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?
I still have my 10 year old sony and it works fine :)
-- pravin
Too few technologies have the -tron suffix nowadays. It works with everything, so why not use it? This is the future, dammit!
Can someone explain to me why geeks fall in love with their gadgets despite the flaws? Aren't we smarter than being brand loyal sheep? Hey I'm sure there were some great Trinitrons but there were also some very defective units shipped from what I've read. I only ever owned one - a 15" computer monitor that's lasted almost 15 years and is still working at my mother's house but on its last legs. It was the most expensive monitor I've ever owned and was greatly surpassed in quality by a cheap (at less than half the price) CTX 17" monitor about 3 years later. There are plenty of bits of equipment that are classics because they don't get outdone, but for me this monitor isn't one of them. This is just about blind brand loyalty and the triumph of modern marketing over common sense.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
They were stabilising wires to prevent the aperture wires from vibrating in the presence of loud sounds, which would cause the image to flutter and distort temporarily.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
You're right, these are "features", and if you had got a trinitron screen without them, I would have been very surprised.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitron#Visible_Support_Wires
c++;
I remember the day when I got my first Nokia monitor with Trinitron technology.... The screen was heavy and took a lot of space, but hell, the quality of the image was just incredible for that time... My games never looked so good.... Gotta love Sony.
Rip...
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
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
Yes there where two visible lines, but (for me atleast) if you was actually concentrating on the job at hand, such as coding you never noticed them. To me having a much sharper display with less eye strain was worth it.
My 19" was the last Sony product I ever purchased, their LCD screens just seem expensive and not much better than the competition. I guess they do not manufacture their own panels.
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.
"...too later fall under the weight of plasma and LCD technologies."
As someone who just bought an LCD TV and is trying to figure out how the hell he'll get his 250lb 38" Hi-Def Sony CRT to his sister 400 miles away, I find this statement just a little ironic. The damn thing weighs more than most people.
Though, I also have translucent diagonal lines that run across the screen that remind me of a CRT projector than needs its edges blanked. And the pincushioning has always been off. And on a cold day, I have to turn the contrast waaaaaaay down to keep it from shutting itself off. But aside from that, best $20 I ever spent.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Sony won't cry over dumping Trinitron for a long time, but eventually the videophiles will be paying the kinds of money the audiophiles are, for home theater with the greatest CRT technology. If it's not derived from ideas used in Trinitron, I'd be surprised, which would leave Sony to wonder why they didn't go for it first.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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 never understood why so many people loved their shiny Triniton monitors. Don't get me wrong, the technology made for GREAT televisions, at least at standard PAL and NTSC resolutions (and typical viewing distances), but as a high-resolution monitor, the two lines(*) across totally spoil it for me. It's like buying a shiny new LCD and having not just one bunch A LOT of dead pixels right smack in the middle third of the display.
I've accidentally ruined the experience for at least a few new Triniton owners who had not previously noticed the lines. When someone points them out to you, it's apparently quite hard to ignore them again. For me, the lines were always just too much of an annoyance.
(*)For anyone interesting in knowing *why* there are these fine lines across a Triniton display, but not on most other conventional CRTs... go read up on aperture grille vs shadow mask. I was going to whore myself for some informative karma, but the Wikipedia article with images shows it better than I can tell it, so go read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_grille
The fine lines are shadows cast by "tension wires", necessary to stabilize the hundreds of vertical wires that make up the aperture grille. Shadow mask CRTs don't require these tension wires because they don't have the vertical wires (or strips). Instead, basically a bunch of holes are made in a sheet. This results in:
- More stable display (sheet with holes in it versus wires or thin strips).
- Slightly more accurate geometry (greater symmetry)
- Less overall brightness (the sheet with holes blocks more of the electron beam, resulting in a "duller" image).
- No shadows from tensioning wires
The last point is, of course, the kicker... and the reason why Trinitons make for awesome TVs. In a computer monitor, however, the brightness isn't needed and the drawbacks of Triniton technology outweigh the benefits, IMNSHO anyway.
In a Triniton TV, the tension wires are basically impossible to spot from a normal viewing distance. On a large Triniton computer monitor with high resolution and a good graphics card (good DAC), the wires are basically impossible NOT to see.
I would think that if you didn't have this then the answer would be no.
Trinitron tubes are still in use by pro video editors as monitors. My school's visual arts program uses trinitron tubes as monitors (besides two large LCDs used for the actual editing, timelines, etc), and with good reason: CRT technology is STILL just plain better than LCD tech for a couple tasks.
280 million Trinitron displays equals how many billion tonnes of lead and other human-unfriendly substances?
These products are dead and (soon to be) buried but they're not going anywhere. Rather than being mildly nostalgic we should take this as an opportunity to look forward to the next generation of displays and ask ourselves the questions that really matter; what impact does the manufacture have, what happens to these materials once they reach the end of their short life, do these valuable materials really need to be entombed forever?
