Vintage RCA Television: RCA XL-100 ColorTrak 1975 (Rare Sales Briefing Film) Solid State TV 

Hi NorCal715, thanks for your great observation. I appreciate the input! ~ Victor, at CHAP

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject Thank you for this amazing video. Keep up the good work!

Yes, PAL was made to overcome the issues with NTSC. The US could not switch from NTSC because it would involve changing everything.

We had no trouble with tint not long after this.

RCA went out of business in 1986. What you had was a cheap Chinese set using the RCA nameplate.

@@summersky77 Why does that matter, if he was satisfied with the TV?

@@hellion9547 Did I say it mattered? I said it wasn't an actual RCA product.

Yep RCA branded stuff was still pretty good through the tail end of the CRT tube era- had an RCA 32" 4x3 set ~2005 or so from Circuit City during the HDTV transition- had at least YPbPr inputs, maybe handled 1080i with vertical squeeze. The RCA DTC100 HDTV tuner/sat box was legendary

You learned the horizontal sweep and sync circuits. I wish I knew them. I remember being confused by it.

Hi @douglashoff95, yes, would have to agree with that! Thank you for your input on this. Sounds like you have some first-hand experience with repairs on sets like this! Thanks! ~ Victor, at CHAP

Does it work?

@@DataWaveTaGo It should. I'll take it down and carefully bring it up on my variac. Of course I need to hook up an external digital receiver now.

Trinitron was a far superior product

@@stuartdavis9853 Oh, by all means my man. In the CRT era, the Sony product was the only way to go. There's a reason why RCA isn't around now and Sony still is. Sony always used quality parts and why a lot of their vintage stuff still runs to this day. :)

​@@summersky77 Sony was great ONLY IF the CRT held up. Many 1970's Sony televisions had horrible picture quality after 2 years of heavy use. The picture tube would look as though it was 30 years old in a short time. The RCA XL 100 picture tubes lasted a lot longer if the chassis held up. The audio on Sony larger screen sets could be poor too. Million dollar picture with sound that had no low end bass. Model quality varied greatly year to year on both brands. One of the best pictures I have ever seen is on a 1970's JC Penney badged 25" console which is really an RCA XL-100 chassis and tube. I would want to watch that over a Sony any day. I still have it.

@@duanethamm4688 Are we living on the same planet? Nothing that you described the Sony Trinitron being is anywhere remotely close to the experience I or anyone I knew who had one as being. Sucks that you had a dud. It was rare. Our Sony Trinitron was from 1984. The RCA set was from 1978. Many fond memories watching Revenge of the Nerds on Beta with that set. We had a Toshiba Beta Hi-Fi VCR. Wasn't as fancy as the Sony model, but hey...you take what you can get.🤷‍♂️

Yeah- shoulda ;) Collectors and retro gamers are going after good vintage sets like Trinitrons

Gerald, let me guess... what the low budget color set a "Sears TV" ??? OMG, those were not great. I repaired more of those than anything else, it seems. Mostly, they were made by GE, but the deal with sears, to reduce price, certain components were not used that were used in the actual GE set (same chassis, just slightly different components). The color wasn't fantastic on those set either. Very "cheapy" color. When one of those set sat beside an RCA of the same model year, the color difference was very noticeable. One thing that I do remember of the difference between an actual GE labeled set and the "Sears" model with the same chassis, where a large can capacitor missing in the Sears set that was in the GE set. In the Sears, just cheapy caps where used in that area. There were other cheap-downs, but I can't remember them now after all these years.

@@BlondieSL I will ask my Dad, approaching 88, see if he can remember. Still sharp, basically the same as ever. He recalls the Muntz B&W his Dad brought home in the 50s, so maybe he'll recall that first color set. He was partial to Monkey Ward, so coulda been a Ward/Airline like our stereos/8tracks/record players and radios Pretty sure that color TV had a door on the side to feed coal into a bin... Around 1970, since I can recall seeing Nanny and the Professor on it- I was 4-5 years old! ...still got a thing for Juliet Mills ;)

@@geraldford6409 OH I totally forgot about those Ward sets. Yeah, those were horrible. In fact, that is one of a couple of brands that I refused to repair.

