Quote:
Originally Posted by old_tv_nut
Why this set? Because the image quality is as good as an LCD (if not better than some) plus you could not approach the price with a 64 inch LCD at the time.
The discussion makes me wince, though. Mine is used only about an hour a day, so maybe that's all that's keeping me from the same failure point.
I don't understand LCD's pushing these out of the market, it seems a poor judgment to me to insist on something thinner at a higher price. The depth is not that great, and you can't put anything else on that side of the room anyway whether you have something thinner or not. It's not at all like the old CRT rear projos that really ate up floor space.
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I think the problem, if you want to call it that, is that RPTVs use (by 21st century standards) outdated technology, and today's TV makers don't want to use 25-year-old tech when modern flat screens use less power and take up less room than the older sets did. Don't forget, a large-screen RPTV set can draw up to 500 watts, depending on brightness, etc. settings. Years ago, large-screen console b&w tube TVs were notorious for being power hogs, some sets drawing 300+ watts in normal operation.
Early RPTVs may have been as large as you say, but I've seen pictures of sets, such as Zenith's Space Screen 45 (I saw an old ad for one on Youtube recently), that take up no more space in an average-sized living room than a traditional 25" CRT console TV -- and with the SS45, the screen disappeared into the cabinet when the set was turned off. This may have been a selling point for the SS45s, but the mechanism that raised and lowered the screen would fail after a period of time. The screens were fixed permanently in the up (viewing) position and the drive motors unplugged when the drive system failed. No more disappearing screen, but at least the TV still worked, and many such sets were kept and used until they developed more serious problems, causing the owner to junk them.