37" Colour CRT TVs - UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum

Edward Huggins · 22nd Dec 2016, 1:44 pm

I think the largest CRT made here in the UK for domestic use was a 37" Colour tube. Was the make Mitsubishi? I certainly can remember them in the showrooms. They were certainly expensive and were very bulky that I suspect not many were sold. I guess these represented the very peak of CRT Television. I wonder how collectable these will become over time?

cmjones01 · 22nd Dec 2016, 3:54 pm

Such enormous CRTs were much more common in the US. I remember going there in the early 2000s and seeing lots of 37"+ CRTs. Interestingly they weren't widescreen, unlike their counterparts on this side of the Atlantic.

I suspect they will become collectible simply because they were superseded so quickly and are huge, heavy and inconvenient to store. Not likely to be quietly forgotten about in a spare corner of the house!

Chris

FERNSEH · 22nd Dec 2016, 3:58 pm

I think it was Mitsubishi that made a 37" CTV. 4:3 aspect ratio CRT. 33" CRT sets were very common.

DFWB.

paulsherwin · 22nd Dec 2016, 5:36 pm

The US stuck with 4:3 until HD arrived so there are proportionally fewer CRT WS sets there.

Radio Wrangler · 22nd Dec 2016, 6:04 pm

I'm not sure I'd describe the huge 4:3 CRTs in the 1980s as the peak of CRT TV, the pictures looked awful.
I have a 32" quintrix acuity 16:9CRT job that I think was the bestI could find in 2004.

David

Maarten · 22nd Dec 2016, 6:20 pm

I think Grundig had a few sets with 37" 4:3 tubes. Philips had 36" 16:9 sets, with either Panasonic or their own tubes. Some years before going bankrupt in 2006, LG Philips Displays invested in a few jumbo production lines that were able to produce different sizes between 28" and 36" more economically. Of course that only speeded up their first bankrupcy and they never survived the second one.

MotorBikeLes · 22nd Dec 2016, 6:35 pm

I was the silly beggar whose job was to test hundreds of CRTs, including many suspect ones taken from new sets. I think I only met Panasonic ones in 37", none in their cabinets so I never knew which sets they came from. Not that many of these fortunately, and I always had help lifting them on and off my test rig.
Les.

John123 · 22nd Dec 2016, 7:39 pm

A rather nice Mitsubishi example here. Interesting how there's settings for colour purity depending on where the set is positioned (relative to the earth's magnetic field).

I recall they used to suffer with the screen corners being ever so slightly darker than the rest of the image, although I never did see one 'in the flesh' so-to-speak.

evingar · 22nd Dec 2016, 7:56 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edward Huggins

I wonder how collectable these will become over time?

I'm sure a few people will collect them, but I think the size will put a "crimp" on general desirability - like we find currently with "sideboard" style radiograms.

G6Tanuki · 22nd Dec 2016, 8:02 pm

I had experience in the 1990s of some really-large Tandberg CRT displays being used in medical imaging venues - in these the tube was hung vertically above the venue, and the image was beamed down and reflected via a 45-degree mirror on to the rear of a translucent screen facing the viewers. This had the advantage that the space housing the electronics could be easily sealed and isolated from the [clinically clean] environment where the viewers were.

It worked surprisingly well, but CAT/MRI gear went high-resolution which the big CRTs couldn't handle and IBM delivered this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T2...1_LCD_monitors

at the turn of the century which killed CRTs.

vidjoman · 22nd Dec 2016, 8:04 pm

I knew several people who had 36 inch Panasonic WS TVs. Often delivered by 4 strong guys. When two of us tried to move one we could hardly lift it let alone shift it. The pictures were good for those days. Quite quickly superseded by larger plasma tvs and subsequently LCDs.

