The Secret Life of theTelevision - Remastered 

"It's actually those phosphors you are watching at this moment behind your screen" At the time of making this who would have foreseen that a person a few decades in the future would be watching this on a millimeters thick hand-held computer, probably more advanced than the best super-computers at the time of filming, with a screen made of millions of microscopic LEDs.

I particularly like the gentleman, Gerald Wells, who set up the the "West Dulwich Radio Museum" in his house, calmly explaining, "You could not kill yourself on the high voltage in this one. Well, you could, if you were actually stupid."

No show has inspired me to learn more than this one. Thank you Tim and (RIP) Rex!!!!!

My college physics professor told us a story of his time with an engineering team, perfecting a large screen color CRT TV for a major brand. They came in to work one Monday morning and found the un-shielded, 85-95kV prototype was missing. In horror, they found that the division vice-president had it taken and delivered to his home to impress the guests at his child's birthday party, who were packed in, sitting close to it for hours on a low simmer.

This series is directly responsible for a lot of my love of how gadgets work.

"This programme may contain scenes some CRT collectors may find disturbing"

Good memories in this video. I took four years of High School electronics. Once a snotty officious administrator brought in a TV expecting it to be fixed for free. I don't remember the problem precisely. It was something simple, like a shorted MOV. In any case, I reversed the connections to the yolk's X-axis. This results, of course, in the picture being a mirror image. Several days went by before he came back complaining that text was no longer legible on his TV. I told him that he was probably seeing a mirror image because he had put the plug in the wall backwards. "That must be it", he said and went home to flip the plug. I don't remember any repercussions but there must have been some. Fifty years later, I still have no regrets.

I need a remastered version of the episode on tape recorders in my life!!! "This was recorded, on sticky tape and rust!"

5:05 "He then moved to Trinidad to make jam, but was defeated by bees."...The life stories of some of these inventors honestly sound worthy of films in their own right!

The name Farnsworth sticks in my head.

Rex will always be remembered by me

“It’s actually these phosphors you’re watching at this moment glowing behind your screen” Me watching from a LCD

I'm guessing that this is the kind of thing Colin Furze grew up watching. I can see a lot of similarities between this show and how Colin started out.

my favourite part is 22:30 when rex compares electronic diagrams to a map of the british isles. i have been remembering this choice piece of wisdom for 30 years every time i use a street directory.

At the age of 7, I did the magnet trick on our TV when my parents were out. It scared the heck out of me when a purple smear appeared in the corner of the screen. Luckily for me, after a few power cycles I managed to clear the evidence before my folks came home.

I’m with just about everyone else here, very glad to see this remastered and even more so to hear your reflections about it now Tim! Cheers!

In the early days when you could replace your own coils, my brother-in-law picked up a coil his dad had laid out, turned it round the other way and put it back. When dad put it all back together the picture was perfect, but upside down.

Deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Rex Garrod, a true innovator. 😪 I love my gadgets because of Tim’s series! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍🏻

"There's a real art to burning those cathode ray tellies..."

In the early 70's, I took a correspondence course on home entertainment electronics. The last part of the course was building a 25" color TV from a kit. It probably worked for 10 years or more, but I had to repair it several times. I did some television repair work for a few years and also repaired VCR's. I don't miss those days. Motorcycles and automobiles were more fun to work on..

Great to see this again, the new bit on remote controls reminded me of a friend of me mum who had a set with an ultrasonic remote but the set had a habit of changing channels by itself, after many engineer visits the budgie was ruled out - by moving it somewhere else and eventually it was discovered that her knitting needles could produce the same ultrasonic signal as BBC2.

Good to see Gerry Wells immortalised. When I saw this first time around, I think in the early 90's, I had no idea who Gerry was. Later when I resumed my interest in old electronics and joined the BVWS, I visited the vintage radio and tv museum in Dulwich, London, which was in Gerry's house, and actually met him. Fascinating guy but unfortunately he died not long afterwards. He has left an incredible legacy though and the museum remains intact as a trust for all to enjoy.

The bit at 8:05 where you casually lifted half a tube off totally blew my 8 year old mind when I first saw it. Partly because it was the first time I'd seen inside a telly but also because you'd actually sawn a TV in half. We only had one TV in our house at the time, and the fact it was a scrap one escaped my notice ;-)

So, so exciting to see this remastered. And just as my dad introduced me to the show originally, now I get to introduce my kids to the show! It had quite the impact on my future interests and passions too. Here’s hoping it ignites their minds in the same way!

This was so inspirational when I saw it aged about 14. Thankyou Tim.

