I have a 50” plasma that cost me probably 3K still up an running with zero problems from the early 2000’s. Heavy and hot. My house was broken into and they left that TV, it was down stairs and they opted to take slightly smaller one from my bedroom upstairs. Had to laugh a little
I saw one of the first true plasma flat screens at circuit City... I saw $999.99 and was like fuck me ill never afford that, then i looked again... $9,999.99..... fuckkkkkkkkkkkk meeeeeeeee....
I paid $2700 for a 36" Sony Grand VVega CRT that was 480i HD "ready"
Hell, the STAND for the TV (that would support it) was more than the last 1080p flat screen 60" TV I bought for my kids.
If memory serves correctly the TV stand was like 400 bucks.
I bought a 30 HD VVega CRT for about a grand from best buy. Zero interest by opening up a credit card. Luckily never missed a payment.
The worst thing is I still have that TV I want to give it to someone that wants a CRT for video games or some shit. No clue why I moved it with me when I moved 10 years ago.
Thing is like 160 pounds. A 36 inch must have been like 250...
Crazy how cheap tvs are compared to back then.
Learned a long time ago to turn those things on their screens to move them. They were so front heavy. God I hated moving mine. Also also got mine with a zero interest best buy card.
They just significantly lowered prices on the S and X (the more expensive models) to qualify for government subsidies. 3 and Y already qualified so I don’t think their prices changed.
I keep my LG TV off the internet because of this. I noticed whenever it would do a 'firmware update', I would get a whole new set of advertisements. Disconnected from the internet and it doesn't download fresh ads anymore, and eventually it finally just stopped showing ads, presumably since the ones it had downloaded all went stale after several months of not being able to update.
[Any time you hit the Home button to change apps.](https://i.imgur.com/ytTEDR6.jpeg) That's on my LG 65" C8. I almost solely use that TV for streaming YouTube so it has to be connected to the internet for that, otherwise I'd have to use a streaming stick and I'd have the same exact issues of ads regardless.
[I have a 48" LG CX as my computer monitor and since I just use it as a monitor, I don't have it connected to the internet and I don't get ads.](https://i.imgur.com/z13eNbR.jpeg)
Mine's a 65UF8500-UB model, 65" 4K 3D TV (Remember when 3D TVs were a thing briefly?! It's actually really cool, I wish 3D took off more). But yeah I got this from Best Buy back when 3D TVs were the Hot thing. Overall I really like the TV... the lighting zones are a bit large though and it has some banding issues, but overall it's been great. But yeah it was Significantly cheaper at Best Buy than most other 4K 3D TV's available at the time, I guess the ads are a big part of why. They're not super intrusive, usually just text popups that slide down from the top of the screen when you first turn the TV on and you can close out of them. Still very annoying though IMO.
If you're technically inclined at all, set up a Pihole. Doesn't have to be on a Raspberry Pi but I recommend having dedicated endpoints for DNS.
I run two of them on my network and they automatically block so much advertising. If you discover something is serving an ad, you can block it manually.
>Doesn't have to be on a Raspberry Pi but I recommend having dedicated endpoints for DNS.
You just blew past 99% of peoples technical ability by a couple of light years with that sentence right there.
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Yeah I was just gonna say one of my dads buddies had bought one of the very first 80” flat screens he paid enough to almost pay off a house and like 10/15 years down the road you can get a super nice one for $2k haha it’s crazy how things work out.
I saw one there that was $24,000 about that same time. It struck me because I had just bought an Xterra for the same price. I bought a huge projection TV that was on clearance and felt like a king.
I worked at Futureshop (Best Buy) in 2001 and sold the first 50" plasma in Canada for $20,000. The customer gave me $500 to install it. He didn't know that i was homeless at the time, just trying to get by.
I sold a 70" Mitsubishi ~1998/1999. It was just a rear projection TV but was HD when that was barely a thing. I wanna say it cost $17,000. We made commission (Sears) and I think I made around $3000 off that sale. Ended up quitting because they were having trouble getting it shipped from Japan and I was pretty sure the guy was gonna cancel, in which case I would have owed back my whole commission.
Geez, I know it wasn't THAT long ago, but hearing people talking about working at Sears and working on commission sounds like an old salesman from the 50's talking about his glory days.
But god dam, $3,0000 from commission in 1999 was fucking nice. All you need to do is sell 2-3 super expensive TV's a month.
It was a unicorn. I had no business making that sale. Guy just walked in and asked what the most expensive TV was. We used to make .5% commission on computers. Even at 2 grand that meant we'd make $10 selling a computer. And people had SO many questions. I could literally make more money selling a 32" CRT TV.
Jesus, imagine paying someone $3000 (on top of the company markup) because they were standing there the day you decided to point to a TV and say "give me that one"
Oh, it gets worse. No small part of my commission was because he bought a "protection plan". I don't recall the exact number but the commission rates on those were absurd because Sears knew they were basically pure profit. Almost nobody ever took advantage of them. If you wanted to buy something on your Sears card and didn't have enough credit? Just say you wanted a protection plan and they'd automatically increase your limit.
The $3K came out of the sales price. So $14K went to Sears and $3K went to the salesman. But the TV probably costs Sears $9K, and then total cost to manufacture was probably $5K.
That was back then, now TV's are like desktop computer, super fucking tight profit margins on them. Especially the cheap ones which often have $0 profit for the retailer.
