Advent Videobeam

[captainmoody]

Ebay is one way, Craigslist might be good also.

[Nakdoc]

If the screen is perfect, there is a lot of value. Try an AK classified first. These 1000a and early 750 "non-washable" screens had the most neutral background texture of any projector screen.

I was in chargeg of the Tubes - design, manufacture and the rest (setting up the clean room), at Advent, and have 3 of the tubes 1-each - in my garage. My unit - prototype #7 - was stolen from a storage unit a few years back, and I am looking for one. Have the complete service manual, and want to see what I can do to bring one back to life.
If anybody has any early Advent questions, I worked along side of Uncle Henry for over 5 years.

[Nakdoc]

Dennis,
do you want a 1000 or 1000a, or a 750?

[vintagecollect]

Got a vidseobeam 1000A, Great picture after adjustments, I have an original screen. I'm going to try and make a thinner lighter screen that is more easily movable and mountable. Unit front and top covers off for adjustments. Does anyone her have one??

[Red October]

That is what was called the "Big White Rabbit". They run very hot so be careful with it, do not turn the brightness up any higher than needed and make the room as dark as possible. The tubes go out easily, are costly to replace, are run at slightly *above* their rated filament voltage to get the picture, and the unit WILL need servicing the week prior to the Superbowl. I know both a gentleman who used to service these, and one of the engineers responsible for their creation. Those caveats aside, they are fascinating pieces of equipment and capable of making a very nice picture if they are in good order and equipped with the propper screen. I have a Kloss Novabeam, the eventual development of the Videobeam line, and it is phenomenal. Better than any tube projector I've ever seen, and most LCD projectors. Only my gargantuan Sharp outdoes it.

[vintagecollect]

...

[Red October]

Ah, my Novabeam is the big-as-a-house model 100, the only one (AFAIK) to project flat and therefor not truly need any special sort of screen. Picture is bright enough to work in a somewhat lit room, in the dark it's like a regular CRT screen... just a huge one. The picture is truly fantastic, it's the best picture I've ever seen outside of certain HD tube sets... not a big fan of those flat jobbers at all.

[ChrisW6ATV]

The Kloss Novabeam Model 2 also used a flat screen. It was in a relatively compact cabinet with a flat top cover when not being watched, that was actually a mirror when lifted up and placed in slots at an angle. The inline CRTs faced nearly straight up toward the mirror, and it projected a 64" diagonal picture that was pretty bright onto a piece of white foam-core art board. A pretty decent picture at the time, though it was dimmer in the bottom left and right corner areas of the screen. It did not have really sharp focus compared to later rear-projection CRT displays of similar size, but it had the correct color temperature (6500 K) when few if any regular TVs were available that way.