First-time stereo (TV) that really shocked you

[Joel1963]

In the music section, I started a thread about "first-time stereo" that really shocked you. Here, I'm referring to stereo TVs, which started in the mid-1980s and not counting TV-radio simulcasts that date back to the 1950s.

I had two such moments. I first heard of stereo TV around 1985 and went to Florida. Went to a store and saw this huge gaudy-colored stereo TV, maybe the ugliest TV made. But they were showing The Golden Girls on NBC in stereo, and the sound quality of the theme song blew me away.

The other moment took place when I convinced my family to buy a Toshiba stereo TV in '86. It was just a 20-inch TV but the speakers were facing outward rather than towards the listener. I watched an episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and heard the audience in my living room space. Unfortunately, the TV turned out to be defective and we got a 26" Zenith with not nearly the same stereo impact, even when we connected it to our stereo system.

[stumpy]

My mom has a mid-90's 27" ProScan that has fantastic separation. And I'm not talking in surround or expanded mode (that is just plain creepy). Just regular stereo. Great!

[Logan5]

Here in the United Kingdom we had a stereo TV broadcasting system that is still in service today called NICAM you can get better feedback from the wikipedia site on this information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NICAM

[Dillydipper]

Yeah, when I realized the fake audience was laughing at some cringe-worthy sitcom from "outside the teevee set", the first time I took the set off the VCR-thru input, and had it set for direct input.

[HGN2001]

I'd experienced stereo TV for the first time in the '70s when some FM stations simulcast a MIDNIGHT SPECIAL-type show in quad!

Next up was an HBO simulcast of the Simon & Garfunkel CONCERT IN CENTRAL PARK on a local FM station. That was impressive indeed. I later tried it again myself with the mono videotape I'd made trying to sync up the stereo LP, but it wouldn't stay in sync due to slightly variable speeds and differing crowd noise sections in between the songs.

The first actual stereo TV I experienced all happened in the same week when we bought a "HiFi Stereo" VCR that received broadcast TV in stereo. That week saw stereo telecasts on NBC of THE GOLDEN GIRLS, THE TONIGHT SHOW and on CBS, THE NEW TWILIGHT ZONE's premiere.

That GOLDEN GIRLS theme was quite exciting in stereo, as was later the themes for FAMILY TIES, CHEERS, NEWHART, and quite a few others.

In Philadelphia we were denied stereo telecasts of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION for its entire first-run since our Fox affiliate (Ch. 29) was the last to add a stereo generator. In fact, even DEEP SPACE NINE was in mono here until it switched to Channel 57, so they went well into the '90s without stereo. I do recall switching to channel 11 in New York (which I could pick up fuzzily over the air) on occasion, just to hear a bit of ST: TNG in stereo.

Harry

[Logan5]

Here is an audio and visual discussion on NICAM 728.:righton:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHMme3XlJDI

[mr_mjb1960]

The Yule Log on WPIX-TV-when I'd first heard it in 1966 it was broadcasted in Mono sound-and that's how I heard it..until 1988,when I heard it for the first time in STEREO!! WOW...WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!!:righton: Michael Boyce

[Michael]

when I first hocked my stereo VCR! I was floored...

[pecanrood]

Watching The Blues Brothers VHS Tape on my new stereo VCR (wired into my hifi, not through the TV). Wow

[RapsodiaStellare]

I had two such moments. I first heard of stereo TV around 1985 and went to Florida. Went to a store and saw this huge gaudy-colored stereo TV, maybe the ugliest TV made. But they were showing The Golden Girls on NBC in stereo, and the sound quality of the theme song blew me away.


Bizarre -- I had the exact same experience. The Golden Girls theme blew me away. I can't believe I just typed that sentence. :eek:

[Doug Sclar]

I remember the FM simulcasts of 'In Concert' which was run on ABC TV in the early 70's.

When cable came to my area I was hooked when I heard that there would be several channels which had stereo simulcasts over closed cable FM transmission. Well, the baseball games on the superstations also pulled me in. :shh: Unfortunately these FM simulcasts were not really stereo. I was able to gain access to the local cable company head end and was able to improve the sonics considerably but they were still not great. At least I was able to get stereo for them. Of course, like often is the case, I didn't do it for them. I did it for my own personal reasons.

When I first got satellite in Jan 84 my first receiver was stereo. It was kind of a pain to dial it in. Different broadcasters used different methods of transmitting stereo. Some used a matrix, while some broadcast discreet channels. The bandwidths used also tended to vary.

None the less, I was getting MTV in stereo and it sounded far better than what I had ever gotten from cable from their funky FM delivery. What was really fun was to find their backhaul feeds of concerts they ran. I got some pretty darn video and audio from those, though it often took a while to dial everything in. Not sure of the year, but a friend played with Kenny Loggins in the Live Aid show and I was able to record the performance in stereo for him. It was recorded on Beta Hi-Fi as this was before VHS Hi-Fi came along.

