Thin CRTs to Challenge LCDs in 2005

bigtangringo writes "First Samsung and now LG.Phillips have worked out a way to create thin CRT displays. Thin CRTs offer the best of both worlds -- superior picture quality with a slim size. Thin CRTs are expected to be more expensive than current CRTs, however they are also expected to drop in price rapidly. Both companies plan on releasing Thin CRTs in late 2005."

Comments

Perfect Example.....

[hcob$]

Of why people like me (and most of slashdot) HATE to rush out and buy new equipment. I just spent a little over 400 on a 19" LCD Pannel, and DAMNIT they come out with this nifty little thingy(that's the technical term ya know).

At this rate of technological development, I'm just wondering when Moore's law will be replaced by Murphy's.

Re:Perfect Example.....

[FatAlb3rt]

you only spent $400 on a 19" LCD and that's rushing?! that's where 19" CRTs were a few years ago.

Re:Perfect Example.....

[(startx)]

That depends on your definition of "few". I bought a 19" CRT at WorstBuy for $189 4 years ago, and at that point the price was already pretty steady.

Re:Perfect Example.....

[pebs]

Of why people like me (and most of slashdot) HATE to rush out and buy new equipment. I just spent a little over 400 on a 19" LCD Pannel

Well, LCD's still have certain advantages. For example, the pixels on an LCD are always on or always off. Whereas with a CRT they are constantly refreshing. Due to this, supposedly LCD's cause less eye-strain. I've found this mostly to be true, since I find reading e-books on my laptop's LCD screen easier to be easier on the eyes.

That said, I'm personally still waiting before I buy an LCD monitor. Though I think they will still have advantages over any kind of CRT, including these thin CRT's.

Of course, for TV/movies, LCD's still have a disadvantage, because actual pixel changes are still slower. On the LCD TV's I've looked at, I always notice this when there is a lot of motion.

Eyes

[mfh]

I'm coding on my system all the time. Recently I was looking at getting a new system (for games and stuff), but I couldn't find any information on the effects of different monitors on my eyes. Does anyone know which type of monitor (LCD, CRT...etc) is safer for prolonged use? I'm talking about 18 hour days... thin or not, what are the effects on my inevitable glaucoma?

Re:Eyes

[eliza_effect]

I'm just gonna guess here and say that LCDs are "better" for your eyes, since a nice LCD will have very good contrast (to reduce eyestrain when trying to discern small details) and no "refresh rate" in the same sense that CRTs do (LCDs just refresh pixels that have changed, not the entire screen).

Re:Eyes

[Gonzotek]

18 hours is far too long to be staring at any one thing, regardless of the technology used. LCDs probably have lower glare than CRTs, overall, but that's not the only factor.
Here are some generalized tips for monitor placement, lighting, and eye health:
http://www.crazycolour.com/os/ergonomics_ 06.shtml

Re:Eyes

[Dan East]

This is somewhat anecdotal, but an optometrist told me that reflective and transflective screens are best for the eyes, because they reflect light instead of emit it, and reflected light is more 'natural'.

The only devices I know of with those types of displays are Pocket PCs.

I've always assumed that regular LCDs still were better than CRT because at least you don't have an electron gun deluging your face with radiation.

Dan East

Re:Eyes

[DigitumDei]

Just to add to this. While the parent is correct, that a LCD is usually going to be better on your eye's, a good quality crt will also allow just as many hours of use with no eye strain.

I find with a cheaper CRT I get headaches after a couple of hours of work. However I purchased an Iiyama visionmaster pro 455 and I can literally spend days working on it with no noticable eye strain. It is also brighter and clearer than pretty much any LCD I've seen. So in the end, if you pay a decent amount for a monitor it should be fine.

All the same, unless you plan on playing games on the machine, I'd suggest going for an LCD.

Re:Eyes

[JavaMoose]

Um, it's obvious that you aren't aware of HOW the different types of LCDs work.

Reflective LCD doesn't mean that it reflects everything around you, or that there is any glare, it just bounces ambiant light back through the panel to improve brightness. This also has the effect of making them good outdoors in sunlight.

Re:Eyes

[Max Romantschuk]

but if they reflect light, youre eyes have to work harder to decide what to pay attention to; the reflection or the stuff on the screen.

Um, a paper reflects light. Thats how you see it. So does mostly everything else in your surroundings, except for the minority of objects which emit light. Lamps and screens, mostly.

By your logic, a paper should be harder to read than a screen. Is it?

Re:Eyes

[Clueless Moron]

reflected light is more 'natural'.

Gosh. Do the photons come with little tags that say "organically grown"?

Re:Eyes

[untaken_name]

By your logic, a paper should be harder to read than a screen. Is it?

Depends. Is there any light source in the room? If not, then a screen will be easier to read. If the room is brightly lit, a paper should be easier to read. Of course, trying to decide whether a screen is better than paper is like trying to decide if technical whitepapers are better than novels. It totally depends on your environment, needs, and other variables. I don't think there's much point to the whole 'paper v. screens' debate.

