Seems that the largest consumer CRT one could get in a TV had maxed out at 25" for about 20 years, from the early 1960's to the mid 80's, when 32" and bigger CRTs appeared on the market. Except for that DuMont 40" CRT set. WAs the reason for the max size stuck at 25" that market research seemed to indicate nobody wanted anything larger, too expensive, or that bigger CRT based sets (using say 90 degree deflection) would not fit thru the average American house's doorway? :scratch2:

I think a lot of it was the difficulty in designing yokes that could converge a large 90 degree+ CRT. Today's large, flat CRTs have very complex yokes compared to ones from 20 years ago.

That, and 25" (or 21" round) is about where the picture quality starts to go back down due to lack of detail.

I just saw a news story on a new plasma screen television by Symbio. It is a whopping 72" wide. Do you need to sit at the neighbors house to watch it? How big is too big. We are getting close to the whole wall being a television.

polaraman

Could the screen sizes have been held down because of high voltage/radiation factors? Perhaps it just took a long time for the manufacturors to get the government to relieve the safety restrictions?

The Du Mont Royal Sovereign? That was 30". Shortly thereafter 24" and 27" rectangular CRTs were developed (in fact some Sovereigns whose 30BP4s went bad were retrofitted with a 27" rectangular CRT), but the huge sets that used them are rarely seen today. I once had a c. 1954 RCA 27" console. Scarily huge thing. Those monsters could certainly be had from the early fifties on, just check some ads and brochures of the time. 21" screens became the standard just because most folks weren't buying anything bigger.

There was a 43" (CRT) Sony Monitor on eBay a while back.

It seems like 23" was the standard for the largest rectangular screen color sets from 1964-1973 or so and then the more rectangular 25" took over then in popularity.
Magnavox and Sony seemed to have a 26" in the mid 80's and then it seemed like 27" was most popular.

I think Mitsubishi had some of the first 31" or 35" sets in the mid 80's or so...there are people still using these sets because they like the cabinetry of them.

The 27" b/w sets are great! Really big screen, even bigger than a 27" color set as the screen is more curved. Magnavox still made these into the mid 60's as a "luxury" b/w set with a photocell to automatically adjust brightness and other special features.

I remember getting a peek inside a Muntz 27" set years ago. It had a vertical chassis with the neck of the crt through the middle of it, Maybe 10 or 12 tubes series string. That little chassis looked like a wart on the back of all that glass. IIRC Magnavox built a solid state 27 incher in the mid 60's.

Sony had a 32" come out in the early 80's in a beautiful hardwood console. It was exreamly expensive. I saw one on ebay a while back but either forgot to save the pictures, or they were too crappy to bother.

I just saw a news story on a new plasma screen television by Symbio. It is a whopping 72" wide. Do you need to sit at the neighbors house to watch it? How big is too big. We are getting close to the whole wall being a television.

polaraman
If that's a high-def screen, optimum viewing is about 10 feet away; for standard def, about twice that.

Can't speak for the black & white sets, but I can tell you:

The Sony Jackson's talking about was a 30". It came out in 1980 or '81 and cost $10,000. Kind of their version of RCA's G2000.

Mitsubishi's 35" monsters, the biggest of the time, started appearing in 1985. They upped their own ante in '92 or '93 with a 40". Not sure if Sony still makes their 40" or not, but I haven't seen a bigger CRT than that.

The biggest HD tube was 38" and was made by Thomson for RCA, ProScan and Loewe. The color's amazing, and it's a shame they haven't duped that size in a flat tube.

I don't think Sony still makes their 40" back-breakers, seems like I remember back at the time-about 5 yrs ago-they had a fair amount of trouble w/them. The Dumont 30" CRTs of 1951 were fairly notorious for problems & short life, too. -Sandy G.

One of the Dumont 30" b/w sets is set up and working at the Early Television museum. It seems like this was a metal shell tube? and that most had problems. The museum set had a great picture...perhaps that was a rebuilt tube? wonder what the secret is of keeping this one working so well?

That DuMont at the museum was one of my favorite exhibits. When you stand next to it there is a distinct hum that I liked! There is another crt on display in the back; with that metal cone it looks pretty strange. I'm sure that big area, all that vacuum, along with a metal to glass seal, meant major leaking problems. But an all-glass 30" round tube-who would lift it!?

