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Behind the Numbers: LCD vs. CRT
OrenWolf writes "CNet has an article discussing the difference between CRT's and LCD's - where they've been, where they're going, and what to look for when buying one. They inclde information on how to judge the most important (and most overlooked) features in LCD's, the rise/fall of pixels, something that keeps most gamers away from them." Good
summary type piece, although nothing exceptional for the more hardcore techie.
This article over at Toms does an excellent job of describing the technical differences between CRT and LCD.
He also has a recent roundup of the current LCD players and what to look for.
C.
how is that possible? Check out http://www.uniax.com/. They use Flash for nav so I can't give a direct link, but click on "how it works" and then check out either the FAQ or the OLED section. It's pretty cool...
Also check out this site for more info on OLEDs.
Karma whore I am...
Apple Cinema Display is absolutely coveted by most of the graphics designers i've met in the last year or so.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
IIRC, they still have a large light bulb or two (of sorts) sitting behind the Liquid Crystals...I don't think OLED displays will have this requirement. While this is only a few inches thick, it *would* make OLEDs more flat than an LCD.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
CRTs can be rejuvenated. There's a device that tv-repair shops use to blast off the crap from the inside of the back end of the CRT (heater, grids, etc). 90 percent of the time it works and you get another 5 years out of the CRT, but it all depends if it's worth blowing 60 bucks (what I used to charge) on an old monitor.
If it's a Sony, and it's BIG, it's probably worth it. Otherwise, recycle.
Now if there was a way to hook up one of those 60" plasma screens (and afford one...).
I wouldn't recommend this. At least not yet. Granted I don't know alot about plasma technology, but we recently got a shipment at work for a new exhibit. Mostly showing Flash animations, mixed with some video.
Burn In is a major problem. A static image can cause burn-in within 20 minutes. They are great if the image is constantly moving, but I have yet to see a game that doesn't have some sort of static image always on screen.
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Ahhh ... if you've run into the infamous "dim Sony" problem, yes, there is a way to fix it.
It could kill you though.
Seriously.
Monitors (and TVs) are NOT things you want to play around with unless you REALLY know what you are doing. The capacitors in them can store a lethal charge even after having been unplugged for years.
That said, there is typically a group of "master" controls inside the monitor, one of which controls screen brightness. You can compensate for the dim screen you've got now by tweaking the internal control.
You should be able to find a repair shop somewhere that can do this work for you cheaply/easily.
Of course, whatever has caused your CRT to dim to the point that the external controls on the front of the monitor no longer brighten the image sufficiently will likely continue doing its evil work after you've adjusted the master brightness. Eventually there will come a point where even cranking up the master brightness still won't give you a bright image. However, this technique will typically give you a few more years until the monitor is truly useless.
but a 15" LCD has the same viewable area of a 17" CRT
Maybe they have the same viewable area, but most of the times not the maximum resolution. Typically, you can get 1280x1024 in a 17" CRT, but not more than 1024x768 on a 15" LCD (on a laptop, for instance, the monitor must be SVGA+ our USVGA to achieve more than 1024x768).
The pixels themselves last a really really long time. Much longer than the display technology will probably be useful. The backlights need to be replaced after a few years of use. An old backlight will either fail altogether or just turn purple. Luckily the backlights are inexpensive and easy to replace.
I hadn't heard about this before. Seems like another strike against LCDs for games because most gamers nowadays run their games with 32-bit color.
:)
Nope, games (and your windows probably) run at 24-bit colour, 32 bits per pixel, and they simply waste one byte per pixel because it's much faster to access the pixels when aligned on a 4 byte boundary. It's simply a speed thing. Not only this, but from a reflective surface (paper) you can distinguish about 50 million colours (except some women who are reverse colour-blind in having 4 whatsijigs in their eyes instead of 3). On an emittive source (crt,tv, backlit lcd monitor) you can only see about 14 million colours. Note this doesn't apply to reflective lcd monitors such as the game boy colour, but that only does a few thousand colours in the graphics chip anyway
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
More LCD Pros:
Power consumption
Digital interface
Sub-pixel text rendering
More CRT cons:
Power consumption
Power supply & amp failure
Analog interface
Focus
Convergence
Radiation
Seriously, I have sitting right here on the desk with me the Sony GDM-F500R, still the best monitor Sony makes, and a Samsung SyncMaster 210T, both running at 1600x1200. There is no contest. I can stare at source code continuously with the Samsung (thanks to the sub-pixel rendered text, the horizontal resolution is 300dpi), but with the Sony I need to take breaks. Focus and convergence on the Sony are worse in proportion to the distance from the center of the screen. The Sony needs to go to Irvine, CA (100lbs shipping cost) for professional adjustment and maintenance every two years or so.
Sure, the CRT has terrific color and response, but that isn't enough to overcome its annoying electro-optical problems.