Re:Eyes

[DigitumDei]

Can you remember what refresh rate these crt's ran at?

5 years ago 75 was considered the norm even with expencive crt's. I personally don't like to use a CRT unless its running at 100.

I'd assume the thin crt's have the same drawbacks as the old ones since they will still refresh in a similar way and thus have the flicker. Of course that is assuming the flicker is what causes the eye strain (AFAIK it is).

Also, I've been sitting in front of CRT monitors for far to many hours a day for the last 14 years and I still have 20/20 vision. At work I moved over to LCD last year, though I have noticed no difference in how my eyes feel at the end of the day, so its really only desk space that I gain.

I guess its one of those things that varies a lot from person to person.

Re:Eyes

[ricotest]

Exactly. I've had an astigmatism in my eyes since I was very young, but an 85 Hz 19" CRT is fine for me. I've used it very regularly for 3 years or so without ill effects. On the other hand, for a small portion of that time the monitor reset to 60 Hz and I didn't realise. I began getting very severe headaches. Eventually I discovered it and changed it back, and my eyes became fine again.

Some people like yourself prefer 100+, some are fine with 60 Hz. It varies completely.

On the other hand, my new 17" TFT runs at 60 Hz and hasn't caused any problems because they don't flicker. I suggest them for games too, since the newer ones have very good response times and no visible ghosting (although, again, it depends who you are as some people notice it more than others). My only advice: don't dual screen a CRT and a TFT with different refresh rates, it seems to mess your eyes up if you focus on both :/

Re:Eyes

[danila]

I've always assumed that regular LCDs still were better than CRT because at least you don't have an electron gun deluging your face with radiation.

1) Modern CRT monitors produce a negligible amount of radiation.
2) Almost all of that radiation actually goes away from the back of the monitor in the opposite direction to you.
3) All displays emit a form of electro-magnetic radiation called "light". That's how you see objects on the screen.

Answering mfh's question, it's best to use an expensive LCD display. Test it before, a lot depends on the way your personal eyes work - different people would prefer different monitors. And make 5-minute breaks every hour. You can use these breaks to visit a toilet, eat a serving of fresh fruits or drink a glass of water. All these things (if done regularly) do wonders to your health. And don't forget about carpal tunnel syndrome and haemorrhoids. :)

Re:Eyes

[drinkypoo]

I have phenomenal eyesight, I don't know anyone who can see as far or as clearly as I can. If I am subjected to interlaced video I can tell immediately and it will give me a headache shortly thereafter. I don't think it's related to vision problems :)

Re:Eyes

[pz]

IAAVN (I am a Visual Neuroscientist). In our lab we have looked at the effects of CRT versus LCD displays on what's known as the early part of the visual system (retina, LGN, primary visual cortex).

If you accurately measure the luminance from one spot on a CRT screen at sufficiently high time resolution, it looks like a regular series of big spikes followed by exponential decay as the electron beam passes by during each vertical sweep. If the beam passes by sufficiently frequently, our visual system temporally smooths this uneven luminance into what we percieve as a solid image through an effect that's called flicker fusion. Most humans have a flicker fusion rate at about 30 Hz, but there's a broad distribution from individual to individual, and the transition between seeing something that flashes and something that's solid isn't abrupt (further, it depends on contrast ratio, which part of the retina, and a host of other things). But, this is why, in general, CRTs tend to appear to flicker when the refresh rate is at 60 Hz, but not so at 85 Hz or above.

When we record the response of individual neurons in the early visual system, the entrainment of activity to the vertical refresh is striking, and has been found even in higher order visual areas (well beyond the primary visual cortex) at refresh rates as high as 135 Hz with CRTs. In my work, I routinely see responses to 90 Hz flicker in the visual thalamus.

If you examine the luminance from an LCD in the same way, instead of big spikes followed by exponential decay, you see staircases as pixels changes from one luminance to the next through the presentation of whatever is on the display. Recording from early visual neurons in the same circumstances shows a vastly different response characteristic than for the same visual presentation made via CRT (as accurately as we can match it).

This physiological result jibes well with my personal experience that a 60 Hz refresh rate on a CRT is just this side of torture, and while 85 Hz appears solid, 100 Hz has a subtle *more* solid and more pleasant aspect to it. And, further, that any current LCD blows away even an ultra-fast CRT (we use 180 Hz at the upper end) in terms of image stability.

Bottom line: the scientific evidence suggests that unless you want your visual system to be pulsing at CRT refresh rates, get an LCD display.

Re:Eyes

[j3110]

LCD all the way

1) The screen doesn't flash at you. Take quickly exposed picture of your monitor and an LCD to see the effect. CRT's give a lot of people headaches.

2) LCD's aren't blurry at all.

