This is a Betamax video that Sony released to dealers back in late 1984 that showcased the then new XBR line of TV's. Sony's high end TV's continue to wear the XBR badge to this day.
A bit of background. My dad became a Sony dealer in 1978. I've taken over the family business and remain a Sony dealer to this day. Sony sent us a few demo tapes back in the 80' but this was always my favorite. The only XBR CRT I ever owned was the KD32XBR2 which I still have.
Among my favorite gifts was a Christmas present from my Grandparents (Mom's side) when I was 5 years old in 1983...a 13" Trinitron. I had trouble with it around 1994, but I still have it saved. I should have it restored one day...
Great video reminded me when I was a kid, Holiday season of ‘85 my Dad had taken my Brothers and I to buy a new TV set in Valley Stream, NY. Went to several stores finally found a place that was a Sony Distributor. My Dad end up buying a XBR Trinitron but the Sony Audio system with Turntable, CD, Tape deck and Speakers. That was everyone’s Birthday and Christmas gifts for the next several years 😂😂😂. My Dad threw a party every time he had a chance. Fast forward years later I had taken the entire System with me to College even hooked up my original PlayStation barely made it to class from partying with it the System in my Freshman year, great times.
Until recently with the later-gen FD Trinitron XBR HD sets, no one *still* couldn't for a while. A modern OLED panel will easily compete with the best late-model XBR tube set though.
These Sony TV were the gold standards of all televisions. Todays Oled tvs don't come close in quality build which Sony has put into their sets. I still own a 32" Sony Wega I purchase in 2006 and its still going strong to this day.
Sony trinitron, best ever picture quality for a crt. I had one, it was expensive back in the day and visitors were amazed how real it looked. They felt like throwing their sets out after seeing it.
no joke, my family was really proud of our LV-1901. we had a TV room, with our old RCA Vista Color from 1960, and we had the Sony room. with the LV-1901. that RCA is long since gone, the Sony is still around, and in my living room.
@Fur Q they could start by not pretending that your own screen will improve just by looking at an image of their product. Apple even does this now on their advertising and You Tube channels exploit this as well.
Best brand on TV ever. I had a Sony Triniton MOD_KV-1946R from 1981. A total beauty with colors only Sony could offer. An elegant TV that was build to last. I enjoyed it for 15 years when I replaced it for a Sony KV32. Still after that my kids used it couple of years more playing their video games.
There's one color the Sony XBR (and other CRT displays) can show better than any flat screen: black. That's the key to color saturation, if the green and blue can't be turned off completely, the red will appear a bit brown, not the deep ruby red which was known as Sony Red, for the secret formula used in their red phosphor. Incidentally, the Sony shown at 0:54 is probably the heaviest console TV ever made, even weightier than those six-foot TV + Stereo combos made in the 1960s and early 1970s.
I started in this industry in 2000. I used to tell people about features like "invar shadow mask" and "front silvered mirrors" that would help with "shadow detail" and "image accuracy". Those last two i still use when selling OLED TV's and full-array led's.
I have a friend that still has that TV at 0:59 but its broken right now but he place a 42 inch flat screen TV on top of it along with a playstation 5 next to it and use the old broken TV as a furnature.
Mind-boggling 400 lines… My JVC CRT from 15 years later does 800. And my Sony LCD from 30 years later does 1920. My computer monitor does 3840. How technology has changed…
The old Sony XBR series TVs were untouchable by other manufactures of the day,for quality everything. The best televisions ever made, thanks for the video.
We still have a working Sony 34XBR960N purchased new in 2005, I later found out the "N" at the end indicates there was no anti-glare coating applied at the factory which gives it more vibrant picture, apparently Sony did this towards the end of XBR960's production and most sets did have the anti glare coating, surprisingly the lack of a coating hasn't been an issue vs other CRT's we've owned.
I would have loved to have a Sony CRT back in the the day but I couldn't afford one. When I could afford my own new tv and when we went to HDTV I got a Sony. When I went to UHD I stayed with Sony. I even have Sony PlayStations, home theater, headsets and a Sony Xperia 1. I have a PSVR2 on preorder and I'm thinking of getting an 8k Sony next.
We have the first generation XBR with the detachable speaker. Didn’t get that foot control stand. I believe it came out a little later than 84 maybe around 86 as we got ours in 87. It broke around 95. But it was fixed and AFAIK it still works today. It is tuck away in our guest room. But we haven’t use it for a dozen years.
The Sony did have a fabulous picture, but the picture tubes failed (became weak) way too soon. In the early 90's working in So Cal I replaced so many of them. Great sets otherwise. I cant count how many 25XBR sets I replaced picture tubes in. Its probably in the 100's being a Factory Authorized Sony Service Center.
