Slashdot Mirror
Obituary For the Sony Trinitron
An anonymous reader sends us to Gizmodo where, to honor the passing from production of the Sony Trinitron, they've done a timeline on the development of television. "After 280 millions tubes sold, Trinitron will be officially dead this month. Few Sony inventions have had the same gravitational pull as their Trinitron display technology... Trinitron became synonym of the best quality TV sets and computer monitors in the planet... Sony became the king of TV, with more than 100 million sets sold by 1994, to later fall under the weight of plasma and LCD technologies."
That's the one thing that bothered me with trinitron monitors as they got more obvious with time.
My first First Post?
My sony monitor is from 1993 and it is still working. In fact, I am looking at it right now, typing this post.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Bitch about CRT's all you want, God knows I do. Those bastards are heavy, awkward, and should never be larger than 17". I had an old 21" I lugged around. Madness!!! But they were durable. You could bludgeon a hippo to death with one and it would still work. LCD's? The damn screens are too fragile. Put a layer of glass over the front for protection, I'll accept the weight penalty.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
This piece of home electronics was engineered and built phenomenally. Not a single problem in 11 years. The picture is great, too.
Since I can't really tell the difference by watching high definition video on HD TVs and normal DVDs on my set, I don't think I'll be upgrading anytime soon.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
thats nothing we've got an old sony tv thats at least 25 years old now, picture tube still working great (gain is only up half way) and its had at least a hundred thousands of hours viewed on it.
As a "diehard CRT fanboy" I'd like to pay my respects.
About 9 months ago, I finally caved in, I fought tooth and nail to the bitter end, from forum to forum across the web, valiantly defending the honour of CRT vs LCD in the great debate, I held on long, much longer than most of the die hard CRT junkies, there's few of us left.
I am a man who had slowly given up PC gaming I finally bit the dust, accepted a good price for the sale of my old 22" trinitron (philips 202P40) and accepted the new Dell 2407 WFP HC model into my life also at a great price, it was a combination I couldn't refuse.
Sure I loved the desk space saved, I loved the crisp text in the native resolution, hell even in games I didn't mind non native resolution honestly, once you're playing, it doesn't matter.
Also the monitor was appealing to look at, it came with USB, CF, SD and other such ports, it was sexier, it was lighter etc etc!
Still.. to this day as a die hard CRT fanboy, I can not use that Dell 24" LCD in dark (DARK!) games, like Doom, like Oblivion, the black levels, despite what the 'forum people' tell me! are STILL not good enough.
I seriously do not exaggerate for a second, when I say widescreen Oblivion, the sides of the monitor - with it's huge width, tight viewing angle and so on, combined in to the 'perfect storm' of shimmery, nasty black levels, which made the walls in the caves of Oblivion quite honestly impossible to look at.
I felt as if 'sleep' as in my eye - I was constantly rubbing it to get the shimmery light sappy stuff from my eyes out.
Obviously though... it wasn't really in my eyes to begin with.
I love my LCD for so many reasons but for so many others, I still hate it.
Co-incidentally the night of this news article, it's in a box behind me now, being re-sold to someone else.
Sure I'm typing this on a 19" LCD but I don't intend to play games on it, I'll wait for something with REAL black levels, with REAL viewing angels, something actually, genuinely superior to the CRT I so foolishly sold for my the LCD.
(100hz at 1600x1200 no less!, it was a good CRT!)
Yes CRT has it's flaws, yes it's heavy, no it's not ultra crisp but that almost gives it a 'free AA' feel to be honest
Sure they are rare now but if one feature hasn't been surpassed it's by far the black levels, by a long, long way!
When you can plonk me down, in front of a widescreen LCD and I can say the picture surpasses my old CRT - then I'll be a happy man.
So long trinitrons, alas - we knew thee well.
try more than an average of 16h a day :) (though most of that was in its prime)
I sat down at a Hot Desk this morning and my late arrival meant that all the desks with the pristine 19" NEC LCD screens are gone. The monitor on my desk is a 21" Sony Trinitron in the off-white that old PC plastic goes.
