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You are looking at something you're not supposed to see.

2
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Well, at least not like this.

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The image on your screen is coming from one third of the 
business end of a video projector.

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This image is the second third. And this one is the third 
third.

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That's right. It's our old friends

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red, green, and blue.

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The primary colors of almost all 
modern display technologies.

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But for some reason, they've been separated.

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If we zoom out a bit, we'll find that we've 
been looking through the lenses of this device:

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a Sony VPH-D50HT Mark II.

11
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And for many years, when we needed a large full color video screen, this is how we did it.

12
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If you're my age or older, you might remember seeing these triclopses out in the wild.

13
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I have a particularly burned-in memory of one of these in a party room at a local entertainment center.

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And I also remember seeing one on an airplane.

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By the turn of the millennium, these were starting to go out of fashion for reasons which will become very obvious.

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But because of the technology inside of here, this device produces a shockingly good projected image,

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especially considering its age.

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It has fantastic color rendering, and it doesn't struggle in dark scenes like so many projectors do.

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In fact, when displaying a black video signal, the screen is truly black.

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And these support much higher 
video resolutions than you might expect.

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This model originally came out in 1998, 
yet it natively supports 1080i component video

22
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and can even go a little higher with an RGB input.

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In fact, the technology itself has a theoretically unlimited resolution.

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That's because behind each of its three lenses is a cathode ray tube.

25
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That's right. This is a CRT projector.

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But rather than use a single color CRT like you'd find in an ordinary television set,

27
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this uses three monochrome CRTs: one red, one green, and one blue.

28
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Then the three images each tube 
produces are merged into one on the projection surface,

29
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and that produces a full color image.

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This technique has lots of advantages, but it also requires an astounding level of complexity and precision.

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This is a red CRT from a similar model of projector.

32
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And you may notice there's some 
very odd stuff going on here.

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For one, there's quite the lens strapped to the front of it, 
and it appears to be filled with some kind of liquid.

34
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Yeah, this is higher tech than it looks at first glance.

35
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But, the basic idea of projecting an image from a small CRT like this is much older than this device

36
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and in fact dates back to the earliest days of television.

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These are the guts of a 
television set from 1950something.

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And these are socks!

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The technology connection socks I let you know 
about in my previous video.

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Now, if you didn't see that, I'm not just telling you about these socks to make a quick buck. \In fact, these are a collaboration between myself and the folks at 
Goodtore. That means that all the profit that's generated from the sale of these socks is donated 
to charity. These socks will help partners in

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In fact, these are a collaboration between 
myself and the folks at Good Store.

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That means that all the profit that's generated from the sale of these socks is donated to charity.

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These socks will help Partners in Health operate the Maternal Center of Excellence in Sierra Leone.

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We're coming into the final days of orders being open for these, so I'm letting you know this is your last chance to get them.

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The Good Store team worked with independent artists and myself to design 12 Technology Connections-inspired socks.

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We are selling them as a 
prepaid subscription, meaning you only pay once.

47
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And if you choose to purchase it, you'll have a full year of delightful sock surprises arriving at your door each month starting in January.

48
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And we have a six-month option, too.

49
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The socks are shipped in flat compostable envelopes that 
go through the mail as if they are a letter.

50
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I've been a member of the Awesome Socks Club for years.

51
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And let me tell you, a monthly sock surprise is just so much fun.

52
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You can buy it for yourself or for someone else as a gift.

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Orders are going to be closing October 12th 
and then they will never be available again!

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So, if you want to warm your feet with socks that highlight my particular flavor of eccentricity -

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and help mothers and children in a region of the world 
with one of the highest infant mortality rates,

56
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well, you'll find links to get these in all the places.

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Thank you so much.

58
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And now, back to this thing.

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This black and white television receiver is actually not that complex.

60
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It looks like a jumbled mess of hands soldered parts...

61
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because that's what it is, but there really aren't that many parts in here.

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This is the schematic diagram for the whole thing.

63
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It's mostly the same bunch of capacitors, resistors, vacuum tubes, coils, and potentiometers you'd find in any radio receiver.

64
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Sure, there are many more of them than a typical radio,

65
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but there's not much to this which isn't just radio parts.

66
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That is, except for three key things:

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The deflection yoke, which steers the electron beam that draws images on the picture tube,

68
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the flyback transformer, which generates the roughly 15,000 volts needed to make the picture tube 
function,

69
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and of course, the picture tube itself.

70
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Now, you might have caught 
a little thing about 15,000 volts.

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Yeah, here's the part where I say playing with CRTs is dangerous.

72
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Not only do the drive electronics produce extremely high voltage,

73
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but the aquadag coating on the inside and outside of the glass picture tube

74
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turns it into a giant capacitor which is able to store a lethal charge long after the TV has been switched off.

75
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So, don't screw around with these.

76
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But especially don't screw around with really old ones because electric shock is not the only danger here.

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This picture tube does not have integrated implosion protection, which makes handling it rather risky.

78
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If you've ever wondered why very old TVs had a flat sheet of glass in front of the actual picture tube,

79
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that was safety glass put there to protect it from you

80
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and to protect you from it should it one day violently implode into flying shards of glass.

81
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Yay!

82
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Anywho, I brought this out because 
the picture tube is the part that made televisions so expensive.