3) LCD's don't use radiation and high voltage.

Other benefits:

45 Watts on my 19 inch. (Doesn't make a lot of heat either)
Doesn't bend my desk over the years.
Wall mountable.
More desk space.
Won't zap you with static electricity.
Perfectly flat.
Non-glare by nature (plastic, not glass).

I could go on probably forever. Best investment I have ever made. I can't wait for OLED, but I tried.

Re:Eyes

[Michael Spencer Jr.]

Excellent post, but it raises a couple of questions.

First, is it *bad* for our visual system to be pulsing at CRT refresh rates? What does that do to the body, both good and bad?

Second, how does the impact of a flickering CRT compare with that of the fluorescent lights already found in many homes and businesses? Will replacing a CRT with an LCD make any significant difference if the room you're in is already lit with fluorescent lighting?

Thanks again for the excellent post, and for looking at these followup questions...

--Michael Spencer

Re:Eyes

[pz]

While there isn't any evidence I'm aware of that pulsing is bad in the visual system (the classical notion that epilepsy is uncontrolled synchronous firing has been brought into question of late), and one of the prevaling theories is that synchroized activity is used to bind object characteristics (eg, color, position, orientation, identification), we do have substantial evidence that the visual system has been very highly tuned for the real world -- that is, with illumination which does not flicker.

Personally, I find that my eyes spend more time trying to microaccommodate (focus) on CRT screens than on LCDs.

Excellent question on fluorescent lighting. It turns out that fluorescent lighting isn't nearly as aggressive as CRT illumination in terms of being pulsed. There are three reasons for this, first fluorescent bulbs -- and we're talking about the classic long tubes, not the newer compact fluorescents which are completely different -- are driven by a sinusoidal current rather than an impulse like the CRT electron beam, so that the pulsation is of lower magnitude. Second, the phosphor on fluorescent bulbs is much slower than that used for CRTs, to help filter out even more of the pulsation. Third, fluorescent bulbs have an effective refresh rate of 120 Hz (both half cycles of the 60 Hz sinusoid activate the phosphor). However, not all fluorescent phosphors are made equal, and in countries where AC power is 50 Hz, you can often see the flicker.

So, to return to the question at hand, will using an LCD monitor make a difference given that you have fluorescent lighting in your environment? Yes, but not as much as if the lighting were incandescent. Is it still worth doing? I'd say so.

What do I personally do? (Does the dentist actually chew Trident?) I use 5 screens total in my professional and personal life, three are LCDs, and two are CRTs running at 85 Hz (this is discounting the screens used for experimentation). The illumination at work is stock institutional fluorescent bulbs which would be full-spectrum if the physical plant staff didn't automatically change them every N months, and at home there's a mix of full-spectrum compact fluorescent (which don't pulse at anything close to a perceptually relevant frequency) and incandescent. I much prefer the LCDs to the CRTs.

Well

[instanto]

The best of both worlds, but also the worst of the CRT World.

E.g Refresh Rate issues, Pollution, Power Usage.

Still.. a smaller 24" widescreen would be nice, since this Compaq weights around 44 pounds.

Re:Well

[amorsen]

I must admit that I find the amount of ignorance displayed by various posters to this article to be dismaying.

CRTs have better refresh rates than LCDs.

So what? You can run an LCD at 10Hz, and it will look just fine and not cause eyestrain. You may not have much luck playing Unreal at 10Hz, but then most of us don't make a living from playing Unreal.

Another thing going for the CRTs is that they can provide true collor every time while LCDs can only aproximate it.

CRTs have a different (and somewhat larger) colour range than LCDs. Even CRTs do not cover the whole range of colours that human eyes can perceive.

Thats why TV stations us CRTs for everything where you have to see what you are getting.

TV stations use CRTs for everything because they expect the end-user to use a CRT for viewing. If the end-user switches to LCD or something else, the TV stations will switch too. You optimize for what you expect to display on.

Re:Well

[RandomCoil]

CRTs have better refresh rates than LCDs.

Yes, but "refresh rate" has completely different implications CRT's and LCD's. The CRT recreates its entire display at its refresh rate: every pixel on a 75Hz screen *blinks* at 75Hz. Blinking at low ratees can result in significant eye strain.

The refresh rate for an LCD is simply how often it can change a pixel. LCD displays don't blink (well, unless you tell them to).

The only thing going for the LCDs is the Power Usage. Pollution has yet to be decided.

Using less power probably contributes significantly to pollution reduction.

Another thing going for the CRTs is that they can provide true collor every time while LCDs can only aproximate it.

This should be of huge importance to, oh, less than 1% of the market -- or whatever the percentage is that have color calibratiion devices for their monitor.

Not exactly flat

[MrPrefect]

says they are around 16 inches for the LG and 20 or so for the samsung, not excatly the same, but still might be worth it if they are a bit cheaper then the LCD's

Still pretty heavy

[jmcharry]

44kg is still quite heavy. I guess that will be one of the tradeoffs.

