[BC] Analog HDTV (was: the Deja VU meter)

[Kevin Tekel]

Phil Alexander wrote:
> At the time UHF was in its infancy. The number of channels was far
> greater than needed. The problem was catering to the legacy b&w sets.
> Color might have gone to UHF in greater bandwidth. PAL would have been
> useful also.  We might have had a system transmitting 750-800 lines in
> color. I don't argue the fact that the fundamentals of the NTSC system
> were well conceived for that day, but additional bandwidth and a shift
> to UHF would have made a better system IMHO. However, the General wanted
> to sell a TV transmitter and studio gear to every radio station in the
> country.

In their quest to be different and superior, France had what has
essentially an 819-line analog black & white "HDTV" system on VHF from
just after WWII through the early '80s when it was phased out in favor of
625-line SECAM color.  This system had a channel bandwidth of 14 MHz and
reportedly had excellent picture quality until 625-line SECAM came along
on UHF in the late '60s and from then on, video on the 819-line channels
was simply upconverted from 625-line source video.  Here's more info:

http://www.tvhistory.tv/1957-Teleavia.htm

France also reportedly conducted some experiments with adding color to the
819-line VHF system, but obviously that didn't get very far.

Anyway, it does puzzle me why we allocated so many UHF TV channels.  Did
anyone ever figure out how many stations it would've taken to fill the
original Ch. 14-83 UHF band to capacity across the nation, based upon
then-current allocation schemes?



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