CRT Video Projectors: amazing, but fiddly, tech

Loved that video! But I'm returning to this one not because I'm so delayed, but I was thinking today: huh, I wonder if Alex is planning anything about vector graphics computer (or a console) 🧐 🤩

When I started studying at university by the end of the 1990s, they still had these in the lecture rooms, although there was already a portable one around for use in smaller rooms. Still quite expensive back then! Now I got a professional Christie from work, they were selling them for about 100 bucks a piece to employees after they switched all conference rooms to big LCD screens.

If you misaligned the red/blue tubes a little and looked at the image through old red/blue 3D glasses - what would you see?

I absolutely loved this video. Well done! - It might be interesting to do a comparison with LCD projectors of that time with comparable specs. Mitsubishi released the X300U, X400U and X500U circa 1996. I ended up buying these for several companies in the late 90s for several thousand dollars. They offered a native 1024x768 / 720P and 1280x1024 / 1080i image. It had phenomenal clarity and blew me away on DVD content at the time offering an 8-foot wide viewing experience with unmatched clarity and good enough brightness even on the 2000 lumen X300U to watch the SF Giants win the NL title in 2002 in a dimmed but not dark room during the daytime. These projectors were portable enough to carry around in a backpack or small carry-on suitcase. When these companies folded in the dot.com implosion I picked one of these up for $50 at auction and used it for the next 15 years with an 120", 8 foot screen and never went back to CRTs or Flatpanels.

Around the turn of the millennium, General Motors had a 24’ wide “Power Wall” that they could view CAD data for a full-sized truck on. It used six 1920x1200 projectors. 3-wide (with overlapping edges) and doubled up for brightness or shutter-glasses 3D. It took the technician two weeks to get them all aligned and color calibrated.

I remember playing PS2 games in the end 90s at the town's youth house and we had one of those but an older gen. with pots only to adjust the picture, and doing this overhead was a pita I tell ya !

I remember the richest family on the block had one of these mounted to the ceiling in a dedicated mini theater room. Late 90s.

I want to get the socks; is there a special link I should use or do I just find them on good.store?

I regret picking up one of these from the side of the road when I could.. pics here https://lachlanlau.notion.site/crt-projector

You almost got me with that DLP comparison :D I'd love a video on it, it really is a fascinating and seemingly magical technology.

"... but I will switch it on now. ... and depending on how good your hearing is, you might also hear some whining from this thing..." Oh! I thought that was just the normal ringing of my ears. It's been so long since I've heard a CRT that I forgot about that noise. --cut to the projector off-- Nope, it's just my ears ringing.

21:30 - No, good modern projectors STILL have optical keystone correction, optical zoom and so on by shifting the lens (either manually or or on high-end models it might be using motors). The optical adjustment isn't per color though (single lens) but it doesn't need to be for these. In theory adjusting the scanning on the CRTs could be used compensate for some additional non-linear effects for non-flat screens but does this actually have offer that? If so, wowser on the electronics. Yes, "consumer" projectors tends to only have digital keystone correction but mid-range or up business projector tends to have it as does some high-end consumer models. PS: I remember these types of projectors from intercontinental flights in the late 90s/early 2000s (for the safety demonstration and entertainment, they switched to multiple fold-down LCDs and then per-seat LCD soon after).

I remember these, but by the time I was working in the field LCD and DLP had firmly taken over. For really crazy video projection you need an Eidophor though! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidophor

I might be going crazy, but: You've published this video before, right?! (Either here or on YT) I'm certain that I've watched this before! :D It's an interesting topic/video anyway, so I enjoyed watching it (again)! :)

Never in my life have I seen one of these before! They look so cool.

In regards to the CRT whine it wasn't too awful before and it is improved now. The whine is still present to a smaller degree but you do have to concentrate to hear it so I'm not sure it's worth further fiddling. I clipped some audio and ran it through Audacity and the problematic peak seems to be from around 15900Hz up to the 18200Hz range. I definitely agree with your conclusion though regarding the frequency being higher than usual for CRT whine (anything in the 14000Hz-15200Hz range is really noticeable for me).

I couldn't hear the whine on the first pass. I was wondering if the B&W TV image was "movie magic". It looked too good!

I remember when this happened to Tom Scott like a decade ago

Oh man, years ago my brother bought one of these from Goodwill for like $20. I'm pretty sure it's still in my parents' basement, mostly because it's too heavy to carry.

I'm all about projectors. I hate having a big black rectangle in such a centerpiece. Plus we have a fireplace right where a TV would be anyway. Those TV painting frames are intriguing however.

The 1971 version of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is certainly an apt choice for showing off the color quality!

I've got hearing loss, particularly at high frequencies, so no flyback whine for me! On the other hand, I remember those days, many moons ago, when that sound was incredibly annoying!

YASSSSS

I've mentioned before that my college roommates bought an Advent Video Beam 1000 from the UCF "Wild Pizza" restaurant (RIP!) back in the '80s. The screen was slightly damaged and it certainly needed the 20 minute warmup, if not more. It didn't have fans, though. Top switches turned on those registration & focus grids at 11:20, and there were convergence aiming dials. It enabled some pretty wild parties with pizza, though and lots of great memories.

"Do this thing on page 99" - remember the aftermarket Chilton's car repair manuals? Step 2: Remove engine. See Chapter 5. Step 3: Remove transmission. See Chapter 12. And of course each of those chapters referenced other chapters. Yay. On the good side, they told you how to use a rock and a thick stick to get around needing very expensive factory tools.

“particularly burned in memory” ❤️

Very cool video and awesome technology but I'm so thankful we don't have to deal with this any longer. An OLED TV might not have as much wow factor but getting an incredible and significantly better picture while doing almost no work past some initial easy calibration is great. This sort of video reminds me how much room there is to appreciate some modern technologies even if they have some annoying crap to deal with or circumvent.

Now, how to justify buying myself one of these…

Loving the video so far, but I do want to mention that there's a loud CRT whine to be heard from 7:05 for a while. The table talky bits with the CRT turned on caught me off guard listening with headphones, if you could throw in a warning or put a low pass filter on that I think that'd be greatly appreciated by those who can hear it. Thanks, was really excited when I saw the notification for this post!

Old CRTs being that dangerous adds another layer of "ooh, that's why that was a thing" to the idea of a TV repair man. That said, how dangerous are they compared to microwaves?

We are being spoiled with the amount of Technology Connections content this month!