Uniray - Its advantages as a color TV display - A comparison with earlier beam index systems and with shadow-mask displays

Basic improvements have been made in beam-index color TV to overcome the difficulties previously experienced in the earlier widely published index systems. These improvements warrant a fresh look at the cost and performance advantages of indexing as a means of color reproduction for the 1970's. Uniray is a single-beam index system which provides index signals which tend to be independent of picture modulation. Uniray does not require extreme sweep linearity nor critical beam tracking. Also overcome are shielding and radiation problems of earlier indexing systems. Compared to shadow-mask or aperture-grill techniques, Uniray has performance advantages including much higher efficiency, allowing greater brightness for a given cost of high-voltage supply, and sharper pictures throughout the life of the equipment. It requires properly designed electron-optics and the addition of small, relatively inexpensive low-level circuits, which can readily be in integrated form. The cost of these additions is more than paid for by savings from simplification and elimination of a number of inherently expensive and bulky parts used in shadow-mask type systems. How Uniray operates to achieve these advantages will be described, and pictures will be shown of performance achieved.