Sony PVM-4300

Development In the late 1980s, Sony began developing a 43-inch display tube, which was finished in September 1987. The PVM-4300 was unveiled in a 1988 issue of the Japanese DIGIC magazine and in American tech publications, with no official release date given. Jim Palumbo, president of Sony's Consumer Display Products Co., said that the PVM-4300 was a "positioning statement" with potential to become a standard part of Sony's CRT catalog, even if not many were sold. Around twenty sets were imported into the United States around January1990, with an introductory price of $39,999.99 In April 1990, Jim Palumbo reported to the Sun Sentinel that only three PVM-4300 sets had been sold in the United States, although a month earlier he had told the Chicago Tribune that "at least four or five" had been sold. Shank, with the help of a local and a heavy machinery freight company, arranged for the monitor to be shipped to the United States. Upon arrival, it was thoroughly tested, serviced and studied by enthusiasts. == Specifications ==

for scale The PVM-4300 has a —with a viewing area—color Trinitron Microblack CRT picture tube, which is the largest ever produced. It can display a standard interlaced image as well as a 480p picture at a 60 Hz refresh rate, using improved-definition television (IDTV), which used a digital frame buffer to deinterlace video. The monitor contains two RGB inputs at 15.75 and 31.5 kHz to allow for native 480p inputs. It does not have a built-in TV tuner, although Shank Mods has said that a version called KV-45ED1T was available on the Japanese market that bundled an external TV tuner, model VT-X5R, mounted in a drawer integrated to the bottom of the monitor chassis, and the included remote provided buttons to control it. The version he has is the KV-45ED1T. According to CRT Database, the unit weighs 199.6 kg (440 lb), and measures at 105 × 92.5 × 76.7 cm (41.3 × 36.4 × 30.1 in). == Reception ==

Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune expressed his astonishment at the size and of the cost of the PVM-4300, writing: "This TV set is to your TV set what your TV set is to an old Popsicle stick in the gutter with ants on it." A review in the Sun Sentinel expressed a similar sentiment to its cost and praised the monitor for its "brightness, clarity and sharpness of color." The review says that the PVM-4300 is a higher quality display than larger rear-projection television (RPTV) sets, but notes that RPTV technology has been improving. Shank, after acquiring the set in 2022, described it as looking "incredible" in person. == Gallery ==

File:Direct front view of Sony PVM-4300 (KX-45ED1).jpg|Front view of the set File:Close internal view of Sony PVM-4300 (KX-45ED1).jpg|Internal view of the set, showing the electronic components inside File:Below view of Sony PVM-4300 (KX-45ED1).jpg|View of the slide-out control tray at the bottom of the monitor File:Front right face view of Sony PVM-4300 (KX-45ED1).jpg|Front right face view of the set == References ==