Naturally... in colour, a look inside a color picture tube factory.

The story of the color tv picture tube.
Film was made in the late 1970s, to see the in-line picture tube.
Commissioned by Philips The Netherlands.
Telecine : Ronald van Grinsven, source 16 mm film.
www.marcelstvmuseum.com
Marcel van Grinsven The Netherlands Europe 2022.

[@erikziak1249]

Back in the days, where every household had a sophisticated linear particle accelerator. Some had even two or more.

[@digitalradiohacker]

Honey, he's teasing you -- Nobody has two television sets!

[@erikziak1249]

@@digitalradiohacker I know, from a rerun.

[@video99couk]

I still use one, but for a very specific reason rather than nostalgia.

[@renvilsekawan]

I still keep it

[@OficinaSRMK-2]

Very good news!

[@Owlero]

This video only solidifies the fact that the CRT is one of the most complex and sophisticated inventions in human history. Every part, the tube, the shadow mask, the electron gun, the deflection yoke. All works of art. And they did it at a price and scale that nearly everybody could afford one. Now they're left to rot on roadsides and considered worthless. What travesty.

[@CalviusSignatis]

You'll be happy to know there's still a large group of retro gamers and enthusiasts rescuing, restoring and enjoying these CRT displays. I've got 5, with 3 in regular use and 2 as reserves 😊

[@nuassul]

Yo tengo tres de estas televisiones guardadas en mi casa ya que se las quiero mostrar a las futuras generaciones sobre esta tecnología extinta y que fue de ella.

[@draalchemist]

Yo estoy aprendiendo a repararlas (tengo libros de circuitos) y este año me construiré el aparato para revivir los cátodos. Se pueden hacer funcionar hasta 10-15 años más con un mantenimiento de cátodos

[@brasilianguy5437]

I can feel the smell of 70's by watching this movie. It is amazing.

[@unlokia]

Sadly the music is shite. And depressing

[@BLKBRDD]

I find it amazing how sophisticated CRTs are. The fact that it was developed to a reliable point before LCD screens is mind boggling.

[@EustaH]

That's only because LCD is even more sophisticated ;) With more screen layers, advanced molecular chemistry needed for efficient subpixels, electronics components printed directly in the screen surface and much more complicated control circuitry, not to mention advanced lighting like compact fluorescent or even mindblowingly hard to build properly marvel - white LED.

[@benmcreynolds8581]

This is a million times better than "How it's made" ~That TV show is so boring. And I love learning about how things are made, and how things work.

[@jayc2469]

I worked for Philips (formerly Mullard Tubes) up until the early 2000's making 21" CRT's in the UK and this brought back memories!

[@Remi_Jansen]

my B&o mx4000 has a 21 inch philips tube made in the uk, maybe you made mine!

[@SpeakerFreak95]

The amount of production that went into this, let alone the subject matter, is mind boggling for the time this was filmed and released.

[@erwinvb70]

I still have a large Philips television from 1980 in working condition, great to see how it was made.

[@rknud007]

Definitely the most complete look at how colour CRTs were manufactured, and no surprise that it came from Philips. My family had a Philips TV from 1977 that was still working in 1997. Quality, engineering and craftmanship of which we will likely never see again.

[@user-eb6yt7lk9q]

филипс уже давно не тот.

[@ElectronicInspiration]

What type of tv was it?

[@rknud007]

@@ElectronicInspiration A very similar model to this kzbin.info/www/bejne/h4qllYKBpbyHoJY

[@rknud007]

@WirelessNut Yup, I've got a couple of those too. The only things that ever needed replacing were the belts.

[@mattpat25]

Have multiple Sonys working 20+ years later

[@somecuntxxx]

Is nobody going to talk about that absolutely stupendous intro

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

No.

[@manonmars2009]

I never knew that it took 24 hours to make a color television in this factory. That is very labor and materials intensive.

[@juliangerardcascio1111]

That's when a TV 📺 was a TV 📺 😊and a wonderful picture 📸!!!!

[@henningokholm7912]

Funny to have a look back at what I learned to repair. I do actually miss it.

[@devjock]

I miss old Philips.. They had such a good run with the cassette tape, the cd, and many more innovative inventions.. Truly a company deserving the Netherlands' pride.. What happened? :(

[@BlondieSL]

And their TVs. They were one of the first to bring out modular sets. Those were the easiest to fix. There were 4 modules and in the service truck, we'd just carry the modules. Go into the house, analyze the issue, change the faulting module, take the old module as "trade-in" and head back to the shop. There, we'd pop the failed module into our jig, troubleshoot and repair the issue for the next call.

