here is the last black and white tv ever  made not this specific one of course but this  

general design i'm sure you've seen plenty of them  

even today in thrift stores you can often  find them for sale i got this one for 1.99

this particular style of black and white tv  started appearing sometime in the 1990s for  

example radio shack sold this very similar  looking tv beginning in 1995 and by 2006  

these were selling for 14.99 brand new and  i definitely remember seeing these in stores  

even after analog tv was shut down in  2009 which would have rendered these  

mostly obsolete unless you hooked it  up to a vcr or just used it as a radio

doing some research i've been able to find over  30 different brands these tvs were sold under  

here's two of them this one is a spectra and  this one is a memorex and you can see the very  

similar but not quite exactly the same not just  the difference in color of course for example  

these fake vents on the side you can see this  one is slightly curved well this one is flat  

and the two crts you can see are slightly  different colors this one is more white  

and this one is more gray you can also  see differences in the tuning dials

so these were kind of like those suitcase style  record players where they all basically look the  

same but if you look closely you can see minor  differences between them so clearly they were  

not all coming from the same factory i'm sure  there were multiple different factories in china  

making these tvs with slight  differences in the parts they used

these tvs were commonly advertised as having a  five and a half inch picture tube but the actual  

viewable image size is just under five inches  which is what they're supposed to advertise  

but just like they didn't bother following  the rules about not selling analog tvs after  

2009 they also didn't bother following the rules  about advertising the actual viewable image size

and these small black and white picture  tubes were also commonly used in things like  

karaoke systems baby monitors  and security camera systems  

so the part sharing between all those different  devices is what also helped to make these so cheap

this spectra 52-bwr was made in september 2002  and this memorex mt-0550 was made in july 2005.  

as for the reason why people kept buying these  well into the 2000s it's mostly because they  

were just so dirt cheap i mean 15 bucks that's  the kind of price where people would see one of  

these on the shelf in the store and they would  say hey that's kind of neat i could bring it  

outside i could take it with me camping i could  put in my rv i could take it to the ball game  

and they probably use it once or twice and  they realize it's a piece of crap and they  

put it in their closet and they never use  it again until 20 years later when they're  

cleaning out their junk and they donate to  goodwill and that's how we end up with these

this one even still has a protective  plastic film on the tuning dial

the glue holding it on started coming  off so i just took off the whole thing  

and now you can see how cheap it is the  tuning indicator is just a strip of plastic  

that moves up and down to show you approximately  where you tuned in obviously these are just  

continuous tuning they don't have click stops on  each channel so you got to manually tune it in

and you get fm radio am radio  vhf low which is channels 2 to 6  

vhf high which is channel 7 to 13 and uhf  which goes all the way up to channel 83  

even though the channels above 69 were reallocated  to mobile phone service in the late 1980s  

for some reason they just kept indicating  on the dial on these tvs made in the 2000s  

even though there are no longer any tv stations in  that region but the ones of these that were sold  

in europe only have uhf because europe has not  used vhf for tv broadcasting since the mid 1980s

and some of these have an a/v input  on the back with composite video and  

audio but these do not they just  have an external antenna jack  

which is a 3.5 millimeter jack which was  typical for portable tvs back in the 80s  

and 90s 12 volt dc power input it can also run  on batteries which i'll show you in a minute

vertical hold control brightness  and contrast and on this one these  

knobs are very difficult to adjust because  they're larger and they're almost right up  

against this lip here so you don't get much  finger room to get a grip on these knobs

on this side is the speaker which has virtually no  

openings in this grille for the sound to actually  come out on this side it's just a decoration

and here are the batteries 10 c cells i actually  went to the dollar store and bought these they  

come in a pack of two for a dollar so i spent five  dollars on batteries to power this tv and these  

are only heavy-duty non-alkaline batteries so they  won't last very long because these tvs draw about  

12 watts when they're in operation so they're  definitely rather power hungry on the batteries

first let's just try using  as a radio so i'll switch  

it on to the radio position i have it set to fm

"93.9 fm you can also listen online at wnyc.org  

for the rest of this evening we're  looking at clear skies it's going to  

be cold the night low of about 37 sunny  tomorrow tuesday high near 50 in..."