MALC SCOTT · 22nd Dec 2016, 8:27 pm

I remember Samsung made 37 inch ctv (not widescreen)

Mike Fulton · 22nd Dec 2016, 11:17 pm

I replaced the CRT in a 37" 4:3 Mitsubishi on site - not something that's easily forgotten!!
The cabinet was a horrible imitation wood affair, I seem to remember it sold for about £2700 at the time (we had it in stock for quite a while).
As previously stated, the picture was terrible, you can imagine what sort of a customer bought one......
Unfortunately they're still out there

hans · 22nd Dec 2016, 11:49 pm

I think there were even larger CRTs. At least Loewe had 42" WS CRTs.

Clydeuk · 23rd Dec 2016, 2:01 am

I remember working on a huge Grundig in the early 90's. At the time it was brand new. I assume this was 37 inch, though my memory says it was bigger, maybe this was just due to it being 4:3. I remember it had all kinds of fancy trick effects like freeze frame and even a frame by frame mosaic. Why anyone would want that I have no idea.

It was a 4 man lift, and from memory the picture was awful.

I thought I read at the time there was a maximum CRT size before it became impractical due to atmospheric pressure. I assume they got around some of these limitations.

Welsh Anorak · 23rd Dec 2016, 1:38 pm

Yes - there was a Grundig 37" 4:3. One customer had one in his garage in front of his exercise machine! To move it you threaded two steel bars (supplied) through holes at each lower side. Then two strong people could lift it - but you were in real trouble if you let the set twist as nothing would stop it.
The Toshiba 36" widescreen (the one with the DFS module) was fairly common, with the equivalent Hitachi, Sony and Panasonic not far behind. These cost around £1500 and I have a couple of customers who still have them working well. I still have a salvaged tube if anyone wants one?
The Mitsubishi 37" was the monster and I admit the last one I saw I looked at the dirty innards, made suitable excuses and left, never to return.
My abiding memory of the big boys was delivering a 36" 4:3 Toshiba up a fire escape with the owner above me, puffing and panting. I just prayed he didn't let go as I'd have stood no chance, though it would have been an appropriate way to go, crushed by a telly!
Glyn

HamishBoxer · 23rd Dec 2016, 2:00 pm

The last monster CRT set I went to which had a major panel burn up (BER) got buried in the customer's garden. Quite a few years ago that was.

Terrible picture from what I remember too.

hans · 23rd Dec 2016, 10:31 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clydeuk

I remember working on a huge Grundig in the early 90's. At the time it was brand new. I assume this was 37 inch, though my memory says it was bigger, maybe this was just due to it being 4:3. I remember it had all kinds of fancy trick effects like freeze frame and even a frame by frame mosaic. Why anyone would want that I have no idea.

It was the show off factor. I had a customer which had a set like this. It wasn't very reliable. Once it burned a rather big hole in the print under the LOPT due to a DJ. Could I have been a 100 Hz set? This set was probably from the very late 80's and had the effects mentioned above. I even think you also could get a mosaic of the first nine programs.

Maarten · 24th Dec 2016, 12:58 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by hans

I think there were even larger CRTs. At least Loewe had 42" WS CRTs.

Are you sure about that? If so I would very much like to know more about those.

Lloyd 1985 · 24th Dec 2016, 1:10 am

The biggest CRT (screen size) I've ever encountered has been a Samsung Slimfit, I think it's 32". Certainly a heavy beast! It made it into my old workshop in Daventry, and lived on the floor, as I couldn't move it on my own! I did manage to disassemble it on my own, lifting the CRT out of the front cabinet was not a pleasant experience, it had to be done, as the cabinet was disgusting after being in a heavy smokers house. That has 100Hz when on standard definition signals, but it drops back to 50Hz when displaying 1080i. I don't think I'll ever encounter a bigger tube!

Regards,
Lloyd.