"Super-Slim"

[felonius maximus]

whereas the ultra-slim CRT developed by Samsung SDI has a depth of 417mm and weighs 44kg

Bugger me with a fish fork! That weighs as much as I do!

Re:"Super-Slim"

[muftak]

you weigh 44kg, thats under 100 pounds? what are you, an anorexic midget?

How does this work?

[LiSrt]

I assume it just means the electron beams are deflected at a greater angle and you have to be a bit more careful aligning the grille. Is that essentially it?

Re:How does this work?

[Ironsides]

There is also the problem of hitting the glass at the right angle to make sure that the phosphorus excites and emits light. The steeper the angle, the harder that is to do. You also have to shape the glass differently on the inside since you are playing around with the focal length. Finally the em fields that aim the electrons have to be able to change their direction to a stepper angle (not sure if that is the grille or not). So it's not just the gun and the grille. Its other stuff too.

Re:How does this work?

[stienman]

The electron beams (RGB) have to be deflected at a very severe angle right out of the gun, then they have to be redeflected to undo the angle so they hit the grille and phospher relatively straight. Chances are good that the grille and phospher coating is also carefully designed for an exact angle of entry for each pixel on the screen since the electrons will not only not be perpendicular to the screen, but the particular angle will be different for each pixel. The signals driving the coils are going to be very complex, but that's taken care of with high speed DSPs.

This is not new technology - they wouldn't be introducing this if it meant they'd have to change the tube manufacturing process more than a little bit. This is the last gasp of the CRT industry in order to use the leftover production capability of plants that have all but gone dark.

-Adam

thin?

[rdc_uk]

I don't know about you lot, but to me, while its less-huge than current CRTs, 16-inches is not "thin".

YMMV, obviously.

(from TFA: "A 30-inch-tube television from Samsung Electronics will be about 16 inches thick, deeper than a flat panel set but about the same size as the typical stand on a flat-panel television, a Samsung executive said.")

Re:thin?

[eliza_effect]

Well, considering my 19" Viewsonic(s) are 18.6" deep, I'd say it's quite an improvement.

Re:thin?

[spotteddog]

BTW: they're televisions, not monitors people.

Actually the loss in depth is from the CRT part. The electronics associated with it will determine the use of the thing (computer monitor, HDTV, regular TV, paper weight)

Clive Sinclair did it first

[Anonymous Coward]

Britain's Clive Sinclair made a TV with a flat CRT back in the early 1980s. Here is a picture: http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/images/tv80.jpg

"20% reduction" in power consumption = not bad.

[mopslik]

Thin CRTs offer the best of both worlds -- superior picture quality with a slim size.

Of course, one of the other bonuses of LCD screens is their low power consumption. Good for the electricity bill, and for Mother Nature.

At a 20% reduction, that comes out to between 80-90W, compared to 30-40W for LCDs.

Re:"20% reduction" in power consumption = not bad.

[Lumpy]

what kind of LCD's are you using???

I just looked at the back of the DELL 19" LCD sitting at the reception desk and it uses 22.8Watts

any LCD that uses 30-40 watts is horribly inefficient.

Power utilization...

[rusty0101]

Unless the people working on getting these crt's flat are also improving their power draw so that they draw less than an LCD, I personally am not interested.

How's about a little thinking..

[Ancient_Hacker]

" Thin CRTs offer the best of both worlds -- superior picture quality with a slim size. " I wouldnt call a 20% reduction, from 51 to 41cm deep , a "slim" CRT, nor worthy of Slashdot coverage. And they're probably compromising on something-- I'd guess they're going to lose a bit of convergence near the edges.

I want one!

[mrjb]

Now I can have a flat screen, and still keep my radiation tan!

Viva la Valve, Long libe the Vacuum Tube!

[Sai Babu]

"CRTs are not going away anytime soon," said Riddhi Patel, an analyst with researcher iSuppli. "They will account for 70 percent of the market in 2008."

I wonder if these employ thermionic emmission, electrons hopping off sharp points, or ???

Any /.ers in the know? There was no tech info on at either referenced site.

I am curious because there may be life left in the CRT rebuilding industry.

I worked in CRT rebuilding plant one winter while in High School. Excepting myself, a high school friend, and an old half blind splotchy looking guy (he ran the hydroflouric acid etching machine) we were the only people who didn't run for the warehouse and hide in boxes whenever the INS appeared.

Dangerous work. Closest I've ever come to immolation. Thank you to whoever invented the dry chemical fire extinguisher!

Re:Viva la Valve, Long libe the Vacuum Tube!

[ajlitt]

I imagine they do. I don't think anyone's found a more cost effective way to make an e-beam than to boil electrons off a needle. Magnetrons, x-ray tubes, and other such devices do it the same way they have since they were invented. I'd imagine you could make a good chunk of change if you could find a way to do it more reliably.