By far the most vivid thing I remembered about this series, was the burning televisions. I was really young when I first saw it, but knew that was a real statement, while, watching it on a television. I’m glad I can show the series to my kid.

amongst my most prized possessions : The Secret Life of Machines series 1, 2 and 3. on DVD bought directly from Tim Hunkin in about 2004 when I found it for the first time. The local tv station would not be rebroadcasting it and would not be buying further licenses. DVD+R disks have stick on labels with hand written "PAL x 4". sleeve art includes a colour photo on AGFA paper on the back. inside is the episode list with numbered chapters and Tim's own commentary. I cannot believe how excited I am to see this channel and the new series of TSLOM.

My grandparents had a television with that remote. I never knew that’s how it worked. Fascinating! Thanks for such a wonderful program.

I remember after watching this I used a big magnet from a speaker to deliberately distort the picture on our TV secretly each morning, in order to try convince my parents we needed a new tv. Eventually it worked!

love the one about the Video recorder too

During the best days of youtube for a few of us, it was practically traditional to implode a CRT now and again. In the 90'sI missed the ending of this show when recording on tape when it originally aired. So seeing Tim smile as the tubes implode on film is quite something I love that!! In 2013 I even did a few myself, only one good one (not on my channel). I don't do those anymore because CRT's aren't in infinite supply but it was ok to do in the 90's. Planning for the mess of horribly sharp glass was very involved when I did it 10 years ago. Got cut once despite by best efforts.

My father was a TV repairer for one of the big rental companies and showed me how to distort the picture on a B&W TV. I went back to my mothers house and tried the same on their colour set. Mangetised the shadow mask and the degauss system couldn't fix it. Mum had to call the rental company to fix it. Father got the micky taken out of him for weeks by the other techs, as he worked for the same company.

19:18 "It is easy to make something which is fool-proof, but it is quite difficult to make something idiot-proof." I have loved this quote ever since I first saw this episode in the 90's. It is something I have thought about a lot since, whenever I write instructions.

Wonderful work, fantastic series, I'm so glad you've remastered these and presented them on RU-vid. One quibble: where is Farnsworth? Zworykin and Baird get their due, but no mention of Farnsworth, who was as responsible as Zworykin for the first practical all-electronic TV system.

Just a delightful series, Tim. So nice to see it again.

I so enjoyed the original series, the remastered versions are just superb. And Tim, your commentary at the end is simply icing on the cake. Bravo! And thank you.

I can't imagine how you managed to cut an evacuated glass tube in half! Remember these shows first time round in my 20s and now enjoying them again in my 50s! Excellent stuff.

Tim, thank you for bringing these back! I soaked up every minute of these as a child to learn and I'm sure they were a large part of my love of everything mechanical to this day. Thank you again!

As a kid, I screwed up my TV with a powerful magnet as well, when I found out the screen was somehow controlled with magnets. We didn't send the TV to a TV repair man. I used the same magnet to sort of sweep away the interference/damage without knowing if it was possible.

Besides the bulk and weight of old CRTs, one thing we'll not miss is their flammability, which is pretty much unheard of now with LCD TVs. When my granny was alive in the 90s, she had that awful experience. As she went to answer the door, she heard a bang from the living room and went back to see the TV up in flames. She got help of a neighbour to put the fire out with a garden hose before it spread, but it caused smoke damage throughout the house.

I love this series so much, I loved it then and I love it now, RIP Rex

I've been a gadget & trivia freak for 46 of my 52 years. I just stumbled across these videos, but I wish I had seen them when I was younger, I would have chosen a totally different career!

In the military we had an electromagnetic wand that we would use to degauss computer monitors that had been on for months or years. You would hold the wand in the middle of the screen and then start to twirl it in a circle while keeping it close. Then you would slowly pull the wand away, all the while continuing the twirling motion. The farther you got from the screen, the larger the circle motion got. So you were making sort of a cone as you moved away. This would normalize the CRT and regain normal picture colors.

Funny how kids who are inquisitive and bright can start out by finding ways to muck about with machinery, like Tim did with the magnet on the TV screen. Then they grow up and turn that bright, inquisitive mind on to the task of fixing or even building machinery, rather than just wrecking it (or parts of it, in Tim's case). Yes, I can imagine a father getting rather upset because their young son has used a magnet on the screen of the lovely, new, colour TV that the Beeb very kindly gave to him because he was one of their valued employees.

Compared to most television shows, it amazes me just how few people worked on it, and yet the final product is such a high quality piece of work, even if it does have a few warts. I quite enjoyed hearing Tim talk about the episode afterwards, and largely agree with his assessment that the wide screen format is "very annoying". And that is a very cool remote control! But I imagine that clicking noise would get old fast.