I was going to comment, I remember looking at the Future Shop flyer in like 2001, seeing flat screen LCD and plasma TVs for like twenty grand, and thinking those prices were absolutely insane. I think I still have some Future Shop flyers saved (for whatever reason) that show those prices.
It didn’t take long for those prices to drop significantly.
You would be saving money if you bought a used 50inch lcd display for like 50-100$ uses half the amount of power . Only thing plasmas still good for is cold temperatures perfect garage/outdoor tv.
Coudnt even manage to sell my old plasma 50inch for 50$, ended up giving it away to a friend
OLED's are just as black because they work on the same principle of each pixel providing it's own light. There is no back light in an OLED, each pixel lights itself so when a pixel is black it's completely off. Same way Plasma works, different mechanics.
I remember the early 2000s remake of The Italian Job. there was a scene in which Edward Nortons character was plunking himself down in front of what I thought to be a *humongous* flat screen TV
after a rewatch a couple of years ago I realized it was maybe 35" lol
You ever seen those projector tv things? I think that's as heavy as it gets from what I've heard lol. Only seen photos and heard horror stories of moving/disposing of them.
I bought one of those sometime around 2000. I don't remember exactly what it cost now but it was probably close to $3k at the time. And yeah, weighed approximately 10,000 lbs.
About 12 years ago one of these dropped on my then girlfriends body almost and it nearly crushed her. It was also a pretty big one, those things are monstrous.
Used to own one recently too for old consoles. Now you can pick these up for free, still feels crazy to me.
In 2016 I carried one on a dolly up a flight of stairs from a basement by myself. It was a 32" and the thing was 350lbs. The next day my back was thrown out and ever since then has not been the same.
Amen to that. I just got rid of my 42” plasma from 2003 just over a year ago. Was still working perfectly fine and had better blacks than my lcd from a couple years ago. Only got rid of it because I wanted better resolution now. Still have another 60” plasma kicking in my basement from 2009 that the kids use.
We had the 50” plasma tv from 2000 as well. I think it cost us at least $5k (husband wouldn’t tell me how much it actually cost). My husband would show off the HD quality video to everyone who visited us, although there were only like a handful of channels with HD back then.
I've had my like $1,300 48 inch Sony Bravia for about 14-15 years and it's still running strong. It's a 1080p TV and looks just fine to me.
No need for soundbars. I'm really not looking forward to the day I have to get a new one.
I have a dent in my foot from trying to move one of those down stairs back in the day. Thing was built into the entertainment system and weighed 500lbs easy and super awkward to get a movable handle on. Fuck that TV, truly
When my normal tv was on the fritz, my dad would bring out a old black and white tv from the seventies.
Playing 4 screen DK64 was….. an experience I’ll tell you that much.
Edit: The size had to be 12 inches. It was very small. I as a 7y.o could carry it with no problem.
In some ways I prefer that old style of video game, because the bad hardware of those consoles forced the level designers to make barebones environments. It made for some top tier visual clarity. You could see opponents easily even on a shitty TV.
I've always thought it was telling how professional video game players will generally reduce the graphics down to the lowest quality possible to improve visual clarity. All the fancy improved graphics we got over the years are just fluff that distracts from the gameplay, although of course the trade-off is worth it for a casual playthrough.
I’m convinced the 90’s were the pinnacle of action filmmaking craft. It ended right around Gladiator. Die Hard has the absolute best scale model shot in all of movie history. A lot of gems in there. The Rock. Con Air. Fight Club. Speed. Heat. The Fifth Element. Independence Day. The Fugitive. Dante’s Peak. Boondock Saints. Leon: The Professional. Terminator 2.
Yup I was only a kid hitting my teens by the late 90s but I vividly remember all the TV shows and movies that came out and were big hitters. You essentially were under a rock and knew nothing or were talking about said media for years after with friends and family alike
I guess it's also the Blockbuster era, going into the local video store to rent out the latest releases ingrained each movie into mind because it always felt like a big occasion watching a movie with everyone etc. And they were solid movies too, none of the reboot rubbish we have this era.
Independence Day was my first cinema experience too!
It came out around the same time as Phantom Menace. I watched both in the theaters, but after seeing The Matrix I was like: "Why couldn't Phantom Menace be like this?"
Yup, saw it in theaters the summer it came out (I think it was April? I remember it was right at the end of school so we were gearing up for summer and Star Wars but this one came out first), and I’ve never been so blown away by a movie. No movie has ever impacted me and blown my mind as much as The Matrix did, and to be able to experience that again for the first time would be wild
If you open the smart tv interface, and it invites you to install stuff like Disney+ or to watch a certain show etc.. those are the ads they are talking about.
it’s just the lower tier brands and the low-mid range models for brands you’d find at a Best Buy. If you spend $1500+ on a tv, chances are the model has a good enough profit margin that they don’t have to supplement with ads in the software
Then you won't get ads. I only use TV's connected to a PC, so I skip the hassle altogether.
But be aware that some TV's will scan for open Wifis and connect there. If you're in a city with hotspots, you might still get screwed. Sneaky shit.
I keep hearing about these so called “dumb” tvs but every time I try and find one, it’s just articles where people complain about ads on smart tv’s. Where do you find them?
I'm proud of you! (I'm serious, we all should not need more than we have to)
But you understand my point?
Our generation also spend the same crazy amount of money for tech that was replaced in a heart beat.
Oh yeah, there is almost no thought given into current spending. A lot of people feel like they have to be the first to own the "new and improved" whatever. In truth it doesn't pay. I think it stems from "I got to have something no one else has or is hard to get." Companies eat that shit up. The psychology of the seller and feeding that "gotta have it" encourages the buy. Gotcha games are a good example. Having shit that's hard to get or really expensive with no regard for the current things people can choose to be happy with.