83
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Electronically, it's not really any 
more complicated than the other vacuum tubes in here,

84
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but it's still a vacuum tube.

85
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It cannot have any air inside of it or it won't work.

86
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And that made them very difficult to manufacture in large sizes because the bigger you make the viewing screen,

87
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the more area the atmosphere has 
to work with to try and crush the tube.

88
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That is made worse by the fact that a larger screen also requires the electron gun to be farther away from the front of the tube,

89
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which means the sides of the tube also have to get bigger and also become more vulnerable to atmospheric crushing.

90
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Now, obviously, we did eventually figure out how to make picture tubes with large viewing screens.

91
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Here is one of them.

92
00:07:14,413 --> 00:07:18,585
But before we did, people were experimenting with optical trickery.

93
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Rather than try and make a fragile bigger tube,

94
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you could use a small picture tube like this and 
make it much brighter.

95
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Then you could use lenses to magnify and project an image of this small screen onto a larger viewing surface.

96
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This was surprisingly common in the early post-war 
television sets of the 1940s.

97
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And in fact, some of the earliest television receivers 
which were sold were basically what today

98
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we would call video projectors.

99
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They weren't that different from this much newer device, though they had a single black and white picture tube and a single projecting lens.

100
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This technique worked to make a larger viewing screen, 
but it came with significant downsides.

101
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First, I don't want to mislead you: 
the viewing screens were not actually that big.

102
00:08:08,396 --> 00:08:15,944
Those early projection systems should really be thought of as a way to make normalsized TV screens cheaper.

103
00:08:15,944 --> 00:08:21,007
And in the spirit of cheap, the image quality wasn't that great.

104
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Rear projection systems where the CRT was behind a translucent screen tended to have poor contrast in the best of cases

105
00:08:28,971 --> 00:08:31,088
with a somewhat fuzzy image.

106
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And front projection systems required 
the room to be absolutely dark to see anything at all.

107
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And in both cases, the CRT needed to be driven really hard in order to produce a bright enough image to be projected,

108
00:08:45,123 --> 00:08:51,401
and that meant they wore out quickly and needed frequent replacement, which negated much of the savings.

109
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These downsides combined meant that once large direct view picture tubes could be economically manufactured,

110
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they would immediately take over the market, and projection systems became a strange curiosity of the past.

111
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That is until the 1970s.

112
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By then, lots had changed in the realm of television,

113
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such as color television broadcasts. Ooh!

114
00:09:14,130 --> 00:09:20,239
And we had gotten quite good at manufacturing large CRTs for 
use in television sets.

115
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But consumer demand for even bigger TV sets was starting to swell.

116
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And now those nasty physics came back to bite us.

117
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We knew how to make big CRTs.

118
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But the larger you make the screen of a CRT, the stronger the tube has to be to resist implosion.

119
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This means the glass has to get thicker as size scales up, and thus the tube becomes heavier and heavier,

120
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which presents a practical limit to the size of a television screen.

121
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And so, as often happens in 30-year cycles, 
what was old was suddenly new again.

122
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Video projectors and projection televisions 
were about to become the hot new thing.

123
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Now, unfortunately, it's not easy to trace a clean line through the history of this concept coming back into vogue.

124
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Mainly, that's because the earliest devices weren't exactly projectors, but they also weren't exactly televisions.

125
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The first company to commercialize this basic idea was called Advent and they released the Videobeam in 1972.

126
00:10:27,886 --> 00:10:33,976
It was a very similar device to this projector with the main difference being the arrangement of the lenses.

127
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Here they're in a single row of three and the Videobeam arranged them in a triangle.

128
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But the Videobeam, while it was technically a projector, required 
the use of a dedicated screen placed at a fixed distance from the projection unit.

129
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You could not simply plop it somewhere, point it at a wall, and focus the lenses.

130
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You needed to use its dedicated 
84in curved monster of a projection screen.

131
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Why? Well, the images being produced by its three CRTs

132
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need to converge with one another in order to look like a normal full color image on the screen.

133
00:11:12,243 --> 00:11:14,901
They need to perfectly overlap.

134
00:11:14,901 --> 00:11:18,152
And that is really hard to accomplish.

135
00:11:18,152 --> 00:11:25,646
Videobeam's approach was to simply calibrate their projectors in the factory and sell you the screen they did it with.

136
00:11:25,646 --> 00:11:30,061
No need to worry about convergence issues when you know all the variables.

137
00:11:30,061 --> 00:11:37,268
Eventually, other manufacturers would 
sell video projectors with integrated screens as extra-large televisions.

138
00:11:37,268 --> 00:11:40,709
You may remember the days 
of so-called big screen TVs.

139
00:11:40,709 --> 00:11:47,651
Those enormous blocky televisions which had flat plastic screens with a large base below them.

140
00:11:47,651 --> 00:11:51,540
That base essentially had 
one of these in it pointing up at a mirror

141
00:11:51,540 --> 00:11:57,211
which then reflected the images from the three CRTs onto the translucent viewing screen.

142
00:11:57,211 --> 00:12:02,012
Much like the projection TV sets of the 1940s, but with color!

143
00:12:02,012 --> 00:12:04,966
But this video is about a projector.

144
00:12:04,966 --> 00:12:13,953
This thing wasn't sold with a dedicated screen and supports screen sizes from 60 all the way up to 250 in.

