My old Samsung TV that I've now had 8 years (time flies when you have fun), apparently may have had the G2 control misadjusted this whole time since I replaced the flyback with an HR Diemen.
It's this TV:
https://i.imgur.com/UrPTJzR.jpg (Don't know the model number off hand).
For the past 8 years I always thought the CRT was tired because you couldn't turn the color up that high without the reds smearing. Well, despite it still getting fairly bright, I decided to just take one little look at the G2 control since I don't remember actually adjusting it when I replaced the flyback. If I make it higher (to the point where the lowest brightness is only just dark but not black and not too bright where retrace lines are visible), the picture now is at the point where the reds are popping so bright it's brighter than white with a red filter over the screen, and NO SMEAR. Of course I can go absurd and turn color to the max and it'll still smear but then it's unwatchable from how much color saturation there is.
The question I have then is, what is actually the proper way to adjust the G2 control? The TV does have a service switch, and I thought I was supposed to use that, and when the picture is a line, turn down the brightness, and turn up G2 for it to be a fain't white line. But if I do that, then the color smears if I even have the contrast up at all, requiring me to turn G2 up further. Unless I'm still misunderstanding "faint white line" as read in some manuals and still setting it too low?
ALSO: One possible side effect I noticed is that turning up the G2 has left what seems like less DC restoration? For example, the difference between a bright picture or a dark picture is pretty big. I can set the pluge pattern properly using an SMPTE pattern and then daylight scenes look great, but go to a dark horror movie, and the grey background is kind of annoying. If I lower the G2 there's more consistency, but hello color smear again.
(I suppose this still means the CRT is tired, but I have a feeling I am just not adjusting this correctly.) Unless this just means this TV has crap DC restoration.
With G2 turned up the picture is not losing focus whatsoever, in fact it looks way more in focus than it did before actually so it's not blooming as far as I can see.