[@devjock]

@@BlondieSL Aaah I love that! It's the best of both worlds. Efficient fast turnaround fixes, and serviceability that honors knowledge and expertise. Back when Philips wasn't on the planned obsolescence bandwagon. Good times!

[@pyeltd.5457]

what happened? Nothing. Philips is still there as it was in the 1970s

[@devjock]

@@pyeltd.5457 Philips completely got rid of their consumer tech department. They mostly do medical tech now, and right now they're in hot water due to that decision.

[@a4andrei]

@@pyeltd.5457 Philips as it stands today, is only a shadow of its former self. It has sold the rights to its brand name to Chinese companies, which are the ones designing and manufacturing the TVs and home entertainment systems sold under the Philips name. The real Philips mostly produces medical equipment and LED lightbulbs (although I'm not entirely sure of the lightbulbs either). So it's a completely different company today, compared to the one in the 70s and 80s.

[@davidbowie2046]

Even with this informative video I am still in disbelief how a TV works. What an amazing invention.

[@spacecitysprockets]

Thanks for transferring this crazy film!

[@patrickmurawski400]

Still have a tv with Philips picture tube in it! Think picture quality is still better then ones today!!!!!

[@akshayoval5476]

Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) that's what my daddy had taught me when I was in 5th grade ....now I'm 33 years old ....miss u daddy....🥲🥲

[@khoroshen]

What an engineering feat, at a time where you could not design and simulate everything on a computer at your desk.

[@minirock000]

Didn't need artificial computers, they had slide rules. How those things work will be lost to time.

[@repairitdontreplaceit]

i worked in the tv repair game when valve colour sets came out , always wondered how they made the tubes and this was mazing to see . thank you very much for posing this marcel :)

[@zsoltcseri9011]

high-quality color picture tube with a long service life and excellent image quality, it is no coincidence that several European manufacturers have installed it in their devices, e.g. Grundig, Siemens, Zanussi, etc

[@kkteutsch6416]

Between feb.1976 to aug. 1977 I was a technician in an Authoized Philips Service point at Brazil, where I could take the first color television service contact, that point was a Philco and Telefunken authorized service, also...

[@radornkeldam]

Sadly, a perfect demonstration of why there won't be any new CRTs made ever again. Recreating all this just isn't feasible within the industrial ecosystem today, and there's no way a single company could possibly manage it alone. CRTs are highly complex old high-tech.

[@nuassul]

A parte ya es tecnología obsoleta a pesar de su complejidad.

[@ok-xx1wy]

This is actually insane and probably one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in awhile

[@bamaslamma1003]

Best video of how a CRT is made I've seen.

[@lucasrem]

What is it? Philips Belgium? You should watch the Trinitron content here, way more informative than this 1970 promo crap video

[@TimPerfetto]

@@lucasrem Yeah I agree all this taught me was nobody should miss anything about the 70s

[@TimPerfetto]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWSqaJVjeciChZY

[@MoNsTeRiSkIcKaSs]

this video is a great lesson as to why these screens will never be made new again

[@barriewright2857]

Watching the way of assembly, how Labour intensive it is just shows how far automation has come. And it's amazing how much the technology has come now we can build really large TV for indoor or outdoors and really thin practically like a wall picture frame amazing ! .

[@B1-Han]

Manufacturing CRTs today would still be labor intensive, regardless of how far automation has advanced. This is because CRTs have many individual complex components that require great precision to manufacture. Modern TVs (LCD, OLED) are completely different technologies, which in many ways are much easier to manufacture. Light and cheap plastic defeated heavy and expensive glass. New TVs (LCD at that time) literally immediately gained an advantage over CRT in such characteristics as dimensions, weight and energy consumption. But in terms of overall picture quality (not just pixel detail), LCDs and OLEDs have only recently begun to approach CRTs. And in some aspects of the image, modern TVs still cannot surpass CRT. For roughly the same reason, PDPs (plasma) also left the market. It was a very high-quality, but too complicated and too expensive technology compared to new plastic panels (which are basically just a lot of tiny LEDs).

[@agl3083]

​@@B1-Han ... Absolutely right, you correctly stated the essence of this topic !!! 😮

[@Hassen78]

كم أحب ذلك الزمن الجميل يا ليتني كنت أعيش هناك

[@videolabguy]

That was excellent. Detailed and very accurate information for a change. Thanks!

