What was the sound quality of early MTV like?

I was watching a DVDR of vintage MTV airchecks/videos from 1982 (LOVE this stuff, if anybody has it), and although the quality isn't original airplay quality- it's not bad. I was struck by the difference in sound quality between videos, right next to each other. I mean, Stray Cats "Rock This Town" was crisp and clear sounding, then the next video was the Boomtown Rats "Never In A Million Years" and it sounded dead and muddy. It seemed strange that, even though the production of the music is totally different, I would think that the labels would have wanted some consistency... I can tell why one was the hit, and the other....not so much. Did MTV sound good back in the day (even without the "so-called stereo hook-up")?

 

I guess it depended of the audio the cable system provided. I got the "stereo hookup" to my system, and it was just fine. It was an extra $1.50 a month, but you also got HBO,ect..in stereo.
Otherwise, most people got what their TV speaker gave them, and mono at that.

 

They were using 1" C back then, and the audio wasn't horrible but wasn't great. I would call it somewhere around "hissy FM" quality. But it was definitely stereo (where available).

Since when has mastering ever been consistent? This crap has always been all over the place, even with commercially-released CDs. It's even worse in video, particularly with EQ and level decisions for music videos.

 

Yes, this is very true.

I had to go to my local cable company to adjust their head end so I could get stereo. Even so it was over FM. They had FM modulators which took the audio from the satellite receivers that they got the programming from, but setting the audio on those receivers was not so easy for them.

I was able to vastly improve on what they were offering before I got involved, but it was still not great. It got better as time went on.

 

Was MTV America born in stereo (where possible) when it was launched in 1981? MTV Europe started in 1987, and I'm pretty sure that was.

 

Well when I got involved was pretty soon after they launched, so I would imagine most of their stuff was stereo from the beginning. The thing is that stereo TV's didn't start until 1984 and it was a few years after that before many cable companies were set up for stereo retransmission. Heck it took 5 years for KABC to go stereo, so the transition was not quick.

As mentioned upthread, the only way to get MTV in stereo was with a satellite receiver, or over FM if you were lucky enough to have a CATV company to provided that service. And once again, I was supposed to get stereo over FM from the beginning, but the cable company had no idea that they were not transmitting stereo sound. I had to educate them, which was kind of surprising, but it also got me access to their headend and the ability to dial things to my liking.

 

I definitely remember ads that the local cable company would put up on MTV saying 'if you want to hear this in stereo the way it should be, then call...'

 

"Call now for a stereo hook-up into your FM receiver..."



The sound quality was not great, plus they were using a ton of dynamic range compression at the time to "even out" a lot of the programming. But again, not that much worse than Top 40 radio on FM.

 

I taped the first hour of MTV off VH1 Classic and loved it. It was very hissy in certain spots complete with a tape dropout or 2. I loved it, the way I remember tv back then..

 

I don't recall stereo TV until the late '80s.

 

The first time I ever saw MTV was in December 1981, while visiting my brother in Dallas.

They used to show some very cool stuff early on - pretty much whatever they could get their hands on, since they pretty much singlehandedly created the need to produce music videos. The first videos I can remember seeing on MTV were "Ghost Town" by the Specials, "Absolute Beginners" by the Jam, and "Breaking Us In Two" by Joe Jackson.

 

Out here we had KTLA go stereo in 1984. Unfortunately they only had a few programs in true stereo, such as the Tournament of Roses Parade, so they decided to run all their audio through a fake stereo processor.

I believe KNBC also went that year and had Johnny Carson in stereo, but at least they stayed true mono unless they had a specific stereo program to broadcast, and then it was kind of a big deal.

As I mentioned previously, KABC didn't switch until 1989. That said, they ran programming that said 'In Stereo Where Available' as early as 87 and perhaps earlier. If it wasn't available in LA where they heck was it available?

 

Absolutely! In fact, I think the first stereo TV I ever experienced was at a friend's house in Granada Hills in 1989.