IIRC, 1984 was also the first year that we had any standard stereo terresterial TV broadcasts in LA. I got a stereo RCA set that summer and all that was in stereo was The Tonight Show on NBC. KTLA also was broadcasting in stereo, but it was almost all fake stereo of mono programming. Of course when the Rose Parade the next New Year, KTLA had stereo sound. I think NBC may have by that time as well, but I can't remember for sure.

For some odd reason it took many years for the LA stations to make the conversion. KABC did not start broadcasting in stereo for many years, though ABC network surely did. Of course I could get them from the satellite, but I couldn't figure out why KABC took so long to get it together. It couldn't have been that expensive. :confused: I even remember them having the Super Bowl and having an overlay saying 'In Stereo Where Available'. Well this was KABC and the entertainment capital of the world, yet stereo was not availble for the LA viewers. :mad: I remember wondering who was getting it if we weren't?

I should also add that the quality of the early MTS stereo tuners was not very good. I had been listening to TV over my stereo since the 60's, so I was used to pretty bad sound coming from the stations. But the early MTS tuners all sounded bad to me. I would hear lots of sibilance and widely varying stereo widths. Of course they got much better before too long.

I was also involved with the development of the Channel Plus line of stereo modulators. I started working with them in the early 80's when they only had one analog mono modulator. I ultimately convinced them to come up with their first stereo modulator and even showed them how. It took them a while to get the bugs out of it. As usual my goal wasn't to help them develop their company. I just helped them so I could get their product to work the way I wanted it to for my own personal reasons.

Btw, for those of you who don't know, the MTS system of stereo broadcasting used DBX processing. The system used a sum and difference encoding matrix which meant that normal mono users just tuned to the mono signal. The difference system contained the stereo information and was combined with the mono signal to create the stereo signal. By varying the ratio of the two signals one can essentially vary the width of the resulting stero image.

As it turns out, the difference signal tends to pick up lots of noise in fringe reception areas and this was particularly annoying when listening in stereo. The solution was that DBX noise reduction was used to encode the difference signal. Most of the tv's sold had a DBX decoder to recreate the stereo. I say most, because some of the cheaper tuners used their own inferior circuitry to try and avoid paying DBX licensing fees.

I wouldn't be surprised if DBX made more money from stereo TV chips than they ever did from making NR or dynamic processors.

[Ron Stone]

Perhaps a surround rather stereo moment, but I watched the VHS tape (!) of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN with an audiophile buddy who owned a fairly high-end surround system he'd carefully calibrated.

At one point during the final battle sequence, amidst the roar of machine gun fire, I was startled by the sound of shell casings clearly pinging off the "wall" to my right and falling to the floor, rolling around. And it wasn't one sound effect looped. It was a level of detail I'd never heard before, even in a theater.

Watching other, less spectacle-oriented films on this system, like MEET JOE BLACK and THE SIXTH SENSE, made me realize how much work goes into the soundscapes for these films, details which remain generally unheard in typical home and cineplex systems.

[OakBarrel]

I remember hearing the Miami Vice theme song on a stereo TV and thinking it was pretty neat sounding. I'm sure that was the first time television sound made any impression on me.

[Lord Hawthorne]

I bought the Radio Shack (Realistic TV 100) tv audio tuner sometime in the mid 1980s, leaving me with a system where I had to tune the audio separately from the video, but I ran the audio through my quadraphonic receiver. The first stereo experience was a golf game, quickly turned into a quad experience.

[Uncle Al]

For some odd reason it took many years for the LA stations to make the conversion. KABC did not start broadcasting in stereo for many years, though ABC network surely did. Of course I could get them from the satellite, but I couldn't figure out why KABC took so long to get it together. It couldn't have been that expensive. :confused:

Strange; I also remember the New York City ABC station (WABC) was also the last network in the area to broadcast in stereo. Even some of the local stations beat them to it.

[rhkwon]

The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the late 80's really surprised me. I had never heard stereo tv before. :thumbsup:

[rhkwon]

I'd experienced stereo TV for the first time in the '70s when some FM stations simulcast a MIDNIGHT SPECIAL-type show in quad!

Next up was an HBO simulcast of the Simon & Garfunkel CONCERT IN CENTRAL PARK on a local FM station. That was impressive indeed. I later tried it again myself with the mono videotape I'd made trying to sync up the stereo LP, but it wouldn't stay in sync due to slightly variable speeds and differing crowd noise sections in between the songs.

The first actual stereo TV I experienced all happened in the same week when we bought a "HiFi Stereo" VCR that received broadcast TV in stereo. That week saw stereo telecasts on NBC of THE GOLDEN GIRLS, THE TONIGHT SHOW and on CBS, THE NEW TWILIGHT ZONE's premiere.

That GOLDEN GIRLS theme was quite exciting in stereo, as was later the themes for FAMILY TIES, CHEERS, NEWHART, and quite a few others.

In Philadelphia we were denied stereo telecasts of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION for its entire first-run since our Fox affiliate (Ch. 29) was the last to add a stereo generator. In fact, even DEEP SPACE NINE was in mono here until it switched to Channel 57, so they went well into the '90s without stereo. I do recall switching to channel 11 in New York (which I could pick up fuzzily over the air) on occasion, just to hear a bit of ST: TNG in stereo.

