The funny thing about TVs like that…the picture was large, but it was also bad. It was still 480i NTSC television from cable, satellite or a laserdisc at best, or a VHS cassette at worst. They could actually have viable speakers in them though.
Plus these things used a fresnel lens to make the image as big as it was, which meant that you had to sit in exactly the right spot to be able to even see anything. It’s like how VR headsets are blurry and dim if you’re not wearing them properly; same issue with these TVs.
And then there’s the fact that they would get dimmer and dimmer over time (within 5-10 years), which surely didn’t help matters much. Honestly you were much better off with a CRT over one of these old rear-projection TVs back in the day.
The viewing angles werent that bad. Honestly better than even a modern LCD TN panel. Also, only the newer lcd projectors had the dimming issues. Older models were 3 crts in a trench coat. They have a whole suite of issues on their own.
Yeah but I don’t know anybody who actually did that. Most people get a new TV every 5-10 years anyway, and by then, plasmas were affordable and widely available.
There were also…I remember a certain class of rear projection TVs from around the turn of the century that were a lot more compact than the gigantic box type from the 90’s. Similar technology but just not as boxy, often available in 16:9 that weren’t plasma or LCD panels.
The glycol may also react with the aluminum in the CRT cooling system and crystallize over many cooling and heating cycles creating CRT fungus, which degrades image quality since its optical properties are different than that of the surrounding glycol.
You guys sound like David Silver from 90210. Can’t remember the episode, but the gang plays poker in a beach club house or something and Silver geeks out about back projection TVs
The later widescreen big box TVs were good enough, especially if they had HDMI, VGA, or at least component video hookups for 720p HD.
You wouldn’t want an older 480i rear projection like the ones we’re talking about for XBOX 360. You wouldn’t be able to see shit and text would be unreadable. The 360 was best experienced on HDTVs released in the 2000s.
Late models could do 1080i. And quality wise were better than lcds from that era. but iirc, after 2002, most models switched from CRT projecter to lcds and high powered lamps that are bad about dimming in age. So peak RPTV era is late 90s and very early 2ks. But even then, they tended to have ghosting and alignment issues… so…
They could do both, but most enthusiasts at the time preferred 720p because it technically showed more pixels on the screen at any given moment in time, and didn’t flicker the screen. Personally I used 1080i anyway cause it looked better to me at the time, even knowing its limitations. Either way I’m glad that we have zero compromise 4K now.
I had one of these monstrosities for a week. Got her on freecycle. Took up half my living room. Was six feet wide and three feet deep. And yes, it was blurry as fuck but godsdammit my screen took up the whole damn room for a week and it was fun as hell before we gave her away on freecycle and promised I my wife to stop getting free TVs.
The funny thing about TVs like that…the picture was large, but it was also bad. It was still 480i NTSC television from cable, satellite or a laserdisc at best, or a VHS cassette at worst. They could actually have viable speakers in them though.
Plus these things used a fresnel lens to make the image as big as it was, which meant that you had to sit in exactly the right spot to be able to even see anything. It’s like how VR headsets are blurry and dim if you’re not wearing them properly; same issue with these TVs.
And then there’s the fact that they would get dimmer and dimmer over time (within 5-10 years), which surely didn’t help matters much. Honestly you were much better off with a CRT over one of these old rear-projection TVs back in the day.
The viewing angles werent that bad. Honestly better than even a modern LCD TN panel. Also, only the newer lcd projectors had the dimming issues. Older models were 3 crts in a trench coat. They have a whole suite of issues on their own.
You gotta replace the lens juice
Yeah but I don’t know anybody who actually did that. Most people get a new TV every 5-10 years anyway, and by then, plasmas were affordable and widely available.
There were also…I remember a certain class of rear projection TVs from around the turn of the century that were a lot more compact than the gigantic box type from the 90’s. Similar technology but just not as boxy, often available in 16:9 that weren’t plasma or LCD panels.
The… Wat?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2A0fK6NlXY
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRT_projector
You guys sound like David Silver from 90210. Can’t remember the episode, but the gang plays poker in a beach club house or something and Silver geeks out about back projection TVs
they were great for the xbox 360 tho
The later widescreen big box TVs were good enough, especially if they had HDMI, VGA, or at least component video hookups for 720p HD.
You wouldn’t want an older 480i rear projection like the ones we’re talking about for XBOX 360. You wouldn’t be able to see shit and text would be unreadable. The 360 was best experienced on HDTVs released in the 2000s.
Late models could do 1080i. And quality wise were better than lcds from that era. but iirc, after 2002, most models switched from CRT projecter to lcds and high powered lamps that are bad about dimming in age. So peak RPTV era is late 90s and very early 2ks. But even then, they tended to have ghosting and alignment issues… so…
They could do both, but most enthusiasts at the time preferred 720p because it technically showed more pixels on the screen at any given moment in time, and didn’t flicker the screen. Personally I used 1080i anyway cause it looked better to me at the time, even knowing its limitations. Either way I’m glad that we have zero compromise 4K now.
I had one of these monstrosities for a week. Got her on freecycle. Took up half my living room. Was six feet wide and three feet deep. And yes, it was blurry as fuck but godsdammit my screen took up the whole damn room for a week and it was fun as hell before we gave her away on freecycle and promised I my wife to stop getting free TVs.