Projection Televisions
Posted by Jew-zilla@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 68 comments
Saw this on r/millennials. (It showed up in my feed. God forbid I actually go there. Anywho, my response was… see the first comment.
Purple-Sherbert8803@reddit
Still have one. 1080p high Def. Bought it from Circuit City 😅🤣😂. I can't get rid of it because it still works perfectly. I have my Sega Genesis hooked up to it. I'm that old
Beliliou74@reddit
That came out like 10years ago right
Reachforthesky777@reddit
I remember those TVs but I don't remember them being a symbol of extreme wealth. I saw them as a sign that someone shopped the sales at PC Richard or knew someone who hooked them up with one of PC Richards backdoor deals.
I didn't think these really became a thing until sometime in the 90s and I think I remember them being kind of crappy.
Jew-zilla@reddit (OP)
I’m THIS old. I knew people that had one of these growing up. I thought you had to be rich to own one.
FoodWineMusic@reddit
If a TV has a remote, it's not old in my eyes. "Get up and go change the channel" - my job as a child.
Jew-zilla@reddit (OP)
The good ol’ manual remote control.
wophi@reddit
This is the one!
God I wanted to hook my Atari up to one of these!
sp1der11@reddit
That’s because you DID have to be rich to have that kind of setup!
videoman7189@reddit
Best friend's dad had one, and we watched Empire Strikes Back laser disc on it.
Reginald_Sockpuppet@reddit
Nah, I knee some shit ass white trash in Truckee who had one of these.
j-endsville@reddit
We have lived long enough to see those on the curb and in thrift stores.
Weird-Girl-675@reddit
THIS!!! My dad’s friend had one of these and it fascinated me!
Safe_Move7021@reddit
My dad’s rental had this 🤣
willynillywitty@reddit
My uncle had one n my cousin would put on faces of death while babysitting us. I’m that old.
Argon_Boix@reddit
Your cousin is a sociopath. You must of had some awesome exposure vs your peers.
willynillywitty@reddit
She was amazing.
I absolutely have.
Argon_Boix@reddit
Oh, they were either rich or severely debt burdened.
Riffman42@reddit
I had one of these. It was a piece of shit.
stanley_leverlock@reddit
My friend had one in the early 2000s before LEDs took over. The blue gun died so everything was fading, pulsing reddish green. He and his girlfriend were used to it but I couldn't watch it at all. I asked why he didn't just get a new TV and he was like "well wtf am I going to do with this one? it weighs 400lbs".
ComesInAnOldBox@reddit
Yup. Had to be sitting directly in front of the damn thing to see anything.
videoman7189@reddit
My first HDTV was a Mitsubishi rear projection. It was a pretty good TV for 2004.
Before HD? Projection TVs were show pieces, their picture wasn't great, and they were stupid expensive.
Argon_Boix@reddit
Can confirm. Two neighbors had them. Even if you were dead center it sucked.
Jew-zilla@reddit (OP)
I worked for Best Buy for a while in the 90s. Front projos were dead and gone by then. But we did sell rear projos. Every one I sold, I gave the phone number to a local guy they could call to have the lamps readjusted every year. Over time the lamps would move and the picture got worse. When that happened the tvs were hard to look at. And God forbid a lamp goes out. You could be waiting for a while. Now if your flat -panel LED tv goes out, they’re cheap enough where you just buy a new one and throw the old one out without thinking about it.
Jew-zilla@reddit (OP)
Let’s not forget the mighty console tv. When tvs were furniture and too big to be stolen. We still sold two models of console tvs from RCA in the 90s. When I left Best Buy in 1999, they still have those TVs in stock. Worked there for theee years. Never saw one sold while I worked there.
Jew-zilla@reddit (OP)
That’s what I heard. I only saw them turned on a few times. I remember the screen being really dark and blurry. And forget about it if you’re on an angle.
RemindsMeThatTragedy@reddit
Accompanied by one of these:
CrustyBatchOfNature@reddit
Hate to be pedantic, but this particular one is more Millennial or GenZ than GenX. Widescreen projection TV wasn't commercially available until around 1993.
Now 4:3 ones for sure were a sign of wealth, even into the 1990's.
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themiracy@reddit
Sony had some TVs called WEGA or VEGA that looked like this, and one of my friends who was flying around and staying in hotels as a consultant got one on points. TBH it was OK but large televisions were never really good until LCD/OLED/QLED/plasma/etc reached the large sizes. I never had a CRT TV more than about 36".
ComesInAnOldBox@reddit
One of my favorite movies from the late '90s is Nothing to Lose with Martin Lawerence and Tim Robbins. There's a great little bit that illustrates this perfectly:
The68Guns@reddit
My buddy had one in the early 90's, cost him $6,000. Now I see them a yard sales for free or sitting on the side of the road. The local video store used to let us play Atari games on one, it was grand. I mean - I just got a 65 inch Samsung for $350.00 at Wals.
ziggurat29@reddit
Yaas! One of my college roommates really liked what we would later call 'home theatre' and had an Advent VideoBeam. It was a front projector with a huge projection console that threw the image onto a somewhat concave screen. Folks typically put a lounge chair on either side of the console.
He also had one of the first VCRs, the one that loaded from the top.
Kind of remarkable now that I think about it, because we both worked in restaurants at the time, and the setup must have cost a fortune. But 'priorities'.
Fartina69@reddit
It took 3 stout men and a team of mules to move it.
zoot_boy@reddit
Yep, got it right before MNF went HD and you could pick up the signal over the air. It was a game changer.
Then the Colts came back from 21 down in Tampa Bay that one time and it was a REAL game changer.
nixtarx@reddit
My stepfather wanted one SO bad. He finally got one right when everything went to flat screen. Probably why he was able to afford it.
