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CRT vs LCD

El Greco

Summer worshipper
El Greco
Joined
Nov 11, 2003
Messages
17,605
I know some hardcore gamers who always have the most up-to-date system and are constantly on the edge of technology, yet they refuse to move on to LCD monitors (mainly because they change resolutions so frequently). I know the advantages and disadvantages of LCDs, but isn't it strange that many companies (eg Sony) have completely stopped making CRTs ?
 
El Greco said:
...isn't it strange that many companies (eg Sony) have completely stopped making CRTs ?
Click to expand...
Are you sure about that? It doesn't sound right to me, as far as I knew Sony had no plans to stop building Wega TV screens and monitors.
 
I don't switch because the cost is outrageous versus CRT. If the price of a LCD were close to CRT, than I'd think of migrating. But a crappier picture for MORE money? Crazy... especially when CRTs are so light weight these days.

In fact, why are all these people buying these plasma TVs? The half-life (time before color degradation) on a plasma is PITIFUL!

I can't imagine spending $3000 on a TV that I'll have to think about replacing in 3 years.
 
I bought myself a 19 inch LCD this summer, and I love it. Far better picture then my CRT, my eyes are never sore, and I play games all the time with no problems. One of the best purchases I have ever made.
 
Plasma TVs are actually even WORSE: Individual pixel cells of the TV will (irreparably) fail over time, leaving an ever increasing number of 'dead spots'.

I bought an $800 DLP projector over a year ago to replace a $2000 52" rear projection TV, and haven't regretted it. Now I have a 16 foot (192")TV (when it's dark enough), or merely eight feet (96") when I don't feel like moving the projector back. It weighs less than 10lbs, and is very portable. Works fine on a plain white wall, even though it's texturised. 2000:1 contrast looks nice. Great for DVD movies and video games, if you have a big, blank wall like I do. I could buy and replace or upgrade the projector a LOT of times for the cost of a new plasma TV.

My computer monitor is a 24" TFT LCD @ 1920x1200. Very nice image. A CRT monitor of that size and resolution didn't even exist at the time I bought this one. Apparently there's one Sony CRT model that has that size/resolution, and it's equal to or around 75% the cost of the TFT monitor when I bought it a couple of years ago.

CRTs may be only artificially cheaper, as people are now dumping their inventory of them, and those who still manufacture them are desperately looking for ways to make their old technology competitive with the new. There are probably bargains to be had, but I like the extra desk space, and relatively low power demands (on my UPS) too.
 
evildave said:
Plasma TVs are actually even WORSE: Individual pixel cells of the TV will (irreparably) fail over time, leaving an ever increasing number of 'dead spots'.

I bought an $800 DLP projector over a year ago to replace a $2000 52" rear projection TV, and haven't regretted it.
Click to expand...
I think I know the type of projector you are talking about.

You have a link?

How many lumens?

Do you have to shut all the blinds and turn off the lights to watch?

I've never known anyone to own one. Hence all the questions. There was one at one of my jobs, and I played with it a bit, but it didn't seem bright enough to replace my tv.
 
El Greco said:
I know some hardcore gamers who always have the most up-to-date system and are constantly on the edge of technology, yet they refuse to move on to LCD monitors (mainly because they change resolutions so frequently).
Click to expand...
I always thought this was because of slow LCD response times. 25 ms makes an FPS game quite blurry.
 
The one I bought was an 'Infocus X1'. They have friendlier versions of the same thing (i.e. with seperate 'component in' that will accept interlaced signals, unlike my earlier model) now that can be had for as little as $800~$900, and other manufacturers make projectors based on the same TI DLP technology - a little chip with a zillion mirrors that deflect electrostatically, through a color wheel, and out the lens. Pretty simple. The bulbs are a little pricey ($200~$300, so the net cost of the rest of the projector was really $500!), but they last a few years' worth of watching.

I do have to draw dark curtains and such to get it dim enough during the day to view. My one big room has too many windows. At night, no problem, and highly rich image. When the image is *really* blown up huge, you do begin to see the individual pixels. A proper silver screen to project onto would certainly help all around performance over just my texturized white wall (the texture 'disappears' for more or less the same reasons that flat monitors initially look concave, as long as it's fairly uniform), but I'm too cheap.
 
Trust me, i work for a manufacturer of TV equipment (Bang & Olufsen), CRT ARE DOOMED. 5 years, perhaps a few more and that's the end. We have allready had to stop producing some products simply because we couldn't get the picture tube anymore. I just saw some commercial material from Samsung, they are building a new factory, sized like a TOWN, for producing plasma and LCD screens. CRT may be cheaper for the moment but that will change very rapidly AND we have seen some screens with a very good quality.

The one thing that is a small blockage for the moment is the fact that TV compagnies still broadcast in lo-res and NTSC in itself is a bummer (how anybody can look at a 50" screen with that horrible picture is a mystery to me) but that is changing rapidly.

It may not be LCD or Plasma that win in the endthough, there are some other tecnologies being developed and some of them seems promishing.

BUT take my advise: Don't buy shares in a CRT manufacturing plant.:D
 
My 19" Sony CRT died last year. I replaced it with a Philips 17" TFT. Easier on the eye, but I don't do games and don't need fast refresh rates or super resolution. (64 MB Nvidia graphics).

What I am surprised by, is the general deterioration in TV quality since flat screens came in.

I don't own a TV set myself, but friends and family all seem to be going for wide screen flat TVs, which
1.Take several seconds to switch channels
2. Produce a distorted image size- either too wide, too narrow, often with text
unreadable because it's actually OFF the visible screen area.
3.Have far poorer picture quality than a decent set from five or even ten years ago.
4. In addition, no one seems to get as good reception with digital TV signals as with analogue and the satellite systems freeze and pixellate whenever the signal is less than perfect, or there is any interference, (such as from improperly suppressed cars driving past).

