at the thrift - so I can get a Criterion Collection remastered feature film (which used to cost easily $80+) at ten to the dollar. When DVDs came out and were clearly here to stay (for a while anyway...) my friends with large VHS collections tried to come up with elaborate rationalizations of how their VHS tapes still had an edge somehow. They don't, nor do they need to.

Back then, I do remember saying that the only remaining benefit of a VHS or cassette tape is that is that it stays at the point you left it. You have to re-cue DVDs and CDs if you leave off in the middle. The jokey meme I've included with this post reminded me of that argument. It's a funny place to draw your line in the sand. So by all means, collect what you want to collect, watch what you want to watch. No one can tell you not to like it. Point with pride at your wall holding thousands of VHS tapes... but understand if I'm busy on moving day.

Amazing 1980s In-Dash TV For Your Car

In those halcyon 80s summers, it was important to show all your neighbors how great your car stereo was. Wait... "great" isn't the word... Oh yeah: "Bowel-rattlingly loud" is what I meant to say. Not much has changed, I guess. The people in my neighborhood now welcome summertime by dropping the car windows and pumping out anti-social women-hating music (except the guy who blasts 70s Joni Mitchell - I still hope to meet that guy).

Back to suburban 80s Chicago, and showing off your car stereo. The sheer amplitude made it easy to notify the neighborhood that your car stereo could pump out some serious decibels. That's what bums me out about this amazing car stereo with a built-in 1" black & white CRT television. No one is going to know that you have the coolest car stereo ever unless they shove their head into your car and squint really hard to make out the picture.

I'm amazed at how nice this stereo looks. Back then, off-brand gear usually betrayed its cheaper pedigree by taking shortcuts in quality. Check out this interior shot to see just how the engineers at Yoko were able to cram in a fully functional tape deck and a mini CRT - they even thoughtfully included a magnifier for the tiny screen! I think it goes without saying that this would have always been an illegal device, but it would have been nice to be able to at least monitor the soundtrack of your favorite TV broadcasts (especially live local sports) while you drive.

If I had a car this could fit in, I'd absolutely rig it up and risk the wrath of the local police. Of course the analog tuner wouldn't get anything except our one remaining low power broadcast TV station. Not to worry - check out the jack marked "VCR" on the front. That's an aux in so you can plug in a portable video deck (oh, murder!), your camcorder, or how about a DTV converter (powered through you cigarette lighter, of course) with an antenna? Better still - hook up an old black and white Pong console, many of which ran off of batteries anyway.

Today it's easy to be unimpressed about car video. We've all seen a disturbing number of mini-vans outfitted with seat-back DVD players (just can't get those kids into reading a book, eh?), and of course anyone can whip out a phone or laptop to watch video on the go. The desire has always been there, it was just so much harder to achieve back in the 80s. There are probably a LOT of reasons this never became a standard car add-on.

Oh, and to close with possibly the retro-nerdiest thing I've ever said here, You know what I really wish? I wish that deck were compatible with the strange video format of Pixel Vision (the toy camera that recorded video on regular audio cassettes). The Fisher-Price lo-fi camera's grainy output would look pretty sweet on a 1" screen.

Thanks to the guys at the audiokarma.org forums for digging up these photos.

Reach For The Remote - Bohus Is On TV!

Bohus? Who's That?

Hi everybody! Remember me? I haven't been able to post for a while, and I've really missed hanging out on the pages of Retro Thing for so long. james is taking a much-deserved break for a little bit, so I'm going to pinch hit for the next couple posts... provided I can remember how this new-fangled blog thing works.

In case you're curious where I've been, I got a terrific job as one of the hosts and producers of a new morning TV show called "Eye Opener". It's on every morning from 6-8 on KIAH channel 39 in Houston, but will be rolling out to other markets very soon. The show streams live on the website if you care to check it out - or you can find clips at eyeopener.tv. One of my regular segments is a retro piece called "One From The Vaults". It's like a TV version of what we do here on Retro Thing. I'd love to know what you think, so here's an example...

 

Would love to hear your thoughts on the video in the comments section. We've got some cool posts coming up right here very soon, so make sure to stick around. Glad to be back, everybody!

Related:

Radio Shack remote control extender
Sony universal remote inspired by Star Trek?
Too many buttons on your remote?