I’m just so happy that these are remastered. I remember watching these as a kid. The tv episode seems the most outdated, but it makes me realise just how romantic the CRT actually was... a feat of design to achieve a goal. It sort of demands a remake of Plasma and LCD technologies. I love the endings with Tim. Thank you ever so much.

My parents had a TV with a remote.. ME. "(expletive deleted) Stop turning that tuner so fast boy, you'll wear it out!" Thanks for releasing this series on RU-vid, it brings back fond memories. Dad and I would watch the show and actually talk to each other for a half hour without arguing! :)

I still use a 15" "Low Radiation" CRT monitor on my modern PC just for giggles and tend to use it for RU-vid. So when Tim says "It's actually these phosphors that you're watching at this moment..." he's not at all incorrect.

Superb !! Thank you Tim !!....... That Zenith remote is worth mega money !!!

thank you for a great insight. We used to have a TV with the sound type remote. We found that if you rattled the knives and forks in the cutlery draw, it changed channel. We often got the latest sets sent to us from the Co-op TV service. Our engineer Eddie, who would be sent to fix them when they went wrong had worked on radar sets during the war. He would often work on the TV with it switched on and live, i am sure health and safety these days would not allow such things.

I remember these programs and was so glad to see them being remastered. Secret life of the radio is one of my favourite along with this one.

I only just found out about these extra interviews, and now I'm going to try and watch all of them. Since Tim is still alive I'd really love it if he could do one more "Secret Life of" season for the newest "contraptions". RIP Rex as well

I love the way us Brits refer to them as 'tellies' or a 'telly'. Much quainter than 'TV' ☺️

My grandmother had one of those "Zenith Space Command" TVs back in the 1970's. I watched it myself into the 1990's, probably including all the original "Secret Life" episodes.. The TV is long gone, but I kept the remote because it's such a cool idea. It also reminds me of the time when my very young self had taken apart a mechanical alarm clock, was messing with the mechanism, and scared the heck out of my mother and myself when the TV behind us suddenly turned on and started changing channels. Apparently, the clapper in the clock vibrating without hitting the bell was in the correct frequency range to be recognized by the TV. The tuning was still mechanical, so there was a great deal of noise as the motor rotated the channel knob rapidly back and forth. I got into engineering, and now I work with computers the size of postage stamps (remember those?) and OLED displays roughly the same size, with resolution much better than the old CRTs. It makes me wonder how things will have changed in another 30 or 40 years.

I found out about that the remote control worked by sound by accident. I happened to have some copper coins and I was shaking them in my hands - when the TV changed channel! This scared me at first (it was around the time as the film "Poltergeist" came out, with children communicating with ghosts through the telly and things moving about). Then I calmed down a bit and realised that the channel only ever changed in response to me shaking those coins, and I actually found it funny! I showed the rest of the family and my Dad realised what was going on. Turns out, you could even get the TV to change channel if you whistled at it! A bit like the telephone "phreakers" who learned to mimic the sound signals used by the telephone equipment. They used whistles and tone generators to hack the telephone system into giving them free long-distance calls! Sweet! Nowadays, people can talk long-distance via the Internet and it doesn't cost any more than your standard Internet charge.

My Grandfather had one of those Zenith remote control TVs. It was a black and white portable. Portable meaning it had a handle on top and weighed about 50 lbs. It was all metal and vacuum tubes. I think it had two remotes. One did all the functions and the other was just volume and channel. When a button was pressed you could hear the chimes ring as they were all in the audible range. Holding down the button would allow the channel or volume to keep advancing. Releasing the button would cause a damper to stop the chime vibrating. There was a separate section inside the TV that would decode the chimes and operate the functions. The volume and channel were turned by motors and I thought it was neat to hear the tuner clunking around. The old style TV tuners had a very distinct sound to them.

Takes me back to watching this when I was in school.

Fascinating series, We take so much for granted!!

Ha! Years ago I 'warped' the picture of our workplace computer CRT monitor with a rare earth magnet....inspired by guess who? Was a mystery how that happened....

Back in the mid-90s in the U.S., before The Learning Channel stopped teaching people and went full-on moron (watch some TLC content from the past 15 years and you'll agree) this show was on at various times and I just fell in love with it. The low budget, the quirky British humor, the gaffes left in like the explosion at the end of the Fax episode--all of it was great! I still recommend this show in social media from time-to-time and I'm always shocked at how few people have watched it. So happy to see Tim embrace TSLOM, bring the picture to a better quality, and keep the show alive on YT.

Great to see this content restored and enhanced with commentary by Tim! Ah, the Golden Age of The Discovery Channel!

