Flat Screen conspiracy?

[Carmine]

I mentioned in another posting (about the old radio I gave my grandparnets for Christmas) that I'd recently been in a Circuit City.

Naturally, I looked around a bit in the TV section to see the "latest and greatest" in disposable flatware from China. I also noticed they were down to just a handful of CRT sets, all of them 27" or less I think.

Since they were all on the same feed, I started looking back/forth between them and the LCDs/Plasmas/DLPs. It occured to me that these remaining CRT sets had some of the WORST picture quality I've ever seen! No wonder the masses are rejecting CRTs like cancer!

Lots of color bleeding, bad convergence, sharpness turned way down.

So I ask...

Do you think Cicuit City/Worst Buy, etc. are mis-adjusting those cheaper sets, just so they don't show up the more expen$ive flat screens? OR Just the fact that the only CRT sets they had on display were crapola brands like Funai, Apex, Lucky-Panda-Puke or whatever?

I'm guessing that it's not intentional, these things just suck out of the box, although I'm sure there is no special effort made to adjust them.

I recently made the arguement to some co-workers who were talking about new sets that CRTs still produce the best picture quality. They looked at me like I was on crack! After doing the same side-by-side comparison, I can see why they would.

If I had money & time to burn, I'd love to build a Chromacolor II set into the wall at a store, and hang the mask from a flatscreen around it. It would be funny to see how many people wanted to buy that one.

[KingBubba]

I look at the craze of flat screen shoppers as an opportunity to obtain great stuff for next to nothing. I just bought a 19" flat screen CRT ViewSonic monitor at the GW. It was in perfect condition and works great. One of the best 12$ I have spent in a while. I also got a 17" syncmaster in the same condition for $5 at another TS. I don't need a TV but am seeing CRT TVs for a song.

[grumpy]

Last time i shopped for a TV at best circuit shitty they told me they don't have digital feeds going to the CRT's hence it was all snowy and crap.

Have Yet to see a flat screen look as good as a CRT. But I have yet to find a 35" CRT that I can mount to my wall...

[Carmine]

Originally Posted by grumpy

Have Yet to see a flat screen look as good as a CRT. But I have yet to find a 35" CRT that I can mount to my wall...

Ugh... Hopefully you'll do a better job than the recent install I saw.

It was a Sony Bravia (DLP, right?) Must admit, it had a very nice picture. BUT...

It was mounted to the wall on some kind of swing-out bracket, with all the cables and junk zip-tied to the metal frame. Naturally, the guy had the TV about three feet from his face! Beneath it was a DVD, PS3, cable box, and several other unknown boxes of crap. It was sooo ugly I wanted to sneak a cameraphone shot just to post it here.

Swear-to-gawd, it looked like the evil robocop had punched a hole through the wall and at the end of his arm was a TV set!

[grumpy]

All the cables will be routed out of site when its done. Not to mention the appropriate mounting bracket will be used. Mounting a 100 pound tv on the wall with a swivel bracket sound dangerous and wont be allowed in my house full of kids.

[Duane]

Originally Posted by Carmine

So I ask...

Do you think Cicuit City/Worst Buy, etc. are mis-adjusting those cheaper sets, just so they don't show up the more expen$ive flat screens? OR Just the fact that the only CRT sets they had on display were crapola brands like Funai, Apex, Lucky-Panda-Puke or whatever?

:

I don't think these people have a clue as to how to adjust a picture.They are probably left to the default settings that are setby the manufactures and don't care what they look like.Why would they bother,those are not the hot selling items.
As long as I've been associated with this hobby,the majority of people do not have a idea what picture quality is.Contrast blown all the way up...color temps in the nether regions...
CRTs can produce stunning images if one knows what to adjust.The vast majority of sets sold in the past were mal adjusted by the manufacture right out of the gate.I don't know if manufatures are doing the same with plasmas,lcds,dlps etc.Some of the plasmas look quite good.But,their contrast ratios aren't close to that of a crt.

[fdrennen]

Last time I went to Rat Shack, There were NO CRT's only flat screen LCD's there! I was looking for a bargain 27" CRT for the bedroom.

[jedo1507r]

Originally Posted by fdrennen

Last time I went to Rat Shack, There were NO CRT's only flat screen LCD's there! I was looking for a bargain 27" CRT for the bedroom.

I was just there today, the store had a total of four smallish LCDs and two IDENTICAL, but different mold Funai-made DVD players at a $20 difference (Philco was cheaper than Sylvania). The GW next door to the RS had a 2002 36" JVC (bland set) for $100. Luckily the GW got their act together after the holidays; no wait, it's that time of the year.

