Largest CRT television

The largest cathode-ray-tube (CRT) television ever made was the PVM-4300 (also called the KX-45ED1), released in April 1989 by Sony (Japan). The PVM-4300 had a 45-inch trinitron picture tube (114.3-cm), of which 43 inches (109 cm) was visible in the assembled television. This 200-kg (440-lb) monster cost ¥2.6 million on release in Japan and $39,999.99 in the USA. That's the equivalent of $100,180 (£79,227) in February 2025.

The PVM-4300 was a prestige project, developed by Sony primarily as a technological showcase rather than a commercial product line. It was inspired by a rivalry between Sony and Mitsubishi Electric, which had launched a record-breaking 37-inch TV a few years earlier. The PVM-4300 was expected to sell only in very small numbers to wealthy videophiles and corporate clients.

The PVM-4300's massive screen was paired with the highest-spec components and subsystems Sony could offer, with an improved-definition television frame-buffer, which de-interlaces NTSC signals, as well as a range of inputs and outputs designed to work with other high-end video equipment.

For many years, it was not clear if there were any surviving PVM-4300s, or indeed if the model had ever really existed as a commercial product. While it appeared in Sony catalogues from 1989 and 1990, the PVM-4300's eye-watering price and enormous size made it seem unlikely that any were ever ordered. The best efforts of internet sleuths in the 2000s and 2010s had turned up just two unsourced low-resolution pictures that seemingly showed one outside of a catalogue photoshoot.

This changed in October 2022, when retrogaming YouTuber Shank Mods received a tip about a surviving PVM-4300. After some field research by his contacts in Japan, the TV was located in the second-floor waiting room of a restaurant called Chikuma Soba in Osaka. It had been purchased by the owner's father around 1990, who wanted a TV big enough to not be dwarfed by their waiting room. Perhaps hinting at just how few PVM-4300s were sold, when the TV developed a fault in the mid-1990s the president of Sony personally arranged for its repair.

As the restaurant was slated for demolition, the owners offered Shank the PVM-4300 for free, on the condition that he arrange collection. This turned out to be no small task, as the delicate 200-kg television was located at the top of two flights of narrow stairs. After a tricky and complicated journey, the TV reached Shank in January 2023. He was able to verify both its size and its functionality, and along with various members of the CRT and retrogaming community, fixed some damaged components and recalibrated the screen.