It seems like 23" was the standard for the largest rectangular screen color sets from 1964-1973 or so and then the more rectangular 25" took over then in popularity.
In my collection I have a rectangular 26" hybrid color tv set from 1969 with a 90 degree CRT, and since 1971, the 27" CRTs had 110 degree CRTs. Especially the 27" 110° monster Tv sets by Philips in 1971 had a power consumption of more than 400 watts:
http://www.marcelstvmuseum.com/photoalbum42.html
http://www.marcelstvmuseum.com/photoalbum16.html

Hi,

Maybe this isn't the right forum, if so, please feel free to delete this reply

I have an Italian set with a 27RP4.. That thing is huge and very heavy (about 80 Kilos). At the time the set was introduced (1956), it costed as two cars. Two problems actually don't let me use it:

1- It doesn't pass through the doors :lmao:
2- It is missing the flyback

If someone, just for laughs, want to see some photos, just let me know :thmbsp:

Cheers

Giulio Maiocco

If someone, just for laughs, want to see some photos, just let me know
Oh, I am curiously and hungry for photos.

Welcome Giulio, to our merry band of TeeVee nutz here on AK ! Yeah, I think I speak for all of us-We'd LOVE to see pics of yr "baby"...What other ones do you have? When did TV start in Italy? What about color? When did you guys get color? Are you PAL or SECAM? You'll prolly get allsorts of questions...<grin>-Sandy G.

Hi Yagosaga and Sandy G,

thanks for the warm welcome, it is very appreciated.

No problem for the photos, when I come back from work this evening I will post two or three photos of the monster (oh, it has also a wire remote control!!). Now I have about 15 TV sets, mainly late '50 Italian sets, but I have also a Saba projection set with a MW6/2 CRT and a '54 Geloso TV (the first year of TV in Italy). At the moment I have no TV color sets, as color TV here in Italy started pretty late, 1976 or 1977 if I remember right, so no tube type color TV sets were produced... The Italian color standard is PAL and I think that if my aunt, that lives in Chicago IL, find a color TV set (and I want one, maybe roundie :naughty: ), I will have some problems to have it working with our standard.

If you have any other questions, please ask, I will be more than happy to answer

Giulio Maiocco

Hi guys,

here are the photos of my Italian 27" I promised. Let me know what do you think about it. The set is complete, except the flyback and it uses a parallel of 6AV5's as line output and a pair of 6W4's as a damper. The vert. output is a...6SN7!! :D From what I can tell, the chassis could be of American idea :scratch2:

Thanks

Giulio Maiocco

Hi,

A little update, especially for you Yagosaga:


I met Avalon1308 on sunday (very very nice guy!! :thmbsp: ) and I showed him the beast, he was really surprised for the phisical dimensions. He brought his two tube testers and the 27RP4 turned out very weak.. Doh!! :no: I showed also my working projector, the tube seems healthy still!!

Just let me know what do you think about the baby in the photos

Giulio Maiocco

Suh-weet ! Very American looking set-could easily pass for a Zenith or RCA or Motorola of the era. Maybe there's someplace in the EU that rebuilds CRTs-maybe they're even still making that size in the old Comblock somewhere. This stuff has a way of turning up in the oddest places...Have you gone thru it & replaced the caps? That is usually the first order of business bringing one of these old beasts back to life.-Sandy G.

Not as tall as a side-by-side fridge, but I'll bet it takes up darn near the floorspace!

Hi Sandy G and TDRyan,

I'm happy you have seen the beast.. I personally like it (especially the look)very much.

Sandy G: I'm recapping it, it has about 25 paper capacitors and a few electrolytics, but this shouldn't be the hard part. The biggest problem is to find another flyback (missing from the chassis), but this model was produced in only 100 pieces... If the picture tube turns out to be not useable as is, I certainly (sp?) will search for a tube rebuilder, it's a shame not to use it just for the almost dead CRT..

TDRyan: The beast is 90 cm deep, 1 meter long and 1,40 meter tall, so it isn't an easy task to move it, as a fridge :)

I will keep you up to date with the progress!!

