CRTs Still Beat Flat-Panel TVs 686
mr.henry writes "Consumers scrambling for sexy new flat-panel televisions may want to tune in to this less-publicized feature of the trendy boxes: They don't deliver pictures as clearly as traditional tube TVs do. Consumers think they're buying the best in technology (with flat-panel televisions), but it's more of an emotional purchase."
Why flat-panel TVs are selling. (Score:3, Insightful)
Seen the Best Buy commercials? How about Circuit City? Or maybe a cable or satellite company?
Re:Why flat-panel TVs are selling. (Score:5, Insightful)
1)they take up far less space, its a big deal believe it or not. Its why I got a flat panel for my computer and why many people buy flat-panel tvs. The less space a device takes up, the more space there is for other things and the less cramped the room looks. and speaking of looks....
2)They look damn sexy. Remember, these are living room pieces and you want them to look good. This isnt a piece of hardware you stuff under the desk, its displayed prominently in most peoples living rooms. In short its like furniture and people want it to look good.
3)The awe value, i.e. your friends walk in and go ohhhhh-ahhhhh.
make sense now?
--Anubis
I'd like to come over. (Score:3, Funny)
Where do you live? Do you have stairs in your house?
Expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't mind the bulkiness because I get bonuses: Cheaper price and (not just according to this article, but personal experience) a better picture...
but flat panels still look so cool...
Re:Expensive (Score:2)
The boxes may look cool, but having seriously investigated buying one a few months back, I was shocked at the image quality on plasma TVs. I'd rather keep my little 14" CRT in the corner of the room than blow 1,000+ on a 32" plasma screen where the image quality actually sucks in comparison.
Now, LCD-based technologies are a whole different matter. Curiously, they also seem to be quite a lot cheaper than plasma-based units right now, at least here in the UK. Go figu
Re:Expensive (Score:5, Informative)
2. As someone have mentioned before, you can pay twice as much money for the LCD screens of high resolution. The strange part is, the cut-off resolution for which flat screen becomes a luxury. Searching in price engine shows following:
cheapest 1024x768 LCD: $~300 (KDS Radius RAD 5gs)
cheapest 1280x1024 LCD: $~400 (Samsung 713V)
cheapest 1600x1200 LCD: $~1000(!) (Viewsonic VP201b)
cheapest 1920x1200 LCD: $~2750 (Samsung 243T)
cheapest 1920x1440 CRT: $~300 (Samsung DynaFlat 997DF)
Is the technology of eliminating dead pixel on LCD _that_ expensive? It looks like it, until I discovers when upgrading LCD screens on notebook, the price differential is much smaller when jumping between resolutions:
Stock Dell Inspiron 9200 w/ 17 inch Ultra Sharp WXGA+ screen (1440x900): $2079
Stock Dell Inspiron 9200 w/ 17 inch Ultra Sharp WUXGA screen (1920x1200): $2279
The resolution difference is even bigger than Viewsonic VP201b vs Samsung 243T, and yet it costs only $200 more instead of $1750. Why the hell companies keep on overcharging on higher resolution screens?! If they want people to buy new technology, they should just make stand alone monitors with extra resolutions on smaller screens, instead of forcing consumers to buy 20/23/30-inch monitors just to get the same damn resolutions!
3. Marketing practices aside, the competing flat panel technologies (LCD, [Organic|Polymer]LED, plasma, DLP) means that manufacturers can't concentrate on bringing down the cost of flat panels in general to the point of replacing existing CRT user base, especially for high-res models.
Re:Expensive (Score:3, Insightful)
I've never understood why this FUD is perpetuated so frequently. Empirical evidence shows that LCD screens give far worse eye strain than CRT screens (except for the case where your alignment is out -- in which case, fix it!). It's one of the reasons why I'm sticking with CRT for the forseeable future. Flat screens just aren't there yet.
Re:no (Score:3, Informative)
Well you might get eye strain from a CRT, you've hit on none of the possible reasons.
a CTR doesn't "fire" dust into your eyes, a CRT give the glass a charge that ATTRACTES dust. There is no truth to that at all and you should be modded down for that sigle statement.
Eyestrain with a CRT is almost always caused buy a huge resolution on a small moniter and/or a low refresh rate.
