NBTV by VK3AML, 32 lines, 12.5 pictures per second, recorded 4 November 1973.

Television in a 10 kHz bandwidth, 32 lines, 12.5 pics/second. This was the first recording I made via my "live" electronic flying spot scanner on 4th November 1973 - I was 19 years old at the time. I was scanned by the light of a P11 phosphor CRT (type 5LP11), focussed onto my face through 4 1/2 inch diameter magnifying lenses. A 931A photomultipler picked up the light reflected by my face and fed the resultant video signal to one channel of a stereo open reel audio recorder. The other channel of the stereo pair recorded my voice. I was a bit lost for words after an all-day construction effort, culminating in this video recording being made at 1 am. The recording was made at my parents' home, 6 Torring Road, East Hawthorn (Melbourne) Victoria, Australia. I was in my first year of Electrical Engineering at Swinburne Tech College at the time, hence the reference to exams.

The original "audio" tape was converted to a Youtube-compatible .mp2 file via software kindly provided by Gary Millard, refer: http://users.tpg.com.au/users/gmillard/nbtv.htm

All of my earlier "video" recordings on audio tape had employed mechanical scanning, with a Nipkow scanning disc. This electronic scanner was developed in association with the late Daniel Van Elkan, then VK3UI (b.1952 - d.1986), who designed the 32:1 divider chain for the scanner.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NBTV
• 32-line
• Chris Long
• VK3AML
• November 1973
• Baird television
• flying spot scanning
• NBTVA.

[svofski]

Thanks for sharing this, this is very interesting indeed!

[stitchkaboodle999]

Incredible. Well done. I've watched pirate movies with worse quality.

[whisk0r]

You were video blogging 'before it was cool'! Thanks for sharing!

[msf60khz]

Hi Chris

I saw your pictures at the very first NBTV meeting in Nottingham on a giant Nipkow disc and they looked just like you show here. Glad you are still keeping well. I made a hardware 32 to 625 converter based on Pete Smith's ideas in reverse, and it worked really well. It showed my problems were always in the CRT and neon monitors.