145
00:12:13,953 --> 00:12:19,470
That means the calibration and convergence process has to be done on site.

146
00:12:19,470 --> 00:12:22,121
And would you like to see that process?

147
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Well, I hope so, cuz that's what I'm about to show you.

148
00:12:24,765 --> 00:12:31,345
And you're going to quickly learn why these projectors got replaced as soon as decent alternatives arrived.

149
00:12:31,345 --> 00:12:36,632
If you look closely, you'll notice that the center green lens is pointing straight ahead,

150
00:12:36,632 --> 00:12:41,097
but the red and blue lenses are pointing slightly inward.

151
00:12:41,097 --> 00:12:44,086
This is the very first thing that you'll be adjusting.

152
00:12:44,086 --> 00:12:53,943
You actually have to manually change the angle of these two lenses to make the center of the red and blue images line up with the green image.

153
00:12:53,943 --> 00:12:56,883
Except no, that's not actually the first step.

154
00:12:56,883 --> 00:13:04,941
The first step is to consult these convoluted charts to figure out just where exactly this thing needs to go in relation to your screen.

155
00:13:04,941 --> 00:13:08,159
I'm not using a projection screen here, I'm just pointing it at a wall.

156
00:13:08,159 --> 00:13:13,073
So I can skip all that, but I promise it doesn't help very much.

157
00:13:13,073 --> 00:13:19,819
Once it's in position, you can remove the cover to make all the things you're about to have to adjust accessible and power it on.

158
00:13:19,819 --> 00:13:23,491
Since these are CRTs, 
they only take a few moments to produce light,

159
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but then you'll discover that the projector would like to do a 20inut warm-up where it shows nothing but a white screen.

160
00:13:30,203 --> 00:13:34,008
It does this every time you switch it on, and it lets you skip it,

161
00:13:34,008 --> 00:13:38,386
but it's very important 
to let that warm-up happen before making adjustments

162
00:13:38,386 --> 00:13:43,981
because the geometry of the CRTs and lenses 
will actually be affected by temperature,

163
00:13:43,981 --> 00:13:47,620
and you don't want to 
fiddle with anything before it's all warmed up.

164
00:13:47,620 --> 00:13:53,701
Actually, remember when I showed you this naked tube and pointed out there's what appears to be liquid in there?

165
00:13:53,701 --> 00:13:56,322
Well, that's because there is.

166
00:13:56,322 --> 00:14:05,870
The CRTs in projectors like this and those old school big screen TVs are being driven very hard in order to get as bright as they do.

167
00:14:05,870 --> 00:14:10,062
And as all those electrons slam into the phosphors at the front,

168
00:14:10,062 --> 00:14:13,308
the faces of the tubes get quite warm.

169
00:14:13,308 --> 00:14:20,696
To deal with that heat, the gap between this lens and the face of the picture tube is filled with a glycol solution.

170
00:14:20,696 --> 00:14:28,128
The glycol carries that heat away from the face 
and with the help of these fins here dissipates it to the air.

171
00:14:28,128 --> 00:14:30,393
Now, it's not like these get very hot.

172
00:14:30,393 --> 00:14:34,347
The entire projector consumes about 450 watts.

173
00:14:34,347 --> 00:14:39,878
But keeping the phosphor cool during 
operation prolongs their life significantly.

174
00:14:39,878 --> 00:14:45,822
This cooling is basically what was required 
to make projection with CRTs possible.

175
00:14:45,822 --> 00:14:51,323
Unfortunately, some manufacturers weren't 
too careful with the preparation of this solution,

176
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and lots of these projectors suffer from mold growth in the coolant which pretty much destroys their ability to produce a clear picture.

177
00:14:59,283 --> 00:15:02,377
This one though, luckily, is perfect.

178
00:15:02,377 --> 00:15:04,310
And by the way, speaking of cooling,

179
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this does use cooling fans 
to pull air through it and cool down the tubes.

180
00:15:09,161 --> 00:15:14,560
And I've done a bit of movie magic on you because this has not actually been switched on while I've been filming.

181
00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:16,444
But I will switch it on now.

182
00:15:16,444 --> 00:15:19,310
[click of button, then CLONK of CRTs coming to life]

183
00:15:19,310 --> 00:15:23,665
You might have heard those classic CRT noises, 
and depending on how sensitive your hearing is,

184
00:15:23,760 --> 00:15:28,672
you might also hear some whining from this thing, 
but you will definitely hear the fans.

185
00:15:28,672 --> 00:15:33,115
[fans drone softly in background] 
This is much quieter than many projectors out there, but honestly,

186
00:15:33,115 --> 00:15:35,574
it's a little louder than I expected.

187
00:15:36,002 --> 00:15:41,400
Anyway, once it's warmed up, you need to whip out this absolutely gnarly remote control,

188
00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:44,951
hook it up to the projector with this incredibly long cable.

189
00:15:44,951 --> 00:15:49,648
Hit the key sequence enter, enter, 
up, down, enter to open up the service menu,

190
00:15:49,648 --> 00:15:53,556
and then you need to reset all of the video memory entries.

191
00:15:53,556 --> 00:15:58,420
This will make sure it's ready for a completely fresh calibration sequence.

192
00:15:58,420 --> 00:16:04,151
And by the way, this instruction manual 
is one which will really make you want to scream.

193
00:16:04,151 --> 00:16:08,297
It will tell you how to do those things... but not in order!