[@miloud-en]

Thanks for this precious documentary

[@EustaH]

Wow I never knew shadowmask is used not only as a component but also as a tool to build the screen! That's very clever way to ensure perfect match between mask and subpixels for every tube. I love it :D

[@MrSoundman1955]

Insatlled quite a few of these when I was 17 - but only after "rejuvenating" the old tube had failed! They represent most of the weight of the TV set. Good old Radio Rentals would squeeze the last hours out of a tube before replacing it. Tubes were also dismantled and "re-gunned" to give them a second life. It's a good job this documentary was made on 16mm film which has outlived this whole technology. Now we can still watch that film, scanned to video and delivered down an old phone line to appear on you tube. A lot of very early video tape "films" are now lost and those that remain are very low resulution.

[@BIGD-gj1vb]

Absolutely astonishing. So the saying goes: "they don't make em like they used too". Hopefully someday a CRT rebuilding station can be resurrected to operation for us vintage tv collectors. Sadly, construction of the guns will be obsolete if not already for the most part. Cool video. Thanks for posting.

[@GUILHERME-CRUD-4K]

OLED screens are the only ones that come close to CRT screens don't have much lag

[@imeakdo7]

There is one, at the early television museum

[@Kaelidoz]

What a vibe this documentary is...eerie at times. Your channel is awesome just discovered it, your website is pretty neat too.

[@1sonyzz]

but all of this is useless now because imagine carying smartphone with picture tube... Last TV with picture tube stopped working back in 2011 by that time nobody from family was watching the TV but rather using an internet, thus haven't been watching TV since that time nor do need one at home.

[@netowork3d]

Muita mão de obra especializada e equipamentos... muito treinamento, muitas pessoas... Uma Tv tinha o seu alto preço...

[@jaapaap123]

I think this video gives a pretty good answer to the question why TVs were expensive. What I don't get is how not every TV from the same era cost about as much. I mean, in this production line not much seems to change when you make a tube only half the size.

[@imeakdo7]

It's for market differentiation, exploiting the perception that a bigger tv costs equally as much to make, so larger tvs had more profit margins for shareholders

[@imeakdo7]

It's for market differentiation, exploiting the perception that a bigger tv costs equally as much to make, so larger tvs had more profit margins for shareholders

[@stephmaccormick3195]

29:47 Love the 70's comedy relief.

[@jorgeandrade20]

Fascinating how it all came together!, I wonder if there's ANY company still producing CRTs in the world. I watched this and kept thinking: It's a lot of machinery to dispose of!

[@zhaohaigaogu7821]

そこまで詳しい映像は少ないので大変素晴らしいと思いました。👍👏👏👏👏

[@i.c.a.productionsbyr.p.]

Very exhaustive and interesting documentary. Now my knowledge of the television is finally complete! This is the best documentary on YT!!!!

[@minimaxxl8]

Mooie video. Nog opvallend veel handwerk. Jammer dat deze high-tech met de komst van de flatscreen binnen 15 jaar compleet verdwenen was. Nu staan er huizen op de plek waar dit ooit gefilmed is. Alleen de straatnamen herinneren nog aan de onderdelen van een beeldbuis

[@mjouwbuis]

Het zou ook in Aken gefilmd kunnen zijn, ik weet eigenlijk niet wat er verder met die fabriek gebeurd is. Het handwerk is later wel wat meer geautomatiseerd, maar in Heerlen werd het in elk geval voor kleine series ook grotendeels nog met de hand gedaan.

[@TimPerfetto]

O mae dy wallt mor deg ac rwy'n ei fwyta drwy'r amser gyda fy nannedd a llwybr treulio yn cael eu tagu a dwi'n pesychu peli o dy wallt ac o fy oh oh o o

[@SpacePortArcade]

At 20:26 he says "from now on the shadow mask and the screen stay together for all remaining stages of production" and then almost immediately after at 21:02 "the screen and the shadow mask are separated".

[@pe1dnn]

They are not bonded yet but will be handled as a pair from now on. The shadow mask uniquely belongs to this screen and non other. You can't swap them as each have unique placement and the screen will get the florescent stripes to match. So they stay together, meant for each other but not yet married.

[@tonytrade]

19:57 there is still the distance piece between the glass and the mask to remove, and coat the screen so obviusly the screen and the mask are separated but handled like a pair.

[@barrybretz6073]

I remember installing black matrix picture tubes in some of the t.v.s who's tube got dim.

[@vasilis8208]

I recognise those blue Philips capacitors..

[@hornox4life]

Maybe one of the tubes visible here became one of the tvs I watched.

[@pon2oon]

Humans are such unique, and clever creatures1

[@DemonKingOFFICIAL]

When I was a kid, I looked at this tech as uninteresting. Now though, as an aspiring electrical engineer, I am captivated by these sorts of things. I really wish I had held on to our family’s old tv’s and such.

