The biggest CRT ever made: Sony's PVM-4300

> In Japan, it sold for 2.6 million yen, but in the United States, it retailed for $40,000, a significant markup. To be fair, shipping them across the Atlantic and then throughout the United States must have been expensive.

Yes, I imagine the cost of shipping something from Japan to the States across the Atlantic would be nothing to sniff at.

As one of my last monitors before LCDs took over, I had a 21-inch Sun, and boy was that sucker heavy (>30 kgs (>65 lbs)):

* https://dogemicrosystems.ca/pub/Sun/System_Handbook/Sun_sysh...

* https://dogemicrosystems.ca/pub/Sun/System_Handbook/Sun_sysh...

* https://dogemicrosystems.ca/pub/Sun/System_Handbook/Sun_sysh...

My parents had a Sony KV-40XBR700, the 40in 300lb CRT. I thought it was the largest you could buy until learning about the even larger one in TFA.

The picture quality on the KV-40XBR700 was amazing for the era (~2003). My Dad cleverly cut a hole into the wall up high and stuck the TV into it, then put a picture frame around it giving us one of the first "high definition flat screens" even if it was an illusion.

Of course these days our 43in TV weighs less than 20lbs and is mounted with a couple small wall anchors.

I'm kinda curious if CRT technology advanced to the point where a TV like that would've been possible at a better weight and price tag? I assume that CRT technology development stopped decades ago, but could we have e.g., replaced the heavy glass with some plastic-like material to save weight without compromising the picture? And are there any heavy components in the mechanism itself (Coils, Magnets?) that would have had alternatives?

I know it's just theorycrafting, but I do wonder what kind of CRT someone could've created if it wasn't for market economy forces.

Sony had all the coolest TVs in that era—one of the last great ones, which I've only seen in person _once_ at a broadcast TV tower site (it's still there today, and works!) was the KD-34XBR970[1]. It was 'only' 34", but it weighed nearly 200 lbs.

[1] https://youtu.be/W_U9pFfXjYA?t=614

Ugh, reminds me of my parent's 35" Sony CRT. The picture was wonderful for its day, but my brother and I almost killed ourselves trying to carry it down the stairs. It was kind of brilliant by Sony in a way since it was so deep, there weren't any TV stands that could properly hold it so you had to buy a TV stand from Sony as well.

A friend in Bulgaria had a similar size CRT in his house when it got burglarized. The burglars drugged the dog, disabled the alarm system and stole all the things, except for the giant TV (they couldn’t lift it).

Here's a news article saying that Sony had only sold 3 PVM-4300s as of April 1990: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/1990/04/22/for-40000-tvs-pictur...

I guess it makes sense considering the price. I wonder how many of them still exist today.

We rented one of these for a trade show (MacWorld), at the time there were reputedly 3 in the US, was brought in on a forklift, had to build a specially strong bench to put it on - people would come around just to see it (and the digital video hardware we were showing off)

450lbs… that’s approaching piano territory. Smaller grands are 600 or so, with a full sized concert 9fter being 900-1100.

I had a 27" view sonic with something like 2500 4:3 resolution. One went out and I got a replacement that lasted till the 2010s. Also had a Sony vega 37" that was amazing. I was gonna get the 41 and probably should have because even though it was heavier it had handled. I used trucks to move both. I am sad I had to get rid of the vega as it was an amazing image and great for retro gaming, probably one of the best TVs ever made in the crt era. But just no where to keep the monstrosity. I dropped it at goodwill the month before they stopped taking carts and I knew I'd want it and my old 19" uncaged someday. Still don't have room for them.

Side note at the time I had a 144" projector as well and the 37 was the pip on the side. My cleaning lady (I traveled a lot) kept rearranging the room around the TV because she couldn't grok the projector. I had to turn it on for her one day before she stopped moving things. The big o on her face was priceless. Also the big o on that screen was also priceless as was ssx3

My AIM username for a while was kw34hd1 which is the model of Sony’s first (and maybe last?) 1080i CRT. I recall it being around $25k too at the time.

