What is a LCD "Projection" TV? Is it worth having?

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I have heard of plasma and LCD, from back in the early 2000's but I am not sure how you project an image onto an LCD screen.

It is a 2004 Sony Wega KDF-60XS955

Would this be usable today?
 
These work like a room projector, which uses a bright lamp to send light through a small LCD, which is then magnified through a lens onto the screen.

In a standalone projector, the projector and lens is inside the base of the set, and the image reaches the back of the screen through a system of mirrors. The screen itself is just translucent plastic.

Major problems here are bulb wear out, and bulbs are expensive, and dust on the mirrors and other internal optical surfaces.

If you have one it is still potentially useful, but don't pay money for it.
 
I have heard of plasma and LCD, from back in the early 2000's but I am not sure how you project an image onto an LCD screen.

It is a 2004 Sony Wega KDF-60XS955

Would this be usable today?
You do not project onto an LCD screen, it is not an "LCD" screen actually.. There's no active devices in a screen, it's a passive device. Sounds like you are talking rear screen projection where the projector is projecting an image behind an acrylic screen instead of front projection onto a white matted screen. I would rather have a newer, modern panel mounted on the wall instead of projection. A unit made in 2004 would be very limited for todays use and is not worth messing with. I would toss it out.

Rear screen is not very practicle for most homes because the projector usually resides in a small room behind the acrylic screen which in most cases is mounted in the wall like in board rooms.. There are smaller self contained units such as yours where the projector is contained within the same cabinet behind the screen. and uses short throw lenses or the real old ones use mirrors..
 
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pretty much junk nowadays. Better tv for $200

Maybe a basement tv if you had one already .. wouldnt pay 20$ for one.
 
If you have it and it has the inputs for what you want it'll work, being from 2004, I wonder if you wanted to watch OTA TV on it if the built in tuner would have any problems with some channels that have switched to h.264 in order to cram in more sub-channels or to be able to fulfill channel sharing agreements from the 600mhz repack. That being said it's an old projection TV, for the most part you can't give those things away and when you want rid of it you'll have to go through the hassel of transporting it to the local electronics recycler or pay someone to get rid of it for you.
 
I imagine it cost $$$$ when new but now it would be a liability with lamp replacement costs and 3 times the power consumption of a modern LED TV.
 
I had one and it died early. There were defects in them. I think there was a class action lawsuit against them. It had a great pic at the time but technology has far surpassed that,
 
I had a Sony like that, with the matching glass stand. Needed an expensive projector bulb change every year. Also, pretty common for the light engine (optical block) to show purple blotches on the screen, which would mean end of life for the TV.
 
I remember when rear projection was supposed to be state of the art, but I've never seen any rear projection that looks even close in quality to an inexpensive direct LCD display today.

There are replacement lamps for sale. Still incandescent, and not cheap. I've seen a rated life of maybe 6000 hours.


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So is this the kind of TV that people like to use to watch old stuff on VHS tapes? Or is that only CRT?

No one wants one of these for anything. They were junk when new and only a stopgap until LCD panel prices came down and manufacturing large panels was feasible.
 
So is this the kind of TV that people like to use to watch old stuff on VHS tapes? Or is that only CRT?
The type of TV is irrelevant. The critical thing is the connections that the TV has. I have a 2022 model LG OLED TV and besides HDMI (which no VCR uses), I'm not sure what input connections it has besides a coaxial input that I use with my antenna.
 
The type of TV is irrelevant. The critical thing is the connections that the TV has. I have a 2022 model LG OLED TV and besides HDMI (which no VCR uses), I'm not sure what input connections it has besides a coaxial input that I use with my antenna.
For VHS, actually CRTs are most desired since you don't have a fixed resolution and it can properly display interlaced analog video lines, scaling and deinterlacing analog video on LCDs doesn't looks as good as watching it on a CRT that analog video was designed around.
 
For VHS, actually CRTs are most desired since you don't have a fixed resolution and it can properly display interlaced analog video lines, scaling and deinterlacing analog video on LCDs doesn't looks as good as watching it on a CRT that analog video was designed around.
If you're watching VHS tapes, picture quality isn't that important anyway !! 😂🤪
 
I've never heard of a type of TV for VHS, but gamers certainly prefer CRTs for low latency and use for optical devices that aren't compatible with LCD sets.
 
The type of TV is irrelevant. The critical thing is the connections that the TV has. I have a 2022 model LG OLED TV and besides HDMI (which no VCR uses), I'm not sure what input connections it has besides a coaxial input that I use with my antenna.

It does make a difference to some extent. CRT TVs were typically made with a native standard resolution (NTSC, PAL, SECAM) in mind and the composite/S-Video/ input used that standard unless there was some conversion. Any kind of array would need a conversion, and that's not without possible aliasing effects like jaggies.
 
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