22nd Dec 2016, 1:44 pm	#1
Edward Huggins Dekatron Join Date: Sep 2015 Location: Southwold, Suffolk, UK. Posts: 8,340	37" Colour CRT TVs I think the largest CRT made here in the UK for domestic use was a 37" Colour tube. Was the make Mitsubishi? I certainly can remember them in the showrooms. They were certainly expensive and were very bulky that I suspect not many were sold. I guess these represented the very peak of CRT Television. I wonder how collectable these will become over time? __________________ Edward.

22nd Dec 2016, 3:54 pm	#2
cmjones01 Nonode Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Warsaw, Poland and Cambridge, UK Posts: 2,681	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs Such enormous CRTs were much more common in the US. I remember going there in the early 2000s and seeing lots of 37"+ CRTs. Interestingly they weren't widescreen, unlike their counterparts on this side of the Atlantic. I suspect they will become collectible simply because they were superseded so quickly and are huge, heavy and inconvenient to store. Not likely to be quietly forgotten about in a spare corner of the house! Chris __________________ What's going on in the workshop? http://martin-jones.com/

22nd Dec 2016, 3:58 pm	#3
FERNSEH Dekatron Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, UK. Posts: 7,444	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs I think it was Mitsubishi that made a 37" CTV. 4:3 aspect ratio CRT. 33" CRT sets were very common. DFWB.

22nd Dec 2016, 5:36 pm	#4
paulsherwin Moderator Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 27,975	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs The US stuck with 4:3 until HD arrived so there are proportionally fewer CRT WS sets there.

22nd Dec 2016, 6:04 pm	#5
Radio Wrangler Moderator Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Fife, Scotland, UK. Posts: 22,905	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs I'm not sure I'd describe the huge 4:3 CRTs in the 1980s as the peak of CRT TV, the pictures looked awful. I have a 32" quintrix acuity 16:9CRT job that I think was the bestI could find in 2004. David __________________ Can't afford the volcanic island yet, but the plans for my monorail and the goons' uniforms are done

22nd Dec 2016, 6:20 pm	#6
Maarten Dekatron Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Haarlem, Netherlands Posts: 4,204	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs I think Grundig had a few sets with 37" 4:3 tubes. Philips had 36" 16:9 sets, with either Panasonic or their own tubes. Some years before going bankrupt in 2006, LG Philips Displays invested in a few jumbo production lines that were able to produce different sizes between 28" and 36" more economically. Of course that only speeded up their first bankrupcy and they never survived the second one.

22nd Dec 2016, 6:35 pm	#7
MotorBikeLes Nonode Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Kirk Michael, Isle of Man Posts: 2,350	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs I was the silly beggar whose job was to test hundreds of CRTs, including many suspect ones taken from new sets. I think I only met Panasonic ones in 37", none in their cabinets so I never knew which sets they came from. Not that many of these fortunately, and I always had help lifting them on and off my test rig. Les.

22nd Dec 2016, 7:39 pm	#8
John123 Heptode Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Luton, Bedfordshire, UK. Posts: 891	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs A rather nice Mitsubishi example here. Interesting how there's settings for colour purity depending on where the set is positioned (relative to the earth's magnetic field). I recall they used to suffer with the screen corners being ever so slightly darker than the rest of the image, although I never did see one 'in the flesh' so-to-speak. __________________ Regards, John

22nd Dec 2016, 8:02 pm	#10
G6Tanuki Dekatron Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Wiltshire, UK. Posts: 14,010	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs I had experience in the 1990s of some really-large Tandberg CRT displays being used in medical imaging venues - in these the tube was hung vertically above the venue, and the image was beamed down and reflected via a 45-degree mirror on to the rear of a translucent screen facing the viewers. This had the advantage that the space housing the electronics could be easily sealed and isolated from the [clinically clean] environment where the viewers were. It worked surprisingly well, but CAT/MRI gear went high-resolution which the big CRTs couldn't handle and IBM delivered this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T2...1_LCD_monitors at the turn of the century which killed CRTs.