194
00:16:08,297 --> 00:16:12,024
This is page 23, 
adjusting the CRT conversion angle.

195
00:16:12,024 --> 00:16:16,998
And step three basically says, 
"do this thing, which is on page 35."

196
00:16:16,998 --> 00:16:21,351
And then step four says 
"do this thing, which is on page 99."

197
00:16:21,351 --> 00:16:23,919
That is awful, and I hate it.

198
00:16:23,919 --> 00:16:29,003
And once you've made your way through all that, 
you need to have it display this crosshair pattern.

199
00:16:29,003 --> 00:16:36,763
This will allow you to see how far off the red and blue lenses are compared to green by looking at the central vertical line.

200
00:16:36,763 --> 00:16:41,165
In this projector, the green tube can be thought of as the king tube,

201
00:16:41,165 --> 00:16:44,907
and you don't adjust anything on it except focus.

202
00:16:44,907 --> 00:16:50,436
Now, the crosshair should be white, 
but right now it's a mess of red, green, and blue.

203
00:16:50,436 --> 00:16:56,224
By loosening these screws, 
I can move the red and blue lenses side to side.

204
00:16:56,224 --> 00:17:05,320
The goal here is to have the vertical lines drawn by each tube perfectly line up with one another so it appears as a single white line.

205
00:17:05,320 --> 00:17:09,351
The remote allows you to 
switch off each tube with the press of a button,

206
00:17:09,351 --> 00:17:14,618
and it's often much easier to, say, disable 
the blue tube when adjusting the red one,

207
00:17:14,618 --> 00:17:18,190
which makes the crosshair appear yellow when perfectly aligned.

208
00:17:18,190 --> 00:17:21,054
And then do the opposite when adjusting the blue tube.

209
00:17:21,054 --> 00:17:25,215
Disabling the red tube causes the crosshair to appear cyan.

210
00:17:25,215 --> 00:17:29,143
Okay, and once you've gotten the 
vertical line as close to perfect as you can,

211
00:17:29,143 --> 00:17:33,373
you can tighten those adjustment screws 
back down and move on to focusing.

212
00:17:33,373 --> 00:17:37,371
Which is much, much more involved than you would think.

213
00:17:37,371 --> 00:17:40,044
First, we got to get it into service mode again.

214
00:17:40,044 --> 00:17:45,007
And then we have to make sure 
we set it to internal oscillator pattern P2.

215
00:17:45,007 --> 00:17:47,228
Why? No idea.

216
00:17:47,228 --> 00:17:50,448
Then we have to reset some more data for some reason.

217
00:17:50,448 --> 00:17:53,340
I continue to be very annoyed at this manual.

218
00:17:53,340 --> 00:17:57,402
Then we have it display this H pattern which is helpful for focusing.

219
00:17:57,402 --> 00:18:03,040
And we're going to disable the red and blue tubes 
so all we see is a sea of green.

220
00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:07,628
And now, finally, we can adjust the focus

221
00:18:07,628 --> 00:18:10,689
of one of its three lenses.

222
00:18:10,689 --> 00:18:14,152
And how many focus adjustments are there for each lens?

223
00:18:14,152 --> 00:18:15,737
Four.

224
00:18:15,737 --> 00:18:19,350
Technically there are just two focus adjustments per lens.

225
00:18:19,350 --> 00:18:23,139
But there are also two flapping adjustments.

226
00:18:23,139 --> 00:18:25,116
Flapping?

227
00:18:25,116 --> 00:18:30,080
Okay, so I should point out 
that as interesting as this concept is on its face,

228
00:18:30,080 --> 00:18:34,087
the optics of this system are quite impressive.

229
00:18:34,087 --> 00:18:37,223
Each of the CRTs has a 7 inch screen.

230
00:18:37,223 --> 00:18:39,638
That's not a large display size by any means,

231
00:18:39,638 --> 00:18:45,341
but projecting an image of something that large - and doing it with near-perfect optical clarity -

232
00:18:45,341 --> 00:18:47,016
is nuts!

233
00:18:47,016 --> 00:18:53,487
There's so much room for error when trying to make an image of such a large flat surface on another flat surface.

234
00:18:53,487 --> 00:18:56,164
And this has to do it three times.

235
00:18:56,164 --> 00:19:01,916
Each lens has a separate adjustment 
for the center focus and the corner focus.

236
00:19:01,916 --> 00:19:10,607
You start by loosening the wing nut closer to the rear of the projector 
and then you turn the barrel of the lens until the center of the screen is tack sharp.

237
00:19:10,607 --> 00:19:12,517
Then you lock it back down.

238
00:19:12,517 --> 00:19:18,915
Next, you loosen the farther wing nut and turn the barrel of the lens until the corners are tack sharp.

239
00:19:18,915 --> 00:19:23,138
And if you discover at this point that you can't make all the corners sharp,

240
00:19:23,138 --> 00:19:27,396
you get them as sharp as you can and then adjust the flapping.

241
00:19:27,396 --> 00:19:35,397
This actually moves the CRTs behind the lenses a little bit to adjust how parallel their faces are compared to the lens.

242
00:19:35,397 --> 00:19:41,364
And it may be necessary to move, say, the right side of the tube just a tad bit away from the glass

243
00:19:41,364 --> 00:19:45,119
in order to get the entire image in focus.