 

I lived in Denver when MTV began. We had a show called FM/TV, out of Boulder, I think.
When MTV began, FM/TV disappeared. Rumor was MTV made them quit showing videos.

jerol

 

yes, Stereo... a gift from the godz...I fondly remember MTV in Stereo, but then again Mono was a second thought anyway back then...

 

The graphic key that said "In Stereo Where Available" came from the network, not the local station, so the network was just kind of providing a plausible explanation.



I worked on the very first NBC made-for-TV stereo movie in 1985, Bridge Across Time, and the network was terrified that the film would sound bad in mono. We jumped through hoops to make sure the stereo phase was perfect and rock-steady, and the mono downmix sounded fine.

 

For those that don't remember, was too young or had the cable company hook it up, the process to get stereo was add a y connector to the cable directly from wall and send the new connection directly to your fm antenna input. Then you would find the station (left side of your fm dial) for mtv, hbo, ppv, ect. that was setup for the channel. Now that is old school...

 

I remember watching MTV's very first few shows they kept playing Spilt Znz Leaky Boat on heavy rotation every 10 vids or so and the host kept asking if the viewers had any vids the VJ could play to send them in gave an actual address do so

 

In the 1970s and 1980s here in the UK, the TV station BBC Two would often show live music concerts and broadcast them on FM on BBC Radio 1 or BBC Radio 2 at the same time. The whole idea was to turn your TV sound off and listen through your Hi-Fi on the FM radio station instead. The picture was always synced perfectly with the TV picture. The BBC did this with Live Aid. MTV broadcast Live Aid and I'm sure it was broadcast on FM stations in the US synced with the TV broadcast.

Can someone explain to me in more detail on how people could access the audio of MTV America via an FM receiver in the early days (1980s)? Was it broadcast 24 hours a day on special FM radio stations in certain areas of the US? I'm in the UK and this system was never used in TV broadcasting to provide stereo sound.

 

MTV's stereo audio feed was transmitted on a dedicated FM frequency directly from the cable company provider's RF line...no radio stations involved...

 

Did you need an FM radio receiver? If you did, how did the signal get to your FM radio?

 

Yes, you needed an FM stereo receiver...the signal was split from the RF line directly to the antenna feed...

 

Very similar then to connecting an early VCR (VHS or Betamax) to your TV. You'd watch videos via tuning the TV tuner into the frequency the video player/recorder was outputting the signal on. Here in the UK it was on a UHF frequency as all TV stations broadcasted on the UHF band.

I'm assuming your cable receiver just put out a signal on an FM frequency and you had to connect it to your FM radio. Then you had to tune the radio into the same frequency the cable TV receiver was putting the signal out on.

 

I remember during the late 70's in NYC channel 13 (PBS) would simulcast on FM stereo for "2001" and a few other movies.

Manhattan Cable (now Time Warner) did have an FM stereo feed for radio stations and some early stereo broadcasts.

Amazing how primitive looking back at how these things worked compared to where we are now. The world has marched on......

 

This is correct. The cable company used FM modulators, not too dissimilar to what one might use to broadcast an iPod to their car radio.

That in itself was not unusual for a cable operator. They use modulators to distribute their video programming, so the set up is pretty much the same. The trick was not so much in broadcasting the stereo, as much as getting the stereo from the satellite receivers.

That was not so easy as they had to determine what bandwidths and frequency ranges to use, as well as whether they used discreet stereo or went through matrixes. The video techs that worked on the headends were not audio people in the least.

In this case, you had to have cable to get the FM signal, but of course you had to have cable to get MTV in the first place. I got it from cable when it started and started with Satellite a few years later.

Hooking it up was a snap, and many people already had it hooked up that way. The cable operators also relayed FM broadcasts, for people in bad reception areas, and also had stereo sound from HBO and a few other movie channels appearing on the FM dial.