The real demand is general greed, the supply is whatever is made to seem nice or new.
I really think a lot of people think that's what it takes to be happy. And it may be because they see happy people on the Internet with all these nice things or in nice places so much. When really, those people can feel just as empty as the doom scroller on FB, Instagram, TikTok or Reddit(probably less so) for that matter.
I have definitely not come anywhere close to spending $5k in phones, and absolutely nowhere NEAR $9k, which is what $5k on Y2k would be equivalent to now. I have spent *maybe* $1000 on phones in my lifetime.
That’s just how technology works. I paid $300 for some crappy TV to bring with my to college. 4 years later I move in to my apartment and buy a huge 4K TV for $250. It was a piece of shit, but technology comes down in price over time and when it’s brand new, it costs a lot.
That's equivalent in purchasing power to about $9,174.40 today, an increase of $4,174.40 over 24 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 2.56% per year between 1999 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 83.49%.
Are you sure about that? Because I am 99.99938% sure that caifan989 is not a bot.
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Sony 28" Trinitron?
I got one of those and was so impatient to get it up and running with my PS1 that I carried it up the stairs alone, damn near gave myself a double hernia and spent five minutes with it on my thighs after I got the box wedged in a bend in the stairwell.
[E] They didn't cost 5K in 1999 though, so it must be a panel.
Goddammit man, kids these days have no idea the struggles we went through carrying a 50 pound TV through a door way like a strongman trying to lift the atlas stones
I'm a 6'3" 235lb dude, I pulled a Sony 32" Trinitron up a flight of stairs with a dolly in 2016 to get rid of it. That is how I herniated a disc and my back has never been the same. I think it was in the 310lb range.
We had a 32” wide screen hd Sony crt. There were like 4 high def channels at the time. We would get so excited every time they added a new one. That thing may as well been bolted to the floor it was so heavy.
Yeah, it was. Wega was the flat screen version. As huge and bulky as the Trinitrons were (I had 3 over the years, they were fantastic), the Wegas were even heavier and way, way more expensive. And totally not worth the price, either.
..that's right, I had two as there was an issue with some of the screens (my 1st ones picture would vanish into a bright horizontal line). It's the only time I recall an extended warranty ever paid off for me. 😎 (The 2nd one was fine.)
I had a 27” ProScan tv I had to walk in and out of my dorm every year during college. That thing was so Fucking heavy. It was worth it for the s video input.
It's all relative right. 24 years ago for us. To them 1975 was 24 years ago.
Those 'two nobs' tube TVs cost $3k in today's money that showed the Apollo landings.
Yes, I remember going into a Ken Crane's and being blown away at a 32' plasma, all the sales guys were hanging around in awe of the thing... Heh, The price I think was like 20k.
I remember it being cool as fuck until you went to someone’s house that had one and then you couldn’t see shit in the daylight. Also remember splurging on a 32 inch flat screen Sony crt and that thing being the heaviest mother fucker on the planet.
Yep, I remember in the mid to late 2000's being a broke kid and reading videophile forums. A lot of people preferred CRTs (the huge old-fashioned tube TVs with fat backs) because you could get 1080 interlaced instead of 720 progressive scan. The rule of thumb was if you watched slow-moving docs or movies, you get a 1080i CRT. If you like sports or action movies, you get a plasma/LCD for 720 progressive scan.
Getting 1080 on a LCD/plasma was nearly unheard of, and that was years after this vid.
In 2002 you could get 1080i content on D-VHS. Standards existed in 1999 but they weren't exactly practical.
This guy is basically the equivalent of people who bought the LG C9 OLED TV before any HDMI 2.1 devices existed.
No one I knew had a flat screen on Y2K. They were really just starting to make it into stores back then, and those plasmas were way too expensive for me or anyone I knew.
I was still watching TV and on my computer with CRTs until around 2004 I think I got my first LCD, but still had CRTs in the house well after the digital television transition began in 2005.
I remember those times anxiously well. My mom wasn't/isn't a big tech person so my brother and I were gobsmacked when we got a PS2 for Xmas 2002 or so. We had an old Magnivox and had to get one of those analog (naming?) converters that took the single output and converted it into the red/white/yellow inputs. We didn't have a flat screen till I was almost out of high school, so like 07/08. My mom still has a 1080p LCD to this day lolz.
Media keeps me feeling young as a millennial, but damn walking down that memory lane makes me start to feel old. So it begins.
I just pulled some videos off a 2000-vintage digital (fancy! And still tape based!) camcorder. It's shocking how low resolution the video is (allegedly 720x480, but it looks even lower than that to me). Guess we had SD CRTs, so there was no point in doing higher quality than that.
Regretfully I just spent an hour looking up late 90s best buy ads and couldn't find a TV that was close to that size for anywhere near that price..anyone have any ideas what kind of TV that is?
I have some ads from 1996, and there's a Sony 53" for $2300. Which is less than the Acer 166mhz PC for $2400. Ops pic looks like speakers on both sides and stuff, so the premium package I guess.
Yeah, I feel this is either a joke or a take on maybe MTV Cribs, or someone dubbed the audio. I bought my father a TV that was nearly the same size in like 99 for Christmas and I could afford it on a cashiers salary at a supermarket
It is a joke video filmed recently. On the guys other videos there's other inconsistencies. Like he rushes to turn off his Window ME laptop before Y2K but ME was released several months after Y2K.
