I want a new knob!

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I want a new knob!

Post by Gibbo2286 »

For my television that is :) I enjoy watching some sport, I like the atmosphere, the cheering crowds but I want a knob to turn off the interminable drone of the commentators. :x
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Re: I want a new knob!

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

What would be nice is if TVs and TV Stations broadcast sound on several channels, so channel A could be for commentary, channel B for background audio (such as the car noises in Formula One), channel C for audience, and so on. Then it might be possible to mute a specific audio channel without losing the rest of the audio.
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Re: I want a new knob!

Post by Gibbo2286 »

My feelings exactly James, the worst I find is Geoff Boycott on channel five cricket, endless know it all comments.
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Re: I want a new knob!

Post by CitroJim »

I love all sport, barring football, but have a real problem with it. I just can't watch it or listen to it unless I know the end result....

The stress and tension of it is just too much for me otherwise and I just can't bear it. It's so bad it makes me ill... Same reason I can't watch/read drama or enjoy any fiction...

I actually enjoy the commentary...
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Re: I want a new knob!

Post by white exec »

Long time ago, there were folk who would watch cricket on BBC television, while listening to the famously good commentary on Radio 3.

Decades ago I used to make a point of watching BBC Proms on tv, while switching the hi-fi to Radio 3 . . . stereo tv before it actually arrived.

Also had a "tv tuner", which was, IIRC, the IF strip (?) from a mechanically tunable tv set. Used a precision-drive multiturn pot knob to tune it in. Both items from Henry's Radio, and powered by a 9v PP9. Output was an FM r.f. signal, which I fed into the antenna input of my Sony ST88 fm tuner. This provided extremely good tv sound. On news programmes, you could even hear the newsreaders breathing and shuffling script, and floor staff moving about! Very few members of the public ever realised that BBC tv audio was broadcast at such high quality. Most still don't - and the move to flat LCD screens hasn't helped, actually turning the clocks backward for many.
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Re: I want a new knob!

Post by CitroJim »

I remember those tv tuners Chris and yes, tv sound in those days was of excellent quality. Same as FM radio in terms of frequency response... Shame was that hardly any TVs of the period took advantage with poor audio amps and tiny speakers....
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Re: I want a new knob!

Post by dnsey »

TV studio sound was (perhaps still is, as a legacy) quite sharply top-cut at around 15kHz, to avoid picking up the line whistle of the floor monitors. Otherwise, as high quality as could be achieved, as were all things BBC once.
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Re: I want a new knob!

Post by CitroJim »

Yes, I could imagine broadcasting line timebase whistle would not go down well with the general dog population :lol:

A 15KHz cutoff is not bad as most people's hearing is a bit dodgy that far up anyway...
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Re: I want a new knob!

Post by dnsey »

In reality, I suspect the filtering was to avoid the whistle playing havoc with levels. A constant oscillation overlaying the programme would make lineup a bit meaningless! Very few TV sets of yore could have reproduced it, and, as you say, Jim, many people can't hear it anyway (I suspect fewer then than now, as regular exposure would have notched-out the 15625Hz from people's hearing). Presumably it was a potentially greater problem with 405 lines, but even good mics struggled to reach 10kHz in those days.
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Re: I want a new knob!

Post by CitroJim »

Good point about levels!

When I worked as a TV Service Engineer all those years ago an ability to hear the line timebase whistle up was a very valuable aid to fault diagnosis and if you then heard the EHT rustle up, even batter...

I think we all are able to notch out sounds very effectively. Once I lived next to the West Coast Main Line and never heard a train. For years I've lived within earshot of the M1 but again hear nothing and finally, I have four ticking and striking pendulum clocks in my house and I never hear those but know instantly if one of them is stopped...

If we couldn't notch the 10125KHz line whistle from a 405 line TV would have been intolerable for all but stone-deaf viewers... Even now when I hear a 405 set in action at a vintage wireless rally it sounds really, really loud - that's until the notch tunes itself back in...

The quality of a 405 line TV picture is pretty appalling by today's standards and just shows how far we've progressed....
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