On a related not, my real dad wanted an analog satellite dish antenna so bad back in the 80s. He finally pulled the trigger and dropped a couple grand...about nine months before they scrambled everything.
krismitka@reddit
Ah yes, the destroyer of things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynUA8dY1btU
mike71diesel@reddit
I was expecting shango066
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EJobksa6i8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M36nQiwBQU
Two_wheels_2112@reddit
Nah, it wasn't a symbol of extreme wealth. These were the inexpensive alternative to the first plasma screens. I remember the first plasma I saw: I think it was CAD$20k for a 40" Pioneer.
Jew-zilla@reddit (OP)
These were around in the 70s. I didn’t see a plasma released to the public for sale until 1996 at Circuit City. It was about US $13,000 from what I remember. So I’d say prices were similar given the exchange rate.
But it’s ok. Once you’re there 51st state everything will be fine and you’ll use the greenback. No more pesky exchange rates. He said sarcastically.
Two_wheels_2112@reddit
It occurred to me after I commented that this might have been one of the old CRT projection screens, which were in fact very expensive. It looks more like an early LCD projection unit, though. That said, it's been a while since I've seen one.
TheJokersChild@reddit
No, that's a late CRT. Same 3 tubes as the front projectors, just flipped backwards.
j-endsville@reddit
That’s not a projector. That’s just a bigass CRT.
TheJokersChild@reddit
Actually 3 CRTs, bounced from a mirror onto a screen. If the CRTs didn't align together properly, everything got all fringey...but you could watch stuff in 3D if you had the red and blue glasses.
OppositeDish9086@reddit
Now you just go to Walmart and chuck a 56 inch in your cart like no big deal. We used to be a proper society.
TheJokersChild@reddit
And it only costs $198 now... a tenth of what the one in the picture probably cost.
Kimber80@reddit
Damn, I had a CRT projection TV all the way until 2013, LOL.
TinktheChi@reddit
We had one in the early 90s. My husband worked at a TV repair shop, he went to a service call, the person didn't want to pay to fix the TV, and told my husband he could keep it. The shop let him take it home and fix it. We were the envy of all the kids in the neighborhood because our daughter played video games on it. Amazing.
ScreenTricky4257@reddit
More like symbol of extreme weight.
tdawg-1551@reddit
I'm thankful I could never afford one of these. Held on to the square tube TV until the flat screen came out.
kegsbdry@reddit
I remember moving my big TV with my roommate, we completely forgot how little it weighed compared to its size. We almost broke the TV on the ceiling when we first picked it up.
sp1der11@reddit
Way older than that, mate
PlantSufficient6531@reddit
I see those and think of the rent to own scams.
jojowasher@reddit
My Mom had that same TV, she bought it right when LCDs were coming out, so got it really cheap, the same size LCD was 5x the price!
Worth_Fondant3883@reddit
Given the cost of them back in the day, I'd say you would still have been pretty farkin rich if you dropped that much on a modern flats reen lol.
videoman7189@reddit
Think about the advancement in technology. 30 years ago a big screen TV had to be projection and were phenomenally expensive for the time. Even an normal 25" TV wasn't super cheap. Today though you can buy a big TV cheaper than that 25" TV with a much better picture than you could have imagined back then.
PPP_illusion@reddit
Grandmother brought one in late 80s as a treat to herself. It cost 15K (80s 15K…not today’s 15K). Had teletext on it which was a prequel to internet. Remember watching TV show of upcoming new movies on it and so hyped to see them…Spaceballs, Lost Boys, Dirty Dancing, Predator. Weighted a fk’n ton and was bloody enormous and as others said…has that washed out colours look, which is a curse to projection screens to this day I believe.
stuck_behind_a_truck@reddit
Where are the rabbit ears with foil or a kid holding them?
Flat_6_Theory@reddit
Mr Gatti’s Pizza had projector TVs.
porkchopespresso@reddit
We had one, I don’t know what the “extreme wealth” part is about, but the TV itself was actually kinda shitty. I feel like we all talked ourselves into thinking it was great
CyndiIsOnReddit@reddit
It was. I remember my best friend got it at Rent-a-Center so she paid about 50 dollars a month. I remember back then several of our friends had them too. They probably were crappy and overpriced too especially once you paid the interest.
UnableChard2613@reddit
Some rich girl moved into our house for the summer right after college. She bought one of these for the house. Great girl all around.
However at the end of the summer she couldn't bring it back home because she lived over seas, and sold it to my other housemate for cents on the dollar.
I'll always remember moving it out with him. What a pain it was so fucking heavy it took 4 of us.
Weird-Girl-675@reddit
A few years ago I finally had to recycle my 27 inch Magnavox tube tv when it would take too long to turn on. I’d had it since 1995 so it lasted over 20 years, but I forgot how damn heavy it was when I had to carry it up a flight of stairs.
CyndiIsOnReddit@reddit
This television isn't about extreme wealth. It was something you could get at Rent-a-Center so I knew a lot of poorer people who would pay 50 dollars a month for it until they couldn't anymore but for a while, they sure did have a nice TV!
400footceiling@reddit
The one I remember most was the Angelos pizza place that served the best pepperoni pizza ever and played 3 Stooges, Abbot and Costello in B&W on that tv. Always went there after our little league baseball games!
Jew-zilla@reddit (OP)
Angelo’s Pizza in Fort Myers?
400footceiling@reddit
No, Ashland Oregon. Since closed up, sadly.
Jew-zilla@reddit (OP)
That’s pretty far from FM. But I’d hazard a guess there’s a few pizza parlors with that name.