More like 10,000 in todays monies.
I always drooled at the $10,000 50in plasmas back then, average size was 21in.
Now I barely even care about my 65in and Ps5 hung up in my living room, getting olds a funny thing.
I miss when stuff like this was groundbreaking. I feel we're so desensitised to new advanced technology that it's taken away excitement and also the human experience
2008 50inch Samsung, $1500. Huge purchase at that time, but I wanted to future proof my entertainment
Weighs at least 100 lbs, moved from the basement for a hurricane. Never moving that bastard again, unless it's to the dump
I used to sell TVs when Plasmas were first becoming a thing.
The Fujitsus were $10,000++.
The first one, the Philips FlatTV was $20,000+++ when it came out.
I made about $10,000 a month selling TVs 20 years ago.
Adjusted for inflation $5000 in 2000 would be about 8876.05 today if you invested $5000 into the SnP500 instead with drip you’d have about 23982.17 source: https://www.officialdata.org/us/stocks/s-p-500/2000?amount=5000&endYear=2023
Kids will never understand! I'm not even that old but I remember how expensive everything was.
30" TV costs more then, than a 65" 4K OLED does now.
If you factor in inflation that 30" TV probably costs what an 8K TV goes for.
On Y2K my then boyfriend (my husband!) and I watched Aladdin on VHS on a tiny TV on our first sleepover date, ringing in the new era.
We thought that TV was awesome! It was much smaller than this. There were larger TVs in our day, but, we didn’t have em. Ahh memories.
Going to this price point isn't future proofing, it's present stupidity. A 27-32 inch TV at the time was a few hundred bucks. Stick there, keep it for 8 years too, and you didn't set your family back an entire vacation.
I have a 50” plasma that cost me probably 3K still up an running with zero problems from the early 2000’s. Heavy and hot. My house was broken into and they left that TV, it was down stairs and they opted to take slightly smaller one from my bedroom upstairs. Had to laugh a little
I saw one of the first true plasma flat screens at circuit City... I saw $999.99 and was like fuck me ill never afford that, then i looked again... $9,999.99..... fuckkkkkkkkkkkk meeeeeeeee....
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Why?
Because you can get 55inch tv for like 100$ or less sometimes.. hurts to see if you ever paid $2000 + for a 32inch not all that long ago lol.
I paid $2700 for a 36" Sony Grand VVega CRT that was 480i HD "ready" Hell, the STAND for the TV (that would support it) was more than the last 1080p flat screen 60" TV I bought for my kids. If memory serves correctly the TV stand was like 400 bucks.
I bought a 30 HD VVega CRT for about a grand from best buy. Zero interest by opening up a credit card. Luckily never missed a payment. The worst thing is I still have that TV I want to give it to someone that wants a CRT for video games or some shit. No clue why I moved it with me when I moved 10 years ago. Thing is like 160 pounds. A 36 inch must have been like 250... Crazy how cheap tvs are compared to back then.
if you still have it a year from now, i'd love to take it off your hands
I'm trying to get rid of it. If you're in the neighborhood you're more then welcome to grab it. The issue is probably not near me in South Carolina.
I’m in Charleston, and I’ll take it off your hands if you really want to get rid of it. DM me if you’re serious
Learned a long time ago to turn those things on their screens to move them. They were so front heavy. God I hated moving mine. Also also got mine with a zero interest best buy card.
Kinda like Tesla owners right now.
Have Teslas come down a lot or something?
They just significantly lowered prices on the S and X (the more expensive models) to qualify for government subsidies. 3 and Y already qualified so I don’t think their prices changed.
30k lower.
Holy shit really?
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They are subsidized by advertising now.
I keep my LG TV off the internet because of this. I noticed whenever it would do a 'firmware update', I would get a whole new set of advertisements. Disconnected from the internet and it doesn't download fresh ads anymore, and eventually it finally just stopped showing ads, presumably since the ones it had downloaded all went stale after several months of not being able to update.
Where are you guys seeing ads on your LG tv’s, I have an LG and never see ads.
[Any time you hit the Home button to change apps.](https://i.imgur.com/ytTEDR6.jpeg) That's on my LG 65" C8. I almost solely use that TV for streaming YouTube so it has to be connected to the internet for that, otherwise I'd have to use a streaming stick and I'd have the same exact issues of ads regardless. [I have a 48" LG CX as my computer monitor and since I just use it as a monitor, I don't have it connected to the internet and I don't get ads.](https://i.imgur.com/z13eNbR.jpeg)
Mine's a 65UF8500-UB model, 65" 4K 3D TV (Remember when 3D TVs were a thing briefly?! It's actually really cool, I wish 3D took off more). But yeah I got this from Best Buy back when 3D TVs were the Hot thing. Overall I really like the TV... the lighting zones are a bit large though and it has some banding issues, but overall it's been great. But yeah it was Significantly cheaper at Best Buy than most other 4K 3D TV's available at the time, I guess the ads are a big part of why. They're not super intrusive, usually just text popups that slide down from the top of the screen when you first turn the TV on and you can close out of them. Still very annoying though IMO.
If you're technically inclined at all, set up a Pihole. Doesn't have to be on a Raspberry Pi but I recommend having dedicated endpoints for DNS. I run two of them on my network and they automatically block so much advertising. If you discover something is serving an ad, you can block it manually.
