Slashdot Log In
Obituary For the Sony Trinitron
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Mar 04, 2008 05:49 AM
from the chrome-parts-shining-in-the-sun dept.
from the chrome-parts-shining-in-the-sun dept.
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."
Related Stories
[+]
Walkman Creator Leaves Sony 89 comments
Gammu writes "Nobutoshi Kihara, the engineer behind the Walkman, has left Sony. In the late seventies, one of the co-chairman of Sony, Morita, requested the audio division create a portable tape player capable of playing his operas while he was on transpacific flights to the US. After less than a year, the Walkman was released to the public and revolutionized the music industry. Read about the development of the first Walkman at Low End Mac."
[+]
Hardware: Sony Debuts Razor-Thin Flexible Display 135 comments
Mike writes "Sony Corporation has put online a video of their new flexible 2.5 inch display. The display can be bent in half, is full color, and is apparently relatively inexpensive to make. This could be used in hundreds of cool new products, as well as enhancing thousands of existing products. In fact, it's hard to see where this kind of display wouldn't be used, especially in portable consumer electronics. 'The display combines Sony's organic thin film transistor, or TFT, technology, which is required to make flexible displays, with another kind of technology called organic electroluminescent display, it said. The latter technology is not as widespread for gadgets as the two main display technologies now on the market - liquid crystal displays and plasma display panels. Although flat-panel TVs are getting slimmer, a display that's so thin it bends in a human hand marks a breakthrough ... "In the future, it could get wrapped around a lamppost or a person's wrist, even worn as clothing," said Sony spokesman Chisato Kitsukawa. "Perhaps it can be put up like wallpaper."'"
Submission: Obituary: the Life of the Sony Trinitron by Anonymous Coward
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Memories (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Memories (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Memories (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Memories (Score:4, Funny)
Pffft.
Parent
Re:Memories (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
Parent
Re:Memories (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Memories (Score:5, Informative)
The same cannot be said about their computers which are deliberately designed to fail soon after the warranty has expired. I had to deal with a batch of Vaios my old company bought before I joined and all of them developed spurious keyboard problems over the years. Guess why - the keyboard was located right on top of a huge permanently hot heatsink. Once I disassembled the first one it became obvious that the kbd membrane within 2 years was grilled into a crisp.
Parent
Re:Memories (Score:5, Informative)
Trinitron is dying because CRTs are dying, and Trinitron is the brand of a patented CRT tube design. Sony's new "quality" brand is Bravia.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
X-itron (Score:5, Funny)
Re:X-itron (Score:5, Funny)
Hey! Don't give anyone any ideas!
// pipatron
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:X-itron (Score:5, Funny)
TP: Wipatron
Cup: Slurpatron
Lightcycle: Tronatron
Parent
Re:X-itron (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
All those years and we're still sentimental fools (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All those years and we're still sentimental foo (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:All those years and we're still sentimental foo (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:All those years and we're still sentimental foo (Score:5, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org]
Parent
I want tougher LCD's (Score:5, Interesting)
Those two lines vs eye strain (Score:5, Informative)
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.
My Sony Trinitron TV is still going strong (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Sumo TV (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Sumo TV (Score:4, Funny)
Whatever you do, don't enlist someone who's drunk several cans of lager to help you carry it. My mate did just that and had a 32" Trinitron dropped on his foot moments later. If it wasn't for the concrete floor I think the telly would have continued toward the centre of the earth along with his foot.
I've got a Trinitron portable from sometime in the eighties when I got my Spectrum computer and it still works perfectly to this day. I used to change channels using a pool cue next to my bed as it was before the days of remotes. Eeee them were't days.
Parent
Unintended Ownership (Score:3, Funny)
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.
