Summary

Extremely high end for its time, the Princeton AF3.0HD is truly one of a kind. HD widescreen curved monitor capable of near-OLED quality color and contrast reproduction.

Literature

• User Manual
• Service Manual

Notes

Standard Def signals (composite, S-Video, 240p/480i via other signals) will be internally line-doubled to 480p.

Toshiba Microfilter Technology

This CRT uses Microfilter, a technology innovation by Toshiba that aimed to optimize both brightness and contrast without darkening the glass with tint.

Conventionally, most tubes have a dark tint layer in the glass to reduce the amount of light reflection or absorption of the glass, thereby increasing contrast performance - a trade that costs an average 30% loss of overall brightness in all ambient light conditions (including near-darkness). In comparison, clear glass on a tube has the advantage of maximum brightness emission - but at a huge loss of contrast in normal ambient light conditions due to increased reflection. Typically you'll only find clear glass on professional broadcast monitors (aka BVM) that are intended to be used in near-darkness where ambient light is not an concern.

Microfilter aimed to be the best of both worlds by achieving the necessary amount of ambient light filtering at a per-phosphor (micro) level without sacrificing brightness, while still providing the vivid contrast you could typically only expect from a dark-tinted lower-brightness tube. On a Microfilter tube, the glass itself remains clear for maximum light transmission, while still taking a darkened grey-purple appearance from a combination of both the AR coatings and Microfilter over the phosphors.

You can learn more about Microfilter in our full article.