Does anyone know who currently is producing the world's largest direct-view CRT?

For "consumer" use?
Very few and 34" would be the max, if you can find one.

Who currently is producing a 34-inch?

Sony will end CRT production at the end of March. Until then and if you have the bucks and want something brand new here's the one to buy:

http://www.samstores.com/details.asp?ProdID=3381

Nice TV but all that cash and it doesn't even have HDMI?

Who in their right mind would pay 2500 dollars in 2008 for a tiny CRT that cant even do full 1080i let alone 1080p. I'm saying this as a CRT owner too, 3 years ago they made sense, Plasma prices were prohibitive and LCDs well.. sucked. Today Plasmas are cheap and LCDs are much better, it just doesn't make sense to hunt out one of these TVs unless all you watch is SD

I can't think of any advantage to running HDMI on a CRT. CRT tech in analog by nature. Also if the source material is encoded in 1080p (HD-DVD or Blu-ray), I guarantee you will not see the standard interlacing artifacts that people use to talk about regarding sources shot with 1080i cameras. All that being said, plasma sets have come a long way, and I would pass up this CRT for a 42" Pioneer Kuro every day of the week. That CRT is prohibitively expensive. I still have my Sampo 36" widescreen (34" viewable).

I can't think of any advantage to running HDMI on a CRT. CRT tech in analog by nature. Also if the source material is encoded in 1080p (HD-DVD or Blu-ray), I guarantee you will not see the standard interlacing artifacts that people use to talk about regarding sources shot with 1080i cameras. All that being said, plasma sets have come a long way, and I would pass up this CRT for a 42" Pioneer Kuro every day of the week. That CRT is prohibitively expensive. I still have my Sampo 36" widescreen (34" viewable).

Actually HDMI looks worse on my 34" Panny, crushed blacks and muted contrast. It's almost as if they figure by the time we'd need it we'd upgrade.. well played Panny because that's what I'm doing!

HDMI looks the same as Component on my Toshiba 30HF66. While it's true there is no real picture advantage to HDMI on an analog CRT set it is still useful for things such as HD-DVD players that upscale standard DVDs because many DVDs will not allow upscaling to occur over Component input due to Rights Management (for fear of copying). While over HDMI all DVDs will be allowed to be shown upconverted/upscaled since HDMI has copy protection encryption. Granted you can buy HDMI to Component converters now on Ebay to solve this problem but they do tend to cost over $100.

Well, I have a 40XBR800, which at 40" was I believe the largest CRT TV ever made by Sony. Looks amazing. Of course, it takes 4 people to move it at a friendly 304 lbs. And it even has a DVI input.

Great tech for 2002.