What Happened to the World's Largest Tube TV?

hello I'm shank and this is an average size 27in cathod ray tube TV also known as a CRT it's almost 2 ft thick and weighs about 100 lb up until the mid 2000s most homes in the United States had a tube TV like this in them the word tube was even widely used as a general term for TV in pop culture such as in the context of watching the tube that's actually where YouTube got its name it was a way to see you on the tube but today these CRT TVs have become a relic of the past and almost everyone has replaced them with newer thinner flat panel displays well almost everyone there's a growing Cult of hobbyists who love CRTs mostly used today for Retro Gaming these CRT displays feature many advantages over modern displays and fans of the technology myself included swear by it consumer CRTs usually range from from 9 to 36 in diagonally but as the size of the vacuum fil tube increased linearly the force of the vacuum inside them increased exponentially this meant bigger CRTs required thicker walls to keep them from imploding under the force of the atmosphere given that the walls of the tube were made of lead this weight added up fast Beyond 36 in CRTs became so large and heavy that they were pretty impractical but practicality is boring this is the KX 45 ed1 also known as the pvm 4300 it was supposedly the largest CRT ever sold featuring a massive 45-in picture tube the TV itself weighed over 440 lb not counting the 171 LB stand like this TV is so heavy the actual instruction manual included Specific Instructions to make sure that your floor is strong enough to support it the us model was priced at $40,000 when it went on sale in 1989 or over $100,000 today adjusted for inflation its existence pushed beyond the limits of practicality and into the realm of we made it because we can well at least that's how the story goes but if you dig a Little Deeper things get pretty strange as of posting this video there are only two alleged photos of the CRT on the internet that aren't marketing material directly from Sony these photos are alleged because without any additional pictures or known objects for scale it's hard to know for sure if they really are kx4s or something else Beyond some old marketing hype and an old scan of an incomplete instruction manual there's next to no concrete info on it anytime this mythical monitor is brought up online arguments over its existence between Believers and non-believers are sure to follow some claim it was just a Sony marketing stunt to flex on M subishi in their ongoing tube measuring contest in the late 80s historical evidence exists but nothing concrete remains you think with how huge this TV is and with how many CRT collectors are out there that if one exists it would have been found by now it's essentially become the Bigfoot of CRTs the L2 babra The Lochness monitor but at this point most have given up and accepted that even if the great white whale of the CRT hobby did exist at one point it's incredibly unlikely any still survived and that's how I expected things to stay until one day my friend derf Drpped a Bomb on Me In A Discord message oh also if you have an inkling to visit Japan or know anyone else there preferably who speaks the language I found the address of a restaurant that has a PBM 4300 that was the source of one of the images of it at least as of a few years ago but given that it's a 43in tube possibly on the second floor it probably hasn't moved derf runs the console modding Wei a passion project where he archives as much as he can about anything related to consoles and modding including CRTs one restless night he was on a midnight internet hunt trying to track down details of the mythical kx4 ed1 he was able to track down the original source of this image back to a 2015 post on a Japanese blog called move of Sunday darf reached out to the Blogger asking where the photo of the TV was taken to his surprise the Blogger quickly responded according to the Blogger the photo was taken 7 years ago in the waiting room on the second floor of a restaurant called chikas SOA located in Osaka Japan a quick Google search and we learned that chika was a 300-year-old soba noodle restaurant in Factory while unassuming from the outside it seemed to be quite a popular and historic destination the building also includes a factory where the noodles are made inhouse in other words the best lead we had on this TV was that it was allegedly photographed on the second floor of a 300y old Japanese noodle factory 7 years ago wild at this point derf shot me the message on Discord asking if I knew anyone locally who could check it out on October 20th I popped in a voice chat on a small modding Discord server a friend of mine on that server by the name of Mike told me he would check it out when he went to go visit Osaka in a few months in the meantime my Mo friends in voice chat and I began digging for more clues we went through 1,500 photos on Google Maps and eventually found ones that match the floor and wall tiles of the original photo so this confirmed it was the right place and it was here at some point in time but was it still there on one hand the photo was 7 years old but on the other hand the TV weighed over 440 lb and was supposedly on the second floor maybe it was still unmoved and if it hasn't moved from that spot for 30 years it's probably not going to move between now and uh we may have a problem check out this post on chim's website the site was in Japanese but when translated we came to a horrifying Discovery chika was moving to a new building and the old location was scheduled for demolition the old location was closing permanently in 3 days 3 days 3 days that's all I had 3 days to figure out if this TV was still there and if it's there was it destined for demolition as well this could very well be the last kx4 ed1 in existence and if it was still there I only had 3 days to do anything about it I reached out to everyone I knew in Japan but nobody was close enough to make it happen I had depleted my options and a last minute trip to Japan just wasn't in the carts as a last ditch effort I took to Twitter and made a post seeking help from any local stranger willing to help a few hours later I got a reply from a stranger named abii hello I live in Osaka if it's within my power I'd be happy to help I sent the stranger a private message with the details and he told me the soonest he could go was Sunday at noon or 4:00 a. m. my time zone the final day it was open that was far too close for comfort but at this point what choice did I have unable to find anyone else for backup I had no choice but to anxiously wait until the final day and hope the stranger would pull through for me Sunday October 23rd 4 a.

