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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."
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.
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)