On a side note, the 'short' CRT is interesting in that a thinner tube means that you can get away with a lower acceleration potential, which is probably why they're rated as more energy efficient. I don't know if this also means a lower beam current can be used, but if so then the x-ray emissions should be lower, resulting in less glass and lead required in the tube itself.

Ganja

[felonius maximus]

Smoke more weed, I've heard from reputable scienticians that it's good against Glaucoma.

Priceless

[Schwing84]

Money saved on reduced cost CRT's $20. Money spent on replacing eyes from radiation...priceless

Re:Priceless

[Anita Coney]

If I wasn't blind from glaucoma, I'd offer a pithy rebut to your slander against the CRT!

/. is Missing the Point

[JavaMoose]

You are all missing the point! These are going to have excellent uses in the LIVING ROOM. The Samsung-SDI model is 32in, and they have a 42in and 50in on the way.

The 32in is estimated to be $1000 retail and is ACTUALLY 1080i, not like the 'take 1080 and make 720" game that Plasma monitors play.

Sure, as COMPUTER monitors it ain't all that great, but these have signifigant advantges over Plasma and LCD in the living room.

Weighed in the Balance...

[Headw1nd]

This still doesn't beat what, in my opinion, is one of the greatest advantages of other flat displays, weight. I like the concept of a display I can tote myself without fear of a hernia, or more likely, dropping the damn thing. The CRTs mentioned still weigh in at 49 and 44 kg. A slightly larger (37 in) plasma display would weigh in at around 25 kg, and a LCD at less than 20.

Going hand in hand with this, I really like the concept of wall mounting, something even these "thin" CRTs wouldn't be capable of.

Super-slim compared to Michael Moore. :-D

[TheConfusedOne]

It's marketing speak. 417 mm = 16.4 in

So it's "super-slim" compared to a current huge, "fat" CRT but is a real porker compared to an LCD or Plasma screen.

Re:picture quality

[Anonymous Coward]

additive color model instead of a subtractive, black isnt true black on a lcd

Re:LOL, depends what you mean by thin...

[atta1]

the 17" LCD on my desk measures over 9 inches when you count the stand, so another 7 still doesn't come close to the depth of a traditional CRT. I'm in this market.

Re:LOL, depends what you mean by thin...

[GodsMadClown]

They are targeting LCD TVs. Samsung evaluated the physical needs of the market, and decided that 30 CM deep was what was needed to fit the average space. Plasma and LCD have much different characteristics than a direct-view CRT set:

Price. Try to find a decent looking (720p or 1080i) plasma for less than $2000. Samsung is targeting a ~$1k pricepoint on these new thin(er) CRT sets. LCD Tvs of comparaple size are even pricier.

Lifespan. If I'm going to drop $1-2K on a TV, I want the damn thing to last 10 years. CRTs have proven lifespans measured in the decades. Plasma screens tend to go tits-up all too frequently at the 3-5 year mark. LCD screens (being solid state) should have fine lifespan. Unless the backlight has problems.

Image quality. Plasma screens are very much on par with the image quality of CRTs. Blacks are black and they are very viewable at many angles. LCDs have problems with portraying a truely convincing black, and the viewing angle can be a problem. Direct-view CRTs have the disadvantage of being an analog technology, depending on a decent DAC implementation for digital inputs. However, they give great brightness and viewing angle, with deep blacks. They do need to be calibrated correctly, so the cost of a technician might be factored in. At the very least, a $30 calibration DVD is in order.

It's all about choices folks. I, for one, am looking forward to the pricing pressure this new CRT tech will exert on the market. I still have a SDTV. I'd love to get a decent HD set.

Re:picture quality

[MemoryDragon]

In LCDs you have the 50/60 Hz flickering of the background light, the next problem is the switching time/color tearing, which only recently has become a sort of neglectable issue, also there are still somewhat problems with color calibration. Ok all this problems will be solved soon, but the LCDs are still not fully there (even my own Sony X-black although better then most of the other LCDs still has somewhat disadvantages over a good CRT)

Re:picture quality

[rdc_uk]

Refresh rate.
Colour reproduction.
Viewable angle.
Brightness
Contrast
Difficulty to knock over :)

SED - the new 'killer app' in TV and monitors?

[bullet_tooth]

SED (Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display) panels. These are a new flat panel developed by Toshiba and Canon which are as thin as a plasma/LCD but allegedly produce picture quality on par with a CRT. read here:- http://www.physorg.com/news1295.html and http://www.engadget.com/entry/5732841184005838/ (picture and article illustrate that these TVs are already in production). I believe these are slated for a release in 2H 2005.

Re:SED - the new 'killer app' in TV and monitors?

[Thagg]

I've been following the SED technology for quite some time. It seems to be finally moving from the labs into production. In this article, Toshiba and Canon announce the creation of a company to begin producing the displays, with limited production in 2005, ramping up after that.

