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Display Format Technologies Comparison
An anonymous reader writes "The differences between LCD, Plasma, DLP, LCOS, D-ILA, and CRT are revealed, as well as their associated advantages and disadvantages, as Audioholics post a new version of their Display Technologies Guide With advances companies like Intel (LCOS) and Texas Instruments (HD2+) are making in chip technologies and cost reductions, one wonders just how soon CRT based TVs will become an antiquity we discuss with our grandchildren as they install their new high resolution, lightweight, affordable displays on their walls."
You must have had some pretty lame CRTs in the past then. I'm reading this on a crisp 21" CRT at 1600x1200x85. Using a CRT I can use a high resolution for my desktop and still have access to lower resolutions 1280x1024x100 to use with video games. I can have my cake and eat it too.
Of course the monitor weighs 60 pounds, but my computer don't do a whole lot of moving.
They forget to mention projectors, you get a bigger image cheaper than plasma
While an LCD monitor has much to recommend it on the grounds of space saving and visual clarity, I find one arena where it is left in the dust by a CRT: game playing. When rushing around in a FPS, the picture on an LCD monitor turns into a blurry, muddy mess; on a CRT, by contrast, it remains crisp.
In an unrelated but related point (think "tea and no tea"), I find that optical mice are great for day-to-day work, but fall down during FPS play: when you figure that someone is filling your back with lead, and you need to do an instant 180 degree turn, an optical mouse simply can't handle the rate of movement. A traditional ball mouse is the only choice; however, you have to make sure its clean so that the ball doesn't jam when being rolled at high speed. A good tip to keeping your balls clean is to rest your beer on a different table to your keyboard/mouse.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
I am typing this from a 19" CRT screen that costs just #150 for a 1600x1200 desktop. A LCD of that size and resoloution are over #1000! I dont need the space savings, Desks are cheap, LCDs are not!
I still can't figure out why the gamma on the PC and the Mac are so far apart. Hell, the gamma on a windows system is much lower than a Mac and even darker than a CRT TV!!!
Why is this? And why is there not a universal standard by which a display is to be callibrated. Sure, you could argue that there is already 3 standards, but my question is why not just one standard?
As a visual artist I find it irritating to have my imagery appear darker on a PC and when I play a DVD, I notice that the display on my Mac is much brighter than my TV.
I'm sure movie producers and directors get annoyed by this as well.
By setting an international gamma/color calibration standard, all visual media would benefit not only because of consistant display but lowered production costs as well.
Plasma is looking like a transitional tech just like it was in the early days of "portable" PCs. LCDs could not be made big enough economically so the Plasma has wormed its way back. With big LCDs coming soon plasma TVs will probably disappear within a few years.
I'm pretty sure the parent was going for the (+1, Funny) but there really are great qualities to paper. If you had to read a 20 page essay, would you prefer to read it on paper or on a computer screen?
Now we just need to wait for that electronic ink paper stuff we've been hearing about for years.
I've purchased 2 monitors in the past 10 years. One in 1994, and one a few months ago. The first was a monster (deep) 16-inch Trinitron with dual inputs, and the second was a 21-inch LCD. Both set me back roughly a grand.
I've gone through about 10 computers in that same time period. You do the math.
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Every review I've ever seen about plasma says that plasma has the worst black level performance of any major technology.
When I bought my last system, I could have bought two decient 17" CRT'S for the cost of 1 19" LCD display. So I am now sitting in front of two 17" CRT's and I have twice as much desktop space.
Oh happy me!
17"? I think, my chum, if you don't have room for a 17" monitor, then you are in completely the wrong market for the techonlogies being spoken of here. We are talking home theater technologies, not desktop. We're talking HDTVs in the 40"-70" range.
For the home theater, CRT is dying. It's power hungry, it's space hungry, and it's heavy. There are only two things that CRT technology has going for it over all other HDTV technologies: (1) price and (2) the ability to easily change resolutions. Only the first of those two matter outside of the PC monitor world.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You buy a CRT and you get BETTER performance for about 1/3rd the cost -
Assuming you live in your mother's basement, and don't pay for electricity.