Now as they all swear it's better than their old set, clearly the problem is me. Or the emperor really is naked.

Anyone else share my opinion?
 
Soapy Sam said:
I don't own a TV set myself, but friends and family all seem to be going for wide screen flat TVs, which
1.Take several seconds to switch channels
2. Produce a distorted image size- either too wide, too narrow, often with text
unreadable because it's actually OFF the visible screen area.
3.Have far poorer picture quality than a decent set from five or even ten years ago.
4. In addition, no one seems to get as good reception with digital TV signals as with analogue and the satellite systems freeze and pixellate whenever the signal is less than perfect, or there is any interference, (such as from improperly suppressed cars driving past).
Click to expand...

Could problem 2 (and perhaps 3) be because they're watching programmes with an ordinary aspect ratio (4:3 or whatever) with the TV set to a widescreen aspect ratio? Or vice versa? Widescreen TVs will smear out the image to fit, which causes people to look a bit wider than normal. You can tweak the display to show black bands down the edge of the screen, but a lot of people don't like doing that. One alternative is to stretch just the edges of the image, leaving the middle at 4:3 but which causes weird distortion on scrolling shots, or to use a "Zoom" where the TV zooms into the middle of the shot to give the correct aspect, but which means text can disappear off the edges and top/bottom of the screen, and makes the image grainier than it would normally be.

One solution is to watch the BBC a lot, because they broadcast much of their output in widescreen format already. I think it's just a transitional thing - soon all new broadcasts will be done widescreen and the problem will largely disappear (No good for old stuff, of course).

The only time we have problems with reception is when there's a thunderstorm nearby. I suppose one problem with digital vs. analogue is that you can keep squinting at a failing analogue signal if you want, but when a digital signal fails it fails completely. But up to that point, it looks pretty good to me.
 
1.Take several seconds to switch channels
Click to expand...

Bad software, (boy have i heard that before:D )

2. Produce a distorted image size- either too wide, too narrow, often with text
unreadable because it's actually OFF the visible screen area.
Click to expand...

The same
3.Have far poorer picture quality than a decent set from five or even ten years ago.
Click to expand...

Try paying a little bit more, the latest models i have seen fully compares to any CRT.

4. In addition, no one seems to get as good reception with digital TV signals as with analogue and the satellite systems freeze and pixellate whenever the signal is less than perfect, or there is any interference, (such as from improperly suppressed cars driving past).
Click to expand...

Yes they are prone to that, a digital reciever does require a better antennae, have you considered cable?
;)
 
evildave said:
The one I bought was an 'Infocus X1'. They have friendlier versions of the same thing (i.e. with seperate 'component in' that will accept interlaced signals, unlike my earlier model) now that can be had for as little as $800~$900, and other manufacturers make projectors based on the same TI DLP technology - a little chip with a zillion mirrors that deflect electrostatically, through a color wheel, and out the lens. Pretty simple. The bulbs are a little pricey ($200~$300, so the net cost of the rest of the projector was really $500!), but they last a few years' worth of watching.

I do have to draw dark curtains and such to get it dim enough during the day to view. My one big room has too many windows. At night, no problem, and highly rich image. When the image is *really* blown up huge, you do begin to see the individual pixels. A proper silver screen to project onto would certainly help all around performance over just my texturized white wall (the texture 'disappears' for more or less the same reasons that flat monitors initially look concave, as long as it's fairly uniform), but I'm too cheap.
Click to expand...
Seems to be more appropriate for a home theater than everyday watching, and certainly not for a pc monitor replacement. Sadly, I'd be replacing the bulb once a year if I used it like I wanted to.
 
Ove- I refuse to have a TV set in my home. I'm just commenting on what I've seen of others'.
 
Ove- I refuse to have a TV set in my home. I'm just commenting on what I've seen of others'.
Click to expand...

You have just confirmed the oldest myth about Scots, ie. looking at other peoples TV sets instead of buying their own............:D




SORRY ! ! ! ! !..... just couldn't resist.
:D :D :D
 
It's nice that TVs are being discussed too, because I'm also thinking of buying a new TV. I haven't investigated the market and the reviews closely yet, but admittedly I'm not that excited with digital TVs either (judging from what I see here and there). On the other hand it looks like I shouldn't spend money on an analog TV and I should wait for digitals to get better. On the other hand I might have to wait longer than I want to. :confused:
 
I have a 42 inch plasma as my main TV (18 months old), great picture and a 17inch LCD monitor (2 years old).

In some respects neither are as good as the old CRT versions they replaced. Refresh time and colour saturation for the LCD and colour reproduction for the plasma.

However for the monitor I find it much easier to read then the 19inch CRT monitor it replaced, plus the sheer convenience of being able to move it without having to book the hernia repair operation in advance... The space it doesn't take up is also beneficial. (Oh and I can rotate it to A4 when I'm just working on a document - lovely.)

The plasma TV is certainly not as vibrant as my old Sony CRT TV however the fact that it takes up no floor space (I have it mounted on a wall) is worth a lot in my small cottage.

As for digital v analogue - my cottage is in a valley and we get terrible analogue reception (saying that we don’t get Channel 5 at all so reception is not as bad as it could be) so I didn’t have much of an option then to go for a satellite dish if I wanted anything half decent. Yes there is some drop out during storms but only rarely have I lost the picture entirely.

The worse problem with the Sky service I have is that they seem to vary the compression or bit-rate on the various channels which means some can show marked artefacts (such as a water rippling being very pixelated) and strange colour artefacts such as banding – which looks as if they haven’t used enough colour levels when they’ve processed the original source.
 
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