Television that came from the cold
Before digital high definition television became the norm, two analog television systems ruled the world: a 525-line system with 30 frames per second, and a 625-line system with 25 frames per second.
The 525-line system was adopted by the United States’ National Television System Committee in 1941, and later was accepted by most countries in the Americas and by Japan.
The 625-line system was developed several years later and conquered the rest of the world: Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. But where did this system come from, who created it? The Germans? The Dutch? The French?
After Nazi Germany was defeated in the Second World War, the allies banned all German radio and television services. The airwaves were taken by Soviet propaganda, British-controlled Radio Hamburg programs, and by Voice of America broadcasts.
Television was not a priority for post-war Germany. But it was becoming important for the Soviet Union.
Television as the most advanced form of radio broadcasting will gain the utmost importance in the Soviet Union in the near future. — Semyon Kataev, a Soviet scientist and inventor in the field of television and radio electronics.
In 1944 a group of electronics engineers met in Moscow to discuss a proposal of a new television standard for the post-war Soviet Union. This meeting was audacious not only because the Second World War still was raging, but also because the Soviet Union accepted a 441-line television standard just four years earlier.
The question of the best possible television standard for the USSR arose again after it became known that the United States chose 525-line national standard.
Television broadcast will become popular if it provides image quality comparable to movies. — Yuri Kaznacheev, the author of the Proposal for Television Standard of the USSR
The proposal for a new television standard strove to reach the following goals:
- The highest image quality achievable with contemporary technology;
- A possibility to improve image quality in the future without making changes to the specification itself;
- An easy path to upgrade to a better standard, including color TV;
- Durability of the format in the long term;
- Simplification of TV receiver while retaining high image quality.
The proposed standard provided for 625 scan lines, good enough to compete with 16 mm film. Dividing this number by 5 two times provided frame frequency neatly aligned with 50 Hz mains AC power. Horizontal frequency, calculated by multiplying this number by 5 two times fell within 1% of the horizontal frequency of the newly adopted 525-line NTSC television standard. This opened a possibility of buying off-the shelf equipment from the United States and using it with minimal modifications.
The meeting in 1944 and the resulting suggestions for a new Soviet television standard had profound consequences. In October 1945 the Soviet government issued a decree to switch the Moscow television station to 625-line format and to start regular broadcasting in this format by the end of 1946.
To make this plan a reality new cameras, transmitters, television sets were needed, not to mention skilled engineers to design and build all the equipment. Unfortunately, the Soviet post-war industry was decimated, and it had not been at the cutting edge to begin with. But the German industry had.
In the first half of 1930s television development in Germany lagged behind the United States and the Great Britain. Public telecommunication booths used mechanical system with Nipkow disk having the resolution of only 180 lines; the 1936 Olympics was televised using intermediate film system, in which film camera was used for acquisition, then the film was processed, dried and scanned and only then the image was sent over radio waves.
But in 1937 Germany leaped forward, choosing 441-line fully electronic television system. At that time RCA in the United States used 343-line system, and Britain just inaugurated its 405-line system.
A consortium of German radio and communications companies created a television receiver that all members of the consortium agreed to produce — the E1, priced at 650 RM. Germany was ready for the age of television.
The Second World War shifted German research towards military projects. Nevertheless, the Germans commenced broadcasting using the 441-line system in Paris after conquering France, and in Berlin. In 1943 Paris broadcasts ended. Two years later Germany was defeated.
The Soviets were happy to find Berlin neighborhoods chock-full of radio- and communication factories and research institutes belonging to companies like Telefunken, AEG, Siemens, and Bosch Fernseh. The latter had its equipment partially transferred to Sudetenland at the start of the war, sparing it from allied bombing and destruction. All this equipment and production facilities fell into the hands of the Soviets after the war.
The Soviets re-started research and development in Germany, not just in the areas of radio and telephony, but also in the fields related to aircraft, missiles, firearms, chemistry, and others.
One of the specialists who was employed by the Soviets was none other than Walter Bruch, the future creator of PAL color system.
Walter Bruch studied electrical technology at Mittweida university and earned a degree in mechanical engineering. In the early 1930s he worked in Berlin in close contact with the well-known television luminaries like Dénes Mihály and Manfred von Ardenne. When working at Telefunken he met Rudolf Urtel and Fritz Schröter. He served as a technician and cameraman for experimental 375-line “Olympic cannon” during 1936 Olympics, as a television demonstrator at the Berlin Radio Exhibition, and then at the 1937 Paris World Fair.