m. the first of 12 alarms I set goes off and I frantically check my phone new message message on Twitter I take a deep breath and open the message it's here still turns on I talked to the owner of the restaurant he said that they need to move at the end of November and are looking for a way to get rid of the TV our hero on the ground pulled through he made it to the restaurant in time and found the TV it was still there exactly where it was in the photo 7 years ago and it still worked even better he talked to the owner of the restaurant and the owner was looking for a way to get rid of the TV oh man this might actually happen we might actually be able to save the CRT I reached back out to my Moder friends and being the enablers they are were absolutely on board they got Right to Work drawing up strategies for extraction including discussion of potential issues we may encounter along the way boy was a go there were many challenges to overcome and not much time to do one somehow convince the owner to give or sell it to me two get the TV down from the second floor into a safe location in Japan before demolition three transport it from a safe location in Japan internally to the United States four Once in the United States get it safely to my possession five find a way to pay for it and if I got through all of that I had possibly the most challenging task of all six convince my roommates not to murder me in my sleep when they see it only one thing was certain if I could somehow pull this off it was going to be really expensive like really really expensive but that was a bridge I'd have to cross when I get there assuming I even make it that far this was getting really dumb really fast I needed a sanity check so I called my parents I knew they could talk some sense into me there is no way they would be on board with me spending thousands of doll shipping a 440 lb 30-year-old TV from Japan right nope turns out my parents like my mod friends are enablers as well they told me to go for it and encouraged me to see to the end of the story and to my surprise they offered the garage as a temporary home for the kx4 until I move into a larger space Cha's old location was now closed and phone calls to the restaurant went unanswered the new location wasn't opening for another 2 weeks and we had no no idea what day the old building was scheduled for demolition only that it was some point in November at any point in time the owner could be making arrangements for the TV to be disposed of at an e-way facil the Clock Was ticking and time was running out with no way to contact the owner abibi traveled back to the closed restaurant on October 31st the restaurant had no additional contact information and nobody there to help us it was a dead end but a BB had an idea send the owner a Written Letter to the store with his contact info on it was a long shot a slow solution when time was critical but at this point it was the only option we had the letter was sent and all I could do was wait to say I was anxious in the coming days would be a complete understatement I felt completely powerless and my mind was Restless as the clock continued to tick towards an unknown deadline what if it was destroyed and there was something I could have done in retrospect to have been just a day faster and save it as the clock marched on all I could do was wait November 6 I woke at 4:00 a. m.