Yes, great stuff!

They used a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second. Pretty common practice to make sure one complete frame (2 fields at 1/60th second) were filmed.

But in fact that "Sony Red" wasn't exactly the right red defined by standard. So when you needed monitor with exact colours, you had to pay more for special trinitron with standard, not the Sony red.

Japanese consumers seemed to like "red". It was stated that Fuji Film produced photographs with a "red-bias" to match Japanese consumer expectations.

You may find it, keep looking

@@ricknelsonm keep looking on ebay under vintage television or type in RCAColortrak.

It's funny how things really change. RCA was awesome. As a tech back then and an RCA dealer, I liked the color on those sets much better than the Sony Trinitrons of the era. The RCA has "warmer" more "natural" color, I found. But Sony was an awesome brand, that's for sure. Skip forward to today and of course, if you find any "new" TV with RCA stamped on it, it's NOT actually an RCA. It's just some module from China with RCA stamped on it. You'll also find other "brands" of the exact same TV (perhaps cosmetic difference, but exact same chassis) They are just garbage now. Long ago, RCA started farming out their TVs and when they did that, the quality plummeted quickly. The original RCA picture tubes were excellent, lasted a long time and when starting to go dim, most could be rejuvenated and worked well for another few years. But when they no longer made their own CRTs and got 3rd party companies to make them, well WOW, they were just trash. They'd last 2-3 years at best and would never take rejuvenation at all. Then Sony, well, their quality has also degraded. Not so much as in picture quality as some of the top-end sets, like their 4K sets have amazing pictures. The problem is, they just don't last long. Right now, we are on our 4th Sony HD TV. It's the one I used for this computer, a 49" 4K. The first one lasted about 2 years. It was under Best Buy warranty so they replaced it with a slightly different model as THAT model was no longer made. I get that home, set it all up, only to find that there were very faint "lines" on the screen. I took that one back the same day and get another of this same model. Again, that one had a problem on the screen. Dead center, bottom, has an arched crack in the LOWER LAYER! I took that one back. Of course, at this point, I'm dealing with the main store manager and the Sony rep. The rep admitted that they've had major problems with the model in question. The manager was awesome and realized my background and patience. So he offered me a top of the line set, that would have been about $800 more, but for below cost. It only cost me $100 more. So far, now going on 3 years, it's been great. But I do NOT expect to get 5-10 years out of it. They just don't build the quality as they did before. One major problem are these danged LEDs lights they use to back light them. They DO start to fail after a while. They CAN be replaced but Sony wont' do it. So if they fail outside of the extended warranty, I'll have no choice but to try to repair it myself. Oh what fun. LOL And don't get me started on those OLED sets. People don't realize what trouble they'll get it if those sets are using on more static images, like gaming. As with old CRTs and Plasma sets, THEY DO BURN IN.

I like the irony that a lot of super old films are being digitized in HD these days and that NTSC video recordings seem rather substandard to film.

@@MichiganPeatMoss How is that ironic?, ntsc/video tapes were never considered superior to film, it could just be broadcast and stored on cheap, convenient tape, including on camcorders.

Didn't he shoot one of his TV's?

Funny part is CRT's had far far better contrast then LCD's, as did Plasmas. I currently own an LG OLED and yes it's very nice, however my old Panasonic Plasma was pretty good as well, as were some of the nice Sony Trinitron CRT's. What I dislike are LCD displays LED backlit or not.

@@jeffm2787 Yes I would largely agree, and we have an LG OLED too. However our previous set is an matrix LED LCD (not edge lit) from Samsung, and from the correct viewing angle it does do true blacks.

@@video99couk Matrix LED LCD's can do pretty good with some scenes. They fall short of OLED, and Plasma for true blacks in say a space scene where the matrix is just not fine enough. QLED is pretty much just glorified Matrix LED LCD's. My biggest complaint with OLED is it's just too fast with judder being an issue at times.