[@cll1out]

Would love to see one of these tubes made in this factory carefully disassembled and looked at (a failed tube of course) particularly in the area of the shadow mask and whatnot

[@ShannonWare]

Television about television is the best television possible.

[@robertonery8358]

Excelente postagem vale milhões de likes!!!

[@rafaelasuncion7075]

Unos de los inventos más maravilloso e ingenioso de este mundo... hecho en USA.

[@gustavoleguizamonmunoz6365]

Una maravillosa obra de alta ingeniería producto de la inteligencia humana,asombroso,un acelerador de particulas,como funciona el cañón de la pantalla es sencillamente asombroso.Great Job, Greetings.

[@arepadetrigo]

Fantastic technology and production techniques.

[@A3Kr0n]

I doubt we'll ever get one of those color TVs. All we have is a black and white set. Takes forever to warm up, too. -me as a kid

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

well as a kid a one school year lasted.... for EVER. Now forever doesnt last a school year at all.

[@hotgta]

Thank you so much for sharing this video with us!!

[@aiyanaenterprise6543]

thanks for upload...i was in manufacturing cpt & crt ( heds) singapore pte 1990--2001--under screen coating process/mixing

[@MehdiGuizani]

Best video ever

[@dw8840]

So when the vacuum is pumped, do they attach a suction tube to the stem while in the oven?

[@tony--james]

YT Video, "The Craft of Picture Tube Rebuilding " brought me here!, awesome stuff!

[@lillyclarity9699]

did you know that it's one of the most successful color picture tubes in Europe?

[@lillyclarity9699]

did they say that that often to be funny, or was it an earnest attempt to make sure that everyone *knew for sure* that Phillips was at the top of the market? almost 50 some years later it just feels goofy lmao

[@WinrichNaujoks]

Now I really want one of those TVs!

[@keyewhoknows2409]

I have learned that in the mid 80's and was 20 Years at this business as Radio and TV-Engineer.....time flies- meanwhile i develop Wiring harness at a germany car manufacturer. Good old repair times

[@pitkinek007]

thx PHILIPS

[@intel386DX]

Thanks for the upload ! Fantastic video :)

[@ashave9100]

Thank you-very enjoyable !!

[@realzneo]

Fantastic film!!

[@maksimb1853]

На некоторых участках на заводе конкретно экономили на освещении.

[@johnpenner5182]

this is fascinating! thxu for the upload.

[@ahyonvlogs]

So astinishing to see !!!

[@michael_mouse]

... excellent video!

[@Emre-Sunay-Gebes]

greatly informative!

[@kabitaniasaas3368]

Philips oyeeeee ❤

[@andrewlankford9634]

This sort of manufacturing wizardry is now in Asian factories where they make flat screens.

[@JohnPlant90]

All that amazing equipment suddenly became obsolete

[@hopelessnerd6677]

Ah, the days when we let our kids sit on the floor with their faces stuck in front of an X-ray source for hours. Life was better then.

[@thindarogiancola9358]

2:53 ... TRC 's facctoring .Philips Cores Sempre Vivas ! 80's

[@ReinKayomi]

The fact it's made by the same guys who made lightbulbs and the Hue system surprises me

[@fmbroadcast]

Wooow beautifull

[@Sloposse]

#29:50 worker busted watching soft core lol

[@pizzablender]

We wouldn't have that in today's business promo films, would we? How far we have fallen...

[@omsingharjit]

Crt was built by these Beautiful lays !! Nyc

[@TheOpticalFreak]

Prachtig stukje technologie! Es war einmal! 😌

[@BendeMartinez]

Bravo bravo bravo

[@statiz23]

Good memories with crt tvs i see them dying between 2008-2010

[@omergebes6105]

Eski tüplü tv miz hala duruyor. Artık saygıyla bakıyorum. Muhteşem bir emek ve teknoloji ürünüymüş. 😌

[@JosephJoseph-vb1jb]

I stop use it for long time but I'm sure it was working good that time but when I tried turning it again the screen is not working

[@h0ll0wm9n]

Thx for sharing this superb, comprehensive documentary! My only question is why Philips chose to use crappy 16mm film to photograph a short documentary about COLOR PICTURE tubes? If Philips -- given their deep pockets in 1970s -- had used the best quality 35mm film (and camera systems), this documentary would have looked much more professional. Not like some college film project.

[@filmpjesman1]

Arguably, it could be an issue with this scan of the film. 16mm isn't bad per se with a good scan, and direct projection would probably have been easier with 16mm

[@zorkonthegreat5879]

And for the most part assembled by pretty girls.

