Yes, and thank you for the clarification. I myself never caught that! Plenty of graphs showing an analog video signal show black at the bottom and white at the top, with some even placing corresponding voltage levels such as the graph seen here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_video I have to admit I always assumed it was transmitted in this fashion, but upon further research, I see I was wrong! Thanks for watching!

The cool thing about mechanical TV is that you can transmit the signal on the shortwave bands, so the signal could cross the country, something impossible for analog VHF-UHF TV. Also, every version of mechanical television had to transmit the sound on a different frequency, so you needed a separate radio to hear the soundtrack.

Well, that's part due to the limited bandwidth, with the added perk that the mechanical TV can transmit image 100% of the time without the need for blanking time for the electron gun to reposition itself between lines and frames, while making synchronization hell in the process. BTW electronic TV has sound on a separate frequency as well at a certain offset from the video signal (though I believe some analog satellite TV systems carried digital sound in the blanking interval of the video signal)

+Phredreeke - I hope that you're using international system of units, instead of archaics ones to say such stupidity about French... French drive on the right side of the road, use SI units, and "what the hell" are they doing "the other ways around compared to the rest of the world ??"... USA is NOT the rest of the world... And Fahrenheit is a dumb temperature scale... So unless you support your stance with facts, it seems you just like french-bashing, but the uneducated way (the other way around compared to the intelligent people).

The French were also the last nuclear power to ban above ground testing even after the Soviets and Chinese figured out that it was not a good thing to do. However, unlike Germany, they do understand that you can't electrically power a modern industrialized country of 50 million people with solar panel and wind farms, so they used nuclear energy, which they sell to Germany, who is shutting their plants down. So there are pluses and minuses with everyone. Secam was a good system, the only thing wrong was that nobody else adopted it, except I think that the Soviets used some modified version of it, everyone else used either NTSC, or PAL which was a modified version of NTSC.

Wow.

Hi, Robert - appreciated/enjoyed your piece - very interesting. I think I read the motor driving the receiving disc round, was designed to reach the required R.P.M. but a second winding was fed a frequency which locked the disc to the transmitted scanning,, once the correct "dots" were lined up, so to speak. Do you know if that would be part of the existing signal - or a separate one? I borrowed an ancient book but returned it! All the best.

Bev Wood it could be an audio subcarrier for sync. Jenkins early fax used a slotted disk interrupting a light and photo tube to generate that signal so I think he may have tried that on his “radiovisor”

@@techguy9023 Many thanks - this re-enforces the fact that so many contributing factors have come together - sometimes in a strange and unlikely way.

What the heck!? That's so cool!

That's a long time to be in a TV man, respect!

@@VinnytotheK Yes, IN a TV. It was okay till they started making flat screens. I couldn't suck my gut in any longer. It was getting too difficult for me to crawl inside.

@@buppie2000 Ah okay, wow! I can definitely see how it would be very difficult in this modern age. You hung in there for a long time!

​@@buppie2000 Bud I feel ya. Now try being a fat man that drives a WV Golf. 😜

​@@buppie2000another victim of modernization 😔

just imagine seeing the pre-dreadnoughts in port

IIRC, there was one in the Jimmy Stewart movie, "Call Northside 777" Not 1800s, but still insanely cool for 1948.

@@RamLaska There was a fax machine earlier than that, in "Charlie Chan at the Opera" (1936). By the 1930s, AP Wirephoto images (a form of fax) were being sent by news organizations around the world.

You'd need a lot of time, though. If I recall correctly, it would take something like 12 hours to transmit a picture. I mean,the very early faxes from the mid 1800's.

@@RRaquello Yeah that makes sense given that scanning mechanism was an electrically charged pendulum swinging back and fourth.

A hangover from the early spark plus tuned circuit Morse code telegraph transmitters I suspect.

Well, aren't radio waves just lightning bolts with extra steps?

WAQWBrentwood Your grandfather would mostly be damn impressed by the "digital video/digital audio" terms.

And then he would see the actual programming and opt to go back to the grave.