A CRT is on the "be sure to turn it off when you leave" list as far as power consumption goes.
The organic-based displays come out. Flexible, brighter than LCD, superior to plasma (no burn-in).
OK, OK, I'll wait until the organic displays are around for a while and their price reaches non-astronomical levels. That should be in about 7-8+ years from now assuming a soonish release.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
" one wonders just how soon CRT based TVs will become an antiquity we discuss with our grandchildren as they install their new high resolution, lightweight, affordable displays on their walls.""
When we stop gutting the middle-class that normally buys such things.
Before making blanket statements, please consider that different people have different needs.
I work in front of a computer for 8-12 hours a day. The last couple of years I worked with a CRT, after about 6-7 hours I would start to get a headache. In fact, I had to start wearing glasses to stop the headaches.
At my current job, I'm lucky enough that I get to use an Apple 22" Cinema Display most of the time, and pretty much, from day one, I haven't had a single headache at work.
Now, some of this I attribute to Apple's (Mac OS X's) excellent anti-aliased text, but the major thanks go to the LCD. It's just sharper. My eyes don't have to spend the entire day trying to focus the pixels on the screen, because they're already in focus. And, unlike CRT's, they don't go out of focus over time.
On top of that, the screen remains completely square at all times, and the colors, while maybe only 95% - 98% as rich as a CRT's, never have problems with divergence. Basically, unless your back light fails or you have a large number of pixels go dead, the LCD will look just as good after five years as it did on day one. Then again, you could by 5 reasonable quality CRT's for the cost one good quality LCD.
So, for me at least, LCD is better. In fact, a good flat panel display is worth it to me that when I eventually replace my home computer, I'll be paying the extra money for a good quality LCD display.
Well, unless LEP's or OLED's finally make their debut for computer displays...
It's called "ghosting" and its a problem on low quality LCDs that have a high response time. The response time is how long it takes for a pixel to change color. The higher the response time, the longer it takes to change the image on the screen and the blurrier motion is. I have a 15" Sylvania LCD with 15ms response time, and I don't have any ghosting problems, and I play way too much counter-strike.
Karma: Meh (Mostly from meh.)
In the final table, the author chose not to highlight the winning cells if they happened to be for CRT solutions. CRT is a winner in 5 of the 12 catagories: Contrast Ratio, Brightness, Longevity, Burn-In, and Viewing Angle. More than any other solution.
I know that Direct View (and Rear Projection) CRT's days are numbered, but as of today, no other solution provides the same picture quality, at any cost. It will be at least 3 more years before videophiles start making the switch to something better. I'm guessing the winners will be DLP and Carbon Nanotube Field Emission Displays.
1. The units are still very expensive
2. You have to factor in the components required to get sound into the equation
I looked at projectors, RPTVs, LCDs and DLPs late last year. After careful examination of the costs, picture quality (personal view), flexibility (number/type of inputs), portability and size, I ended up with a DLP. (HLN617W from Samsung). I think the rainbow effect is mostly FUD. Yes, some people see them, but not as many as the reporting would seem. No-one I have shown the unit to has seen them.
Quicky eval summary:
CRT RPTV - heavy, expensive tube replacement, bad side angle viewing, lowest price
Projector - relatively expensive, required separate sound gear, generally requires more distance than I have (about 12 feet), some units are noisy (fans), some units have short bulb lives (p.s. I really wanted a projector - I'm a movie buff)
LCD - I can see the screen door effect up to around 8 feet from the screen, some reported burn in issues due to high temp from lamp and gels in the LCD, price was comparable to DLP, good weight and depth.
DLP - weight and depth is good for a unit of this size, brighter than LCD (my perception), no chance of burn in, reasonable lamp life (3000 hours - user replaceable), some issues with internal reflections
Pet peeve: Why do none of the remotes have back-lit panels? If you are watching the TV, aren't you typically in a darkened environment? Why are we expected to turn on a light to read the remote buttons? It's nuts!
My simple suggestion: Make one button on the remote a glow-in-the-dark button which (ta-da) turns the back light on for the other buttons.