That television was the BeoVision Avant (US variant), a 32" CRT-television . . . and your impression of it is pretty spot-on. My parents have one -- and a standard-def DVD running into the S-Video input looks better than most new flat-panel sets playing Blu-Ray. The sound is pretty stunning from the built-in speakers as well.
As far as the technology goes, B&O used a Philips video-processing engine for hardware, and tweaked the living crap out of the software algorithms. It was very, very carefully optimized for the best possible performance with standard NTSC scan rates on a 32" picture - output of the processor was 480p/60Hz. They then backed it up with all of the little CRT tweaks they learned over the decades - separate focusing for the edges, multi-point convergence, black level enhancement, proprietary scan-velocity modulation techniques, adaptive luminance peaking . . . and on and on. Not to mention B&O had a history of selecting the very best picture tubes from their OEM supplier's production lots (and paying a premium for them of course).
They're available pretty cheap on the used market (they were $8500 new!) . . . because in this age of cheap flat-panels, a huge console CRT set has very limited appeal, even one as great as the Avant. If I had a spot for one, I'd be really tempted.
As far as the technology goes, B&O used a Philips video-processing engine for hardware, and tweaked the living crap out of the software algorithms. It was very, very carefully optimized for the best possible performance with standard NTSC scan rates on a 32" picture - output of the processor was 480p/60Hz. They then backed it up with all of the little CRT tweaks they learned over the decades - separate focusing for the edges, multi-point convergence, black level enhancement, proprietary scan-velocity modulation techniques, adaptive luminance peaking . . . and on and on. Not to mention B&O had a history of selecting the very best picture tubes from their OEM supplier's production lots (and paying a premium for them of course).
They're available pretty cheap on the used market (they were $8500 new!) . . . because in this age of cheap flat-panels, a huge console CRT set has very limited appeal, even one as great as the Avant. If I had a spot for one, I'd be really tempted.