244
00:19:45,119 --> 00:19:46,360
It's a lot of work.

245
00:19:46,360 --> 00:19:50,948
And once you're done, you get to do it two more times!

246
00:19:50,948 --> 00:19:57,943
And then you'll discover, wow, it's really hard to see that H pattern with just the red or just the blue tubes.

247
00:19:57,943 --> 00:20:03,354
But you're going to try your best and get each of 
the three lenses as sharp as you possibly can.

248
00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:07,683
And once you're finished with the focus, you'll 
turn all the tubes on again and cry

249
00:20:07,683 --> 00:20:09,731
because you're nowhere near done.

250
00:20:09,731 --> 00:20:12,406
In fact, you've barely started.

251
00:20:12,406 --> 00:20:15,449
You now have the lenses situated correctly.

252
00:20:15,449 --> 00:20:19,072
But you'll notice the image doesn't look that great.

253
00:20:19,072 --> 00:20:26,048
That's because the images that are actually being drawn on each tube aren't lining up quite perfectly on the screen,

254
00:20:26,048 --> 00:20:29,758
which means you now have to adjust the registration.

255
00:20:29,758 --> 00:20:34,979
Any of you out there remember playing with 
the geometry settings on a CRT computer monitor?

256
00:20:34,979 --> 00:20:39,445
Things like centering, skew, keystone, pin, cushion, and all that?

257
00:20:39,445 --> 00:20:45,997
Well, strap in because you're about to do that 
a whole awful lot using a very confusing remote.

258
00:20:45,997 --> 00:20:53,053
I want to call out the keystone adjustment because it's a great 
example of what makes these projectors so unique.

259
00:20:53,053 --> 00:20:58,639
Keystoning is what happens 
when the projection surface isn't parallel with the projector.

260
00:20:58,639 --> 00:21:03,008
If, for example, you point a projector slightly up at a screen,

261
00:21:03,008 --> 00:21:09,783
the image it projects will start to appear trapezoidal with the top of the image wider than the bottom.

262
00:21:09,783 --> 00:21:17,520
And you may notice that in this standard configuration, the lenses of the CRT projector are definitely angled upward.

263
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:25,126
Modern digital projectors will compensate for 
that keystoning by simply cropping away parts of the image,

264
00:21:25,126 --> 00:21:30,428
but that forces it to lose active 
pixels and thus lose image resolution.

265
00:21:30,428 --> 00:21:38,404
This though can correct for keystoning  simply by scanning the CRTs with a counteracting keystone shape.

266
00:21:38,404 --> 00:21:42,508
This is what's really cool about having monochrome CRTs.

267
00:21:42,508 --> 00:21:51,560
You can tell just by looking through the lens that the sides of the image that it's drawing aren't parallel with the sides of the actual picture tube.

268
00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:54,651
It's not forced to use a rigid grid of 
pixels.

269
00:21:54,651 --> 00:21:58,591
It can simply steer the scanning beam a little differently.

270
00:21:58,591 --> 00:22:03,005
That means no resolution is lost in the keystone correction.

271
00:22:03,005 --> 00:22:06,478
The shape of the image was simply changed.

272
00:22:06,478 --> 00:22:10,165
This is essentially what all the registration adjustments are doing.

273
00:22:10,165 --> 00:22:14,843
They affect the geometry of the scanning beam 
for each of the three picture tubes.

274
00:22:14,843 --> 00:22:22,998
And when you set this thing up, it's your job to make sure they are perfectly scanning on top of each other throughout the whole screen.

275
00:22:22,998 --> 00:22:27,524
There's really no sense showing 
you just how convoluted the entire process is,

276
00:22:27,524 --> 00:22:35,422
but I promise you'll have endless fun going through the different test patterns and turning on different combinations of the three tubes,

277
00:22:35,422 --> 00:22:38,735
trying to get them all to line up perfectly with one another.

278
00:22:38,735 --> 00:22:41,373
I didn't have to deal with the borders 
of a screen.

279
00:22:41,373 --> 00:22:42,973
I was just pointing this at a wall.

280
00:22:42,973 --> 00:22:49,372
But even still, this process was among the most fiddly and annoying things I've ever done.

281
00:22:49,372 --> 00:22:53,906
Now, as much as I truly despise this manual for how it's organized,

282
00:22:53,906 --> 00:22:58,939
it does have a very thorough and detailed explanation of the process.

283
00:22:58,939 --> 00:23:03,227
The order in which it chooses to say certain things remains baffling and infuriating,

284
00:23:03,227 --> 00:23:06,842
but at least it gives you a step-by-step guide on how to do all this.

285
00:23:06,842 --> 00:23:10,225
And once you've gotten everything to be as good 
as you can reasonably make it,

286
00:23:10,225 --> 00:23:12,170
congratulations!

287
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:14,140
You're still not done.

288
00:23:14,140 --> 00:23:19,545
All of that registration 
tinkering was just for its baseline registration settings.

289
00:23:19,545 --> 00:23:24,741
Once you've saved them into memory, 
you'll discover that each individual video input

290
00:23:24,741 --> 00:23:30,653
has its own memory to make fine adjustments on 
top of the baseline registration.

291
00:23:30,653 --> 00:23:35,927
And if you want a perfect image from this thing, 
you're going to need to do more fiddling,

292
00:23:35,927 --> 00:23:38,680
especially because of this thing's key feature.