SED displays are CRTs, after a fashion. They have electron guns that fire modulated electron beams through a vacuum at phosphor screens. As such, they have the brightness, color purity, and response rate of regular CRTs. What is different is that there is an electron gun for every pixel, instead of just one that is scanned across the screen. This allows the screen to be flat and shallow, and gives the geometric flatness and sharpness usually associated with LCDs.

This was attempted before with a slightly different technology, and went by the acronym/buzzword FED, for Field Effect Display. As this article points out, there was tremendous anticipation of this technology quite some time ago, they were planning to go into production in 1996. FED's had an array of tiny, very sharp needles behind the phosphor screen. Unfortunately, the production and maintenance of this array of needles proved to be next to impossible.

SED's use a much more producable and durable semiconductor array of electron guns. The technology of creating large, dense arrays of semiconductors on substrates has been developed and perfected by the LCD process, so I feel that there is hope this time around that the machines will actually be mass-produced on the aggressive schedule that Canon and Toshiba have laid out.

The first generation of SED's, it is claimed, will unfortunately not have the resolution that would make them good for computer displays or home TV's, as the spacing of the pixels will be somewhat large. They'll be used for business displays of various kinds. But, in the not-too-distant future (three-to-five years) Canon and Toshiba predict that SED's will come to dominate TV and monitor production.

We'll see.

Thad Beier

Best of both worlds?

[oneiros27]

Did anyone look at the stats on the Samsung site before claiming this?

a roughly 20% reduction in depth, and a 10% reduction in weight. (mass, weight, whatever, I didn't do so well in Physics).

100mm is less than 4 inches. It's still 417mm deep -- that's over 16 inches... and 44kg? That's almost 100lbs.

So, the great break through is that you won't have to punch out the back of whatever cabinet you're trying to put the TV into. You'll still need help moving it so you don't throw your back out, and still need some sort of cabinet to put it in, as it's not light enough to be directly wall mounted without some reinforcing first.

I'm not saying this isn't a improvement, but it's not any real breakthrough -- things have been getting smaller for years. They'll continue to get smaller.

LCD's blacks

[glsunder]

I recently bought a 19" 16ms LCD monitor to replace my failing 22" NEC fe1250. It's wonderful, except the black. Absolute black (#000000)actually seems a bit lighter than the shades that are a bit lighter (say, #050505). The other benifits make up for it, but there's no way I'd pay $1000+ for an LCD TV if that's normal for LCDs.

Re:picture quality

[Anita Coney]

The only reason a CRT flickers is because the user is too stupid to correctly set the refresh rate!

Yes- I do know

[purduephotog]

The best system for eyestrain is one that incorporates the entire room lighting environment. You don't say how long you want to code, but looking at high contrast imagery requires subdued background lighting that matches your monitor.

CRTs generally deliver the Lmin (lowest brightness level) and an almost good enough Lmax (Colour CRTs don't hit the high range, unfortunately).

Basically no numbers because I'm not sure what's proprietary, but I'd tell you to choose CRTs hands down.

The LCD model that pretyt much every cheap LCD follows is innapropriate for large hours in front of the screen. The impulse that describes how the light appears to your eyes isn't the way your brain is designed to view things- the image doesn't 'decay'.

So if you light the wall behind your computer evenly with about, say, 2x15 watt bulbs from about 10 feet off, that should be sufficient illumination (note the rest of the room is dark) to keep your eyes in a 'relaxed' state. Your monitor should be out of cutoff (deep blacks) so that your eyes stay adjusted to the whole range. The bezel itself could be painted grey, but that isn't critical.

Help any?

There is no challenge here.

[Dystopian Rebel]

I just bought an LCD monitor, the second that I have ever owned.

VERY easy on the eyes (CRTs be damned); 16ms response time; 35w power-consumption; excellent colour; 4 year manufacturer's warranty.

I don't know how life is where you are, but I find that electricity is becoming quite expensive. And I don't want a CRT firing at my face from less than 0.5m away.

Re:Game play

[flewp]

Yep, this will be really nice. I've contemplated picking up an LCD monitor for a secondary display. The way my desk is set up though, a second CRT would be like 2 inches from my face, so this should be nice. I'm in the graphic design business, so while LCDs are nice for browsing the web and anything non-graphic intensive, they still just don't come close to a good CRT monitor for my needs.

Re:Ganja -- It's True!

[Ride-My-Rocket]

Smoke more weed, I've heard from reputable scienticians that it's good against Glaucoma.

This man knows what he's talking about. I've been smoking weed since forever, and I'm glaucoma-free!

What you can do with a TV

[tepples]

what else would you use a monitor for? Can you use things that are not attached to a computer??

