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

Summary

Move over, GE Widescreen 1000. In 1989 in Japan, Sony introduced to the largest Trinitron CRT ever built, the KV-45ED1, also known as the PVM-4300. And in 1990, they imported 20 of them to the United States, just in time for the recession. About 34 years later, one of these enigmatic TVs surfaced.Sony’s PVM-4300/KV-45ED1The Sony PVM-4300 was the largest CRT TV ever made. Its 45-inch tube provided 43 inches of visible improved definition TV. It stood about 27 inches tall.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. It weighed about 450 pounds, stood about 27 inches tall, and it wouldn’t fit through a standard door frame. That’s probably okay, it’s not like someone was going to use this as a bedroom TV. This thing was going in your living room.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. And news articles in 1990 said Sony dealers would not allow any bickering. They would throw in a couple of options like the separate tuner or speakers. But no discounts.Sony said at the time they hoped to sell 80 of them that year, but the recession may have kept that from happening.The biggest conventional CRT everThe Sony PVM-4300 was a conventional CRT, unlike the GE Widescreen 1000, which was a projection set. Projection TVs could be bigger and cheaper. But if you wanted the clearest picture, a big CRT was where it was at.It was a conventional CRT that worked with over the air signals, but like many larger TVs of the era, it used a technology called IDTV to enhance the picture quality. The “ID” stood for “improved definition.” IDTV sets had a buffer so they would store successive frames and interpolate them rather than interlacing them the way a conventional CRT TV worked. They also had circuitry to detect motion...