293
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:45,165
This is a multi-scan projector, meaning it will accept 
pretty much any resolution you throw at it.

294
00:23:45,165 --> 00:23:50,002
And that means the actual raster that it's scanning on each of the three tubes

295
00:23:50,002 --> 00:23:53,945
will change depending on what signals it's receiving.

296
00:23:53,945 --> 00:24:00,837
The baseline registration assumes a standard definition video signal made of 525 lines per frame.

297
00:24:00,837 --> 00:24:07,008
But since this can also accept HD 
video in the form of 1,080 lines per frame,

298
00:24:07,008 --> 00:24:12,087
things aren't necessarily going 
to line up quite right when you switch to input two.

299
00:24:12,087 --> 00:24:17,391
But, once you've finally made your way 
through this incredibly frustrating process,

300
00:24:17,391 --> 00:24:20,814
you will be blown away by the results.

301
00:24:20,814 --> 00:24:25,451
I don't have that much experience 
with home cinema projectors, but I have a little

302
00:24:25,451 --> 00:24:29,590
and I've also seen plenty 
of other projectors in school and office settings.

303
00:24:29,590 --> 00:24:36,768
And this produces by far the best projected image I have ever seen outside of a movie theater.

304
00:24:36,768 --> 00:24:41,322
And in some ways, this is better than what's in theaters today.

305
00:24:41,322 --> 00:24:47,053
However, this is nowhere near as 
bright as anything you'd be used to now.

306
00:24:47,053 --> 00:24:53,994
These need to be in a completely dark room for it to really be a good experience, and it will still be kind of dim.

307
00:24:53,994 --> 00:24:57,673
There are some other things about 
it which leave something to be desired, too.

308
00:24:57,673 --> 00:25:02,088
But once dialed in, holy cow, is this an experience.

309
00:25:02,088 --> 00:25:09,343
It simply doesn't make sense that a device this old can project an image which looks that good.

310
00:25:09,343 --> 00:25:13,028
Now, I don't think I could ever 
really convey what this looks like over video,

311
00:25:13,028 --> 00:25:17,157
but watching a Blu-ray disc 
through this projector is almost mindbending.

312
00:25:17,157 --> 00:25:19,113
Colors are phenomenal.

313
00:25:19,113 --> 00:25:26,163
Dark scenes are actually dark with none of the 
purply-grey blacks you so often find with projectors.

314
00:25:26,163 --> 00:25:28,008
And the screen door effect?

315
00:25:28,008 --> 00:25:32,548
Oh, that doesn't happen here 
because it doesn't even know what pixels are!

316
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:36,400
You can sometimes make out the scanlines 
depending on what's on the screen,

317
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:41,120
but especially with 1080i video, they almost 
seamlessly blend together, creating the

318
00:25:41,120 --> 00:25:43,988
illusion that there's no structure to the image at all.

319
00:25:43,988 --> 00:25:46,993
It's just there somehow.

320
00:25:46,993 --> 00:25:50,427
All that said, it's still not perfect.

321
00:25:50,427 --> 00:25:53,335
While it handles dark scenes excellently,

322
00:25:53,335 --> 00:25:57,620
if there's an even moderately bright spot anywhere in the image,

323
00:25:57,620 --> 00:26:01,360
you'll discover that its contrast leaves something to be desired.

324
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:08,182
Bright objects, I think due to internal reflection, 
manage to illuminate the face of the tube enough

325
00:26:08,182 --> 00:26:11,047
to elevate the baseline black level.

326
00:26:11,047 --> 00:26:17,018
You can actually start to make out the entire face of the tubes when projected like this on a wall.

327
00:26:17,018 --> 00:26:23,910
With a properly matted screen you wouldn't notice that, 
but you will still notice a limited contrast ratio.

328
00:26:23,910 --> 00:26:28,025
It's still well above average for a projector, 
at least in my experience,

329
00:26:28,025 --> 00:26:32,808
but it's not the CRT perfection you might be expecting.

330
00:26:32,808 --> 00:26:36,968
Black and white content can also be slightly odd.

331
00:26:36,968 --> 00:26:41,807
You'll notice some color fringing 
at the edges between bright and dark spots.

332
00:26:41,807 --> 00:26:48,609
I suspect this never truly goes away even if you have the convergence and registration set perfectly

333
00:26:48,609 --> 00:26:53,047
due to the blooming which naturally occurs on the CRTs.

334
00:26:53,047 --> 00:26:56,481
With three different tubes 
producing slightly different levels of blooming,

335
00:26:56,481 --> 00:27:00,858
hard edges tend to 
get a little burst of color when they shouldn't.

336
00:27:00,858 --> 00:27:07,354
This also happens with color video, of course, 
but it's a lot less noticeable in that case.

337
00:27:07,354 --> 00:27:14,531
Editor's note, while filming some of the B-roll, 
I noticed that the registration was uh, drifting a little bit,

338
00:27:14,531 --> 00:27:17,187
particularly with the red tube.

339
00:27:17,187 --> 00:27:23,787
When I powered it on the next day, it was very off and you can actually see it moving in this footage here.

340
00:27:23,787 --> 00:27:29,853
This seems to be affected by the overall image brightness, which is why I described this as a side effect of blooming.

