In the 25 years of T3, TVs have changed drastically, especially considering that the most important bit is still much as it always was: a 2D screen surrounded by a frame.
Back in 1996, things were hotting up in the TV space. Sony’s patent on its famous Trinitron CRT tech ran out this year, which meant that the best TV quality was suddenly available in cheaper sets – in response, the flatscreen revolution began. Not only did high-end CRT sets start adding flat screens as a differentiator, but rear projection TVs also appeared and offered bigger size (though this was more of a US craze, where they could actually fit the sizes of set required), and in 1997 plasma TVs launched. LCD TVs had been floating around since the late ’80s, but also started to become a thing that you might seriously buy at this time. Combined with the launch of digital broadcasting at the end of the century, it was clear that pixels would be the future – by 2007, LCD TVs had dropped in price and increased in quality, and despite plasma continuing to offer better picture quality (as anyone who owned one will tell about at length to this day), LCD was outselling both plasma and CRTs.