the fm reception on these is not bad

so it's picking up plenty of stations  on fm but am is not nearly as good

and only a few stations are coming in  strongly the rest are barely audible

that's my own transmitter that's why it's so loud

now let's try the tv function obviously we're  not going to pick up anything watchable because  

there's no longer any analog tv of any kind on the  air i kind of wish i did this video about a year  

ago when there were still some low power analog  tv stations on the air but now they're all gone

it takes a while for the tube to warm  up and there you can see just static

some bleed over from my fm transmitter

i'm sure you don't want to just look  at snow for the rest of the video  

so i connected it directly to my vcr and this  is the best image quality i can get there's  

a line there's some ghosting and static and  there's some buzz in the audio if i turn it up  

but that's the best you're going to get  these tvs are just not very sensitive

i'll play a tape here

"daytime running lights are for daytime use  only remember to turn on your headlights at  

night for full power and to illuminate all other  lights and if you leave them on accidentally  

a warning tone will sound to remind you to  turn them off now let's talk about security  

peter ready" "well callie this is the key to  using jetta's central power locking system  

it can lock or unlock the doors rear trunk  lid and fuel filler flaps simultaneously"

so that's the kind of video quality you can expect  from one of these not very good even with a direct  

connection to a vcr and when you turn off this one  it looks very old-fashioned you see that dot in  

the middle sometimes it lasts longer than others  but you definitely get that dot in the middle

now here's the silver spectra tv and  the image quality is noticeably superior  

and also has less distortion on  the audio although it has more buzz  

and it sounds more tinny so i'll give  you a sample what this one looks like

"by choosing a jetta you've rewarded yourself  with a car that's full of driving excitement  

intelligent engineering and plenty of  personality once you enjoy what jetta's  

got to offer we think you'll agree that it's  unlike any other car on the road today in fact  

volkswagen believes so much in its product  it's backed by volkswagen protection plus"

so that's an example of the differences between  these tvs even though they all basically look  

the same they all have minor differences in their  quality and performance some are definitely better  

than others and this one also doesn't make  that dot in the middle when you turn it off

i'm sure you wanted to see what these look  like inside and well there you go these  

are so cheap they don't even use screws  to hold the components inside the case  

the tube in this one was made by dongguan  crt manufactory and as for how they were  

able to make these so cheap that's because  there's only three integrated circuits  

in this entire tv here is the csc 5151 that's the  tv chip basically the entire tv in a single chip  

so it does the tuning the video decoding the sweep  circuits for the crt everything in a single chip

and there's the chip for the radio it's an  sa 2003 a completely integrated am/fm radio  

tuner and a single chip and the only  other chip is an lm386 audio amplifier

i don't see any traces on the board for what  could have been an a/v input but you can see some  

unused traces for what would have been an ac power  input with rectifier diodes and a filter capacitor

the flyback transformer is a bsh-8 so i wouldn't  be surprised that the high voltage on this is  

8000 volts instead of the 25,000  volts that is typical for color crts

and there's the tiny and tinny sounding speaker

and interestingly there's a serviceman warning  or waring printed into the back of the case  

reminding you to ground the crt  when you're going to service this

as for when production of these ended i'm not  sure there's still one seller on aliexpress  

selling a black and white portable tv that is a  kit you have to put together yourself but they  

only have about 58 of them left so i'm pretty sure  those are just old stock they're still selling off

as for when the last cathode ray tube televisions  of any kind were made wikipedia claims it was in  

2015 but the company they identify as the last  known manufacturer of crt tvs videocon in india  

said in 2015 that they still had enough demand  for them to continue manufacturing them for three  

more years so sometime in that range after  2015 when the last crt televisions were made

so there's a look at the last black and  white tv ever made they were an inexpensive  

mass-produced novelty item whose quality ranges  from poor to miserable so even if you're a fan  

of black and white crt televisions once you  see how bad the image quality actually is  

even with a direct connection to a vcr or  a digital tv tuner box the novelty will  

quickly wear off and you'll probably just end  up donating it back to the thrift store again

"if you happen to have a  jetta with power windows or  

power sunroof you also get the convenience  of a closing feature built into the system  

by holding the key in the locking position  your windows and sunroof will automatically  

close and now that everything's locked  on your jetta a flashing red light on  

the driver's door sill and that beep you heard  earlier will tell you that your alarm is set"