Largest CRT Ever Built?
 

Am I correct in thinking that it's Sony's 40" XBR circa 2002? These sets I'm thinking of weighed almost 700 pounds but looked damn good IIRC.

But, were there ever any bigger CRTs sold to the public?

Even at 40", the whole notion of the crt becomes kinda impractical....

Sony had some 43 inch Monitors, they weren't for the public though.

There were some on eBay some years ago, I would have liked one just for the hell of it but they were $1500 and were as heavy as a piano.

Somebody on Youtube had a 40-inch Mitsubishi CRT set running in the background while showing their video and audio gear.

Here's a link to the 40-inch Mitsubishi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvDLwZry0hg

I have once worked on a 1988 42-inch Grundig console, it had a Toshiba CRT with a very curved screen.

Those big tubes have a massive tensioned rimband and are quite safe... but imagine being there when a 42-inch CRT implodes :yikes:

I had no idea they made CRTs that big, the biggest I have seen personally is a "36. I have one "36 Panasonic from '95. I would love to see one of those "43 Sonys.

Doesn't 42 Euopean inches equate to 40 US inches? Something about Europe measuring the entire screen, not just the viewable area, I remember.

Sony did make a 43" set back in the 90's. I recall seeing one at what is now a defunct store (Dow). That set had a price tag in the stratosphere.The sales puke stated that Spielberg purchased one (sales ploy???)

I thought there were bigger. I recall several years ago seeing the biggest I have seen to be about 46". And I know it wasn't rear projection.

I would imagine it could pull the nails from the wall. :sigh:

I can confirm that it was the Sony PVM-4300U. It was a 43" direct-view Trinitron tube. I have the service manual on it, and I've actually seen 3 of them in person. Eric is correct; they weren't "really" for sale to the public. Circuit City had one in West Los Angeles, with a price tag of $39,995.00. The two that were on eBay belonged to the late collector and our friend, Gary Inkman or Garden Grove, CA. I believe those in fact were two of the three that Circuit City had on display.

Charles

Wow! 43" of glass and tension band.. Trinitron tubes I believe have the thickest glass on the front of the crt I have ever seen too.. My frends and I a while back took a dead 15" sony computer monitor out back at work and started chuckin rocks at it. That CRT if insanely well built! (the CRT was bad anyway or I would have fely bad about it).

Damn, 43" is a huge tube. Thought it would be a Sony.

Like anyone cared if Spielberg had one; At that price I'd probably opt for a projector or rear projection TV.

I would think that somewhere around 40-45" would be the practical limit of what could be produced...

Oh good lord! I can only guess at the weight of that monster... No worries about it being stolen, as most burgelers wouldn't be able to lift it.

Kinda reminds me of that story I read a few years ago about these burgelers who broke into a professional weightlifter's garage, but failed to steal his equipment because they couldn't lift it. The weightlifter said something like "If anybody can physically move this stuff, they can have it!"

Hah! Like I ever had $39k to blow on a TV set..... :D

i paid 3,900 8 years ago on the car i currently drive, forget 39k for a TV.

Mitsubishi was the first to mass market a 40" CRT TV in the early to mid 90's. I also remember around the same time reading about a Sony that was available on special order from Japan. I remember that being a 46", but it could have been the 43" mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

Sony used one of those monsters at one of the early advanced TV demos. It was fitted with three sockets on each side. Each side then had a 2 or 3 inch pipe temporarily fitted like the handles on a coffin, and six men moved the beast.

I also recall another huge tube, which may have been the Mitsubishi. It took a step backward in design, in that the face was not as sharply rectangular as contemporary sets, but had a more rounded outline.

Those 43" where 4:3 or 16:9 format? 43" = 109 cms!! :yikes:

If I recall correctly, the Mitsubishi was 4x3.

The Sony was widescreen, but may not have been exactly 16x9, since it may have been designed before 16x9 aspect ratio was chosen. I don't remember which it was.

I saw a 40" table model set at the GW a few months ago. Marked $25.00 . I thought it would be there forever because of the massive weight, but they sold it right away. Don't remember if it was a Sony or Mits. It had two large handles on the back and it was 4:3 format.

That was two large handles on each side. Sorry.

---

The PVM-4300 was 4:3, as were all the 40" Mitsubishis. The only giant 16:9s were an RCA; as Andy says 38", and the Sony 30 & 34" WEGA sets.

Charles

I would think that 40 or 43" would about be the practical limit for a CRT-Wonder what tremendous pressures were on the glass of something that big ?

I still have that Sony 40" WEGA that I have promised to implode on Youtube... I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Charles

Charles, you're an Eeeevil man...I love it ! (grin)

A local store had the 40" Mitsu available. I just called him. He's now out of business, but he does remember that they sold 20 of these monsters. The picture always looked kind of soft to me.

Bruce

Here is a picture of the 43" 4:3 Matsushita CRT scanned from page 191 of "The Cathode Ray Tube' by Peter Keller.
jr

(sorry about the Moire pattern)

Hi Sandy,

Atmospheric pressure would be in the 50 metric ton bracket, and close to the limit glass can resist to.

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

Kinda what I figured, Jerome.

If you tap on the face of my KV40XBR800, you will notice the color fringe and deflection of the tension on the aperature grille flicker for darn near a minute!

The announced size would have depended on the country where it was to be sold. The USA is (I believe) unique for having a law that requires a TV set's advertised size to be its actual picture area and not the size of the CRT itself; this law started in the mid-to-late 1960's. I have seen reference to Sony 27" TV sets that were called 29" sets in Canada, for example. The 43" Sony could quite likely have been labeled a 46" set outside the USA.

Law wasn't.

About 1 inch or so less than claimed size. Same with CRT monitors for USA and Canada. LCD and plasma now true size.

Cheers, Wizard

I have a 4-year-old 36" Toshiba that we watch daily. I'm going to try to forget about the gargantuan potential catastrophe of the pressures eternally gnawing at the tube. :yes:

I guess there is a special heavy duty brace on the back holding the thing up. Surely that is not resting on it's neck? I am guessing the neck is modern small but it looks like it should have a roundie neck on it.

A way to avoid such is to scan the original at a much higher resolution, then in a photoediting program, low pass filter the scan, then shrink the picture to the desired size.

you guys talking about it imploding reminded me of something from my childhood..

a few streets away from mine me and 2 friends went into a house that burnt down and it sat for months . we looked around for awhile, half of the roof was still up and we found a large tv.. must of have been around 26" the screen looked greyish green instead of the regular black..
we were being immature and trying to break the screen with rocks.. i threw a huge heavy rock at it that i could barely lift.. it didnt break it... yet my friend chucked a small sharp rock at it, and i heard a awesome explosion. it felt like sombody punched me in the chest.. it didnt hurt, it just moved me some. i was probably about 10yrs old at the time.. from what i remember,, it was louder and deeper than your regular artillery shell fireworks.
we ran away... :D

a .22 caliber bullet on a old 14 inch Philco tube worked wonders! No piece bigger that a 50 cent piece. Amazing.....