Giulio Maiocco

Maybe the secret of the Dumont's success is Vacu-seal?? :)

40" CRTs though - that's a scary amount of glass/vacuum to have in a room...

I just picked up a 38" wide screen CRT set from the side of the road (with a lot of help from a friend!). It's probably the widest CRT ever made.

Yes, again, the Royal Sovereign had not a 40", but a 30" round tube. That's two-and-a-half feet diameter. I read once that Dr. Du Mont said around the time of the Sovereign that he would next develop a 42" inch direct-view CRT, but that never happened. In fact, nobody even knew if he was serious.

I just picked up a 38" wide screen CRT set from the side of the road (with a lot of help from a friend!). It's probably the widest CRT ever made.

Andy is that an RCA HDTV set? We used to have one when I worked at a radio and TV station that was converting to digital TV. I remember having to lift that thing on to a table and man was it heavy, even with help! This is the first report of a wide screen set landing in the trash yet I have heard of. Hope it's not too bad of a fix.

Yes, it's an RCA DTV306. It's easily the heaviest set I've worked on. Even a 35" 4:3 set isn't quite as bad to move. It was next to the dumpster at an RCA dealer in town. It's only 3 years old and has already been trashed. $4000 doesn't buy what it used to. There's no evidence that anyone even took the back off before they junked it. I wonder if they were displosing of it for the customer after delivering a new TV, or if it had been taken in for repair? They trash a lot of nice TVs. I don't bother with that many TVs now because my family has all it wants and no one will buy a used TV any more.

It has no horizontal deflection and only about 4" of vertical. It's a complex set with about 5 power supplies and separate horizontal and HV output circuits. I suspect that one of its many micro controllers isn't doing what it should be because it runs the HV supply all the time. I might have to get a service manual for this one.

Nice set. I love mine. Gotta love the built in DirecHD tuner! :yes: I guess you have a later one. What's the version number on the sticker behind the jacks on the left? The later sets are JX3, JX4, or YX5 (which is what mine is). The later the better.

Rumor is, they underspecked the capacitors on these sukkas (actual weight apx. 215 lbs. less optional stand), so just about every one of these is going to have some kind of breakdown eventually, which if not caught early, will take down major components like tuner card and power supply. Cuppa links to get you started fixing it:

http://home.austin.rr.com/doctorjoe/index.html (http://)
http://www.thomsonnetwork.com/unprotected/Search?USETYPE=GET&querytext=dtv306&doctypes=&brands=RCA,PROSCAN,UNBRANDED&categories=ACCESSORIES,AUDIO,COLOR_TV,COMMUNICATIO N,DTVS,DVD,MULTIMEDIA,VIDEO&languages=&numdocsperpage=10&firstdocnum=1&maxnumberdocs=500000&dosearch=1

Parts, outside of caps and diodes, will not be easy to come by so hopefully the owners and the shop got lazy about fixing a simple problem. G'luck!

I managed to borrow a service manual CD from a shop I occasionally do some work for, so things are looking up for the RCA. It looks like it's already had the power supply diode upgrade, so hopefully there's not too much wrong with it. As I said, I don't think anyone even tried to fix its current problem.

I had a 37" Mitsubishi computer monitor pass through my hands when I was a kid. It was abandoned at a repair shop after the estimate was refused and they gave it to be to get rid of it. It turned out to only have a bad vertical IC, but they missed it becuase it blanked the picture to protect the CRT. I forget what I sold it for, but it was fun to play with while I had it.

I once saw a 40" Mitsubishi TV at that same shop where I got the RCA, but they had broken the CRT neck.

I just picked up a 38" wide screen CRT set from the side of the road (with a lot of help from a friend!). It's probably the widest CRT ever made.

38" may be the largest "consumer" CRT but Sony had a Professional monitor with a CRT that measured 43". PVM-4300. It could do HD and did line doubling on NTSC signals.

I know Mitsubishi and Sony both made 40" 4:3 CRTs for the consumer market.

Does anyone know for sure if the 43" Sony monitor was 43" visible, or just 43" overall CRT size? If it was the CRT size, that would mean it was only about 40" visible like the Mitsubishi of the time.

My original point that a 38" 16:9 CRT is wider than a 40" 4:3 CRT is still true. It's almost as wide as a 43" 4:3 CRT would be.