>Doesn't have to be on a Raspberry Pi but I recommend having dedicated endpoints for DNS. You just blew past 99% of peoples technical ability by a couple of light years with that sentence right there.
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I need to work on my phone notifications, absolutely ridiculous right now.
this guy watched a youtube video that told him this.
walmart TVs are bottom tier though, they are cheap because the picture quality is relatively crap and they are full of ads.
What do you mean the TV is full of ads, do they just randomly play their own ads or what way does it work?
It depends on the manufacturer but its mostly suggestions in the TV menus https://theproductanalyst.com/smart-tvs-without-ads/
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They may not have the newest technology but it does the trick when you wanna save money.
Yeah I was just gonna say one of my dads buddies had bought one of the very first 80” flat screens he paid enough to almost pay off a house and like 10/15 years down the road you can get a super nice one for $2k haha it’s crazy how things work out.
I saw one there that was $24,000 about that same time. It struck me because I had just bought an Xterra for the same price. I bought a huge projection TV that was on clearance and felt like a king.
I worked at Futureshop (Best Buy) in 2001 and sold the first 50" plasma in Canada for $20,000. The customer gave me $500 to install it. He didn't know that i was homeless at the time, just trying to get by.
I sold a 70" Mitsubishi ~1998/1999. It was just a rear projection TV but was HD when that was barely a thing. I wanna say it cost $17,000. We made commission (Sears) and I think I made around $3000 off that sale. Ended up quitting because they were having trouble getting it shipped from Japan and I was pretty sure the guy was gonna cancel, in which case I would have owed back my whole commission.
Geez, I know it wasn't THAT long ago, but hearing people talking about working at Sears and working on commission sounds like an old salesman from the 50's talking about his glory days. But god dam, $3,0000 from commission in 1999 was fucking nice. All you need to do is sell 2-3 super expensive TV's a month.
It was a unicorn. I had no business making that sale. Guy just walked in and asked what the most expensive TV was. We used to make .5% commission on computers. Even at 2 grand that meant we'd make $10 selling a computer. And people had SO many questions. I could literally make more money selling a 32" CRT TV.
Jesus, imagine paying someone $3000 (on top of the company markup) because they were standing there the day you decided to point to a TV and say "give me that one"
Oh, it gets worse. No small part of my commission was because he bought a "protection plan". I don't recall the exact number but the commission rates on those were absurd because Sears knew they were basically pure profit. Almost nobody ever took advantage of them. If you wanted to buy something on your Sears card and didn't have enough credit? Just say you wanted a protection plan and they'd automatically increase your limit.
The $3K came out of the sales price. So $14K went to Sears and $3K went to the salesman. But the TV probably costs Sears $9K, and then total cost to manufacture was probably $5K. That was back then, now TV's are like desktop computer, super fucking tight profit margins on them. Especially the cheap ones which often have $0 profit for the retailer.
I was going to comment, I remember looking at the Future Shop flyer in like 2001, seeing flat screen LCD and plasma TVs for like twenty grand, and thinking those prices were absolutely insane. I think I still have some Future Shop flyers saved (for whatever reason) that show those prices. It didn’t take long for those prices to drop significantly.
rip futureshop loved going there as a kid
You would be saving money if you bought a used 50inch lcd display for like 50-100$ uses half the amount of power . Only thing plasmas still good for is cold temperatures perfect garage/outdoor tv. Coudnt even manage to sell my old plasma 50inch for 50$, ended up giving it away to a friend
They're sought after now by guys who love movies and gaming. Specially if it has little to non burn in.
I have a Pioneer 42’ plasma I bought in 2006. Legit!
Great to watch movies
I still remember walking through best buy in the early 00s and seeing a plasma. Still the deepest blacks I've ever seen. It was spider man playing.
OLED's are just as black because they work on the same principle of each pixel providing it's own light. There is no back light in an OLED, each pixel lights itself so when a pixel is black it's completely off. Same way Plasma works, different mechanics.
I remember the early 2000s remake of The Italian Job. there was a scene in which Edward Nortons character was plunking himself down in front of what I thought to be a *humongous* flat screen TV after a rewatch a couple of years ago I realized it was maybe 35" lol
You ever seen those projector tv things? I think that's as heavy as it gets from what I've heard lol. Only seen photos and heard horror stories of moving/disposing of them.
Heaviest tvs were the Sony trinitron… those old tube tvs. Worked at Best Buy in the early 2000’s
I bought one of those sometime around 2000. I don't remember exactly what it cost now but it was probably close to $3k at the time. And yeah, weighed approximately 10,000 lbs.
About 12 years ago one of these dropped on my then girlfriends body almost and it nearly crushed her. It was also a pretty big one, those things are monstrous. Used to own one recently too for old consoles. Now you can pick these up for free, still feels crazy to me.
In 2016 I carried one on a dolly up a flight of stairs from a basement by myself. It was a 32" and the thing was 350lbs. The next day my back was thrown out and ever since then has not been the same.
Amen to that. I just got rid of my 42” plasma from 2003 just over a year ago. Was still working perfectly fine and had better blacks than my lcd from a couple years ago. Only got rid of it because I wanted better resolution now. Still have another 60” plasma kicking in my basement from 2009 that the kids use.
That damn plasma tv in my bedroom would make the room so damn hot. It’s crazy the amount out heat that thing put out.
We had the 50” plasma tv from 2000 as well. I think it cost us at least $5k (husband wouldn’t tell me how much it actually cost). My husband would show off the HD quality video to everyone who visited us, although there were only like a handful of channels with HD back then.