Anyone noticed that the owner of this channel has removed his background music from each video? Unless it's my idea.

@Joe Duke kek

Supposedly there were actual TV stations made for people with mechanical televisions.

I know right?? I get so hype whenever he says that in older videos! He's easily one of my favorite youtubers!

And now over 1 million!

1.21 million

He's averaging between 24 and 25 thousand new subs each month! That is outstanding!

1.29m :)

Passed more 3 years the channel has now 2,27 millions subscribers.

HA! I must have missed something though. I didn't understand why the disc would have to be that big to get high resolution. Why couldn't the holes just be much smaller and closer together?

@@ChristmasEve777 From what I understood, he wasn't trying to increase the resolution, he was trying to get it to have a screen size of 15 cm square. The holes have to be at least as far apart as the screen is wide for only one to shine at a time. Proper number of holes times holes being 15 cm apart makes for a very large disc

🤣🤣🤣

@@ChristmasEve777 More resolution means more holes, a larger screen means larger space between the holes themselves, but in any case you can only have one hole on the screen at a given point, think of it as a CRT screen, at one point in time a CRT is only actually modifying the light value for 1 particular spot, so if you were to increase the screen size you would have to increase the space between the holes and by in large the size of the disc over all, in terms of resolution, you could make the holes smaller and put them closer together at least in the terms of space between the holes on the inner to outer portion of the disc, though my guess here is that due to the number of holes and the speed of the disc all being a needed constant to produce a picture well this probably wouldn't work to well

@@ChristmasEve777 Yeah he was after size not resolution. Resolution is just as hard to achieve though. If you wanted a 0.1mp equivalent display you'd need a 100kw light source just to have 1w of light get through.

My Grandad worked at Scophony Ltd who were early mechanical TV manufacturers before they became Thorn EMI. He went on to help design the Searchwater radar for the Nimrod anti submarine aircraft! collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/cp39370/scophony-limited

I think we are all surprised at how many of us there are.

Cool! Sounds real fun! :D

They just weren't called "fax" - short for fascimile. I think the police had some early versions for scanning and sending mug shots.

Great bar question: " If you define a fax machine as something that can scan a graphic, convert it to electrical impulses, send it over wires, and have another machine create a copy, guess when the first one was made, plus/minus 50 years!" This should be good for a free drink, but be ready to "prove" !

@@Gribbo9999 I heard it was the Pinkerton's detective agency using that before federal law enforcement agencies were really a thing.

They still ask for a fax in some banks. How about that.

Ross Burke they had morse key telegraphy through wired telegraph poles in the days of the wild west. I find it amazing that somebody could send a 'wire' between towns even back then.

Nerd

! Build it!

Still a 37-foot disc for a 6" screen. Still way too impractical, even at 900 rpm that's still supersonic (1188 mph). And if it's faster than the speed of sound in the material it's made from = boom. It would make a better kinetic energy weapon than TV.

Rectangular holes will work beter

@@fvckyoutubescensorshipandt2718 A basic magnifying glass would allow a physically smaller disc and truncation frame for the same size viewing experience. Appropriate optics on the rear of the N disc would reduce wasted light.

It's not easy to find either bro . respect

@Don Bastardo Or even the side that makes one so depressed that one would have to get antidepressants. *Cough Cough*, CNN, *Cough*, NBC...

Only problem is my dumb brain has a hard time following along, though I do enjoy the videos.

Same. This and Today I Found Out are my favorite channels.

haha me too but also the stupid side is great.

What time stamp are you speaking of?

@@davestout844 He's referring to an animated tv show.

Oh I know what Ed Edd and Eddy is, I just wanted to know at what time stamp of this video it's referring to.

Dave Stout it’s “Knock Knock, Who’s Ed?” But at the tail end of the episode, the monster movie marathon episode. Hope ya find it!

@@davestout844 I'm not sure but I think they are talking about 8:27

The 1965 season actually, but other then at NBC, who was owned by RCA, there were very few colour programs produced before 1965 anyhow.

To an extent this is how DLP televisions worked when Projectors and Projection TVS were getting big

This is correct. I remember the CBS affiliate was the last one to go colour in our area.

