Chinese TV manufacturers using recycled CRTs?

[dr.ido]

This TOBO set looks like any number of $89 14" sets sold in discount stores around here, but it's a bit unusual. The first thing I noticed when saw it sitting in on the ground in the car park was the CRT. It doesn't have a standard TV CRT, it's a 0.3mm dot pitch VGA monitor CRT.



The label on the CRT has been removed, but the yoke has a Panasonic sticker on it. It looks secondhand to me. The plastic is yellowed and dirty. The original leads were clipped off, but the short ends are still hanging off the terminals. Judging by the melted insulation and solder splatters it took them several tries to solder the new leads on.

The chassis appears to be designed so that they can use whatever parts are on hand. Other than the CRT heaters and drive no supply rails are derived from the flyback transformer. There are several links and jumpers to allow different flybacks to be used. There PCB layout also allows for alternative vertical, jungle and audio amp ICs to be used.

The picture looks a bit odd. Despite the higher resolution CRT it doesn't look as sharp as it could be. The scan lines are quite visible and moire patterns are very noticable on some scenes. In the past I'd thought about sticking a VGA CRT into in a TV, now I know it's a bad idea.

Has anyone else seen any of these frankensets?