That was great to see that again, especially remastered and with Tims thoughts at the end. I still have the original series taped on VHS, from the Channel 4 broadcasts. I guess I can ditch them now!

Hi Tim. I've watched all of your "Secret life of Machines" multiple times decades ago, and I occasionally replay a few of them. They are so well done. At 27:30, you mention old remote controls. One interesting problem with the ultrasonic remotes is their susceptibility to audio noises. For example, the noises from dropping things (dinnerware especially) on hard floors would often be interpreted by the TV as a command. Drop a fork and it changes the channel! Thanks for all of your videos.

I absolutely loved this series! I was so disappointed when there were no more made, by far the best thing on television!. I headed about the Under the Pier Show a few years ago (Southwold in Suffolk, honour Tim by visiting it) a really great experience, well worth the 3 hour trip. Thanks Tim!

Fun to learn about the idiot box. I've never had one myself as they are dead common but interesting none the less.

Loved these shows when I was a young lad in the 80's and it's great to see them again Tim, It's really sad to learn about Rex who was a legend.

Thank you. Hope you do the rest of the series this way. Other copies on web & yt stretch to fit wide screen and looks wrong.

Burning Tellies would be a wonderful name for a ska band 😁 Me too, I have the experience of distorting the color tube's masking mesh with a magnet back when I was a kid in the 80's. I was completely scared when the color splotches didn't go away after the magnet was removed, but was able to _mostly_ restore it back by carefully moving the magnet around further and further away. Took me maybe an hour before it was acceptable on most pictures...

Tim. Many moons ago, on a little not for profit TV station (TVO) here in this little block of ice up North on the 49th parallel, I watched all your episodes. I watched them religiously. I actually looked more forward to your little program than anything network TV had to offer. And I remember you giving a sign off to the end of this series. I only learned years later that end of the series meant season in the land of fog and palaces. Well, for TVO, it was the end of your series. I came upon this, the last time I saw you all those years ago, and remember how bittersweet your expression was. I wondered if I remembered it right. Looks like one thing still works for this old fud...his memory. In all these years, you're still one of the few shows I remember with fondness. I learned a whole lot from you (and am a sewing machine mechanic/fanatic because of you), and went on to dig into things a little deeper, and to try and understand what makes what tick. You were a gift. I just wanted to say "Thank you". Putting this show together looks harder than, well, it looks hard. And with your hand in so many pots, it was probably even harder. But at least 76.3 thousand people across the globe remember you fondly as well, and still continue to revel in your odd but wonderful sense of humour, your intelligence, and most importantly, your charm. I hope life has been a blast for you. A fan from the "cube". Dave.

Superb!

I love love love this series. I can watch it over and over again! Thank you so much to both you gentlemen for bringing so much joy and knowledge to nerds all over the world! :)

I already knew how to fix TVs when this came out but it was fun to watch. I am a big fan. Thank you Tim.

The RCA TV I remember from my childhood had an electronic or digitally controlled tuner but manual power and volume knob. We typically changed the channel with our VCR remote and also used a rotor motor controlled Showgun antenna. I can’t find pictures of the antenna at all but remember it being white and cylindrical in shape with a curved aluminum dish on one end with red or red-orange lettering “SHOWGUN” written on the sides.

Amazing more please I show these to my two daughters and they loved them. The new led one is also great, thank you for taking the time to do these.

Tim, during your commentary after the episode, is that device with the large butterfly-shaped metal plates in the lower-left corner of the frame an absolutely bonkers high-voltage capacitor??? PLEASE show us some experiments with it!!!

Many thanks for uploading these with commentary- My grandmother had a television with that exact same "Space Command" remote control! I think I may still have it somewhere, actually. I always wondered how that thing worked.

Oh wow, I'm so glad I didn't see that pile of tellies burning back when I was 7, I'd have literally been scarred for life.

Wonder if that collection of early televisions are still around? Certainly a great collection!

I remember watching this on its first run and being both surprised and sad when I heard you say, "particularly since it's the end of the series."

You're still my childhood hero! Thanks to you i still tinker and make things :) guess i can finally delete the torrents and hope for a remastered download! Still feels odd ripping things from here lol

Thank you for bringing this episode back, loved the secret life of machines series all those years ago. The good old CRT telly is virtually extinct now. They are great for experimenting with and I saved a few for future projects.