About Best Buy, I had a gift card from Christmas so I forced myself to walk through the store, nothing's setup correctly for the CRT sets, the DLP, LCD, and Plasma sets had its color saturation cranked up and the lighting is slightly dimmer than the CRT section.

[Spasticteapot]

There's a good reason why people want LCD's - LCD TV's now cost LESS than CRT's for the same sizes. Above 32", they're much cheaper - you can get a Syntax-Olevia (the best of the off-brands - side-by-side, they were comparable to a high-end LG offering) 37" LCD TV for $800. A CRT would be more expensive.

The reason for this is simple: To increase a 20" CRT to a 40" CRT with double the vertical and horizontal resolution, the electron gun would have to scan four times as fast and be able to turn on and off four times as fast, with a four-fold increase in precision necessary. To be able to properly hit the screen, it would need to either be further away from the screen, or be at a much steeper angle - further increasing complexity.

On the other hand, you can pretty much make a 40" LCD out of four 20" LCDs joined at the edges.

As a side note, only plasmas are today known for a high degree of problems - and even then, five-year-old plasmas still look quite good today. LCDs are based off of a normal liquid-crystal panel (which, if left in one place, should last for at least ten years - laptop LCDs from 1996 still work today!), and the backlights are actually just a form of flourescent bulb - they've been around for a long, long, long time.

That said, you'll all be wanting the new flat-screen technology called FED. It's a technology from the 90's that produced amazing picture quality, but cost a fortune to make. However, carbon nanotubes can drop the price signifigantly.

http://www.technologyreview.com/NanoTech/17824/

It's really just a bunch of really tiny electron guns, each pointed at a seperate pixel. All the benifits of CRT without the pesky scanning and annoying electromagnets. (Goodbye de-gauss button!)

That said, I'm going to continue my hunt for a 21" flat-glass CRT monitor for my next PC. Mmmm....monitor-a-licious!

[andy]

Originally Posted by Spasticteapot

The reason for this is simple: To increase a 20" CRT to a 40" CRT with double the vertical and horizontal resolution, the electron gun would have to scan four times as fast and be able to turn on and off four times as fast, with a four-fold increase in precision necessary. To be able to properly hit the screen, it would need to either be further away from the screen, or be at a much steeper angle - further increasing complexity.

That's not true. CRT size has nothing to do with resolution. A 40" CRT just spreads the same number of lines over a larger area. The main problem with large CRTs is the weight from the thick glass.

[Spasticteapot]

Originally Posted by andy

That's not true. CRT size has nothing to do with resolution. A 40" CRT just spreads the same number of lines over a larger area. The main problem with large CRTs is the weight from the thick glass.

True, but the latest generation of sets use a resolution much, much higher than older TVs - even HDTVs.. 1080p has half again more lines of resolution than 720p, and each line has half again more pixels in it, which means that the electron gun has to scan 2.25x as fast to maintain the same number of frames per second.

Also, LCD TVs have some advantages over CRTs, especially in brightness. For the "best of the best", you need to look at some high-end (albiet smaller) LCDs made by NEC and other high-end companies, which have almost no ghosting at all with contrast and brightness far better than most large CRTs.

Besides, I've yet to see a 37" CRT for $750. Show me that, and I'll concede.

[Bill R]

Most of the new sets I see out of the box look ok, but put it on the sales floor where everyone can adjust on it and it is no wonder the picture is bad.

Bill R

[JCFitz]

Some of the newer RCA crt sets made in China even have the middle of tint range which is usually the default far too green.I find they always look better if I adjust towards red and turn down the color some. Way too much color at mid setting(default).I was able to adjust one to match a mid 90s RCA but at the default settings it looked like crap especially with the green people.I've seen several of the same model(2005 model year) that looked exactly the same so it wasn't a set fault,it's the way it was designed(set up) from the factory.

[VinylHanger]

I have seen a few flat lcd tv's that were incredible. One looked so good I wanted to reach in and eat whatever it was on the screen. However, then the salesguy told me that I would need a maintenence program just to keep it going. Uh, I just want to plug it in and watch it for 10 or 15 years. He said that was unlikely to happen.

[KingBubba]

LCD s and Plasmas both have a limited lifespan. I too will hold on to the CRTs I have and after that I'll hit the thrifts and flea market and then after that it won't matter because..........gulp!