@@12voltvids It probably was a nice challenge for rebuilders to get the gun alignment right with the improved resolution. Also, Sony most probably never marketed gun assemblies, so rebuliders used aftermarket gun assemblies. I wonder how much worse they were compared to an original. Also wonder if they replaced the phosphor on the screen as well, or just the gun. I guess using rebuilt CRTs was not authorized by Sony, unless they indeed marketed replacement gun assemblies and had authorized rebuilders.
"Way too soon", but how do you know? Way too soon by the purchase date, but after how many working hours? I would guess some of these TVs were used an awful lot, even in professional applications, like in showrooms, or even in small studios, because it was still much cheaper than a Sony PVM or BVM with the same size and resolution. And since it has RGB input, I would guess these were used in computer graphics studios as well, 8-12 hours a day. I often hear blaming Trinitrons for short lifetime. Since the cathodes are very miniature, yes, there were some high-end in-line tubes from other brands that lasted a lot longer. I also hear that late Trinitrons were even worse. BUT late Trinitrons have hours counters in them. A consumer Trinitron from the late '90s ... early '00s has the following approximate lifetimes, based on the Trinitrons I have and had (figures with no or minor noticable quality degradation): 29" -> 22-27k hours 25" -> 30-35k hours 22" -> 35-40k hours 14" -> I have no experience, but guessing up to 50k hours, if they had the same gun I would not call this short lifetime, and these are the late Trinitrons, so according to the rumour, old ones were better than this. Might be shorter lifetime than some premium tubes from other good brands, but the picture was also better. I think by the mid '80s, Sony should have tossed the single gun idea, because the better picture comes nearly 100% from the aperture grille configuration. The proofs are LG's Flatron, and Mitsubishi's Diamondtron CRT monitors, which, thanks to their aperture grille, had just as good picture as Trinitrons, but they usually lasted quite a bit longer due to their ordinary in-line gun with bigger cathodes. I have a 20" Sony BVM studio monitor, unfortunately that old model from ~1990 only had an hours counter in the optional auto-calibration extension module, which mine doesn't have, so I don't know how many hours it has, but it was used an awful lot judging by the words of the previous owner, and by the fact the EHT cable and the flyback had a 1" thick coating of black dust on it when I got it. It still has a great picture, although it's starting to get a bit tired, as it needs 10 minutes warm-up for the convergence to be perfect. But they used special tubes in these BVM monitors, their neck is MUCH thicker compared to a consumer Trinitron. So they knew bigger cathodes are better, but refused to toss the single gun construction. I would guess the reason for this is they could not call it a Trinitron without the special gun, because the patent describes the gun as well. They could have called it Trinitron-II though... 🙂
@@mrnmrn1 we used a local shop and they did a really good job for years. They used Sony guns as far as i could tell. The guy retired in the mid 90s and someone bought the business but he didn't know what he was doing and all his rebuilds didn't look good. The guy offered replacements when purity or convergence wouldn't set up but he wasn't paying for all my wasted time so i stopped using rebuilt tubes. The cost of fixing an xbr doubled overnight.
I got a Trinitron to last over twenty years: I lowered the "Picture"(Contrast) setting from its default maximum out of the box. I set it to the middle position, and adjusted everything else around it
I had the 20" XBR in the 80's with the removable side speakers and taped Live Aid...the colour was impressive for the time but I wound up getting a new picture tube after a few months due to an electrical snapping sound similar to a bug zapper...lol
@@jonathankleinow2073 "The Sony Concepts and Engineering Department have developed a multifunction connector I don't even know what the ffkk I'm reading."
This is making me want to go buy a 40” Trinitron, however I enjoy having money and not paying hundreds of dollars for a mediocre TV set with geometry issues on eBay
For retro gaming and such, forget high-end Trinitron TVs. High-end Trinitron monitors are OK, but not the TVs. Only buy low-grade consumer Trinitron TVs, if you want to use it with composite or S-Video. At least if you prefer low latency. Retro gamers usually like CRTs for their low latency, but a '90s XBR TV with its 120Hz refresh rate (or 100Hz in PAL regions) achieve this refresh rate with a digital frame buffer, which adds quite a bit of latency, probably worse than an early '00s LCD...
@@mrnmrn1 honestly I just use them for watching TV and playing simple stupid games like Bejeweled. The only more complex games I like to play are modern and I use my computer for that.
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@@CraigKovatch The next day: "John, it's great that you know so much about how Trinitron works, but maybe if you knew more about how emptying trash cans worked, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. I'll need your badge."
A retail whatnow? I bought a Sony TV online. Their OLED and LCD models are both very highly rated. Sales-wise they do about a quarter of Samsung's numbers.
They seem to stick to the “high-end” niche that the established with Trinitron all those years ago, not really competing with the lower brands on budget TV’s all that much
