[mythtv-users] MythTV with Vintage Gear

[Brian Wood]

On Friday, November 26, 2010 08:31:35 pm Andrew C. Stadt wrote:
> On 26/11/2010 4:55 PM, aaron wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 16:30, Brian Wood<beww at beww.org>  wrote:
> >> But it did once actually produce a picture from a Myth system,
> >> although B+W and pretty soft (the CRT is pretty low on emission).
> > 
> > Very nice. I can't come anywhere close to competing with that, but
> > I have used my Myth system on my parents' Sony TV from 1980.
> > 
> > The TV is 30 years old and we haven't had any problems with it.
> > Sure, the picture's not the sharpest, and it has no direct inputs,
> > and mono sound, but it still works perfectly. And I still think it
> > has a better picture than the newer (though still old) Grundig TV
> > they have in the bedroom.
> > 
> > The amp connected to the Sony TV (well... actually connected to the
> > VCR... :) ) was my dad's old quad-channel, although it was replaced
> > a few years ago with a surround-sound amp. The speakers are still
> > the same Sansui set he's had for as long as I can remember
> > (probably from the 70s, I'd guess)
> > 
> > Myself, though... I had an old Sears TV that I got used from a
> > friend, who got it used from someone. It was dying so a couple
> > years ago I upgraded to a 40" Samsung (one of the first 120Hz
> > models, I think).
> > 
> > The only vintage gear I'm using is my AthlonXP 2800+-based Myth
> > system ;-)
> > 
> > aaron
> 
> Not doing it anymore, but when I was doing my initial myth setup
> (0.17?), I wasn't sure how the WAF was going to be, so initially had
> it hooked up my grandfathers old Zenith console TV, one of their
> first colour units.  As I recall, I had to hack together a svideo to
> composite adaptor (just an old s-video cable with a capacitor to
> filter it) to an rf modulator to hook the darn thing up to the TV,
> and some ancient stereo receiver.  It worked surprisingly well, but
> as the WAF increased, so did the budget for the project, and all the
> parts ended up getting upgraded.

Sets of that vintage rarely had any way to input baseband video, and had 
to be "jeeped" to do so.

The maker would remove all of the expensive RF and IF stages, and 
install a 75-cent BNC jack to turn the unit into a "monitor". In spite 
of the obvious economic advantages, this seemed to increase the price by 
hundreds of dollars, probably based on the assumption that only 
commercial outfits (who presumably had money to burn) would want this.

Even some RCA "broadcast monitors" were just jeeped consumer TV sets, 
sometimes with underscan capability, because the directors rebelled at 
over-scanned pictures.

It wasn't until after the advent of home tape machines (initially Beta) 
that consumer gear started to have video inputs standard.

When the price of VHS machines started to drop close to zero, it was 
actually cheaper to buy an entire tape machine than an RF modulator.

The economics of scale result in some strange things.