22nd Dec 2016, 8:04 pm	#11
vidjoman Dekatron Join Date: Jun 2013 Location: East Sussex, UK. Posts: 3,327	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs I knew several people who had 36 inch Panasonic WS TVs. Often delivered by 4 strong guys. When two of us tried to move one we could hardly lift it let alone shift it. The pictures were good for those days. Quite quickly superseded by larger plasma tvs and subsequently LCDs.

22nd Dec 2016, 8:27 pm	#12
MALC SCOTT Octode Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Willington, County Durham, UK. Posts: 1,499	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs I remember Samsung made 37 inch ctv (not widescreen) __________________ Malc Scott

22nd Dec 2016, 11:17 pm	#13
Mike Fulton Pentode Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: 7 Miles North of Durham, UK. Posts: 130	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs I replaced the CRT in a 37" 4:3 Mitsubishi on site - not something that's easily forgotten!! The cabinet was a horrible imitation wood affair, I seem to remember it sold for about £2700 at the time (we had it in stock for quite a while). As previously stated, the picture was terrible, you can imagine what sort of a customer bought one...... Unfortunately they're still out there

22nd Dec 2016, 11:49 pm	#14
hans Heptode Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Oslo, Norway. Posts: 632	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs I think there were even larger CRTs. At least Loewe had 42" WS CRTs.

23rd Dec 2016, 2:01 am	#15
Clydeuk Hexode Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Liverpool, Merseyside, UK. Posts: 453	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs I remember working on a huge Grundig in the early 90's. At the time it was brand new. I assume this was 37 inch, though my memory says it was bigger, maybe this was just due to it being 4:3. I remember it had all kinds of fancy trick effects like freeze frame and even a frame by frame mosaic. Why anyone would want that I have no idea. It was a 4 man lift, and from memory the picture was awful. I thought I read at the time there was a maximum CRT size before it became impractical due to atmospheric pressure. I assume they got around some of these limitations.

23rd Dec 2016, 1:38 pm	#16
Welsh Anorak Dekatron Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: North Wales, UK. Posts: 6,928	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs Yes - there was a Grundig 37" 4:3. One customer had one in his garage in front of his exercise machine! To move it you threaded two steel bars (supplied) through holes at each lower side. Then two strong people could lift it - but you were in real trouble if you let the set twist as nothing would stop it. The Toshiba 36" widescreen (the one with the DFS module) was fairly common, with the equivalent Hitachi, Sony and Panasonic not far behind. These cost around £1500 and I have a couple of customers who still have them working well. I still have a salvaged tube if anyone wants one? The Mitsubishi 37" was the monster and I admit the last one I saw I looked at the dirty innards, made suitable excuses and left, never to return. My abiding memory of the big boys was delivering a 36" 4:3 Toshiba up a fire escape with the owner above me, puffing and panting. I just prayed he didn't let go as I'd have stood no chance, though it would have been an appropriate way to go, crushed by a telly! Glyn

23rd Dec 2016, 2:00 pm	#17
HamishBoxer Dekatron Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: W.Butterwick, near Doncaster UK. Posts: 8,935	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs The last monster CRT set I went to which had a major panel burn up (BER) got buried in the customer's garden. Quite a few years ago that was. Terrible picture from what I remember too. __________________ G8JET BVWS Archivist and Member V.M.A.R.S

24th Dec 2016, 1:10 am	#20
Lloyd 1985 Nonode Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Coningsby, Lincolnshire, UK. Posts: 2,820	Re: 37" Colour CRT TVs The biggest CRT (screen size) I've ever encountered has been a Samsung Slimfit, I think it's 32". Certainly a heavy beast! It made it into my old workshop in Daventry, and lived on the floor, as I couldn't move it on my own! I did manage to disassemble it on my own, lifting the CRT out of the front cabinet was not a pleasant experience, it had to be done, as the cabinet was disgusting after being in a heavy smokers house. That has 100Hz when on standard definition signals, but it drops back to 50Hz when displaying 1080i. I don't think I'll ever encounter a bigger tube! Regards, Lloyd.