CRTs any point?

TempestSabre

We don't watch enough TV to warrant spending 2k on a TV. But I do want to get a widescreen TV to watch DVD's on. Because they are now very cheap I'm very tempted to buy a mid range widescreen CRT, 24/26" for the bedroom and 28/32 for downstairs. Alternatively I may get a small widescreen LCD/monitor and hook it up to an old PC's to use a DVD/PVR. Can't decide which way to go. Any thoughts?

byte

I still love CRT's but then, I'm possibly in a minority now. The likes of Sony no longer make Trinitrons anymore which is a shame.

Of what's left I'd consider a Panasonic Tau, or maybe a Samsung Slimfit 32" CRT (some of the newer Slimfits have HDMI port).

thebaz

out of curiosity , does a CRT give better quality than flat screen ?

Idleater

thebaz wrote:

out of curiosity , does a CRT give better quality than flat screen ?

define the "quality" you mean.

If you mean picture quality, then from a HD source, a HD LCD/plasma will be better purely because there are more lines and more pixels so the image is of better "quality".

If you mean moving images from frame to frame, then arguably the "quality" drops with LCD/plasma with slow refresh rates. I don't think this really applies to most sets now as the GtG of most sets is now <8ms.

If you mean quality of the overall experience of watching on a TV, then there are also reportedly some lip sync issues with some LCD/plasma because their internal scalers were not able to cope with the amount of information changing from frame to frame, and since there was no such delay processing the audio, it appeared that the speech was there before the words were uttered.

etc etc

L.

thebaz

Thanks -- i was thinking of getting a flat screen, i have a 15 in wide screen CRT , and apart from this pink blob that appears from time to time, it is ok , just a basic black diamond -- they have serviced it and still pink blob occurs at times -- but i'm easily pleased and will live with

byte

thebaz wrote:

Thanks -- i was thinking of getting a flat screen, i have a 15 in wide screen CRT , and apart from this pink blob that appears from time to time, it is ok , just a basic black diamond -- they have serviced it and still pink blob occurs at times -- but i'm easily pleased and will live with

15" inch Widescreen CRT?

The pink blob sounds like issues with degaussing - ie the tube is not getting demagnetised. Or the tube could be banjaxed.

The Bollox

thebaz wrote:

Thanks -- i was thinking of getting a flat screen, i have a 15 in wide screen CRT , and apart from this pink blob that appears from time to time, it is ok , just a basic black diamond -- they have serviced it and still pink blob occurs at times -- but i'm easily pleased and will live with

Black Diamond suck ass, we got a 28" there about 2 and a half years ago and it broke twice on us, it broke the third time on Tuesday and we ****ed it out, got a JVC I think it was

mossym

nereid wrote:

define the "quality" you mean.

If you mean picture quality, then from a HD source, a HD LCD/plasma will be better purely because there are more lines and more pixels so the image is of better "quality".

.that depends on the crt..a HD RPTV will likely do 1080 lines of resolution..more than most lcd/plasmas out there

Ciaran500

But hes not talking about a RPTV.

thebaz

byte wrote:

15" inch Widescreen CRT?

The pink blob sounds like issues with degaussing - ie the tube is not getting demagnetised. Or the tube could be banjaxed.

it has been degaussed - twice -- the tv was then replaced , but the "pink blob" still apears (not continually), in the same place (mid to right corner) -- it is irritating , but i can sort of live with it -- it was a complete pain to get tv replaced, so not sure if i want to go though that hassle again with Power City ..
Maybe i should save up and get a flat screen , that why i was curious of this thread flat V CRT .

delly

As a Philips owner, I would have a look at these to see if you could find something you like. If I could find one, I'd probably upgrade my 32" CRT to a 36", but Philips don't have them any more.

dalk

The only advantages that LCD's & Plasma's have over good old CRT is physical depth and the availability of models that are HD ready (only 1 HD Ready CRT available in Ireland i think?).

Unless you are willing to pay big money, in my opinion the picture quality on most LCD's & (especially cheap) Plasma's is poor. I just don't like them. I especially dislike the lack of true black and motion blurring...:eek: They are a step backwards from CRT as far as picture quality goes.

I'm waiting until SED's and/or LED LCD's are available and reasonably priced (which will be a long time) before i buy a flat panel TV.

TempestSabre

Most of the LCD's & Plasma's I see are unimpressive. Usually because they are demo'ed with poor quality source material. I've seen some TV's with proper HD sources and they look great. But they tend to be every expensive TV's, 3-4k+ and to be honest there isn't enough quality content even in the current formats to warrant that kinda spend. For me at least. If you are rich big brother fan then I'm happy for you.

Idleater

TempestSabre wrote:

Most of the LCD's & Plasma's I see are unimpressive. Usually because they are demo'ed with poor quality source material. I've seen some TV's with proper HD sources and they look great..

I agree about the display TV image quality, but on the flip side, if they showed HD material on it saying "yeah, wow look how clear the picture is" and you took it home and plugged NTL into it and most certainly you would not get the same quality picture that you saw on display.

I think the bad display on the shop floor is actually a good benchmark because you can guage what the picture will look like worst case rather than best case.

