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CRTs Still Beat Flat-Panel TVs
mr.henry writes "Consumers scrambling for sexy new flat-panel televisions may want to tune in to this less-publicized feature of the trendy boxes: They don't deliver pictures as clearly as traditional tube TVs do. Consumers think they're buying the best in technology (with flat-panel televisions), but it's more of an emotional purchase."
Seen the Best Buy commercials? How about Circuit City? Or maybe a cable or satellite company?
The thing I like most about the new LCDs and Plasma screens is that it makes the CRTs less expensive...
I don't mind the bulkiness because I get bonuses: Cheaper price and (not just according to this article, but personal experience) a better picture...
but flat panels still look so cool...
People (especially ladies) like the flat screens because of their super slim depth, massive picture size, and amazing light-weight.
Show me a 60" CRT -- and if you can even find one, find a rec-room it would fit in, and try and lift it!
Sam
The warm fuzzy feeling alone that you get when you hang on TV on your wall like a picture I think makes up for the lower picture quality.
:)
Although if you got an old-style TV, I guess you could replace your table with a pile of money and break even
unzip ; strip ; touch ; grep ; find ; finger ; mount ; fsck ; more ; yes ; fsck ; umount ; sleep
The issue isn't resolution or viewing angle.
This article is rather nebulous when it comes to support for its wild assertions. This paragraph sums it up:
"LCDs are great as desktop PC monitors because they don't have to refresh pictures rapidly--more LCD desktop monitors were shipped in 2004 than those using CRT technology, according to researcher iSuppli--but they don't work as well when used as televisions. Plasmas tend to lose brightness over time and don't offer images as sharp as those served up by CRTs. Manufacturers are working to improve these shortcomings."
First of all, LCD refresh rates are now excellent. Modern units can do better than the 25ms refresh time of yesterday's screens. Besides, that adds up to 40fps, which exceeds TV's ~30fps.
Furthermore, later on in the article they point out that flat panels are better for digital because they can deal with the higher resolutions of HDTV. Now how can a CRT have better picture quality than plasma, but plasma have a better resolution making it better for HDTV?
The fact is that this article is all hype. It's trying to portray the manufacturers as trying to squeeze every last dollar out of honest Americans through lies and chicanery. Well I call foul.
I go down to the local electronics store all the time, and the difference between CRT and LCD/Plasma is seen quite clearly. In fact, the best picture comes from the projectors, which are by far the best price.
are you telling me that "Regular Ol' TVs" are better than flat HDTVs?
No, they are telling you that HDTV's made with CRT technology (The huge, heavy boxes) display a better picture than the thing plasma or LCD screens. The article is pointing out -- quite rightly -- that general consumers have associated "thin" with "high tech and good picture."
In fact, if you have the space, you can buy a sizable CRT HDTV for a relatively affordable price. Not cheap, but something an average consumer could afford if they were willing to sacrifice a bit.
On the other hand, I believe this trend has continued because people genuinely really do like the thin, lighter screens.
Like it or not a television is one of the most dominant objects in a many peoplees homes. They don't want it big, bulky and ugly.
One theory I read awhile back was that there has always been a significant number of wealthy men who wanted to go buy a big screen televeision, but were basically restrained by their wives who didn't want the huge ugly beheamouth in their living room. Sure, that flat screen costs twice as much, but now the wife says go for it because its not ugly.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Cnet has nice article on FED screens using carban nanotubes
Something about retiring a 60 lb behemoth for a seven pound monitor.
OLED will be what finally displaces CRTs-- the picture quality is supposed to improve dramatically with OLED, and the viewing angle (IIRC) becomes a non-issue. As they emit their own light, they don't need heavy backlighting which reduces both weight and depth, and the production costs are much cheaper on OLED as compared to LCD.
Hopefully in another 2-3 years (5 tops) we'll see these out in the mass consumer market at competitive prices.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Well, ignoring for the moment that the post was about televisions rather than monitors...
Awhile back, I replaced my old Hitachi Superscan Elite 19" in my home office with a pair of Princeton 19" LCDs from CostCo, mounted on arms. They are each bigger and clearer than the Hitachi was. My home office runs much cooler (my overhead lights no longer dim momentarily when I turn the damn things on!). I don't have to worry about throwing my back out when I move things around. Though I have 2x the monitors, I have significantly more desk space because the arms float them above the desk.
The kicker? They only cost $1000. I paid something like $600 for that CRT, years ago. Likewise for the 17" Viewsonic I had before that - and I'm sure you paid more than $500 apiece for your 21" monitors 7 and 8 years ago! [Much more, if I remember pricing from those days correctly.] Sure, today I could get a decent 19" CRT for $200-$250, but if I was willing to pay many times that for decent kit a decade ago, why not today?