TV Tubes Caught In The Act

Gary writes, "Here are some pictures of tube tv's the moment they're being switched off."

I usually shy away from anything that an artist describes as "self-referential, concrete photography." But Stephan Tillmans' Leuchtpunktordnungen exhibit brings back memories of old tube TVs flickering into offness.

Perhaps it's worth writing to TV manufacturers to suggest that they should add a simulation of the effect to their modern lineup of LCD panels. But they'd only laugh. And, sadly, the only remaining tube in my house is digitally controlled and behaves much too predictably when switched off.

But back to Mr Tillman. His photos are cool, but his claim that "The breakdown of the television picture describes the breakdown of external reference" is art school pretension at its worst. He simply stumbled upon a charming analog glitch and snapped some cool photos.

Stephan Tillmans: Leuchtpunktordnungen - Luminant point arrays

Hacking The Atari Video Music

The Atari Video Music was styled to resemble a high-end stereo component that produced a kaleidescope of weird video effects that pulsed in time to your favorite Kraftwerk or Pink Floyd LPs. If offered a pair of RCA audio inputs and an RF video output, along with a series of buttons to select several profoundly named effects including Solid, Hole, and Ring. There is also an Auto mode, just in case the unit's owner is unable to escape the giant blue spiders long enough to press another orange button in a timely fashion.

Switched On in Austin has taken the Video Music a step further by offering custom modifications. These include a composite video output, upgraded 1/4" input and thru jacks for both audio inputs, a distortion output, 8 waveform mixers and hue modulation. A pre-modded unit costs $650, but they'll also modify your own box.

Atari Video Music Custom [via Matrixsynth]

This Isn't My Parade Of VCR's

Okay, I know I have a weird name and I own a lot of stuff, but you guys can stop forwarding me this video asking if this is me. It's not me. That isn't my giant pile of VHS VCR's. That isn't my accent, nor am I greenscreening myself on top of wildly panning footage of my proud collection. 

There are some interesting brands represented in the video, to say nothing of the aesthetics of how to Youtuber Markorepairs chose to display and discuss them all. If you don't see your favorite VCR in this 8 minute epic, maybe you can check out one of Marko's more than 900 other videos.

I don't know what I like best about this video. Pronouncing "hi-fi" as "hee fee", the many different background music choices, or that "Panasonic is best mechanics" (sounds like a new tagline to me). I do like Marko's collection, and he's got a couple VHS players in there I'd love to have myself. Oh, and always remember, "when factory models is stupid drop off carbitch when maschine still running life." So may it be said of us all.

YouTube homepage of Markorepairs

Standard-Definition TV Is Getting Hard To Watch

My household has only one TV (the horror!), a standard-definition tube TV (stop laughing!). The signal feeding my 20-inch box comes from the cable company, so I didn't have to worry about those converter boxes when the broadcasters made the switch from analog to digital. Nonetheless, I can report that TV is getting hard to watch for us square-boxers.

First, there's — you know — the definition. Sports producers long ago stopped worrying about analog rabbit-ear-users, but they also have started ignoring us standard-definition viewers. One way they do this is by shrinking the on-screen text. The clocks, the scores, the stats, they're all getting smaller. (Small text isn't a big deal for high-definition TVs.) I cannot tell you how many times I have wondered, "Is that a 6 or an 8 in that score?" These days, tennis scores take intuition to decipher, because of the black text on white background.

Pantomation - Video Art The Way It Used To Be

I love old video performance gear. The real-time analog nature of the art form still holds exciting possibilities. Pantomation was a system from the 1970's that did some amazing stuff using what today would be considered a rather slow and low res video camera and a PDP computer. Pantomation was able to follow specific colored objects in the visual field using chromakey, then trigger audio and graphical events based on those movements. This is amazing stuff, especially when you see how the tracking system worked in concert with music and video synthesizers of the day.

Today's video game consoles are caught up in the "all new" area of gestural control, but look how capable the Pantomation system was at achieving this sort of effect decades ago. I would love to see more of this kind of kinetic art today using these breakthrough video game technologies. I miss the exuberance of video art pieces like these. Lots of computer based art these days just comes down to being elaborate computer animations. With all these great new real-time performance technologies, maybe we'll catch up with how cool the Pantomation was back in the late 70's!

related:

Wicked DIY analog video synth
Replicating the PDP-8