The picture quality is awesome and I get around the two lines problem by taking my glasses off and sitting further back from the monitor. Plus I forgot about the "doinkzzz" noise you get when you fire a CRT up.
I still have an old 17" Trinitron monitor which I use for an elderly PC hooked up to a weather station. Just for fun a few weeks back I hooked it up to this PC, alongside the LCD monitor: I was amazed at how vibrant the whole thing was, the reds in particular were really vivid. I just has to fire up Doom for some old-school action - it's just not the same on an LCD panel.
It'll all become irrelevant in the next decade or so anyway, as people will forget what a CRT monitor could offer. I don't plan to throw that Trinitron monitor away though, not as long as it still works anyway! Maybe in 2018 I'll be able to wow people by showing them what we used in the dark ages...
I'm the opposite. I have always hated CRTs. Black and white CRTs were moderately high quality, but were monochrome, and used rounded tubes that distorted the picture. Colour CRTs, even Trinitrons, have always had lousy picture quality with the masks or aperture grilles and scanlines being clearly visible even several feet away, with flickering, and the same problems as monochrome with rounded tubes.
When we went shopping for an HDTV, as we were looking for something around the 32" mark we took a look at the 30" Samsung (?) CRT flatscreen widescreen TVs, as well as the 32" LCDs. There was no contest. Despite the theoretical improvement in resolution (the 30" CRTs were 1080i, as opposed to 768 lines for the LCDs), the picture quality was obviously worse. The LCD we bought was $50, cheaper, 2" larger, and the quality was clearly higher. It feels like we're watching a cinema screen: I've never met anyone who can genuinely say that of a CRT. In some ways it's too good, MPEG artifacting was clearly visible from our SD Dish Network box, Dish Network clearly compressing the crap out of the signals to just about cover what an off-the-shelf CRT will show and no more. It's like listening to music, compressed via GSM because it was intended to be transmitted down a phone line, on a high end receiver.
I'm really unsure what to make of the attachment many people have to colour CRTs. I was so glad when alternative technologies like LCD and Plasma started being seriously viable for this kind of thing. I'm looking at my LCD now. The picture is gorgeous. No scan lines. No little dots or colour stripes visible. Perfectly flat. Perfect colour. Showing an HD signal. Beautiful. And it's far from the best, far from the best, LCD can offer.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I have a 20" Sony Trinitron I acquired used 21 years ago. The picture is still great. My wife keeps hoping it will die at some point so she can buy a better-looking TV for the bedroom, but it refuses to die or degrade. It is proof you can build good, reliable, lasting technology if you want to.
TLR
A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
I feel obligated to post at this time:
Although my fiance and myself have given up cable (Family Guy is broadcast, w00t!), she comes from a family where the TV is just ON. I hate it, but the typical procedure for 5 years ago went like this:
6AM - Dad wakes up, turns on TV, watches weather and traffic report, leaves TV on, takes shower
7AM - Dad checks TV again for report, Mom wakes up, views report on TV (report is discussed between Mom and Dad), takes shower, Dad leaves for work
8AM - Mom fixes breakfast (and lunch) for kids (who watch cartoons), gets ready for work.
9AM - Kids watch TV until time to leave, leave, mom takes them (leaves TV on)
10AM - Mom comes back, views weather/traffic, finishes getting ready for work, leaves for work, TV is turned off
2PM - Mom comes back from work, turns TV on, watches soaps, eats potato chips
3PM - Mom picks up kids (leaves TV on), takes kids home from school (kids watch Simpsons or whatever)
4PM - Mom watches something on TV, cooks dinner, Kids play games or HW, or whatever
5PM - Dad gets home (dinner better be on the table!), TV is on news while dinner is consumed
6PM-9PM - TV time with family, smoking, leisure time, possible do some home repairs (TV stays on, don't worry)
9PM - dessert (watch a movie?)