[@devananadmandal8607]

Ver good video is good

[@matneu27]

This movie is pure technical 70s porn for us. We see all parts, positions and steps without censorship 😊

[@johnnycab1000]

Just found your channel and watched this. Brilliant! A big Philips fan and yes I used to service their sets for friends back in the early 80s when needed, The G11, 22 along with ITT CVC 7 and 9 and Decca series as well, they had excellent Philips tubes in them. I loved TVs for the tech inside them and this video answered a good few of my questions as to the production techniques of the Tubes. What I enjoyed most is the people who were properly skilled built these, not a robot in sight. Thanks very much for putting it up here.

[@telocho]

model type A66-510X

[@jackeldridge1319]

Any jazz and funk nerds know who's playing during the hang-gliding section at around 2:50-3 minutes in? Really Euro-jazzy and 70s I quite like it

[@netowork3d]

A Philips tinha uma qualidade de imagem muito avançada...

[@UniversumPL]

niesamowite że tak archaiczna technologia istniała do późnych lat 2000

[@agl3083]

Archaiczna czy nie, aż do 2000 roku nie było zamiennika dla tej technologii !!! 😮

[@johneygd]

Must have be a very long and complex process to produce those crt screens and no matter how old school those crt tv’s are; they will be always fashination to see at how they were made🤣

[@luispr512010]

It became a animation in the 80s

[@user-pb4jg2dh4w]

What is the name of these background music i really love this type of music (old)

[@konstantinosva4273]

CRT'S looks very complex constructure i wonder how the LCD tv wasnt invented first even in black & white.

[@null140]

I'm gonna guess that it was basically because basic cathode ray tubes had already been in manufacture for decades, and their fundamental principles were well-documented, and well-known by all sectors of technology involving visual display. CRTs are relatives of vacuum tubes, which were themselves the predominate transistor technology of the era. In other words, certain technology was already the underpinning--the known quantity--such that it just made *sense* to experiment and refine CRT technology in that technological context. The sort of miniaturised componentry involved in LCD technology just hadn't been achieved at the time of television's nascence and establishment, so it wouldn't have made any financial sense to want to R&D a totally new 'ballpark' of technology when this perfectly good CRT/ vacuum tube technology already existed. I would presume that in order for these super-thin, super-light, cheaper-production LCDs to proliferate, certain milestones, breakthroughs and contexts had to have been reached/ realised. TL; DR Background tech standards will direct upcoming tech.

[@arjanvankan9379]

I saw a flat black and white LCD back in 1986 at Philips, which would be placed upon a overhead projector, so you could beam a large version of your computer image on a wall, but as this was only a relative low resoluiton (400 lines or so) and the switching speed of the LC was not that fast, it never saw the commercial market. Also because everyone was used to Colour TV, going back to a black and white LCD TV would not sell even in those days.

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

easy answer, you cant have a matrix LCD without semiconductors, the only semiconductor existing in the time of first CRT screens was a vacuum tube. If there would be some liquid crystal display in that time (they started in 1960s), then the matrix would need wall sized "electronics" to drive it. In this light first CRTs appear like microelectronics... 😁 And just to bring you in time perspective, first larger public TV network started in 1930s in Nazi Germany.

[@benjib2691]

@@null140 I think the difference is mainly a scale-one. With CRTs, the complexity is at a macroscopic level (how to manage high voltage, convergence, geometry, sync, how to create color, the shadow mask or aperture grill, signal demodulation, etc...). With LCDs, LED and OLED, the complexity is at microscopic levels (how to create an acceptable crystal stucture which switches fast-enough to allow high-enough framerates without ghosting, how to create sufficiently bright light sources to shine through the crystal layer without having a huge power draw, how to create blue LED, how to create theses LEDs small enough to fit millions of them onto a single screen, how to manage all these LEDs or crystals at once with a powerful-enough processor, etc...). Overall LCDs, LED, QLED and OLED are far more technologically complex than CRTs while being significantly cheaper to make. It's kind of incredible when you think about it how cheap the technology we use nowadays is considering the complexity of the inner-workings. Just the making of a cheap calculator CPU is already a kind of black magic.

[@rollbot]

so interesting. i wonder if there are any of these still new old stock left today or every single one has been broken?

[@philipnasadowski1060]

Various types still turn up in the US every now and then. Of course, we had so many TV shops. You can even find new old stock black and white ones…

[@hvoltage1524]

It baffles me that we as humans figured out how to firstly, harness electricity and use it for lights, but then figured out a way to project images on a screen like this. Even just in black and white is crazy.