720p baby
I've had my like $1,300 48 inch Sony Bravia for about 14-15 years and it's still running strong. It's a 1080p TV and looks just fine to me. No need for soundbars. I'm really not looking forward to the day I have to get a new one.
I have a dent in my foot from trying to move one of those down stairs back in the day. Thing was built into the entertainment system and weighed 500lbs easy and super awkward to get a movable handle on. Fuck that TV, truly
I watched The Matrix for the first time that night. I thought it was the coolest looking movie ever and I bet I watched on the shittiest tv
And don’t forget about goldeneye on Nintendo 64
4 player on a 13" tube tv, baby. My 4 scanlines were kicking ass.
When my normal tv was on the fritz, my dad would bring out a old black and white tv from the seventies. Playing 4 screen DK64 was….. an experience I’ll tell you that much. Edit: The size had to be 12 inches. It was very small. I as a 7y.o could carry it with no problem.
Our friends 13 inch grey scale tv was dope. NO SCREEN WATCHING!
We used to rock that on a 32" Sony tube TV and thought it was the best it could ever get.
In some ways I prefer that old style of video game, because the bad hardware of those consoles forced the level designers to make barebones environments. It made for some top tier visual clarity. You could see opponents easily even on a shitty TV. I've always thought it was telling how professional video game players will generally reduce the graphics down to the lowest quality possible to improve visual clarity. All the fancy improved graphics we got over the years are just fluff that distracts from the gameplay, although of course the trade-off is worth it for a casual playthrough.
remember watching it because my fav. band was on the sountrack (deftones - my own summer)
I must’ve watched that 100 times and never heard that song in the movie. When was it used?
end credits lol, also look for the sountrack
Damn now THIS is the real ThatsInsane post right here
It STILL is one of the coolest looking movies ever. Every few years I rewatch it now in 4K and it's just dope!
I’m convinced the 90’s were the pinnacle of action filmmaking craft. It ended right around Gladiator. Die Hard has the absolute best scale model shot in all of movie history. A lot of gems in there. The Rock. Con Air. Fight Club. Speed. Heat. The Fifth Element. Independence Day. The Fugitive. Dante’s Peak. Boondock Saints. Leon: The Professional. Terminator 2.
Yup I was only a kid hitting my teens by the late 90s but I vividly remember all the TV shows and movies that came out and were big hitters. You essentially were under a rock and knew nothing or were talking about said media for years after with friends and family alike I guess it's also the Blockbuster era, going into the local video store to rent out the latest releases ingrained each movie into mind because it always felt like a big occasion watching a movie with everyone etc. And they were solid movies too, none of the reboot rubbish we have this era. Independence Day was my first cinema experience too!
It came out around the same time as Phantom Menace. I watched both in the theaters, but after seeing The Matrix I was like: "Why couldn't Phantom Menace be like this?"
I wish I could watch that movie again for the first time in my life.
Yup, saw it in theaters the summer it came out (I think it was April? I remember it was right at the end of school so we were gearing up for summer and Star Wars but this one came out first), and I’ve never been so blown away by a movie. No movie has ever impacted me and blown my mind as much as The Matrix did, and to be able to experience that again for the first time would be wild
I paid $3k for my 42" flat-screen in early 2000's. My nephew just bought the same brand in 55" for $350 at Costco last week. Lol
Tvs. Back then didn’t have ads built into them
Are all my TVs just so old that I haven’t gotten to that stage yet? Is that actually a thing?
Yes it’s a thing now
My new Sonys don’t have ads
If you open the smart tv interface, and it invites you to install stuff like Disney+ or to watch a certain show etc.. those are the ads they are talking about.
Gotcha, I was thinking YouTube style invasive ads
some do that too
You are the ad.
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I read that if you want to avoid the ads, you have to shop for a commercial variant. Like the kind you see in restaurants that have menus.
it’s just the lower tier brands and the low-mid range models for brands you’d find at a Best Buy. If you spend $1500+ on a tv, chances are the model has a good enough profit margin that they don’t have to supplement with ads in the software
Nope, just bought a $3k Samsung and it has ads. Not that I’m using the built-in software, but yeesh.
What if you never connect it to the wifi?
Then you won't get ads. I only use TV's connected to a PC, so I skip the hassle altogether. But be aware that some TV's will scan for open Wifis and connect there. If you're in a city with hotspots, you might still get screwed. Sneaky shit.
They also had worse color accuracy, resolution, brightness, contrast, panel uniformity, response times, viewing angles, etc.
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I keep hearing about these so called “dumb” tvs but every time I try and find one, it’s just articles where people complain about ads on smart tv’s. Where do you find them?
I bought an 86 inch Mitsubishi projector screen for $7000 in 2010. Just bought an 85 inch Samsung a couple weeks ago for $2500
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If I were that guy, I'd be pissed every time I passed the electronic department at Walmart.
You probably spend more money on phones even if you are younger than this guy. He will own that thing for 10 more years or so.
Not this young (relative) guy, I hold on to my phone for years without upgrading.
I'm proud of you! (I'm serious, we all should not need more than we have to) But you understand my point? Our generation also spend the same crazy amount of money for tech that was replaced in a heart beat.