While I'll be the first to admit it was tempting to save a few grand on a cheaper TV, I decided to go with a digital display, The 52" Mitsubishi WD-52525 DLP, and here's why:
- Digital displays have a lot of the newer bells and whistlers RP CRTs don't have. HDMI and DVI ports, CableCard support, IR blaster, individual color management, etc. While I was considering RP CRTs, I thought about how I might run out of good inputs to use and need to buy a switch box, for example. Or how I'd still need a cable box to watch digital channels.
- Weight and size. I currently live with my parents and plan on moving out within the next year or so. My TV is one of the larger digital displays, but considering it weights 100 lbs versus the same size on a RP CRT weighing in at 250, it'll be a lot easier to move.
- Maintenence. I didn't want to have to call up a tech to fix convergence issues on a RP CRT every few months or a year. While auto convergence is nice, it's really a half-assed job.
There are some good arguments for buying a RP CRT, mainly cost. Picture quality is arguable. Sure, a calibrated RP CRT kicks the shit out of pretty much every digital display out there, but the problem is paying $1,000+ for that quality configuration negates the cost benefit, not to mention it's not a one-time only cost and requires maintenence, which is even more money. And what you also need to keep in mind is that 90% of the people don't see the slight differences between a TV with default settings or hours of configuration. A better survey would be seeing how many people still have all their settings at the halfway point and contrast boosted to the max.
As much as this can create some benefits for those of us who are poor (like dual g4's with 512mb ram on ebay for $400), they cause a lot of problems in the market in places where the goods are a little bit more necessary.
Take food, for instance. I would very much like to buy organically grown, chemical and gmo free vegetables (which my grandfather was able to buy when he was my age), but because those have become yuppie foods, they're priced out of my price range. There's no reason that veggie burgers should be more expensive than real burgers, where you have to raise a whole damn cow as opposed to growing some soybeans, but because they're trendy, people pay a lot of money for them.
The "stupid rich" create benefits for things like technology, because they offset R&D costs when the company overprices when it first comes to market. But for goods that I feel everybody deserves the highest quality, they really make life difficult.
DLP's are not nearly as expensive as Plasma displays, which do not look nearly as good.
I've sold them for a long time now, but I've never thought they had NEARLY as good of a picture as a CRT. And the next closest in the larger sizes is DLP, by far. LCD and Plasmas always look very pixellated.
I've always thought it was pretty obvious, but maybe not.
Blake
#Turning Economics Lecture Mode ON#
The reason veggie burgers are more expensive is not too much demand from those yuppies, but just not enough supply from producers. There isn't a big supply because there isn't a big demand at any price. Most people prefer real meat.
To get the economies of scale needed to provide cheap veggie burgers, a lot more people would need to want to eat veggie burgers.
As to your Grandpa getting cheap "organic" food, my guess is that relative to his income, his "organic" food was more expensive than your organic food is relative to your income. Food prices have declined sharply over the last century.
evanchik.net
The article is pointing out -- quite rightly -- that general consumers have associated "thin" with "high tech and good picture."
In the same way, they think that electronic voting machines must be better than other methods.
Those fancy Princeton 19" LCD's still max out at 1280x1024. Look at LCD's in the 1600 range, and you'll see the prices double. And have fun playing down-res'd games. Of course, my NEC MultiSync 21" goes up to 2048x1536, but can play games at 800x600 if I need the high framerates, yet only cost $550. Go figure.
"Yeah, but try moving it around!" you might retort.
How often do you move around your screen? Twice. When you move in, and when you move out. Big deal. If I wanted a portable screen, I'd have to get a portable computer as well. We call those laptops.
Where do you live that has a 50% tax on TV sales?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I recently got a 15" Sharp Aquos. The picture quality compares very favorably with the Sony Wega TV I have. I have a Dell 19" LCD monitor. I don't get nearly as fatigued looking at it because I can't discern any retrace flicker.
In the 80s, I worked at RCA's TV set design facility. I became sensitive to video quality there. I just don't agree with this reviewer's assesment. CRTs are definitely less expensive, particularly for larger screen sizes but I like the LCD's picture better. There's less power dissipation and heat with LCD sets. They're lighter and take up less space.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
eye strain's caused by lots of things - in my case it was usually the high voltage charge on a 21" CRT screen surface firing dust particles into my eyes 8 hours a day, drying out my contacts and making me feel like i'd got low-grade flu 5 days a week. swapped to an LCD and no problems since...