@@jeffm2787 I agree with you Jeff. I am back with a big heavy plasma over my fireplace. Just can't beat the picture. OLED is too bright in areas some times. Old Sony Trinitron had the same problem. Could not get the contrast quite right with that "PICTURE" control Sony had. Plasma has a smooth vibrant look and easier on the eyes at night. It is like being at a theater watching a high quality 35MM film.

People always assume those in the past would be so amazed, but I very much doubt it. Significant progress in the past was regularly far more significant than now, I have little doubt they would expect everything to have changed enormously. Heck even in the 90s, when computing power was still increasing vastly more quickly than it is now, it was expected for holograms to become quite common within a few years(I played a 'holographic' video game at the time, though it was actually cheating by using mirrors) Advances are also well beyond phones & TVs that people currently fixate on. Progress has been incredibly slow on some things, like cars. Even for TVs, the first LCD TV was available very nearly 40 years ago, albeit 10" & presumably very expensive and relatively poor image quality.

Hi Joshua, good question. In most cases where modern narration is helpful, we use professional voice-over individuals, with proven skills. I do not think we have ever used text-to-speech, although that technology does seem to be getting better over time. We focus our time on data collection, historical research, film and video, as there is lots there we have to improve on. (I suspect that our loyal RU-vid viewers are thankful that I don't try to narrate myself. ; )

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject thanks for the info! I love your work and honestly didn't know the scale and scope of your operations. Yes the audio quality is really good and the narration is quality as well. It honestly is so quality that it breaches the uncanny valley sometimes and that's why I asked lol. Sounds TOO real. But, if these are paid professionals then it makes sense that they have such hauntingly perfect narration voices. Thanks for all you do and I always look forward to the next release. If I could make any requests I would request you publish really long videos haha. I can't get enough. Any old PBS documentaries or industry videos that crest over 30 minutes would be awesome for background educational work bench material. I'm always tinkering and needing quality computer educational video for comfort and mind expansion! Thanks again.

Joshua, thanks very much for your kind words and encouragement. It is great to know our work is being appreciated by smart folks out there. : ) ~ CHAP

The younger guy with the mustache was creepy. LOL

And major rival was Zenith. The Chromacolor II had a stunning picture in the mid 1970's.

@@duanethamm4688 as well as System 3.

Yes I must disagree, Zenith was RCA's biggest rival. Sony was a good set but damn complicated to work on and many service shops refused to work on them. They used a lot of trick circuits like their horizontal output system that used a funky SCR-like transistor that only Sony made and these little bastards were $50 a piece back in the day. And they were so easily blown. If anything was wrong in the sweep circuit there went 50 bucks instantly. Maggotbox was never much of a television set. They broke down a lot and quality was iffy. They were sold more on cabinetry and their legacy reputation.

Rotten Color?? I remember most models having excellent color, sharpness and brightness on those sets. What I can't remember now, as it's just too many decades ago, if the first models where perhaps not the greatest color. I sure fixed a few of those sets and I remember when I got my first repairs, I was excited at the drop-down chassis and the modular design. It didn't take to long for me to start to dislike them due to that tarnishing pins (that the boards plugged into) becoming increasingly annoying problems. I was at a point that when I'd get a set in, one of the very first things I did was to remove all modules and remove the tarnish from those danged pins and clean up the connectors on the modules as well. Very often, just doing that, restored the set to working order again. But for the most part, I did like the modules, other than that issue, because originally, I bought stock of some modules and as I'd do a call and had to replace a module, I'd then take the old module back to the shop (as it was now a "trade-in" module) and repair the modules. I'd put those in stock, marked as "repaired replacement" and gave the next customer the option of a new module at the factory price or a "reconditioned module" at a reduced price. Most often, the customer would choose the less expensive option and then I'd have their old module to repair and put back in stock. That was a good money maker for sure. THEN, enter those danged Quasar modular sets... and the Philips... sigh. Good times.... but I'm glad I don't do that anymore. LOL

Companies rarely make the same quality of products over numerous decades. Even Japanese elecronics have degraded for their exported products.

Actually those consoles are stunning beautiful. RCA always had cool shiny disco knobs.

@@duanethamm4688 I'd imagine they were talking about the pedestal/enclosure, which is pretty awful.