This is particularly evident on the better screens compared to the budget screens. You can see that with the same bad source, some screens show a clearer image than others - that means that it will display better quality signals nicer for you when you get it home.

L.

byte

thebaz wrote:

it has been degaussed - twice -- the tv was then replaced , but the "pink blob" still apears (not continually), in the same place (mid to right corner) -- it is irritating , but i can sort of live with it -- it was a complete pain to get tv replaced, so not sure if i want to go though that hassle again with Power City ..
Maybe i should save up and get a flat screen , that why i was curious of this thread flat V CRT .

Emm, the TV will degauss itself every time it's switched on. THere is a degaussing circuit in all CRT TV's. Do you ever switch the TV off at the power button? Some TV's may not degauss if you only put the TV into standby and never power it off and on fully. Not totally sure on that though.

As regards Philips W/S TV's I wouldn't buy them myself. I've seen a fair few that are only 3-6 years old having faulty CRT's and processors.

thebaz

byte wrote:

Emm, the TV will degauss itself every time it's switched on. THere is a degaussing circuit in all CRT TV's. Do you ever switch the TV off at the power button? Some TV's may not degauss if you only put the TV into standby and never power it off and on fully. Not totally sure on that though.

.

because of the problem , i usually turn on and off using power button, the problem is particularly bad on old dvd's , particulary on sharp bright colours , like bright pink, and then blob stain appears . i did well to get a replacent tv from power city , but problem returned with new set . I think it is a problem with all black diamonds for this model MD21PFS, but funnily eneogh mitsubishi deny this !! apart from this problem i am happy with tv, i suppose you get what you pay for, as it was cheap !!

gamer

Unless you have skyhd, or an xbox 360,you cant use a hd tv, my advice get a good32inch, widescreen crt for downstairs ,get 1 that has outputs for external speakers, stay away from mitsubishi black diamond tvs.Get flat screen tvs upstairs too,crt type.maybe you can get 1 with dvi/ hdmi port.

pnh

dalk wrote:

The only advantages that LCD's & Plasma's have over good old CRT is physical depth and the availability of models that are HD ready (only 1 HD Ready CRT available in Ireland i think?).

Unless you are willing to pay big money, in my opinion the picture quality on most LCD's & (especially cheap) Plasma's is poor. I just don't like them. I especially dislike the lack of true black and motion blurring...:eek: They are a step backwards from CRT as far as picture quality goes.

I'm waiting until SED's and/or LED LCD's are available and reasonably priced (which will be a long time) before i buy a flat panel TV.

I have been reading these kind of comments now for several months and I was
filled with some trepidation when I finally took the plunge and bought a 32"LCD a week ago.
How would I live with all this motion blur and a whole myriad of flaws that I had read so much about.
I have lived with this set for a week now and we are very happy with each other.
There are two things I have learned this week about these flat screens.
1) SOURCE 2) VIEWING DISTANCE
1) If you feed it a decent signal -be it NTL/Dish and you got a good picture on your CRT-then you will get a good picture on an LCD even on ordinary analogue.
2) I sit around 6 feet away from this 32"-and cannot see any of the so called flaws I see so much written about.Closer and a little blurring becomes evident but nothing to worry about.
Sit close to a CRT screen and you will see flaws.So if you have a good source and want an LCD have no fear-go for it-and dont believe much of the rubbish written .From a happy LCD owner.

dalk

pnh wrote:

I have been reading these kind of comments now for several months and I was
filled with some trepidation when I finally took the plunge and bought a 32"LCD a week ago.
How would I live with all this motion blur and a whole myriad of flaws that I had read so much about.
I have lived with this set for a week now and we are very happy with each other.
There are two things I have learned this week about these flat screens.
1) SOURCE 2) VIEWING DISTANCE
1) If you feed it a decent signal -be it NTL/Dish and you got a good picture on your CRT-then you will get a good picture on an LCD even on ordinary analogue.
2) I sit around 6 feet away from this 32"-and cannot see any of the so called flaws I see so much written about.Closer and a little blurring becomes evident but nothing to worry about.
Sit close to a CRT screen and you will see flaws.So if you have a good source and want an LCD have no fear-go for it-and dont believe much of the rubbish written .From a happy LCD owner.

I should have made myself clearer. Cheap LCD's in my opinion look awful when compared to a CRT of the same value... Thats the only point i was making.

Thats not to say that their are not good LCD's, there are plenty. But they are very expensive relative to CRT. And for that money you are not getting a 'better' picture than CRT but a comparable picture.

So for me the only advantage an LCD has is its physical depth and that there are more models available to play HD content...

pnh

Yes I take your point about price and probably cheaper LCD particularly older models-they are improving these all the time.
I really wanted to nail some of the stuff I have read on other sites about LCD where really they had me believing I was mad to touch LCD.I can now clearly see that too many of the problems are attributed to the TV rather then the feed into it.
I get a superb picture on BBC1 from NTL-on ordinary analogue-but BBC2 is not good-but guess what the same applied to my CRT-so the problem is not the TV but rather with NTL possibly.I have also learned that things like bandwidth and compression also come into it but there it starts to get a bit to techie for me.
But overall I make the point again-do not believe all you read on the net-if you want LCD and have a good source -go for it-I am actually very surprised at how good it is.