Harry

:righton:

[charlie W]

I remember hearing the Miami Vice theme song on a stereo TV and thinking it was pretty neat sounding. I'm sure that was the first time television sound made any impression on me.

That was my first experience with stereo TV, too. Only the music was in stereo but it had an impact. I still have a couple of hours of the LiveAid broadcast with stereo audio taken from a local FM station.

[Joel1963]

Strange; I also remember the New York City ABC station (WABC) was also the last network in the area to broadcast in stereo. Even some of the local stations beat them to it.

I had the same experience with the U.S. stations closest to Montreal- NBC Plattsburgh, NY was first off the bat, CBS-Burlington, VT was a year or two later and ABC-Burlington, VT was last by a length.

[Vidiot]

I happened to have worked on the very first made-for-TV movie aired on NBC, which was Bridge Across Time from late 1985. The network went absolutely nuts about making sure my sound for the master tape would work with mono TV sets, which represented about 99% of their viewers at that time. I later worked on Miami Vice for two years, which was also mixed in stereo for its entire run (but not actually aired in stereo until 1985). I always got a thrill from the opening theme, which the producers loved to crank up during our mastering sessions. (I worked with assocate producer Billy Sackheim, who later went on to become a good director. Never met Michael Mann until ten years later, but he did call to yell at us on the phone during several sessions I did for Miami Vice and Crime Story.)

I also remember at least ten years of the "In Stereo - Where Available" logo on the intro of many TV shows.

BTW, Golden Girls was among the first stereo TV shows, but it sounded pretty bad, being shot on Betacam (at the Sunset/Gower lot). Real crappy sound on that show. Cosby was slightly better, but a lot of those 1980s videotape sitcoms had terrible sound, stereo or mono. The film sitcoms almost always sounded better because they were recorded on Nagras and mixed to 24-track.

[Dan C]

Wanna know what sucks? NONE of our affiliates are broadcasting in stereo. None, right now in 2008. Not a one. Our NBC affiliate built a new station from the ground up about 5 years ago and they're still mono. :confused: :realmad: What really sucks in the NBC station they tore down did broadcast in stereo. Seriously stupid.

I grew up in El Paso and our NBC station there, KTSM, was advertising their stereo sound way back in 85, IIRC. The ABC station followed shortly after that. It used to pain me to see the 'In Stereo Where Available' logo under my favorite shows, like Miami Vice, SNL and Late Night. I finally heard a stereo broadcast in an electronics store around that time, but I can't remember what show was on. Probably 'Golden Girls'. :laugh:

dan c

[Fedot L]

What really shocked me first, it was the multiplicity of those who had watched STEREO TV since mid-1980s, even back to the 1950s!..
And I read, and I read…
To discover soon it was simply MONO TV with stereo sound…
And in my opinion, it could be interesting to discuss, what kind of real STEREO TV people had an occasion to watch…
Not to mention stereo cinema, I’ve appreciated high quality many years ago, stereo TV is not so largely known…
The only possibility for me to watch it, was an astonishing invention to be able to watch stereo image on an ordinary TV, I watched not long ago, the stereo effect was quite real, but it was, for that moment, a short video material filmed specially for demonstration, and since it was a subject matter of an invention, there were, naturally, no explicit explanations.
And since, I’ve heard nothing about.

[Joel1963]

In terms of pre-stereo TV stereo on TV, the earliest examples I've read about were NBC simulcasts, with FM radio, of the George Gobel Show and the Perry Como Show, in about 1958 or so.

[Doug Sclar]

What really shocked me first, it was the multiplicity of those who had watched STEREO TV since mid-1980s, even back to the 1950s!..
And I read, and I read…
To discover soon it was simply MONO TV with stereo sound…
And in my opinion, it could be interesting to discuss, what kind of real STEREO TV people had an occasion to watch…
Not to mention stereo cinema, I’ve appreciated high quality many years ago, stereo TV is not so largely known…
The only possibility for me to watch it, was an astonishing invention to be able to watch stereo image on an ordinary TV, I watched not long ago, the stereo effect was quite real, but it was, for that moment, a short video material filmed specially for demonstration, and since it was a subject matter of an invention, there were, naturally, no explicit explanations.
And since, I’ve heard nothing about.

Wow, I am totally confused by this post.

What on earth is MONO TV with stereo sound? Perhaps you are referring to some of the early delivery methods before MTS where one needed to go to an Aux input to get stereo by using an external stereo AV source.

It doesn't really matter how the stereo sound was delivered as long as it was able to run in sync with the video.

And yes there were some stereo broadcasts in the 50's and but they generally used AM for one channel and FM for the other. IIRC, some of the old vintage audio control centers had a mode which would support this.

OK, now I think I get this. Are you talking about stereo TV in regards to having 2 video images? Of course that is a totally different concept than stereo audio.

[Fedot L]

In terms of pre-stereo TV stereo on TV...
Too complicated for me to understand what "pre-stereo TV" image "on stereo TV" are...