341
00:27:29,853 --> 00:27:35,782
But given that it seems to mainly affect just the red tube, 
I'm less sure than I was.

342
00:27:35,782 --> 00:27:41,690
This projector was never used before I got my hands on it, 
so the tubes are as fresh as they'll ever be.

343
00:27:41,690 --> 00:27:47,551
But this is a 25-year-old electronic device now, 
and it could be something is starting to fail.

344
00:27:47,551 --> 00:27:52,505
I suspect even when new, 
you could never get these to have rock solid registration,

345
00:27:52,505 --> 00:27:59,847
but I think it's likely this particular projector has some sort of problem making this seem worse than was typically the case.

346
00:27:59,847 --> 00:28:05,075
And then there's the really big 
weakness of this technology, burn-in.

347
00:28:05,075 --> 00:28:08,853
Those phosphor will wear out even with the help of cooling.

348
00:28:08,853 --> 00:28:16,384
And that means if the projector is showing a static image for very long, the image can be burned into the tubes.

349
00:28:16,384 --> 00:28:24,060
That makes these a rather poor choice for gaming, especially retro gaming where there are bright static elements always on the screen.

350
00:28:24,060 --> 00:28:26,568
And yes, I know everyone wants to know:

351
00:28:26,568 --> 00:28:31,101
unfortunately, you cannot play 
Duck Hunt with this particular projector.

352
00:28:31,101 --> 00:28:37,353
It's modern enough that it's doing quite a lot of signal processing, no doubt to help with convergence and registration,

353
00:28:37,353 --> 00:28:40,444
which introduces too much lag.

354
00:28:40,444 --> 00:28:45,414
I'm relatively sure it would be 
possible with older models of CRT projectors,

355
00:28:45,414 --> 00:28:50,638
but this here is pretty much the end of the line for the tech, 
and it's as advanced as it ever got.

356
00:28:50,638 --> 00:28:55,454
And for this projector, 
which can natively handle widescreen content,

357
00:28:55,454 --> 00:28:59,628
well, when installing it, you have a pretty big choice to make.

358
00:28:59,628 --> 00:29:04,031
These tubes have a native aspect ratio of 4:3.

359
00:29:04,031 --> 00:29:12,393
So when displaying 16:9 widescreen video, 
the projector simply stops scanning the top and bottom of the tubes.

360
00:29:12,393 --> 00:29:18,804
That's great because it means you aren't losing image resolution, but you are losing quite a lot of height

361
00:29:18,804 --> 00:29:21,420
and thus total screen size.

362
00:29:21,420 --> 00:29:24,458
The throw of these projectors is quite impressive.

363
00:29:24,458 --> 00:29:29,260
You get a huge screen with the projector 
relatively close to the projection surface.

364
00:29:29,260 --> 00:29:31,505
So, it's not really a big deal.

365
00:29:31,505 --> 00:29:39,635
But if you decide to mat your screen to 16x9 and then always use the projector as if it's a modern widescreen display,

366
00:29:39,635 --> 00:29:49,651
in a sense, you are wasting some of the projector's potential and even more if you end up pillar boxing 4:3 content within the 16:9 frame.

367
00:29:49,651 --> 00:29:54,896
I personally think this is fine, but it means only the central parts of the tubes will be getting used

368
00:29:54,896 --> 00:29:57,477
and burn-in will definitely happen.

369
00:29:57,477 --> 00:30:06,201
So, should you want to switch to a 4:3 screen later on, 
the central portion of the image will be unusually dark.

370
00:30:06,201 --> 00:30:12,687
If you actually committed to using one of these today, 
I wouldn't think that would be too much of a problem.

371
00:30:12,687 --> 00:30:20,430
Personally, I would use it as a 16:9 display and just accept that the tubes are going to wear kind of weirdly.

372
00:30:20,430 --> 00:30:25,706
But, well, you've probably noticed 
that this really is a commitment.

373
00:30:25,706 --> 00:30:28,127
For one, it's kinda big.

374
00:30:28,127 --> 00:30:34,175
It's also quite heavy. 
This weighs nearly 120 pounds, about 54 kilograms.

375
00:30:34,175 --> 00:30:36,238
It's not fun to move.

376
00:30:36,238 --> 00:30:39,336
And of course, once you get it set up, you can't move it

377
00:30:39,336 --> 00:30:46,400
because if you do, that means you'll have to go through the entire focus, convergence, and registration procedure again.

378
00:30:48,166 --> 00:30:48,666
[screams]

379
00:30:48,666 --> 00:30:50,473
Yeah, as cool as these are,

380
00:30:50,473 --> 00:30:57,122
it doesn't take too much imagination to figure out why they were replaced almost the instant alternatives appeared.

381
00:30:57,122 --> 00:31:03,566
If your only concern is image quality, 
these were and remain quite good.

382
00:31:03,566 --> 00:31:07,653
But if you care about brightness, these aren't great.

383
00:31:07,653 --> 00:31:10,005
If you care about portability,

384
00:31:10,005 --> 00:31:12,682
these are very not great.

385
00:31:12,682 --> 00:31:18,337
And if you care about ease of setup, these are extremely not great.

386
00:31:18,337 --> 00:31:25,243
While early LCD and DLP projectors certainly couldn't hold a candle to this thing when it comes to a cinematic experience,

387
00:31:25,243 --> 00:31:29,097
for almost every other use case, they were obviously superior.