During wartime Walter Bruch designed and maintained a closed-circuit television system at Peenemünde — the secret military rocket test site in northern Germany — to control the launches of V-2 rockets. He also worked on radar technology and on TV transmission systems for airplanes.
After the war Walter Bruch became employed at the former AEG-Röhrenfabrik Oberspree in the Soviet Occupation zone, later known as “Oberspreewerk”.
After the war I worked at a factory controlled by Russians. At the end of 1945-early 1946 I built the first equipment for Moscow television center with 625 lines for a Russian named Sergei Novakovsky. — Walter Bruch
Sergei Novakovsky, who approached Walter Bruch for technical consultation, accepted the position of an engineering manager of the Moscow Television Center in 1943. He led a group of postgraduate college students specializing in electronic communications.
One of the members of his student group, Mark Krivosheev, created the original scanner for the 625-line standard in 1946.
Countless other German engineers and technicians helped the Soviet Union to design new devices and to restore German production lines. This symbiosis worked both for the Russians, who obtained much needed technology, tools and products, and for the Germans, who were able to apply their knowledge and skills while receiving decent pay.
Post-war agreements between the allies prohibited military development on German soil. This, along with the position of a victor, was a motivation for the Russians to dismantle German factories and transfer production equipment to the Soviet Union as part of the post-war reparations. After the equipment had been transferred, the Operation Osoaviakhim took care of the much needed personnel: in August of 1946 more than two thousand German engineers and skilled technicians along with their families were convoyed to a train station and dispatched to the Soviet Union.
The “voluntary-compulsory” approach of the transfer relied on intimidation: the operation started in the middle of the night. Soviet Military Administration prohibited using physical force and violence, meaning that those who refused the order to pack and leave despite the psychological pressure were allowed to stay in Germany with no further repercussions.
Walter Bruch was one of the few who managed to avoid the transfer to Russia.
More than seven thousand Germans, including family members, were brought to the Soviet Union to re-build production equipment, design new devices and parts, and to start production. More than a half of the engineers and technicians — 1350 — worked in the field of aviation, 500 were employed to develop new firearms, there were even 24 agricultural specialists. About 350 people were specialists in the field of radio-telephony and television. They helped make the 625-line television a reality.
Not all German engineers were forcibly sent to the USSR, some of them agreed to the transfer voluntarily. A former employee of Fernseh AG, Walter Hass recalls: “During the war the company’s facilities were moved to Sudetenland. Besides television, we worked on military projects, for example remotely controlling a missile using a TV camera installed on the missile to improve guidance. After the war Sudetenland became part of Czechoslovakia. Red Army seized the factories. We were ordered to produce equipment for Russia. Later the equipment was dismantled and sent to Russia. Several German specialists including myself were offered a job in Russia, we were guaranteed good job and pay, could take our families with us, and were promised a safe return in two years. At that time it was very unsafe in Czechoslovakia for Germans, so we agreed. We arrived in Fryazino, a small township in the Moscow region, on January 7, 1946.”
At that time Fryazino was the center of the fledgling Soviet electronic industry. The first vacuum tubes were produced there in 1934. Later, complete production lines, capable of producing one million vacuum tubes annually, were purchased from RCA. In 1943 a research and development center was created.
The Germans who worked in Fryazino lived in much better conditions than ordinary Soviet citizens. Although the Germans were limited in when and where they could go, they did visit Moscow at times. Usually, though, they stayed in Fryazino, spending time among their compatriots. On weekends they would gather and have house parties; there was little else to do in terms of entertainment. Their children attended a regular Soviet school where they learned to speak and read Russian and German alongside Russian kids. In 1948 the larger share of the German specialists was transferred to Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), where a television research bureau was established. Most Germans left the Soviet Union and returned to Germany in 1950, although some had to stay until 1952.
In 1946 the Soviet Union formally adopted the 625-line television format as a national standard. The necessary equipment for the Moscow Television Center was developed by the engineers and technicians working in Fryazino and Leningrad. Despite their tireless work, the Soviet and German specialists could not comply with the order of the Soviet government to start regular television broadcasts using the new standard in 1946. The first test broadcast in 625-line format occurred in September 1948. Try-outs continued in November. Regular broadcasts commenced in July 1949. Fortunately, no one was punished for the delay. Moreover, several engineers were praised, but not a single German was awarded. In fact, the Russians denied participation of Germans in re-building of the Soviet industry until 1991.
To receive Moscow broadcasts, remaining pre-war television sets were converted to 625-line system.
Large-scale production of a simplified TV set with minuscule 7-inch screen started in 1949. Several more expensive models with larger screen were developed as well.