I watched the Secret Life of Machines series back in the 1980's. Tim , yourself and the late Rex Garrod rip always presented in a easy to understand and down to earth manner. I think your's and Rex's presentation style encourage me more and gave me more confidence in taking things apart and trying to fix them. Iv'e since worked in Electronic Manufacture for over Twenty years after gaining a qualification at college but I think Iv'e actually gained more knowledge from practical experience. Regarding Television. I always remember first seeing a photo of the late John Logie Baird with a picture of his first mechanical Television prototype made from scrap parts. Again this inspired me to think that things can be achieved with the resources that people have. Iv'e enjoyed the updated uploads that you have produced and your new series , The Secret Life of Components. It's also nice to see your workshop. I like your idea''s including your central bench allowing access all round the work and your multi sockets mounted on the workshop roof frame. Many thanks ,all the best Tim, Andrew, Cumbria.

There was one time back in 2010 or so that I worked on tech support for a cable company, and a customer called in with a strange issue. It wasn't with the cable at all but with the tv, and they didn't know who else to call. Whenever they turned on the kitchen blender, the channels would change on their tv. I was pretty baffled by this until I remembered a bit of tv history. Turns out they still had one of those ancient tvs with an ultrasonic remote, and the blender must have been producing some ultrasounds of its own. I apologized for not being able to fix the issue, but I still think they were relieved just to know what the heck was going on.

This is probably the best explanation on how a shadow mask CRT works that I've ever seen.

What an absolute delight to see all of these remastered on here.. This series was my go-to geek pleasure in the 90's and I particularly loved The secret Life of the Video Recorder, which, ironically, I videos and used to show to anyone who'd watch it! "One of the most accurately measured things in the home" is a line that has stayed with me.. haha.. My journey from bedroom geek editing tape to tape wound up with me opening a film studio and production company, which I still do to this day. Science like this is so crucial to spark kids imaginations. So glad Channel 4 put this on when I was young to do just that. I shall thoroughly enjoy making my way through your channel, Good sir.. lovely to see you still gobbling gizmos together.. :) Mathew

Wow! I recorded this on my old VHS Ferguson Videostar many years ago. Thanks for all the brilliant stuff Tim.

This was amazing, thank you! I'm 35, I grew up in a household where we had monochrome and color TV, we had a VCR too. I knew a lot about TVs and saw some more recent explanations of how a CRT works but I still get new info out of this old video. And the remote control at the and blew my mind! Is that some sort of piezo-electric thing, like the sparker of a modern cigarette lighter? Looks super retro-futuristic, I love it!

These series from Tim Hunkin have sparked a new course of supplemental learning for me. I'm an engineer of different sorts of the digital realm, and I thoroughly enjoy these timeless series and pick up many nuances and new tid-bits of the common components I utilize. Well crafted production and lessons like his many wonderful projects and arcade machines. I wish we can currate some of these into the Pinball Hall of Fame here in Las Vegas NV!

The very basics of television at the beginning of the program I find interesting. When they discovered light interacting with the electro-magnetic field it must have been astonishing. It's stuff like this which keeps the theory of a mysterious "Aether" medium for carrying waves across distances stubbornly unfalsifiable.

Alas, would have been lovely if you could get hold of the original 16mm footage!

I loved the animations as a kid, I still like them, simple yet funny.

Great to see the old show again and also your thoughts on it. I also did the magnet thing on the telly back in the early 80's but luckily the purple mess it left vanished the next time it was powered up.

I think it was this episode that really encouraged me to be an engineer. Never thought I'd actually end up helping sort out the PA at one of your lectures in Bury St Edmunds a few years ago. Many thanks for uploading this and all the others and for the extra commentary at the end. Would love to buy or download the DVD that's mentioned on your website.

I know I'm being "that person", but I wish those old tellys, or at least their components, had been (re-)recycled in some way, instead of being torched. Still, it's wonderful that you preserved them visually in the series. Thank you! 👏😊

Amazing that at the very very end of the CRT engineers where able to get a 1080P picture out of CRT but only up to a 32" screen but the fact that a CRT could achieve this was very fascinating.

Fun history lesson about TV. I grew up in the 1950s so old TVs were a great source of electronic parts. I was impressed with the cutaway of the CRT. I assume they released the vacuum first but getting such a nice slice of the tube must have been hard.

Thanks Tim, the only other copy I found of this episode was a rotten tape copy.

Yes Tim is definitely right about the CRT sets I still have 4 in our home Sony 28" Panasonic 28" they seem to fill the pitcher better when showing programs like The Avengers, etc on DVD

22:02 "When a repairman repairs your telly" - ahh, the good old days, I remember them well. Such a brilliant series. Why don't they make programmes like this anymore, it's mostly mindless fodder for idiots on tv these days. I would love to see a remastered version of the video recorder episode.

This is my absolute most favorite episode!