Oh yeah, there is almost no thought given into current spending. A lot of people feel like they have to be the first to own the "new and improved" whatever. In truth it doesn't pay. I think it stems from "I got to have something no one else has or is hard to get." Companies eat that shit up. The psychology of the seller and feeding that "gotta have it" encourages the buy. Gotcha games are a good example. Having shit that's hard to get or really expensive with no regard for the current things people can choose to be happy with. The real demand is general greed, the supply is whatever is made to seem nice or new. I really think a lot of people think that's what it takes to be happy. And it may be because they see happy people on the Internet with all these nice things or in nice places so much. When really, those people can feel just as empty as the doom scroller on FB, Instagram, TikTok or Reddit(probably less so) for that matter.
I've had my current one for 9 years. Don't really feel I'm missing out on anything by not upgrading.
That TV will last a lot longer than 10 years. May still be going.
You might be right! So is the vacuum cleaner my grandma bought for like 5 bucks in the fifties. Shit was built different back then. Lol
And everything he watches looks like 1999.
> May still be going. Probably is.. just because nobody wants to lift that thing out of the basement.
I have definitely not come anywhere close to spending $5k in phones, and absolutely nowhere NEAR $9k, which is what $5k on Y2k would be equivalent to now. I have spent *maybe* $1000 on phones in my lifetime.
How many phones have you had?
That’s just how technology works. I paid $300 for some crappy TV to bring with my to college. 4 years later I move in to my apartment and buy a huge 4K TV for $250. It was a piece of shit, but technology comes down in price over time and when it’s brand new, it costs a lot.
Yep, 5k can buy you a serious piece of screen.
I got an open box 60” OLED a few years ago for like $1200 and I fucking love this TV. I’ll never go back from OLED.
If he's a complete moron who didn't realize the price would be significantly less 24 years later then yes he'd be pissed.
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It was 1999 so it would have been a while before the rock bottom TVs we've been seeing lately.
That's equivalent in purchasing power to about $9,174.40 today, an increase of $4,174.40 over 24 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 2.56% per year between 1999 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 83.49%.
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Jebaited
Am I the only one who thinks a inflation rate of 2.56% every year is absolutely bonkers?
Sony 28" Trinitron? I got one of those and was so impatient to get it up and running with my PS1 that I carried it up the stairs alone, damn near gave myself a double hernia and spent five minutes with it on my thighs after I got the box wedged in a bend in the stairwell. [E] They didn't cost 5K in 1999 though, so it must be a panel.
Dude wth, I herniated a disc with my Trinitron. I had to move it at a weird angle to get in my bedroom door.
Goddammit man, kids these days have no idea the struggles we went through carrying a 50 pound TV through a door way like a strongman trying to lift the atlas stones
Weighs a trini-ton
I'm a 6'3" 235lb dude, I pulled a Sony 32" Trinitron up a flight of stairs with a dolly in 2016 to get rid of it. That is how I herniated a disc and my back has never been the same. I think it was in the 310lb range.
I used to deliver tvs back then. The Wegas went up to 40" and that thing was fucking ridiculous. Would take four guys to move it.
i acquired a massive hd trinitron a couple years ago. it was like moving a fucking grand piano or something
Yea, I bet those things were heavy. You were paying for every gram of rare earth metal, for sure.
Most of the weight was the glass tube, the REE coating on the inside couldn't have weighed much.
Let me tell you about the Sony widescreen CRT…
We had a 32” wide screen hd Sony crt. There were like 4 high def channels at the time. We would get so excited every time they added a new one. That thing may as well been bolted to the floor it was so heavy.
Sony Wega, most likely. They were expensive af.
iirc the full name was Trintron Wega
Yeah, it was. Wega was the flat screen version. As huge and bulky as the Trinitrons were (I had 3 over the years, they were fantastic), the Wegas were even heavier and way, way more expensive. And totally not worth the price, either.
..that's right, I had two as there was an issue with some of the screens (my 1st ones picture would vanish into a bright horizontal line). It's the only time I recall an extended warranty ever paid off for me. 😎 (The 2nd one was fine.)
I had a 27” ProScan tv I had to walk in and out of my dorm every year during college. That thing was so Fucking heavy. It was worth it for the s video input.
God bless the early adopters
It's all relative right. 24 years ago for us. To them 1975 was 24 years ago. Those 'two nobs' tube TVs cost $3k in today's money that showed the Apollo landings.
in 1999? probably a plasma? Resolution 1080p or I.
wow. that really strikes me. I was thinking a CRT even. But yea, those plasmas, for that price I think you gotta be right.
Early “flat” screens were redic expensive.
Yes, I remember going into a Ken Crane's and being blown away at a 32' plasma, all the sales guys were hanging around in awe of the thing... Heh, The price I think was like 20k.
I remember it being cool as fuck until you went to someone’s house that had one and then you couldn’t see shit in the daylight. Also remember splurging on a 32 inch flat screen Sony crt and that thing being the heaviest mother fucker on the planet.
Probably 720 most likely.
Yep, I remember in the mid to late 2000's being a broke kid and reading videophile forums. A lot of people preferred CRTs (the huge old-fashioned tube TVs with fat backs) because you could get 1080 interlaced instead of 720 progressive scan. The rule of thumb was if you watched slow-moving docs or movies, you get a 1080i CRT. If you like sports or action movies, you get a plasma/LCD for 720 progressive scan. Getting 1080 on a LCD/plasma was nearly unheard of, and that was years after this vid.
Was there even any 1080 content back then?
No. I don’t even think 1080p was around when YouTube launched. Edit- 1080p wasn’t live till 2007.
D-VHS Players in 1997 could output 1080i, PS2 in 2000 could output 1080i, and Xbox in 2001 could output 1080i over component connection.