60-100hz and my eyes can't take it, but 1040x768 at 140hz no problems at all, AND i wear conta
Re:Expensive (Score:4, Informative)
Is this surprising anyone here? (Score:5, Funny)
Emotional purchases, indeed. "Yeah, but this one goes up to eleven!!"
Not necessarily emotional (Score:2)
People like my uncle (Score:2, Interesting)
He also thinks "mid engine" on his Boxter means the engine is still in front of him, just not all the way up to the bumper. He justifies this by pointing out the washer fluid reserves and whatnot as being part of the engine.
Re:People like my uncle (Score:3, Informative)
Re:People like my uncle (Score:5, Insightful)
Take food, for instance. I would very much like to buy organically grown, chemical and gmo free vegetables (which my grandfather was able to buy when he was my age), but because those have become yuppie foods, they're priced out of my price range. There's no reason that veggie burgers should be more expensive than real burgers, where you have to raise a whole damn cow as opposed to growing some soybeans, but because they're trendy, people pay a lot of money for them.
The "stupid rich" create benefits for things like technology, because they offset R&D costs when the company overprices when it first comes to market. But for goods that I feel everybody deserves the highest quality, they really make life difficult.
Re:People like my uncle (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason veggie burgers are more expensive is not too much demand from those yuppies, but just not enough supply from producers. There isn't a big supply because there isn't a big demand at any price. Most people prefer real meat.
To get the economies of scale needed to provide cheap veggie burgers, a lot more people would need to want to eat veggie burgers.
As to your Grandpa getting cheap "organic" food, my guess is that relative to his income, his "organic" food was more expensive than your organic food is relative to your income. Food prices have declined sharply over the last century.
I vote for CRT, for now (Score:5, Interesting)
I have been tempted many times by the sleak and sexy LCD's, but why would I want to spend $1500+ on two replacement monitors that have a limited viewing angle, limited resolutions selections, limited game performance?
I've yet to see, however, a LCD that makes me want to replace my beasts.
Re:I vote for CRT, for now (Score:2)
Also, I use an old Commodore Color monitor for a TV using an old VCR as a tuner. Outstanding quality picture!
Re:I vote for CRT, for now (Score:3, Insightful)
Awhile back, I replaced my old Hitachi Superscan Elite 19" in my home office with a pair of Princeton 19" LCDs from CostCo, mounted on arms. They are each bigger and clearer than the Hitachi was. My home office runs much cooler (my overhead lights no longer dim momentarily when I turn the damn things on!). I don't have to worry about throwing my back out when I move things around. Though I have 2x the monitors, I h
And what's the resolution on that 19"? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Yeah, but try moving it around!" you might retort.
How often do you move around your screen? Twice. When you move in, and when you move out. Big deal. If I wanted a portable screen, I'd have to get a portable computer as well. We call those laptops.
Re:I vote for CRT, for now (Score:2)
The screen is bright, responsive (no ghosting),
Re:This story isn't about monitors, it's about TVs (Score:2)
Standalone LCD TV's are often more than the price of a descent computer with LCD monitor and TV tuner.
I've noticed that prices are really dropping lately, but I'm still not that impressed by the technology.
Size, shape and weight (Score:5, Insightful)
People (especially ladies) like the flat screens because of their super slim depth, massive picture size, and amazing light-weight.
Show me a 60" CRT -- and if you can even find one, find a rec-room it would fit in, and try and lift it!
Sam
Three words (in bold) (Score:2)
Three letters (in bold) (Score:2)
Nice thing about those projection-style TV's is the lack of a heavy Cathode Ray Tube which is typically made of glass and really fscking heavy. I wonder how much that 60" Cathode Ray Tube television you're talking about weighs?
You know, oddly enough, I couldn't find a single Cathode Ray Tube television larger than 36" or 37" ? Your link doesn
Re:Three letters (in bold) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Size, shape and weight (Score:2)
FWIW, if you're genuinely interested in that sort of size, you'd probably do much better with a projector-based set-up than with any sort of TV, flatscreen or otherwise.