Of particular interest is the Model T-2 Leningrad, production of which started in Radeberg, East Germany, in 1950. The Oberspreewerk in Berlin delivered the tubes, the Sachenswerk in Radeberg assembled the device.
Around 65,000 of these sets had been built, of which only around 200 were sold in East Germany, all other units were shipped to the Soviet Union.
Walter Bruch remained with Oberspreewerk until 1949; after which he moved to West Germany and assumed a leadership position in television department at Telefunken.
He made it just in time: in 1948 the ban on radio and television broadcast in Germany was lifted, and the question of television broadcast standard for Germany took the center stage. Naturally, East Germany followed the Soviets and adopted 625-line format. In 1950, the plans for a television service for East Germany got off the ground, and a Television Center in Berlin was approved. East German transmissions began on December 21, 1952.
The most notable development in the field of television in West Germany happened at Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR). This broadcasting organization was formed in 1945 under British auspices from Radio Hamburg, a radio broadcasting service of British occupying forces.
As early as in May 1946, considerable amount of responsibility was transferred to Germans within NWDR. Hopes were expressed that as NWDR acquires full independence it would follow the public corporation pattern of the BBC. The aim of the British was to foster a massive monopoly, conscious of its standing and responsibility as an impartial independent public service.
Hugh Carleton Greene, appointed by the British Control Commission as a Controller of the organization, was of crucial importance in acquiring a Charter by NWDR on 1 January 1948. From the start he set out to reach a synthesis between the best in British and German broadcasting systems. He did not insist on imposing the 405-line standard onto the Germans. On contrary, he admitted that the 10-year old format was inferior to newer developments in television.
In 1947 Werner Nestel was appointed the technical director of NWDR. Under Nestel’s leadership, on 22 September 1948 in Hamburg, thirty three German television experts agreed on the 625-line standard. On 17 June 1950, the official trial operation began in Hamburg-Lokstedt.
Above all, it was important to set on a standard: the number of lines on the screen. Before the war Germany accepted a national standard of 441 lines. 700 lines correspond to the quality of a 16-mm film. 1000 lines would rival the quality of 35-mm film. We chose to employ 625 lines. — Werner Nestel
It is unlikely that the 625-line format, which NWDR ultimately accepted, resulted from German wartime research. Dr. Urtel previously worked at Fernseh AG factory in Tanvald, where 441-line as well s 220-line formats were used and 729-line format was explored, but intelligence reports make no mention of 625-line system being designed in Germany during the war.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that NWDR engineers were aware of Soviet 625-line initiatives and appreciated technical beauty of the format. It is quite possible that Walter Bruch relayed information on the 625-line standard to Nestel, Urtel and Möller — who formed the so-called “Ettlinger circle” — after he left Oberspreewerke in 1949 and moved to West Germany. But political reasons could have also played a role.
At the CCIR meeting in Geneva in 1950, Nestel announced that West Germany was compelled to accept the 625-line system because East Germany adopted it. He pointed out that West Germany could not agree to any system which would have the effect of perpetually cutting Germany in two.
If the British had ever intended to expand their 405-line standard to Germany and further to continental Europe, their hopes were crushed, while the Americans were content with the Europeans using a standard which to a certain extent was compatible with the American format. The line frequencies of 525-60 and 625-50 standards were almost the same, which meant that the receivers for both systems could use similar components and schematics. This explains why a 567-line format announced by Philips in 1948 was abandoned and forgotten by 1950. Philips fully supported the 625-line format because it offered costs savings when designing equipment both for the European and for the American market.
One peculiar record of how simple it was to modify an NTSC device to 625-line format is a story of an American embassy officer in Moscow, who brought in 1950s an 8.5-inch Motorola TV set from the U.S. and converted it to the Soviet standard to watch Moscow broadcasts.
With the German NWDR and the Dutch Philips supporting the 625-line system, and the Americans having no problem with it, it was time to propose this format to other European countries.
After the war ended, Germany was excluded from the International Broadcasting Union, and the union itself was discredited for being German-friendly during the war. Hence, Germany did not have a hand in the immediate post-European discussion regarding television and radio broadcasting.
The Germans needed someone else to promote the idea of 625-line format across Europe, and they found the right man for the task — the chairman of the Swiss Postal Telegraph and Telephone (PTT), professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Walter Gerber.
The broadcast standard that Mr. Gerber proposed was already known and considered for use by NWDR and Nestel himself. But Germany could not succeed in promoting the new standard, so the Swiss Mr. Gerber was found. — Walter Bruch
At an international meeting in Lausanne in 1949, Walter Gerber emphasized that many European countries were too small or too poor to produce enough of quality television programs on their own. Gerber suggested establishing a system for pan-European television network, in which the transmitters would be installed on mountains, thereby facilitating program exchange with France, Italy, Germany and Austria. Clearly, it was necessary to ensure that all TV stations used the same television system, and the 625-line system was the solution proposed by Gerber.