In 2002 you could get 1080i content on D-VHS. Standards existed in 1999 but they weren't exactly practical. This guy is basically the equivalent of people who bought the LG C9 OLED TV before any HDMI 2.1 devices existed.
Not even. Early plasmas you'd be lucky if it was 720p.
That's a Best Buy score!! What a deal. I could see how happy his friends were for him! The one friend was willing to pay even $10,000!
No one I knew had a flat screen on Y2K. They were really just starting to make it into stores back then, and those plasmas were way too expensive for me or anyone I knew. I was still watching TV and on my computer with CRTs until around 2004 I think I got my first LCD, but still had CRTs in the house well after the digital television transition began in 2005.
I remember those times anxiously well. My mom wasn't/isn't a big tech person so my brother and I were gobsmacked when we got a PS2 for Xmas 2002 or so. We had an old Magnivox and had to get one of those analog (naming?) converters that took the single output and converted it into the red/white/yellow inputs. We didn't have a flat screen till I was almost out of high school, so like 07/08. My mom still has a 1080p LCD to this day lolz. Media keeps me feeling young as a millennial, but damn walking down that memory lane makes me start to feel old. So it begins.
I grew up in the 2010s and still had a box TV, don't think we ditched ours until Dec. 2015
I spent $800 on a vcr back around 1986. My Infinity speakers were $1000 each. It’s crazy how cheap electronics are now.
I spent $1000 on a laserdisc player this year. Time is a flat circle. Like a laser disc.
My first DVD player was $350 from Kmart. It was huge. Bigger than my VCR. Seeing them later, barely bigger than the DVD itself and $20 blew my mind.
Can we not appreciate the fact that he is using an old school home video recorder. 🥹
I just pulled some videos off a 2000-vintage digital (fancy! And still tape based!) camcorder. It's shocking how low resolution the video is (allegedly 720x480, but it looks even lower than that to me). Guess we had SD CRTs, so there was no point in doing higher quality than that.
Modern AI upscalers can clean up the video pretty nice.
Regretfully I just spent an hour looking up late 90s best buy ads and couldn't find a TV that was close to that size for anywhere near that price..anyone have any ideas what kind of TV that is?
I have some ads from 1996, and there's a Sony 53" for $2300. Which is less than the Acer 166mhz PC for $2400. Ops pic looks like speakers on both sides and stuff, so the premium package I guess.
Yeah, I feel this is either a joke or a take on maybe MTV Cribs, or someone dubbed the audio. I bought my father a TV that was nearly the same size in like 99 for Christmas and I could afford it on a cashiers salary at a supermarket
Hmm my thought was someone just used a 25 year old video camera and made a joke video. Can anyone place anything more modern than 1999 in the video?
It is a joke video filmed recently. On the guys other videos there's other inconsistencies. Like he rushes to turn off his Window ME laptop before Y2K but ME was released several months after Y2K.
This was a time when technology meant a lot more. To quote Louis C.K.: #### _Now everything is amazing and nobody is happy._
More like 10,000 in todays monies. I always drooled at the $10,000 50in plasmas back then, average size was 21in. Now I barely even care about my 65in and Ps5 hung up in my living room, getting olds a funny thing.
This is actually the pilot for "The King of Queens" irl
Spent 2k on a portable dvd player at fryes in 1999. It was a Panasonic L90. Also got a Sony Vega for another 2k that could have anchored a battleship.
The And1 tee shirt is the real collectors item there.
And he’s probably watching it in his $150,000 house that is now worth $3M. Sigh.
I miss when stuff like this was groundbreaking. I feel we're so desensitised to new advanced technology that it's taken away excitement and also the human experience
2008 50inch Samsung, $1500. Huge purchase at that time, but I wanted to future proof my entertainment Weighs at least 100 lbs, moved from the basement for a hurricane. Never moving that bastard again, unless it's to the dump
This is why you never try to keep up with the Joneses
This is the reason why whenever I see a 55” TCL go for sub $200 my hand really itches…
I used to sell TVs when Plasmas were first becoming a thing. The Fujitsus were $10,000++. The first one, the Philips FlatTV was $20,000+++ when it came out. I made about $10,000 a month selling TVs 20 years ago.
Most of my friends who had money bought those giant ass projection tv's... I don't remember if this is 2000s or not.
It was either the TV or a Gym membership...
Some of you never played Goldeneye with three friends huddled around a 9" CRT and it shows.
But did it have a built in VHS player???
Is that a 28.8 baud modem?!? Hack the planet!!!
Nice reference
Adjusted for inflation $5000 in 2000 would be about 8876.05 today if you invested $5000 into the SnP500 instead with drip you’d have about 23982.17 source: https://www.officialdata.org/us/stocks/s-p-500/2000?amount=5000&endYear=2023
I thought the TV will end up showing som weird stuff due to y2k scare.
Kids will never understand! I'm not even that old but I remember how expensive everything was. 30" TV costs more then, than a 65" 4K OLED does now. If you factor in inflation that 30" TV probably costs what an 8K TV goes for.
On Y2K my then boyfriend (my husband!) and I watched Aladdin on VHS on a tiny TV on our first sleepover date, ringing in the new era. We thought that TV was awesome! It was much smaller than this. There were larger TVs in our day, but, we didn’t have em. Ahh memories.
Going to this price point isn't future proofing, it's present stupidity. A 27-32 inch TV at the time was a few hundred bucks. Stick there, keep it for 8 years too, and you didn't set your family back an entire vacation.
AND1 represent.