I don't want a Sony Trinitron cocktail when I take a drink from the tap!
The Trinitron
Be dead and gone
Though large and dense
As beard, no defense.
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
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 forgot about that noise too! And the "fdooiiinnng" when you degaussed it.
And they made some interesting clicks and pops too when you changed resolution, sometimes to the extent that you wondered if you were about to be showered in exploding glass.
Jeez thanks a lot folks! I've got a 20" Dell Trinitron that I've had for LONG time (still just as beautiful and crisp as ever). Never thought of those 'wire' lines as a problem or, more importantly, ever really notice the damn things. Until now.
The year under the Watchman should be 1982 not 1992.
I _love_ that fdooiinnng! SUPER DEGAUSS POWER!
And the doinkzzz when I power it on is just so badass!
*hugs his 19" Trinitron*
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
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
Few Sony inventions have had the same gravitational pull as their Trinitron display technology...
That's because a Trinitron weighed as much as a small neutron star...
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
Well, those are reasons why it failed. After 35 years of Sony trying to push this technology on us, they're finally giving up. Yet another failure in the same line as Betamax, MiniDisc, UMD, MemoryStick, PlayStation 3, etc. I don't give Blu-ray more than 35 years either...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
they make a REALLY great noise when you smash them. *sigh* I miss working in my schools electronics lab.
-I only code in BASIC.-
I own a 19 inch professional / optically flat / CPD-G420 Sony Trinitron monitor and paid about $700 new for it in it's time. Sure it's heavy and sucks up some desk space but the image quality is amazing for a monitor. Runs at an insane 1440x1080 @ 90 Hz. I've had people comment that it seems like an LCD if you don't notice the size of it. I use it heavily for photography work. I think sadly most folks believe a CRT is terrible because they've never owned a high end series CRT.
Nowadays to get an equivalent LCD I'd probably need to sink my money into a +$1000 NEC professional LCD panel which is still weak on the response speed. (With LCDs usually fast panels mean poor colour and vice versa). I still haven't made the switch yet because I'm not too thrilled about paying more for less in some senses. And while an LCD may use less energy, I'm not so certain that the actual switch is good for the environment either. I remember reading a few years back that if you don't need to upgrade then don't because the environmental damage to build the new equipment is pretty extensive. (Not to mention disposal).
As a side note my dad got a 32 inch FlatTube Wega Trinitron TV for $350 on sale a month ago. For that price you can't even get an equivalent Plasma or LCD. It weighted a tonne to get it home but wow, is the image quality unbelievable. I'm personally sad to see this technology go. I still think LCDs or Plasmas are a compromise. Until OLEDs or even the patent burdened SED if ever becomes mainstream, I think we'll loose out on image quality.
It wasn't just for vibration damping.
The heating caused by the electron beams hitting the aperture grille would cause the grill wires to expand slightly. If they weren't mechanically fastened together, the grille would warp out of shape enough to cause problems with convergence and purity.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
"The sets were both dense and large."
I"M dense and large, you insensitive clod!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Got 2 Trinitron 21" tubes on my desktop at home & work. Wife has one also. Got the 3 at home used, dirt cheap. People giving them away because they got their LCDs.
Personally I prefer the image on CRTs over LCDs. They are great for CAD & IMO gaming as well. Plus I require the screen to be the same distance from my eyes so the only thing an LDC buys me is clutter space behind the monitor.
So keep buyin your LCDs & I will keep a lookout for people dumping their Trinitrons! Now if I can only find the storage place for all these monster monitors....
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
...when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Or when it craps out, whichever comes first. I've had a 21-inch Diamondtron (Gateway-branded) since 2002, and it continues to be the best monitor I've ever seen in terms of picture quality. It's the first CRT I've ever owned that could display fully-black blacks AND appropriately bright colors without having to manually change contrast levels. I barely notice the little gray wires; unless the screen's displaying something fully white I can't see them at all. LCD/plasma displays are still coming into their own. Plasmas have problems with burn in and are dreadfully expensive, and LCDs have lousy black display, but these problems are phasing out. Still, I won't be giving up my 60lb behemoth until it gives me a good reason to.
The Trinitron was:
;o)
1. The first TV I noticed had better everything that most others, if not all. Better picture, better glare / reflection resistance, better stability, etc.
2. The first TV I aspired to buy. It took a long while, but in 1995 it happened.. after a few Toshibas and Sanyos.
3. The last TV I had. When I went front-projector with lcd, I sold the 35" trini to a co-worker, who still uses it.
4. The densest, most massive thing per given volume I've had the "pleasure" to move.
The Trinitron is what I'll think of, when I think of an old-school CRT tv.
You shall be missed. But only in the nostalgic way. These days I don't measure my screens in inches, I do so in feet
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
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.