With the Cold War brewing and political tensions rising, Western European countries were afraid of Soviet propaganda broadcasts to European viewers, which would be easy to receive if European TV sets used the same system as the Soviet television.
Nevertheless, by 1950, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland declared themselves in favor of 625-line system and started test broadcasts. Two years later, most Western European countries accepted the “Gerber standard” for broadcast television, which officially became known as System B. The Great Britain kept its pre-war 405-line system, called System A. France developed a 819-line television — System E — and did not budge.
The major difference of System B from the Soviet standard — System D — was narrower bandwidth: 7 MHz instead of 8 Mhz. Consequently, the sound sub-carrier was transmitted 5.5 MHz apart from video, not 6.5 MHz apart as in the Soviet standard. Some saw this as a measure to dissuade Western Europeans from watching Soviet television, but there was a simple technical reason for it.
“We had to accommodate three channels in the remaining frequency Band I, which is no longer used today. The eastern zone was not restricted. That is why the Western and Eastern standards, as I have said before, are different. — Walter Bruch
Walter Bruch was talking about the VHF I band, assigned for television, which spanned from 47 to 68 MHz, occupying 21 MHz in total. Using 7 MHz bandwidth made it possible to fit three television channels into this band.
Soviet engineers were vindicated when Europe started moving television transmissions to UHF band — most countries chose to expand channel width to 8 MHz, like the original Soviet specification suggested.
By the mid 1980s, Great Britain and France switched to 625-line format as well.
This standard conquered Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. In 1990s it was modified for widescreen content and progressive scanning, this version called PALPlus competed favorably with high definition broadcasts until television screens grew beyond 30 inches. In the early 2000s Australia introduced digital widescreen television with 625 lines in a frame, 50 frames per second. This format was considered high definition in Australia until it was replaced with well-known 720p and 1080i high definition formats.
In 2006, Roger Bunch, director of engineering of Free TV Australia acknowledged the role of the Soviet Union and personally of professor Mark Krivosheev, who worked together with Sergey Novakovsky in 1940s, in developing of the 625-line television standard.
Postscriptum
The fate of the 1944 Proposal for Television Standard of the USSR throws another kink in the history of the 625-line television format. One might think that this document has been carefully preserved and is proudly displayed in a museum. But so far I could not find a single image of the original document or its exact content.
Lev Leites, a Soviet electronics engineer, who participated in the creation of the first Soviet outside broadcasting van, and later led the development of outside broadcasting in Moscow, claimed that he saw the original 1944 proposal when he visited Irina Averbukh.
Irina Averbukh was employed at the Moscow Television Center and worked on selecting color standard for Soviet television and later on improving color TV broadcasting.
Irina Averbukh showed me a yellowed half-decomposed typewriter copy of the Proposal for Television Standard of the USSR dated by 1944. This manuscript had never been published, and has likely landed in the hands of Irina Averbukh after a “cleanup” of the Moscow Television Center library. — Lev Leites
In 1995 Irina Averbukh together with her husband, Vladimir Tesler, also an electronics engineer and the author or the NIIR color television system, moved from the Soviet Union to the United States, joining their son, Alexander, who left earlier.
I contacted Alexander Tesler, asking whether he knows anything of this historical document, and he replied:
Unfortunately my mother passed away in 2006. I never saw a document mentioned by you, but I must admit that we never have discussed such an issue, and she had no reason to show this document to me.
There are a lot of papers left after my mom, but I don’t know if this document is among these papers or even whether she brought it with her when she moved to the U.S. — Alexander Tesler
Tracing the origins of the most popular analog TV standard in the world have been a fascinating investigation. For example, I have documents claiming that Czechoslovak engineers developed the format in 1946, admittedly later than 1944.
How Walter Bruch managed to avoid being transferred to the USSR in 1946? Was there any hidden deal between Bruch and the Soviets for him to promote the 625-line system in the West? Very conveniently, Bruch left East Germany in 1949 and went to West Germany to work for Telefunken, one of the leading German electronics companies at that time, right after television ban in Germany was lifted and the issue of choosing the television standard became a priority. Or did he actually come up with the idea sometime in 1945, and the story about the 1944 document is fabricated?
Walter Bruch never contested Soviet leadership in the creating of 625-line standard. The fate of the 1944 document remains the ultimate enigma of the television history.