And I understand from someone who was around at the time of the CBS color wheel vs RCA all-electronic system demonstrations that the color wheel actually produced superior color. Person who told me is no longer with us, unfortunately.

But that's not the same thing as in the video is it? Just a way of getting colour from a mono CRT? Like the colour 3D thing for the Milton Bradley Vectrex video game console.

I love Techmoan too! Have you watched the 8-Bit Guy? He has similar videos, to a lesser extent.

I couldn't agree more.

Add LGR to your list as well

cjeckersley ooh I love teachmoan

Yep, this is excellent stuff covered in a way that reminds me of techmoan, 8 bit guy, and simon whistler, but still unique and engaging with high production standards. Enjoying it a lot :-)

That is where the Logies took their name from? As a Scot that is a fantastic homage to one of our icons :)

Here in the Netherlands me have "De zilveren Nipkowschijf" (The silver Nipkowdisc) as a price for people who done great work for television.

i was waiting for some aussie to say something about that, good one mate

My grandfather remembers the public demonstration of the Baird system in London. He seems to think it was in harrods. I'm unsure.

His show is now momentarily bearable!!

He's pretty dotty...

Incredible as it may sound, you'll just have to accept that all of that is true.

Hate to say it but, mandela effect is apparently real as fuck

How is that the Mandela effect? Nobody incorrectly remembers learning the fax came before the phone. You just assumed that because it sounds more logical.

Well there were more advanced mechanical sets with over 100 lines in the mid 30s, and mechanical sets could reach 405 by 37 though I’m not aware id they were widely commercialized. They didn’t use the Nipkow disk though but rather mirrors and rotating drums/screws

Ha, I remember that. It was the era when "remote control" meant "having a child". "Turn the telly over, mate" (meaning change the channel from one to ...the other one) "Do the vertical hold thing" And of course, "Give it a thump" And in my house, dodgy volume pot sorted out with two of my Lego blocks jammed under the control. Do you remember the fine tuning control that was around the rotary channel selector ? - known as the Big Wheel and only to be touched in extreme circumstances.

@@gdj6298 YES!!! Omg you're hilarious! you must be British!

@@gdj6298 I'm sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office reading your reply, laughing out loud. My fellow wait-ees are looking at me like I'm insane.

@@hotwireman49 That's what too much telly does for you... I don't know why the Lego is a permanent image in the back of my mind - it probably wasn't a long term thing because we rented our set (everyone did because tellies were a} expensive, b} not that reliable), so any problem, the guy would come and either mend it, or swap our clapped-out bit of crap for another clapped-out (but recently repaired) bit of crap. A further memory from that era - if I was sitting in the way of the telly my Dad would say "Oi - fourteen-inch head!" I've just taken out a tape measure. Fourteen inch screen. We might not have had colour but we must have had good eyesight. Oh, and while I was at it, I measured my head. Don't ask.

And now, a million.

Jeff C enough to make guac outa anything organic!

But who is the dark souls of vsauce?

Tom Scott: The Vsauce of interesting things you didn't know you needed to know.

@@krashd *The VSauce of things you might not have known.

techmoan: the vsauce of old audio tech

Agreed

There's no dislikes anymore....

verdatum Don't! Just don't! It will be absolute carnage. 😂😂😂

It would be smaller, but not slower. The tape in your 15cm, 30hz, 480p tape-o-visor would have to go 7776Km/h.

I think you could improve things by using multiple holes driving separate lights that cover different regions of the screen. But I'm too lazy to think through the geometry. Another improvement would be to use miniaturization on the tape/belt and rely on projection to blow up the image. In other words, the light shines on to a lens that's focused on a screen. So long as you can make the holes tiny enough, and get a light to shine through it that's bright enough to project, but not so hot that the belt melts. Damnit, I'm mildly tempted to make this latter idea.

If you have high-power lasers, you can make a "mechanical" television even easier. In that case, you can just spin one mirror horizontally and one mirror vertically on a motor at 60hz and turn brighten and dim the laser. Again, shooting them at a screen. But I think that's cheating.