For one thing, you can use cheap proprietary computers that play only games signed by the computer maker. For instance, the "GameCube" computer has some innovative titles with gameplay that PC developers wouldn't dream of touching. You can also subscribe to a hundred or more streaming video feeds for $50/mo or even pluck about four or six feeds from the air for free (unless you live in the UK, where TV-less households take a tax deduction).

1080i vs. 720p

[tepples]

when i'm watching a 1080i broadcast, it still looks better than ESPNs 720P broadcasts

True, interlaced will look better for slow-moving shows such as NBC Nightly News and Law & Order, but progressive will look better for fast-moving sports such as those shown on Walt Disney's ESPN, as you won't get artifacts where the boundary lines seem to break up when moving at the same speed as the interlace.

1080i != 540p

[iceperson]

There are still more lines of resolution using 1080i than 720p. Fact: you can not get as clear an image on a 720p set as you can on a 1080i set. If you want to argue that programming with lots of fast motion looks better on a 720p set then that's up for debate, but stating 1080i is equivalent to 540p is just wrong.

More expensive otherwise

[tepples]

OK, granted, it's cleaner than lead-acid, but are you implying a claim that the Ni-MH battery manufacturing process has significantly less detriment to the environment than the petrol that a hybrid car saves? What about the cheaper non-environmentally-friendly products that the buyer must substitute in other areas of his or her life in order to afford a hybrid in the first 20 years that hybrids are on the market? Compare $19,800 for a Honda Civic Hybrid to $13,160 for the conventional sedan, and remember how expensive VGA LCDs were when they first came out.

Don't feel bad

[Hoi Polloi]

According to Samsung's press release they give an example of a 32 inch screen. The numbers they give show only a 10% reduction in weight and a 20% reduction in depth, not bad but not enough to justify dumping your current CRT if it is running well.

Candescent

[Skjellifetti]

A company named Candescent Technologies tried this a few years ago. They had backing from HP and Sony IIRC. I saw one of their demo screens. The color saturation was fantastic, there was no fading as you moved off to the side, and there were none of the ghost artifacts you get from LCDs when stuff on the screen is moving rapidly. Unfortunately, Candescent was poorly managed and is now in Chapter 11.

Superior Picture Quality - LOL

[darkstar101]

Thin CRTs offer the best of both worlds -- superior picture quality with a slim size.

What planet are you living on. Maybe for watching porn CRT's are better because the color is more, um, vibrant. For real work, coding, hacking, chatting, or anything where you have to look at words on the screen, LCD's blow CRT's away. CRT's are fuzzy. Every pixel that is on bleeds into the surrounding ones. Staring at them for any length of time causes eye strain as you are constantly trying to refocus on the blurred out text. LCD's are sharp. So sharp that some people coming from CRT's had problems with the text, so text Anti-aliasing was born.

I bought the cheapest 19 inch LCD out there 2 years ago at compusa for $299. Compared to other LCD's it is crap. Compared to CRT's it totally rocks. Unless your watching fast action video, but then that's what the dual head graphics card is for...

My experience comparing cheap LCD's to mid range CRT's is that it is much easier on the eyes to work for extended periods on an LCD.

Re:Superior Picture Quality - LOL

[arose]

Because graphics aren't real work, right? Neither is video montage apparently...

This seems to be Candescent Technologies flatCRT

[gwizah]

It appears that Candescent Technologies ThinCRT technology is behind this. They filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and sold all their IP to Canon. If you read this article You'll notice that the first name that comes up is Canon. Canon is using the acquisition to get into the display market from the looks of things. I had been wondering what had happened to ThinCRT since reading about it here on Slashdot.

[OT] Re:Power?

[dave420]

You can hear that sound too? Not everyone I know can... I can tell when there's a TV on in adjacent rooms, or even when I walk past a house/building with one near the front. Annoying. I used to share a house with some people, and when they'd use my projector, they'd leave the TV on, but without the composite cable in the back. Of course, the sound from the TV drove me crazy, but my housemates would sit there for hours before I came home and turned it off :-P strange...

Re:There is no challenge here. - I Challenge Thee!

[amorsen]

You get more radiation from a 25Watt incandescent light bulb.

Incandescent light bulbs don't create X-rays.

Re:picture quality

[pedestrian crossing]

I used to think the same thing, being very happy with my LCD. I saw the comments from "graphics professionals", and wrote them off as typically overly-futzy artist-types.

Then I bought a digital SLR.

Snapshots, ok fine. But trying to work with low-contrast images or to try to prepare anything for printing, it became a frustrating guessing-game with a low success rate.

I love my LCD, but it is far from ideal for working on photos.

Thank Fuck

[tarsi210]

The phrase "everyone likes sex" can be reinterpreted to the workplace in a similar form, "everyone likes desk space". When you have lots, it's great. When you don't have lots, it's still better than nothing.

But while that's the case, having desk space isn't nearly as valuable to me as not having my eyes flayed by an LCD scratching them for 9 hours a day, thus, I stick with CRTs. I value my space -- but not that much. I value my eyes more.

