History of max CRT sizes?

[wa2ise]

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?

[andy]

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.

[blue_lateral]

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

[polaraman]

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

[jroberts500]

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?

[David Roper]

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.

[Eric H]

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

[Chad Hauris]

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.

[Randy Bassham]

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.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by polaraman

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.

[colortrakker]

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.

[Sandy G]

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.

[Chad Hauris]

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?

[bgadow]

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!?