@verdatum what you described is exactly how HTC Vive base stations work. In a way mechanical television did make a comeback after all.

Laser printers also use this type of scanning mechanism, just a single horizontal line though without vertical, but moving the drum roller serves that purpose.

A friend (which is not really a friend, more of a person I know) of mine does something with large electric motors in his job. I showed him this video and he said that a motor with a total of 45Kw would be able to do that!

dam furry get outa here wait

The most complex pre-war mechanical system was the Scophony system, i suggest you google it.

In the US at least, none of this is as interesting to us as the primitivism of the original concept.

Amen to that, and in a french-polished walnut A.T.C. case! That was a very nice presentation T-C!

Come to think of it: DLP projectors are mechanical in fact! What's even more surprising, until powerful RGB LEDs came to play, these projectors used fast spinning cylinder with light filters to make it color (we get red image, then green image, then blue, it could be seen if one turns head quickly). So mechanical TV is alive and well on the new turn of evolution!

AllMyCircuits - Check out the Grating Light Valve tech. With its amazing fusion of Lasers (and pulse-width modulation to control color output) and electro-mechanical principles, it appeared to have to potential to relegate DLP to the dust bin, able to reproduce a much broader and more intense chroma range, give us more sync/resolution options, all while reducing power consumption and mechanical complexity. OK, they rely on a processor to create an interference pattern (the foundation of holography, possibly even all of reality as we perceive it, but that's another topic entirely) through which the laser traveled in order to produce an image. Given its compact form factor and flexibility (and the fact it was quickly optioned/licensed by various Japanese electronics manufacturers, including Epson and Sony), it seemed to be the most promising path to practical, lens free laser projection that could fit inside of (and be powered by the same battery) a Smartphone. It's currently being used for certain high-precision lithography processes (PCB/silicon etching, for example), but the inexpensive full-RGB-color-gamut TV's and projectors that seemed imminent have yet to really reach the market (though a Laser TV by - I think, can't recall for sure - Mitsubishi was shown at once of the CESes a few years back, and the only thing I saw next were patent disputes and said manufacturer claiming not to be onboard, accusing that company of basically hacking one of their sets to create the prototype. Still seems like a tech with lots of promise, but not much commercially out there using GLV chips at present :/

You basically stole the idea of a mirror drum, but described it terribly. www.earlytelevision.org/Yanczer/mirror_drum.html

Wow! That is cool stuff. My idea didn't come from this amazing invention. If I seen this page I would have said "check this machine out, I want to make one of these myself" instead. But my idea is a bit different than this, that is why it is so called "poorly explained" the difference with my mirrors, they would look more like thin strips like tinsel with a slight curvature and twist so that passing through the light beam just a few degrees would quickly scan across the screen horizontally and could give high analog horizontal definition.

I own a mechanical TV set. A mass-produced one. It's called DLP-projection and has a chip with numerous moving mirrors. Amazing technology. Every pixel is full color, instead of being devided in RGB. Later models even had overlapping pixels, making the picture super smooth, without any grain. Power consumption is very low, especially with a LED light source. The screen doesn't crack when hit and channel logo's don't "burn in". You don't have to toss it after the screen is used up, as with LCD's & plasma's; you simply exchange the bulb. DLP's lost the battle with high def LCD's. Projection TV's in the 80's were horrible because of the viewing angle, and having to close you curtains on bright days. I've got a 2005 Samsung SP50LX which is awesome though. Even has HDMI. Nobody steals it, cause nobody wants it. And it's very heavy and cumbersome, having a fixed pedestal. (Which includes a subwoofer; the sound destroys any flatscreen on the market.) Its depth is about 36 centimeters, which isn't too bad for a 50".

I believe the last reincarnation was the Mitsubishi Laservue. Unparalleled picture quality, but steeply piced at $7000. Too bad they pulled the plug. Read the reviews on Amazon to get an idea.

They are also great for gaming. Incredibly low latency.

There's a few mechanical televisions in Bioshock Infinite.