Re:Size, shape and weight (Score:3, Insightful)
But design is important outside the geek inner circle. It's one area where the ignorant masses are starting to understand something that hard core geeks haven't yet figured out. Perhaps in time more geeks will begin to understand that technology is coolest when it doesn't call s
Re:Size, shape and weight (Score:4, Insightful)
In all seriousness, the people complaining about how LCDs don't stack up stats-wise compared to CRTs are missing the point. They're both good enough.
It's just like how the iPod is the 'hot' consumer electronics this year, and part of a whole category of products (MP3 players) that play lossy, compressed audio (yes, I know they can play lossless audio, too). Their whole point is that they sacrifice audio quality for convienience.
At some point, the output quality became good enough that most people were unable to distinguish between audio formats based on quality alone, and convienience and design became the selling point. Already happened with audio, now it's happening with video.
This is partly why I think the entertainment industry is going to have a hard time displacing CD, DVD, and MP3 with more DRM-restricted formats - people just can't get much more out of media quality wise, now it's all going to be about convienience.
Re:300 inch portable HDTV CRT system for under $90 (Score:3, Informative)
Money == emotion? (Score:2)
The MUCH lower cost of tube based TVs is probably a bigger driver of the current market.
Re:Money == emotion? (Score:2)
But they look cool (Score:2, Insightful)
Although if you got an old-style TV, I guess you could replace your table with a pile of money and break even
Re:But they look cool (Score:5, Funny)
It's the looks, not the technology (Score:5, Interesting)
At the end of the day, you want something nice in your living room, and a flatscreen TV fits the bill. Personally I prefer a projector (nothing like an 8' image to give you a sense of cinema
I'm typing this on a 23" Apple Cinema Screen LCD display, which I bought because it was gorgeous. Simple as. The fact that for significantly less cash I could have had 2 CRT's and a slightly larger screen real-estate didn't matter (which is saying something for me - I like having lots of windows open at once...). Looks matter
Simon.
Re:It's the looks, not the technology (Score:2)
In fairness, that monitor is the only one that's ever caused me to stop and turn my head in a computer shop and I nearly bought one on the spot. Unlike the CRT vs. flatscreen de
Color Gamut (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue isn't resolution or viewing angle.
Re:Color Gamut (Score:2)
Friend of mine who's a computer artist (mostly photoshop work) says the same. LCD color is, at best, an approximation of what it should be. Heck, my girlfriend won't buy clothes over the internet unless she's seen a picture on a real monitor because the color on a laptop screen isn't just off, it's downright wrong.
Re:Color Gamut (Score:3, Insightful)
Expecting representative color from a transmissive display is like expecting photographs of lightbulbs to glow in the dark.
Re:Color depth is a big issue (Score:4, Informative)
Virtually all film and d-cinema work is being done in OpenEXR format now, which uses 32-bit floating-point pixels. Video work, of course, is all done in 10-bit integer. Well, not all. A surprising amount of it is still being done in 8-bit integer. But the pro stuff is practically all 10-bit.
While it's true that neither CRT nor LCD monitors can handle the complete dynamic range of 32-bit floating-point, LCD is quite a bit closer. DLP comes closest, of course, which is why it's being used in new movie theaters.
Interestingly, OpenEXR support is native in Mac OS X Tiger. That's the power of the BSD license, right there.
CRTs for me (Score:2)
I'll stick with my 21" Sony Trinitron, and a pair of 17" screens, thank you. Resolution is amazing, color reproduction is great, refresh rate is astronomical, and I probably glow in the dark when it get's dark.
I do not prefer my laptops screens, they just don't cut it, and even the expensive ones that we have installed at
Re:CRTs for me (Score:2)
Re:CRTs for me (Score:2)
The only HDTV worth buying is the $35,000 CRT (Score:3, Interesting)
Even the $15,000 plasmas you see on MTV cribs have motion artifacts.
I'm not saying they all suck, I'm just saying I can't justify any of them right now.
Re:The only HDTV worth buying is the $35,000 CRT (Score:3, Informative)
CRT over flat panel? I don't think so (Score:2)
Horseshit (Score:3, Insightful)
"LCDs are great as desktop PC monitors because they don't have to refresh pictures rapidly--more LCD desktop monitors were shipped in 2004 than those using CRT technology, according to researcher iSuppli--but they don't work as well when used as televisions. Plasmas tend to lose brightness over time and don't offer images as sharp as those served up by CRTs. Manufacturers are working to improve these shortcomings."
