# Sony PVM-4300

The Sony PVM-4300, also known as the KX-45ED1, is a cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor released by Sony in 1989. It is the largest CRT monitor ever manufactured, with a 43-inch (110 cm) diagonal display and a weight of around 200 kilograms (440 lb). Development of the display was finished in September 1987; it was put on sale in Japan in April 1989 and in the United States in 1990.
When documentary evidence of the monitor declined following its release, the monitor became famous among CRT enthusiasts. In 2024, one of the last known PVM-4300s was recovered by hardware modder Shank of the YouTube channel Shank Mods.

## History
### Development

In the late 1980s, Sony began developing a 43-inch display tube, which was finished in September 1987. The PVM-4300 was unveiled in a 1988 issue of the Japanese DIGIC magazine and in American tech publications, with no official release date given.

### Release and sales

The PVM-4300 was released by Sony in Japan in April 1989 for an introductory price of ¥2.6 million in Japan. Around twenty sets were imported into the United States around January 1990, with an introductory price of $39,999.99 ($101,463 in 2024). It was described as being aimed at the "videophile and elite-consumer market."
In April 1990, Jim Palumbo, president of Sony's Consumer Display Products Co., reported to the Sun Sentinel that only three PVM-4300 sets had been sold in the United States, although a month earlier he had told the Chicago Tribune that "at least four or five" had been sold.

### Obscurity

Following its release in the late 1980s, photographic and documentary evidence of the monitor began to dry up, which, in addition to its limited release, gained it a somewhat legendary status among enthusiasts of CRT monitors.

### Rediscovery

In December 2024, hardware modder Shank of the Shank Mods YouTube channel tracked down a functional PVM-4300, one of the last, in the second-floor waiting room of Chikuma Soba, a soba noodle restaurant in Osaka, Japan. Shank, with the help of another person and a company involved in shipping of industrial equipment, arranged for the monitor to be shipped to the United States. It was thoroughly tested and serviced upon arrival.

## Specifications

The PVM-4300 has a 45-inch (with a 43-inch viewing area) color Trinitron Microblack CRT picture tube, which is the largest ever produced. It can display a standard interlaced image as well as a 480p picture at a 60 Hz refresh rate, using improved-definition television (IDTV), which used a digital frame buffer to deinterlace video. The monitor contains two RGB inputs at 15.75 and 31.5 kHz to allow for native 480p inputs. It does not have a built-in TV tuner.
According to CRT Database, the unit weighs 199.6 kg (440 lb), and measures at 105 × 92.5 × 76.7 cm (41.3 × 36.4 × 30.1 in).

## Reception

Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune expressed his astonishment at the size and of the cost of the monitor, writing: "This TV set is to your TV set what your TV set is to an old Popsicle stick in the gutter with ants on it." A review in the Sun Sentinel expressed a similar sentiment to its cost yet praised the monitor for its "brightness, clarity and sharpness of color." A 1989 issue of Video Review described it as the "best-looking, big-screen set we've ever seen", but also said it's "designed more as a statement than a conventional product."
Shank, after acquiring the set in 2024, described it as looking "incredible" in person.

## Gallery

* Front view of the set
* Internal view of the set, showing the boards and electron gun inside
* View of the slide-out control tray at the bottom of the monitor
* Front right face view of the set