34” diagonal, 196lb.

Edit: A googling suggests it was launched end of ‘98 for $9k. $17k in 2024 dollars.

Be aware that this is not a TV. The PVM Series of monitors are professional video monitors that are not offered for sale to mere consumers. This is the kind of thing that would be installed in the control room of a TV station to display the station's final output.

20 years ago the small video company I worked for had a $30K Sony PVM monitor that was probably only 30-35 inches. So the $40K price in 1990 doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

The only thing interesting about this is "biggest CRT ever made" because it shows the limits of CRT technology.

I had a 38" Wide Flat Trinitron that I miss so much, dont miss the 500lb carry weight lol, buy damn the pinnacle of TV.

At some point I had one of those ugly wooden desks with the Trinny crammed into it and a dinky 17" CRT next to it. Ran S-Video and then eventually Component to the TV for games and movies. Pretty sure the desk sagged from all the weight.

That $40k price tag from 1989, with inflation, is about $100k today. That's quite something for a TV!

So what were “big screen TVs” (which my family never owned) that appeared in movies and tv? I feel like they looked more lightweight than this so I’m assuming they were like Plasma screens? Or maybe that technology was after the pop culture I’m referring to

> Sony’s part number suggests it has a 45 inch tube inside. But in a rare case of truth in advertising, Sony advertised it as a 43-inch model.

The overall tube size is 45”, the actual screen size is 43”. I believe it was mandatory in the USA to market TVs based on screen size, in most of the rest of the world they were sold based on tube size.

That’s why common sizes of 4:3 CRT TV in the US were 13/20/24/27/32” whereas in the rest of the world the same size TVs were sold as 14/21/25/29/34”. Interestingly the tubes’ internal part numbers are based on the screen size in centimeters: 34/51/59/68/80 cm.

I had a Gateway Destination 36” monitor that I somehow acquired at a garage sale in my room as a teenager. Getting it into my upstairs room required my friends and I to all risk our lives but it was well worth it.

I really miss CRTs. They had more vivid colour, had near zero response times, and I even _liked_ the blur the scanlines caused. Not to mention the calm that the simplicity brought; turn on, watch.

This is like one of those moments for me where it feels like the phones are listening to me. I have been very actively hunting/shopping for PVMs the last two days.

I miss the fun thought of owning a desktop particle accelerator that came with CRTs. The physics behind LCDs doesn't feel as exciting.

John Carmack was programming on a Intergraph InterView 28hd96, which was a 28-Inch, 16:9, 1080p CRT Monitor. What a beauty.

Wouldn't surprise me if all ten remaining units were in the hands of Smash community members or something.

It's really fascinating that most things in the US economy inflate (commodities, services, housing, etc...), but some things just inevitably deflate (TVs).

I used to have a CRT-based HDTV (16:9 ratio).

The screen size was 27 inches, and it was a big, heavy honker.

I think it was a Samsung. Many moons ago.

It was non-optimal. There was visible fringing on the edges.

I don’t miss CRTs.

That aside about IDTV was interesting. Hadn’t heard of that before.

It used a buffer to interpolate multiple frames from OTA TV also had motion sensing!

Wonder how good it looked in reality?

One of my bosses in the late 80s had one of these in his living room.

It was, indeed, a big TV- Somewhat impressive at the time.

That's interesting. So in a sense, we hit "peak CRT" in 1989, quite a bit before large flat screens hit.

My back is aching just looking at it!

Sony in 1989 bought CBS which got renamed to Sony Music Entertainment (SME) in 1991. This was the beginning of the end for Sony as an engineering pioneer. Walkman, CD -- completely gone from these markets, crushed by noname, at the time tiny rivals. But seriously, Apple in 2001 was basically nothing and yet they won the US market with the iPod, more or less. Sony was too busy DRMing its music to bring an MP3 player to the market. It was an astounding defeat.