Don't dump your CRT RPTV! - Page 327

CRT RPTVs were always either 7" or 9", mostly 7". The 9" gun units were very few and far between.

The 1 you're considering and the 1 you have both had 7" guns. Hitachi never ventured into the 9" gun field, only Zenith, Philips/Marantz and Mit did.

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Not really. Not too much bigger than our sets. I know of one that's available if you want one.

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This was just posted on another thread, thought I'd share it with you here -



Just noticed this post in another thread, from way back in '05.

Just so you know, those "elderly" CRT RPTVs are not old, they have a 20 year service life - or more, I've seen it, recently heard about a 29 year old Panny CRT 50" that's still cranking away just fine - and at today's stage are only halfway thru it. I know of an "old" curved screen bounce-off-the-screen Sears CRT whose guns fire at the hinged mirror that you pull out and let fall into place to start it up, that's still cranking away just fine too. We've been looking for someone to take it home and keep it going, or hopefully get it to some sort of video museum, tho I have never actually heard of one...

Well treated by their owners re. usage, light levels and avoidance of screenburn, they are capable of WAY better than new performance, even at 11 years old.

I am being flown all over the country cleaning and calibrating these "elderly" beasts, which are capable of incredible HD, head and shoulders better than a lot of the "affordable" fixed pixel offerings out there in today's marketplace. And better looking in some ways than all fixed pixel offerings.

The main thing that not everybody knows about them is that their optics need to be cleaned yearly, and on some brands - like the Pioneers, be they Elite or non-Elite - the "deeper optics" need it every few years as well. That's because of the air gap between the lens barrels and the CRT coolant covers, where 6 additional surfaces get invaded by dust, soot, smoke and all manner of other airborn contaminants, and thus compromised because of the high voltage turning them into powerful, continuous dust magnets every moment they are powered on. There's 28 optical surfaces in there that need to stay crystal clear, 10 of which get heavily compromised because of the HV. When all 28 surfaces are clean and polished and you have a crystal clear light path again, the results are truly astonishing. Like getting a brand new TV for a simple hour's work.

Just doing this one thing gives your "elderly" set a brand new looking picture - in my area my calibrations are called "The Sparkle Process" - and calibration after that is just incredible icing on the cake.

I started the "Don't Dump Your CRT RPTV!" thread here on AVS more than 5 years ago, and it is still going strong, with over 300 complete pages so far and over 9000 posts. If you have a CRT RPTV at all, HD or non-HD, I invite you to go over there and check it out.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...95922&page=327

If you have a CRT RPTV or know someone who does and want info about how to do your optics cleaning with no damage - those soft plastic surfaces in there are incredibly delicate, vulnerable and easily scratched, and any damage to them is permanent - contact me directly, by email or phone. No pm's please!

Thx -

Mr Bob

Not necessarily. It really doesn't cost all that much to heavy freight these sets by truck. When I bought my 65" Panny new in 2001, it shipped from Kent WA to SF CA for $140. I sent a Pioneer Elite 610 from here to Texas, and I don't think it cost over $250.

Did Craig do his famous super-crispening edge enhancement mod on it, which I helped him edit his white paper on? Worked wonders on my 73", my total thanks to Craig for that!

For a perfectly operational and fully calibrated Craig Rounds 9" gun 65813, that kind of shipping money is peanuts. Check it out. You might be pleasantly surprised. I would be glad to do a trim on it after the journey, on our upcoming So Cal tour.

If the shimming mod has not been done on it for overscan reduction, I can also perform that for you while there as long as the aging footprint has not set in. And it probably hasn't, as Craig will have kept the overall light level low. When present in a video system, the Lumagen is usually used for the o'scan redux because it's so effortless, but just like doing the redux with the service menu only method, reduces the amount of CRT screen face kept in the game.

The shimming mod takes that redux to a whole new level by preserving full use of the CRT screen faces - and in some cases allows for actually increasing it - rather than reducing it.

Giving your pix greater breatheability and depth than leaving it alone would, and even greater breatheability and depth than reducing the amount of CRT face area does, which is what both the service menu only method and the Lumagen method do.

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I would not be surprised if Craig did the overscan redux, but I don't think he does it by way of the shimming mod, or we probably woulda heard about that by now.


Unfortunately the screenburn issue is slightly different from the aging footprint.

The aging footprint is light screenburn that takes place outside the view screen's visible area, normally not visible to the viewer when just looking at the view screen as a video user. You gotta remove your view screen and go in there with a flashlight to see it, looking straight thru the lenses to the CRT faces. Or use the service menu to expand the screen out all around, making it take up a lot more of the screen face than normal, then put up an all white or all gray pattern, and look directly into the lenses, again right at the CRT faces themselves.

If you have a substantial aging footprint, it will then show for you.

While in service mode, if you have not memorized your increased sizing settings, then kicking it out of sm without memorizing should put it right back where it was before you went in.

Whenever changing the size of your pic tho, it's always best to write down your beginning sm values on those sizing registers, JIC.

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+1.

The advent of HDMI and its new circuitry must have been when they screwed it up. At least on my model. DK about any other model or any other brand where the HDMI sucks so badly as on my WS 73517...!

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