CRTs (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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 t
Tipping my hat and a moment of silence. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Really
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
That's why I paid a bunch of extra $$$ for something better than your run-of-the-mill Dell/Samsung/etc LCD and bought myself a NEC 20WMGX2 display, using an "Advanced S-IPS" panel instead of all those TN (you'll find those by their 2 ms refresh rates and inaccurate color reproduction) or PVA panels completely littering the market. I was particularly sold on one by the review claiming it to be the best CRT replacement he had seen yet.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm wondering whether it's even possible to get better results. I don't know enough about the technology to offer a comment, but I've yet to see a LCD that, despite all it's super keen advantages over CRTs, didn't have something that "wasn't quite right" about it.
Notebooks scre
Triniton monitors sucked (Score:5, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org]
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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Because they rock! I am a graphic designer and photographer.
My last CRT was an IBM P78 I think, using the Trinitron tube.
Here's why I loved it:
Like others, I caved in and got a fancy LCD (I brought my lapto
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I still use my IBM P200 (with 13w3 connector!) day in day out, I know about the wires, and I don't se
Still in use for Pro Video (Score:3, Informative)
Where did they all go? (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:Where did they all go? (Score:5, Funny)
Do you live in some weird universe where 1000 ton Trinitron's roam the landscape and hunt down Magnavox's for breakfast?
Parent
Ancient Trinitron (Score:3, Interesting)
Gravitational pull is right. (Score:5, Funny)
That's because a Trinitron weighed as much as a small neutron star...
not bad 4 a technology invented to avoid a patent (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Obituary for the 2 horizontal lines (Score:5, Interesting)
I've also got a Diamondtron-based monitor (a supposedly licensed version by Mitsubishi, although I was always under the impression that they made it after Sony's patent ran out). The faint lines (two in this case) aren't distracting in themselves under normal use. However, they *are* a minor nuisance when you're using Photoshop and you have to check to see if it's a genuine scratch on the image or just one of the bars.
I'm not sure what you mean by "they got more obvious with time", though. In what sense?
Parent
Re:Obituary for the 2 horizontal lines (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, it's *relatively* heavy and moderately bulky, but that's not the same problem with 14" portables as it is with those horrendous large-screen CRTs. I'd pay to have my TV repaired over one of those cheap LCD portables any day. There's something I just hate about the look of them, particularly the matt-finish ones.
Yeah, I know it cuts down on reflections, but it just looks horrible for TV, and I don't like the colour on cheap LCD TVs. Maybe the way CRTs work sits better with (and covers up the flaws better than) cheap LCDs when used with existing standard-def TV signals- that could be because until recently most displays were CRTs, and the system was designed with that in mind.
Whatever.... that Sony's a damn good TV, even when (*especially* when) used with my digibox's RGB SCART signal.
Parent
Re:Obituary for the 2 horizontal lines (Score:5, Informative)
We bought an HD CRT tv a few years ago. 34" widescreen weighing in at 200 lbs. We're always tempted to get a wallmountable plasma or LCD, but we do watch some standard-def TV every once in awhile, and you're right, standard def TV is pretty much unwatchable on the panels (IMHO). And the CRT we have gives a better picture than the plasmas and LCDs...black is, well, black, no "effects". HD is wonderful and standard def is watchable.
But if you want to buy it from me, you'll need to hire your own crane.
Parent
Re:Obituary for the 2 horizontal lines (Score:4, Interesting)
Cheap flat-panels have fewer of these tricks implemented, and generally keep the bit depth low to reduce data bandwidth and allow cheaper components in the electronics, so their color reproduction is not very good.
It's common for people to assume that flat-panels are better than CRTs in every respect. It's simply not true. They are better in terms of size, weight, sharpness, and (usually) power consumption, but CRTs are better in terms of color and frequency response. Moving to flat-panels involves trade-offs, as does pretty much everything, it's just that popular opinion is that these trade-offs are worth it, even if they don't consciously realize they're being made.
Parent
Re:It's true. (Score:5, Funny)
Be dead and gone
Though large and dense
As beard, no defense.
Burma Shave
Parent
Re:It's true. (Score:5, Funny)
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...
Parent
Re:It's true. (Score:5, Funny)
I"M dense and large, you insensitive clod!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And the doinkzzz when I power it on is just so badass!
*hugs his 19" Trinitron*