388
00:31:29,097 --> 00:31:31,542
They were brighter. 
They were actually portable,

389
00:31:31,542 --> 00:31:34,001
so you could just bring one into a conference room.

390
00:31:34,001 --> 00:31:37,316
And they needed little more setup than basic focusing.

391
00:31:37,316 --> 00:31:41,743
And a single lens meant you could do things like zoom.

392
00:31:41,743 --> 00:31:45,771
Whoa! Change the screen size without moving the projector?

393
00:31:45,771 --> 00:31:47,419
Sorcery!

394
00:31:47,419 --> 00:31:48,777
But you know what?

395
00:31:48,777 --> 00:31:50,991
This is sorcery, too.

396
00:31:50,991 --> 00:31:54,230
And I think a much cooler form.

397
00:31:54,230 --> 00:31:59,011
It's almost magical that this even works, let alone works so well.

398
00:31:59,011 --> 00:32:06,340
This thing literally is three cathode ray tube televisions somehow producing three separate images so precisely

399
00:32:06,340 --> 00:32:11,274
that they can line up on a projection screen nearly flawlessly.

400
00:32:11,274 --> 00:32:12,434
I don't know about you,

401
00:32:12,434 --> 00:32:19,326
but I find that much more impressive than a tiny little chip covered in tiny little mirrors that flip back and forth really, really fast.

402
00:32:20,433 --> 00:32:24,496
Okay, actually DLP is really cool 
tech, and one day I'm definitely going to cover it.

403
00:32:24,496 --> 00:32:29,499
But I will forever hold a 
special place in my heart for these old triclopses.

404
00:32:29,499 --> 00:32:32,345
I mean, this just looks so cool!

405
00:32:32,345 --> 00:32:38,216
and you get some trippy effects on the screen when you 
stand in front of it or walk in front of the projector.

406
00:32:38,216 --> 00:32:41,476
I mean, that's got to be worth at least some of the hassle.

407
00:32:41,476 --> 00:32:46,892
Now, I am definitely going to keep this thing, 
but I don't have a dedicated spot for it at home,

408
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,733
so it's going to remain in storage for who knows how long.

409
00:32:50,733 --> 00:32:57,557
Perhaps one day I'll find a good place to set it up, 
but it will always be something of a pain to use.

410
00:32:57,557 --> 00:33:05,680
It's only got analog video inputs, which means adapters and perhaps HDCP nightmares are always going to be in its future.

411
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:11,460
And honestly, in 2025, 
projectors just don't have much of an appeal anyway.

412
00:33:11,460 --> 00:33:18,673
You can get really big TVs for not a lot of money these days, which look great even in brightly lit rooms.

413
00:33:18,673 --> 00:33:23,037
And now that I'm used to an OLED TV at home...

414
00:33:23,037 --> 00:33:27,190
well, it's hard to imagine actually wanting 
to fire this sucker up very often,

415
00:33:27,190 --> 00:33:33,670
but it is certainly a lot cooler than 
a big black rectangle hanging on the wall.

416
00:33:34,455 --> 00:33:37,240
♫ convergently smooth jazz ♫

417
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:42,095
I forgot about the tube, so I'm going to get it.

418
00:33:42,095 --> 00:33:44,416
This is heavier than you would think.

419
00:33:44,416 --> 00:33:48,079
But keeping the phosphor cool prolongs their...

420
00:33:48,079 --> 00:33:48,817
[bleep]

421
00:33:48,817 --> 00:33:50,216
that could have been bad!

422
00:33:50,216 --> 00:33:56,258
This means the glass has to get thicker as scott... skies sails up.

423
00:33:56,258 --> 00:33:58,763
[sigh] roonerspisms

424
00:33:58,763 --> 00:34:02,795
...temperature. And you don't want to fiddlewidanything before it's all warmed up.

425
00:34:02,795 --> 00:34:04,927
I... that was a weird flub.

426
00:34:04,927 --> 00:34:05,813
But you know what?

427
00:34:05,813 --> 00:34:06,817
But you know what?

428
00:34:06,817 --> 00:34:07,689
But you know what?

429
00:34:07,689 --> 00:34:08,609
But you know what?

430
00:34:08,609 --> 00:34:09,424
But you know what?

431
00:34:09,424 --> 00:34:10,099
But you know what?

432
00:34:10,099 --> 00:34:11,010
But you know what?

433
00:34:11,010 --> 00:34:11,794
Buchya know what?

434
00:34:11,794 --> 00:34:12,767
Buchya know what?

435
00:34:12,767 --> 00:34:14,920
[laughs]
I've said this too many times.

436
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:16,703
Now it's breaking my brain.

437
00:34:16,703 --> 00:34:21,466
This process was among the most fiddly annannnoying things [speech falls apart into mumbles].

438
00:34:21,466 --> 00:34:24,045
Well, that fell apart.

439
00:34:25,473 --> 00:34:29,437
So, are the captions-gag-reading members of the audience looking for any... socks?

440
00:34:29,437 --> 00:34:33,703
'cuz I heard about a pretty cool way to purchase socks where the profit goes to help build a hospital rather than just go to some guy.

441
00:34:33,703 --> 00:34:36,364
I mean you're gonna need socks before too long...

442
00:34:36,364 --> 00:34:39,677
anyway the projector's rad, huh