Don't forget, though, that the vertical height of the 38" picture is only the equivalent of a 32" tube.

Gorgeous old lady, isn't she?

Guaranteed to make strong men weep (when they tried to move it) and ladies swoon (as they thought about all that acreage to dust).

When men were men, and TVs smelled when they started up. Which was a couple of minutes after you turned it on.

Ahhh, yes. Those WERE the days.

"Use rubber gloves when servicing."

...Isn't that what the Actress said to the Bishop?

::rimshot::

I got the massive RCA going. It had a shorted -12v rectifier diode in one of its many power supplies. Surprisingly, the power supply didn't shut down, it just went to about half its rated output voltages. The set looks pretty good even before doing any adjustment. You'd think someone would have at least looked at it before throwing it out.

I was able to borrow the RCA service manual CD. It would have taken a lot longer without it.

Let me know if anyone needs the service manuals to a CTC-175 to CTC-211.

@Giulio Maiocco: I love your old Italian tv; it's American style but with Italian influnces. The set haves an wired remote control?
The biggest B & W Romanian Made CRT's had 65 cm (25.5"). "Telecolor" had 56 cm (aprox 22") picture tubes. The colour with the biggest diagonale Made in Romania, was a member of the "Cromatic" sets family-it had an 72 cm (28") screen.
I the videoclip of the play "I wanna sex you up" played by the band Color me badd it's a set with big diagonale and perfect plate screen. What set is that?

Looking for anyone that knows about a Kay Halbert TV ? They made TV's in the mid 50's in Culver City California. 27 Inch Picture , no knobs on the front , remote control on a 25 Ft cord with on off ,volume, & channel control.Same time Muntz had 27 inch screen.
Any info would be great.

Hi Telecolor 3007,

I'm happy you like my TV. Yes, the 27" set does have a wire remote control that controls volume, tone, brightness and contrast. I's a metal semi-cilinder that is relatively heavy. At the moment I can't shot more photos because it is stored in a friend's garage behind a ton of guitar loudspeaker cabinets, but if you are interested, just PM a message and when the caos is a little better than now, I will send you some more photos. I have also a strange TV projector as well and it is working, but I could take some photos of it very easily.

Thank you

Giulio Maiocco

I had one of the Sony KV-3000s... That was the 30" Tamo Ash console mentioned earlier in this thread. It was originally $10,000, but I got mine from a local retailer in '86 for much less because they couldnt' ever sell it. The chassis was a commercial CVM-3000, with a very complicated tuner board coupled to it. It also had remote motorized tambor doors. Very rare, and I have only heard of 4 sets including (formerly) mine.

The 43" PVM-4300u was a publicity stunt, and all of them were recalled by Sony for destruction according to a Sony official with whom I talked after the display model disappeared out of the Circuit City in West Los Angeles after several years. Amazingly, 3 have turned up in private hands. There are 2 of them here all tied up in probate in Orange County, and a 3rd one that showed up on eBay several months ago Back East. I wouldn't want to be in the room if one of those imploded!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Charles

Was the PVM-4300 really a 43" visible CRT, or a 43" overall? I know the other PVM series monitors were measured as the overall CRT size (eg. a PVM-14XX would use the same size CRT as a KV-13XX).

It's an actual 43" viewable... CRT is 45" M108KEG10X. I called Andrews once for fun to ask about that CRT, and it was special order for $23,000.00. No surprise since the SD-59 (for 5" KV-5000 thru 5300) is now over $750. In looking in the manual, that set weighs 440 lbs and draws 400 watts! Let's put a couple PVM-4300s around the house as extra TVs :banana2:

Charles

KAYE HALBERT TV Did you get my email ?

Wow, that's one expensive and heavy monitor! It would be neat to see one.

I can't believe they want $750 for an SD-59 either. I just bought a second KV-5100 and fortunately it has a good CRT. I've heard these CRTs were unreliable, but so far I'm 3/4 with these (one was physically broken).

I just saw a news story on a new plasma screen television by Symbio. It is a whopping 72" wide. Do you need to sit at the neighbors house to watch it? How big is too big. We are getting close to the whole wall being a television.polaraman

Ahh yes, the telescreen ("Farenheit 451")