10PM - kids go to bed, Dad stays up and watches news
10PM-12AM - Dad falls asleep while watching news, Mom wakes him up at midnight to get him to come to bed, turns TV off.
So, the TV is off for 10 hours, daily (6 hours during the night, 4 hours as both parents work). 14 hours of TV, daily. No, I am not kidding at all. Yes, her parents smoke, drink, and lounge about the house gaining weight and killing themselves. Sadly, I am not kidding.
PS - weekends are actually worse, TV is on for 18 hours (6AM to midnight). Also, 2 years her mom quit her job (she doesn't like working), and added those 4 hours back in for a total of 18 hours daily. It is not even fair to compete under these circumstances.
PSS - the TV is on during Christmas (in case you wondered)
Trinitron was invented to avoid paying royalties on the original shadow-mask design. They ended up with a cleared, brighter picture than the original.
I suppose nowadays somebody that didn't invent anything would have patented "sending TV pictures in colour" and everyone would have had to pay royalties to them.
10 years? That's nothing.
I still have my 1985 Sony Walkman Sport (the yellow water resistant model) Both the Cassette player and the radio still work, and I still have the fully functional headphones that came with it. (The yellow and gray "sideways earbud" ones)
That thing got SO much use when I was in HS. I couldn't bear to throw it out, even after CD's replaced the cassette completely, I held onto it. (besides, I still have a cassette collection that has some albums I couldn't find on CD!) When I moved recently I found it in a box of high-school momentos, perfectly preserved. Amazing that it survived as long as it did. I dropped the thing at least once a week back in HS.
Even older, I have a 1975 transistor radio (I forget the manufacturer right now) that runs on AAA's and still works fantastically! The old stuff worked the best. Newer stuff breaks WAY too easily. I guarantee, 10 years from now, when the first 15 generations of iPods and iPhones are filling landfills (or being properly recycled) my old transistor radio and my old Walkman will still be working.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
actually my sister has hers on 24/7.She has been paralyzed for several years now and it freaks her out for the house to be "too quiet".Mom doesn't mind as the shows help keep sis from getting depressed,and since I don't have to live with her I say anything that keeps her spirits up is great.There are a lot of lonely people out there and for them the constant chatter of television seems to help.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Still do. So what?
I have 3 of them on my desk. LCD colour sucks seriously and unless you spend a lot more than I'm prepared to spend on a car you are not going to get colour accuracy. I used to print colour photos for a living so this seriously matters to me. I get the screens from unwise design places for nothing when they ditch them for usually nasty cheap LCDs so I'm not about to run out of them.
Most standard res TV is unwatchable in terms of content, let alone display - I do not own or want a TV set. However, I find standard PAL TV unwatchable on large LCDs as it almost makes my eyes bleed. Nor is my eyesight up to silly resolution LCD screens - I own a 1600x1200 16" screen Sony laptop which i cannot read anything on till I turn the resolution down to something sensible or up the display font size to something silly. Or wear glasses.
Still have a Sony radio that I use every day as i have done since i bought it in 1984 (ICF7600D). Cost more than a large colour TV at the time and has been worth every penny. Now there is nothing made by Sony, other then their Ericsson designed phones, I'd even consider buying - i got given the laptop.
The Trinitron was great - I've never, ever been bothered by the wires. Never seen a Daimondtron I liked though. there are a few in the garage for the day that everything else fails.
RIP Trinitron.
Come to that: RIP Sony, you used to make great stuff.
obviously, there are still companies making vacuum tubes (for guitar amps, audiophiles, etc.) but was the crt the last vacuum tube on which serious r & d money was still spent?
when i think of mainstream and state of the art electronics (retro stuff notwithstanding) i can't think of any modern electronic devices that use vacuum tubes except for the crts found in computer monitors and televisions. this announcement seems to be mark the end for the vacuum tube - this is not just the passing of what was once the best video display technology, but also the final passing of the vacuum tube, once used in every electronic device ever made including the first digital computers.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.