Flat Screen conspiracy?

[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.

[dr.ido]

Some current cheap CRT sets are pretty bad. I've seen poor geometry, poor convergence, poor focus and blooming/bleeding on bright scenes. Some of these may benefit from adjustment (if can work out the service menu without the probably nonexistant service manual), others are just bad/cheap design (poorly power supply regulation, etc).

However they are not all bad. Considering how bad the picture looks on some of the LCD and plasma sets I've seen it wouldn't surprise me that stores were intentional misadjusting the remaining CRT sets to make them look worse.

I will be sticking with CRT for as long as I can. I have seen a couple of nice plasma sets, but as they only look that good under ideal conditions (digital source preferably at the panel's native resolution) they are just too limiting for me.

As a side note some recent LCD rear projection sets are starting to hit the curbs around here. I passed on a Toshiba that needed a new bulb after reading various reports that the $400+ bulbs only last a couple of years.

[andy]

There are plenty of bad CRTs out there. Those "slim fit" CRTs look pretty bad. Also, even the best CRTs can't do a very good job when the contrast is at maximum. Every TV I see in a store is blooming and defocusing from the strain. Even AK favorites like the Chromacolor II would look like crap if they were adjusted to match the brightness of the sets on display at best buy.

I've come to the conclusion that there's no perfect video display. CRTs look excellent when they are adjusted properly and if you are lucky enough to get one with perfect convergence. There's always some geometry error. At high brightness all CRTs lose a lot of focus. They're heavy, big and can't be made bigger than about 40".

The blacks are very good on most modern plasmas (this used to be a serious problem with plasmas). Color saturation is good and they don't suffer from motion blur. You can make them as bright as you want without having the picture go out of focus. Convergence and geometry are always perfect. Plasmas have trouble showing continuous shades (they appear as bands, or as areas of flickering dots). They are also very fragile and they are more complex to repair.

LCDs have most of the same advantages and disadvantages as plasmas, but I find that the colors usually look soft and washed out. They also always suffer from some motion blur. This is much better on the best LCDs, but there are a lot of smaller cheap LCDs out there. LCDs have poor blacks which change with viewing angle. They also have a limited dynamic range which makes it easy to clip the whites if you turn up the contrast too high. LCDs are proven to be very reliable and when the back light wears out, it can (in theory) be replaced.

If you really want the best HDTV you can get, look for a Sony direct view with "super fine pitch". They have much finer phosphor stripes on the CRT than any other TV so they can display better resolution. The CRT is a lot like what you'd find in a professional monitor. I think they have been discontinued, but there are still some in stores at a reduced price. If it doesn't say "super fine pitch" it just has a regular CRT.

[merrylander]

We have a 30" Sony Wega HDTV and the picture is simply mahvelous dahlings and at the time it was half the price of the LCD and Plasma stuff.
Just don't ask me to pick it up.
Rob

[peverett]

From what I have read in various magazines (including the IEEE Spectrum magazine) plasma is the least reliable and has the shortest life of any of the currently available flat panel displays.

From the same IEEE Spectrum article discussing flat panel displays, I have come to the conclusion that none of them will be as reliable as the CRTs in the short term(and possibly long term). This is due to the complexity built into them.

I have also read that for the HDTV aspect ratio, it is almost impossible to build a single CRT set as the CRT yield is very poor. At present, if you want both a good picture and long life for HDTV, the heavy projection CRT sets are your choice(at least as long as they are produced).

[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.

[gearhead]

So, should I buy that 36" Sony WEGA CRT for $999?

[peverett]

From what I read, the real issue with LCD tvs is the backlight. I have read that they last between 3 and 8 years with average use and are fairly expensive to replace.

However, if I was forced to go by a flat screen TV at present, I would choose LCD. Plasma seems to have a very short life and DLP sounds too much like the "CBS color wheel" system that was abandoned for good reason in the 1950s

[rcaman]

Originally Posted by peverett

From what I read, the real issue with LCD tvs is the backlight. I have read that they last between 3 and 8 years with average use and are fairly expensive to replace.

However, if I was forced to go by a flat screen TV at present, I would choose LCD. Plasma seems to have a very short life and DLP sounds too much like the "CBS color wheel" system that was abandoned for good reason in the 1950s

the dlps i have serviced have got the color wheel whine. can hear them 20 feet away. color wheels costs wholesale rca $150.00 bulb from $250.00 to $360.00 wholesale. you dont leave these sets running 24/7. they will cost you out the ass. and the color wheels are small and the bearings dry up in the bulb heat spinning at 7200rpm.