First of all, LCD refresh rates are now excellent. Modern units can do better than the 25ms refresh time of yesterday's screens. Besides, that adds up to 40fps, which exceeds TV's ~30fps.
Furthermore, later on in the article they point out that flat panels are better for digital because they can deal with the higher resolutions of HDTV. Now how can a CRT have better picture quality than plasma, but plasma have a better resolution making it better for HDTV?
The fact is that this article is all hype. It's trying to portray the manufacturers as trying to squeeze every last dollar out of honest Americans through lies and chicanery. Well I call foul.
Re:Horseshit (Score:3, Informative)
Interlacing
Re:Horseshit (Score:5, Informative)
60 fields a second for interlaced display. So while it's not 60 full frames, it is refreshing 60 times per second. Besides, an HDTV CRT would be displaying in 480p, which is 60 full frames/second.
Now how can a CRT have better picture quality than plasma, but plasma have a better resolution making it better for HDTV?When did resolution come to equal picture quality? What about color accuracy for example? Besides, by definition, the set has to display both 720p and 1080i to be an HDTV (or hd ready). HD CRTs do. Have you ever seen an HD broadcast on an HD Tube?
The fact is that this article is all hype.No, they make a fair assertion. The last half of the article is crap, but CRT still offers better quality than Plasma or LCD.
Re: TV's are 50/60fps! (Score:3, Informative)
No surprize (Score:2, Insightful)
Interesting article comparing display technologies (Score:5, Informative)
There is an interesting set of articles over at Extremetech [extremetech.com] that compare CRT, LCD, Plasma and DLP display systems.
Confused Consumers (Score:3, Interesting)
I found myself having to really educate people who come in since they often have no idea that LCD is diffrent from flat CRTs, or plasmas, or HDTV. Most consumers really have very little to go on, and the battles between manufacturers on what will be the next standard really isn't helping.
Re:Confused Consumers (Score:2)
Most people dont "need" to know what the underlying technology is as long as they are made aware of any associated problems (eg bulb cost, screen life etc).
That's *three* things (Score:3, Funny)
Is it just me? (Score:2, Informative)
Sunnybrook HDR monitors? (Score:2, Interesting)
compared to the best of today's displays ~700:1, that's something to brag about. most are about 300:1!
I believe 40,000:1 reaches the limits of human vision.
They work by individually illuminating the pixels with LEDs, thus facilitating higher dynamic range and local control. Darks are darker lights are b
Radiation (Score:2)
Nonsense! (Score:5, Funny)
This is just silly. Why, many of us here on Slashdot have been using them every day for years now... some for decades! And when you look at the fine group we have assembled here, I'm sure you won't find any evidence of brain damage or short-term... ah... wait a sec, now. What were we talking about again? No, of course I remember... heh. Just give me a few moments to review some polaroids and these notes that I've written on my skin, and I'll comment further.
Other Flat panel technology (Score:5, Insightful)
More to it than just image quality (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:More to it than just image quality (Score:2)
And 250 W of space heater for something close to an order of magnitude less than that.
Size matters (Score:3, Interesting)
CRT advantages (Score:2)
However, they are also heavy and unavailable in larger screen sizes.
OLED (Score:3, Insightful)
Hopefully in another 2-3 years (5 tops) we'll see these out in the mass consumer market at competitive prices.
A few thoughts.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Coming from someone who has owned both.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I must disagree to some extent with this article and opinion. It really depends on what you call "clearly". For example, text and edges are MUCH clearer on any type of flat panel than a CRT.
There is also the issue of calibration. A CRT gradually comes out of adjustment, requiring a skilled technician to correct.
I like my LCD (Score:3, Interesting)
It's way better than the CRT it replaced.
There are no issues with ghosting; it clearly refreshes fast enough for TV, DVDs, or console video gaming.