I was hoping that the industry wouldn't give up on the tube and figure out a way to get the best of both worlds, and hopefully this is it. I assume we're not losing other things, such as dot pitch and refresh rate, with this invention, so it should be a win-win situation.

I dunno. I assume there are people out there using an LCD panel for long hours of staring and don't feel the same effects. That being said, I know people who don't think monitors running at 60Hz flicker (esp. when coupled with floro lights). I suppose it's all in the eye of the beholder (yuk,yuk).

Re:Thank Fuck

[diamondsw]

It's very individual. When I was using a 21" CRT for years, my eyesight was moving out a full diopter per year (now at -8.0). Once I moved to an LCD, my eyesight stabilized, and my headaches went away.

So, some people do much better with CRT's, some with LCD's. Glad to have both!

HE SAID LCD!!!!

[ductormalef]

"I bought a 19" CRT at WorstBuy for $189 4 years ago"

It is so nice of you to compare apples to oranges for us. As far as I can tell, $400 for a 19" LCD monitor is a very reasonable price.

Re:There is no challenge here. - I Challenge Thee!

[freeze128]

Incandescent light bulbs don't create X-rays.

You are, of course, correct. The light bulb doesn't create X-Rays, and a CRT does.

But...
The X-rays generated by a CRT do not come hurtling towards your face. They are emitted on the same plane as the surface of the display area. They don't get too far, because there is shielding inside the monitor's enclosure. If you disassemble your monitor, and look at the SIDE of the CRT (in a way that you would not be able to actually VIEW the contents of the display) for long periods of time, you might actually get some x-rays.

So, don't do that.

Oops! - NM

[ductormalef]

Boy is my face red :)

Re:picture quality

[spleck]

An LCD makes it possible to actually see the individual pixels. ... In what way can a CRT image be considered superior?

You answered your own question: Resolution. Most large screen DLP, LCD, Plasma, etc TVs have at most 800 scan lines, usually just enough to do 720p and meet the HD spec (some only meet EDTV). That is why you can see the pixels. They're bigger.

Compare to many HDTV CRTs now which are available with true 1080i capability (1125 scan lines on many). Also compare the cost of a CRT capable of 1600x1200 or 2048x1536 with an LCD capable of those resolutions.

I use a 19-inch LCD from Dell at work and its excellent for static work (not involving color accuracy), but for a TV with high motion, you can't beat a CRT.

Color accuracy / calibration

[Iluvatar]

Actually, for graphics work where color accuracy does matter, CRTs still seem to be the choice.

Copying from, e.g., the NEC/Mitsubishi site on color calibration:
"All CRT and LCD monitors require calibration for accurate color-critical work, but some are easier to calibrate than others. Based on the current core technologies, CRT monitors are able to display a wider color space than LCD monitors and deliver more consistent brightness uniformity throughout the screen. For these reasons, CRT monitors can more easily be calibrated. LCD monitors also exhibit limitations in making adjustments in brightness, backlight color temperature, contrast and black level. Nevertheless, advances are quickly being made, utilizing different backlight designs to improve the calibration capabilities of LCD displays."

Ever wonder why all pro monitors for graphics work (meaning, those that come with an integrated colorimeter) are still CRTs?

Color accuracy aside, I find most LCDs too tiring (even with brightness/contrast turned almost all the way down). I've only recently seen LCDs I'd swap my CRT with, but these are stil quite $$$$. In any case, this is a matter of personal preference (maybe I have too sensitive eyes?).

2560x1600, 30"

[r00t]

Apple has you beat, with a 2560x1600 LCD.

Black is black, color is accurate, pixels are sharp, and video bandwidth is not a problem.

Your CRT has massive problems displaying fine vertical lines. Try test to see just how bad your CRT is.

Re:CRT bandwidth test

[r00t]

If it were an optical illusion, you'd see it in the
other image when you rotate your head. You don't.

In a CRT, there is a grid of holes or slots that
masks the colored phosphors. Each pixel projected
onto the screen will hit a good number of these
holes or slots. It's not even an integer number.
The beam is in no way aligned to the mask, and it
is not even sharply defined. (it's Gaussian)

Suppose we measure pixel size in terms of the
number of holes or slots that the pixel fall on,
and we find that 3 pixels span 10 slots. Let's
assume the beam lines up neatly otherwise, to
keep things simple. With 3 pixels of the test
pattern falling on 10 slots, you can have one of:

a. black,white,black
b. white,black,white

Well, the "white" in one case isn't the same as
the "white" in either of the other two cases.
The beam is hitting non-integer numbers of slots.
One case may be more magenta, and the other case
more green. So you get a repeating pattern of
green and magenta.

Depending on how things line up, you can get the
whole test pattern tinted oddly, vertical lines
of color, or a sort of honeycomb pattern.