Electronics

The popularity of projection TVs came about in the wake of the 1980s, when American consumers began renting videotapes with abandon and craved ways to make their viewing experience more cinematic, to make their homes, in a nutshell, more like theaters. Up until October of 1986, the largest TV screen available was 27 inches diagonally. Mitsubishi then introduced a 35 inch model, but it was soon widely established that screen sizes greater than 40 inches would be untenable because of the built-in limitations of cathode-ray tube technology. Manufacturers started experimenting with flat panel technology and projection in search of ways to transmit greater numbers of pixels than ever before.

The First Projection TVs
As early as 1975, audio innovators Henry Kloss and Tomlinson Holman (the latter would later go on to create the THX surround sound format for LucasFilm) had introduced the Advent Videobeam, a two piece device that used three CRT tubes contained in a console the size of a refrigerator on its back. The Videobeams picture was projected onto a curved aluminized screen 7 feet across diagonally; the unit was such a success, it led to Kloss forming his own large-screen TV company, NovaBeam. Seven years later, the first single-box rear-projection televisions made their debut, employing similar CRT projection pioneered by NovaBeam models but augmenting the signal via a series of mirrors that reflected the image onto the rear of the screen, which allowed for much more efficient use of space.

The first LCD front projector hit the marketplace in 1988 and became a success, as did RCAs 16×9 tube TV in 1993. Then in 1997, the landscape changed with the advent of two new technologies: digital light processing (DLP) and gas plasma. Gas plasma supported the creation of flat-panel screens less than six inches thick but covering unprecedented surface areas. DLP, a system used in both rear and front projection TVs, employed a million miniscule mirrors to produce gigantic, crystalline images, all needing less space than any CRT or LCD-based projectors to date.

Quality sound was the next logical area for manufacturers of projection TVs to concentrate their creative energies. Early models sported only two speakers but with the early 1990s, more ambitious companies began incorporating subwoofers and surround sound capabilities with their units. By 1998, projection TVs had begun offering high-quality multi-channel A/V receivers as part of their repertoire. Tactile and olfactory innovations cant be far behind.