I am looking forward to the day when I get a much bigger one (the 37" and 42" both look nice). When I get the bigger one, it will be a model with a DVI input, and I'll hook up a computer to that. I want to play first-person games on a giant screen with my living room's surround sound all around me.
steveha
P.S. I figure LCD is pretty much a stable technology at this point. It's basically a large laptop screen, and those have been around for years. Plasma has burnin issues, and OLED may simply fade with time. I look forward to SED [canon.com] displays... but LCD is here now and getting more affordable every year.
marketing hype (Score:3)
Emotional purchase? Yes, I know, marketers and retailers think the buyers are all dumb as bricks. These are not the ones checking the needs of consumers and developing the products, however.
Since when was video quality the only factor? Power consumption, less space, more features and the abscence of x-rays from a CRT are viable reasons for many to go with LCD.
I can find both CRT and LCD good and bad, so that should actually factor out.
Is it really that hard to see? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always thought it was pretty obvious, but maybe not.
Blake
It's the Gamma, Stupid (Score:3, Informative)
All output devices except CRT's are more or less linear, gamma about 1, thus the DAC's need LOTS of bits to represent differences near black without contouring/banding - or without lots of dithering noise added in. The good old CRT has a native gamma of about 2.2, better than square root, but not quite the cube root our eye sees. As a result many fewer bits in a DAC produce excellent results. Most good CRT's operate flawlessly with 10 to 12 bit DAC's, while at least 16 bits would be needed to equal this in a linear gamma display.
On another topic, CRT's can be scanned at the native rate of the video source, 720p or 1080i for HDTV; or, if desired, upsampled/deinterlaced by an INTEGER factor 2, 3 or 4 to 1. Fixed pixel displays require all kinds of fancy DSP chips to resample by odd factors and still don't look as good.
True story - I said "no" to a free plasma TV (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't get all excited - when you are in my tax bracket, my first thought, was "great, I just won the right to buy a $4499 TV for half price (after taxes)"; And I wasn't in the market for a $2250 TV!
After a prudent amount of skepticism [checking out the company that the fullfilment guy said he was from, etc] before turning over "1099" information, it seemed like the real deal. We really had won something. I inquired whether or not we could take cash in lieu of the TV. Having had first-hand experience with plasma burn-in (on the same set we had won, for a work project), I knew I didn't really want one.
The bottom line: "no cash", however, since the actual prize delivery was via our friends at Best Buy, I was able to finagle a deal with the local manager to do a one-time, use-it-or-lose-it buying spree for the value (which turned out to be "street" not "MSRP"). They just processed the TV as an in-store, no-receipt credit.
This turned out to be a much better deal than taking a TV. My daughter got a nice stereo, my younger son got lots of video games. The big ticket items were a DV camcorder and a Toshiba laptop. Toss in some nice Boston Acoustic clock-radios that I otherwise wouldn't have purchased at $150 each, and some blank DVD media and the family was much better off than taking one expensive, short-lived Plasma TV.
I mean, how much better could Sponge Bob look on a big screen? I'll stick to my Costco (Toshiba) 32" CRT for now (landfills be damned, someday).
Now, I only hope that 1099 says "only" $3699+sales tax. I feel much better paying taxes equivalent to a bunch of useful "half-price" stuff than I ever would have paying close to $2000 for one TV with 80 channels of crap on the cable.
I bought a Plasma (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, CRT is definitely a better picture and tt was definitely an emotional purchase except for one overriding factor.
I didn't want to lug up a 300 lb 50" TV screen up stairs to my apartment.
The picture had looked fantastic at the store, but when I got it home into a lower light setting, ooh boy... My plasma magnified every mpeg artifact in the DirectTV compression. Color banding was everywhere. Watching Band of Brothers episode 4 (I believe) resulted in a great primal scream from me. (It's the episode where they sneak up to the German camp on a foggy night with a full moon in the background. All I could see was 64 shades of gray coming off the moon in circular bands. Jeep headlights in that same episode exhibited the same problem).
However, with the proper calibrations (using a dvd like video essentials) you can get a decent picture. You can get an even better picture with DVD material using an upconverting DVD player with DCDI (especially if your Plasma/LCD TV doesn't have good picture correction to begin with.)
But take away the geeky sexiness of it, if they had a lighter wide screen CRT, I'd probably be looking at that.
I like LCDs better (Score:4, Insightful)
In the 80s, I worked at RCA's TV set design facility. I became sensitive to video quality there. I just don't agree with this reviewer's assesment. CRTs are definitely less expensive, particularly for larger screen sizes but I like the LCD's picture better. There's less power dissipation and heat with LCD sets. They're lighter and take up less space.