to several Discord notifications on my phone the owner of the restaurant had received the letter and reached out to a BB the owner was willing to give me the TV for free as long as we handled the transportation on our end we had until November 20th to get it out of there 14 days all we had to do was let the owner know when we plan to pick it up this was incredible news the TV had not been destroyed we were not too late 2 weeks was still a really tight schedule but it was within the realm of possibility we began calling and emailing every business we could find that might be able to help us moving businesses storage companies Logistics corporations full service immigration services but to my disme none were able to help maybe they could if we had more time but once again time was not on my side but sometimes life has a funny way of working out because a BBE once again was here to save the day it just so happened that his friend chaho worked for a company that regularly shipped large Industrial Equipment internationally and through connections string pulling and lots of paperwork a plan was set in motion and a quote was sent my way they could handle everything down the stairs out the door to their warehouse crate up Airship to the United States and box truck delivery to my parents garage all before demolition but there was one catch doing this would have cost me a lot of money like used car amount of money and as someone attempting to be a responsible adult I simply can't justify burning that much money on something like this but I can justify burning shopify's money on this if you have any interest in ever running business you should know about Shopify the sponsor of this video it's an all-in-one Commerce platform designed to help you run your business and sell your products Shopify reduces the complexity of starting or growing your business by giving you the tools to handle pretty much everything on the front end shopify's tools and thousands of third-party apps let you quickly create and customize your site on the back end Shopify can handle Payment Processing fraud detection sales and marketing analytics and so much more Shopify even has point of Sal systems to enable in-person sales at any scale personally I use Shopify pretty much every day my business I started up with my friend Gunner and aelo four- layer Tech runs on Shopify have a look at this this is an official Nintendo 64 memory pack used by many Nintendo 64 games to store save data unfortunately these memory cards use volatile memory meaning they require a battery to retain save data so when the battery dies the save data goes with it that's why we made forever back it uses nonvolatile memory freeing your save files from the ticking timer of a battery we are really proud of them and put a lot of work into the details like tuning the colors to match the official controller colors with Shopify it was easy to set up the product page and add color variants this was also convenient given that we have matching packs for every single official Nintendo 64 Controller color Shopify gave four- layer Tech the tools to start a business selling products we love I'm so happy they offered to sponsor this video and provide the funds needed to Air Freight over 400 lb of lead from Japan straight into my parents garage Shopify gives you the tools to turn your crazy business idea into a reality you can start your free trial at shopify. com shank mods and now with sponsorship money in hand I was able to make the irresponsible decision of sending a very large wire transfer to a stranger in Japan now it was abibi and chiro's turn chahira recruited a contact experienced in moving heavy machinery abroad by the name of MrTakahashi the three of them went out on an adventure back to chikim MOBA to work out a plan MrTakahashi assessed the scope of the task at hand while abibi used a Mrfpga to verify some more tests on the TV MrTakahashi also graciously agreed to to store the TV in his Warehouse until he and Shiro could complete the Customs paperwork on the day of the big move MrTakahashi showed up with a team of movers he had warned the movers about the size of the TV but from what I was told I don't think anything could have mentally prepared them for this Behemoth once mentally collected and prepared they wrapped the TV in extra padding and netting to allow better grip for more people then they carried it down the stairs and into the truck from there it was off to Mrtakahashi's Warehouse where it would be crated and await paperwork for international shipment January 16th 2023 the big day had finally come and the Mythic cargo was finally here unloading from the box truck into the garage was a breeze with a pet Jack but I knew unring it and setting up this 400 40 lb monster was going to be a different story so I put out a call for help and my friends answered we all gathered at my parents garage and took part in an unboxing experience like no other and finally after plugging it all in it was time to test it and find out if it survived the trip she works the TV had survived the trip we knew exactly what we had to do next hook up a GameCube to the 480p VGA input and play some Super Smash Brothers Melee where are you at the unboxing and setup was an absolute blast I have the full video as bonus content on patreon float plane and YouTube membership and finally I lag tested the 480p input to confirm that it is in fact completely LaGree but why on Earth would this CRT have lag this TV featured extremely sophisticated and advanced technology for the time that allowed it to frame buffer and de interlace all standard definition 480i video into a 480p output for the screen video processing can improve an image but it can also have the opposite effect and worst of all early video processors were notorious for adding lots of lack but in addition to several standard definition 480i inputs This TV has a single 480p VGA input this 480p input bypasses the buffer circuitry and spits the unprocessed video signal out straight into the picture tube no lag no processing a retro Gamer's dream come true I can even use modern lag-free external scalers to play 240p games or even run other 31 khz signals like 960i a question I know many will have at this point is does it work with light gun games and the answer to that is is yes yes it does I was able to get duck hunt working by running it through a line doubler into the 480p input to get it to work I did have to turn up the brightness though as this CRT has an absurdly long phosphor Decay it's so hard to convey just how big this thing is on camera so I thought I'd compare it to a few other CRTs here it is compared to the 27in CRT from before the surface area is 153% larger or over over 2. 5 times the size here it is compared to the world's smallest Trinitron at 3.

7 in viewable it is 12556 larger here it is compared to the world's smallest color CRT at 1.