Ever Hear Of A Norcent? - Videokarma.org TV - Video

kf4rca · #1 04-10-2021, 07:39 AM

Me neither. This 27" roadside find was in good shape. Its from 2005 and would not turn on due to puffed caps in the PS.
I soon discover that its a 16x9 display but its NTSC ONLY. It has VGA, SVHS and composite inputs but no HDMI, DVI or USB. (That should have been a clue.)
I wonder if the original owner was duped into buying this thing by an unscrupulous salesman. I should have left this one on the roadside.

dishdude · #2 04-10-2021, 03:55 PM

Probably a Black Friday special. There wasn't a ton of HD content in 2005 but the LCD panel was the future and cool, so I could see why they offered this. A 27" 16:9 is painfully small though.

What's the max resolution through VGA?

mr_rye89 · #3 04-10-2021, 08:54 PM

I had a Norcent DVD player around ‘04-‘05, paid $50 for it at Target.

SpaceAge · #4 04-10-2021, 09:14 PM

As dishdude says, the novelty of owning an LCD would have been a selling point at the time. HD wasn’t mainstream yet but this would allow you to watch your widescreen format DVDs.

JohnCT · #5 04-10-2021, 10:07 PM

2005 was only the second year of flat panels in the U.S., and there were a lot of them sold as basic TVs using LCD panels instead of picture tubes.

I've seen a bunch of them over the years, this model included. Very long lived compared to the crap made today. These models use CCFL tubes for back lighting which have an 80K hour rating, and many go beyond that. We've seen LEDs quit in 5K hours.

John

Electronic M · #6 04-11-2021, 02:38 AM

HDMI only came out in December of 02 and it wasn't immediately clear it would be the dominant standard for consumer HD video connection (it was also expensive to add to a set initially). Some early HD DTV tuners offered VGA and DVI output so if the VGA on it could do 720 or 1080 it was basically an HD ready TV or a good TV that could be a good computer monitor depending on perspective and user needs.