The disadvantage of CRTs... (Score:4, Informative)
Making things better is the fact that these televisions have absolutely no structure to them whatsoever. The whole case bends when you just pick the thing up. It's about the scariest item I've ever moved. One minor error will write the whole thing off.
All that said, I absolutely love the thing on every day except moving day
As an owner of a 36" Widescreen HDTV (Score:3, Informative)
Flat panels are a DECREASE in quality in most cases but due to the slimness of them and people sitting far enough away, consumers are happy to use them - now marketing people are selling them as the "ultimate picture quality"
A very high quality HDTV CRT will blow any flat panel away, period.
The only real issue is CRT is generally smaller than what RP / LCD / Plasma can acheive.
(I have a 36" I beleive 40" is the largest possible)
Oh and for reference I saw the following technologies in action before I chose my TV.
(all High def models)
Rear projection standard CRT tube
Rear projection LCD
LCD
Plasma
DLP
3 Toshiba
Emotional about my plasma (Score:3, Informative)
I guess I made an emotional purchase, but 6 months later, I have no regrets.
Are any of the CRTs actually HDTV? (Score:3, Informative)
Hardly what I would call HDTV, even though that is what they are advertised as.
Any real 1280x720 sets out there? With computer inputs?
power consumption... (Score:3, Interesting)
While a CRT can offer superior contrast ratios, a quality LCD can provide 500:1 or better (CRT's are generally 1000:1). The advent of OLED will help LCD's advance in this area, and quite likely surpass CRT's in the very near future.
Re:Doesn't add up... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Doesn't add up... (Score:3)
Re:Doesn't add up... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't add up... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Doesn't add up... (Score:5, Informative)
Alternative to $2000 plasma tv... (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, it just has that "home cinema" feel.
If you work for really nice people, they might let you bring one home from work! More fool them (and you if you can't afford to replace it). But if you trust yourself, it's a cheap way to have a home cinema (and you
Projector Bulbs (Score:3, Informative)
While they have come down in price significantly and they offer a great picture, the bulbs still don't last long enough, and they are very expensive.
It would be one thing if the bulbs were resonably priced but paying $500 every six months for new bulbs when the machine only cost $800 is silly.
Projectors are good if you don't use them too much. But if you use them a lot, as your normal TV, bulb life is a problem.
Re:Doesn't add up... (Score:3, Funny)
It's the same reason I don't own a toilet or a washing machine.
Re:CRT HDTV's are great... (Score:4, Informative)
Dimness can be a factor if you watch movies in direct sunlight. (I suppose most people put RP tv in their living room instead of a nice dark and cozy den).
One problem with rear projection is that the quality of the picture can vary dramatically between brands. The difference between my Mitsubishi and my buddy's Sony is pretty dramatic.
But for the most part your post hit the nail on the head. RJ has a lot of drawbacks, but if you want a really large crisp screen cheaply, it's certainlly wroth considering. And CRT HDTV is nice if you don't mind a heavy set and smaller picture.
There are some CRT HDTVs that are 3:4 and just do letterbox for 16:9 signals. They actually are extremely crisp for 3:4 viewing because they are true 1080i in the letterbox form, so there are a lot of extra lines in 3:4 mode (but the extra lines are filled in artificially with some fancy circuitry which helps produce a crisper brighter picture).
Re:Doesn't add up... (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, damn it... throwing distance! When will all these ISO standards and fancy AV forums enter the 21st century??!? It amazes me that no one realizes the most important criteria for a display system is throwing distance. I'm off to Petition.com to force all those fat cats in congress to get off their asses. We will have throwing distance as an specification attribute in my life time!
Who's with me???
Re:Doesn't add up... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they are telling you that HDTV's made with CRT technology (The huge, heavy boxes) display a better picture than the thing plasma or LCD screens. The article is pointing out -- quite rightly -- that general consumers have associated "thin" with "high tech and good picture."
In fact, if you have the space, you can buy a sizable CRT HDTV for a relatively affordable price. Not cheap, but something an average consumer could afford if they were willing to sacrifice a bit.
On the other hand, I believe this trend has continued because people genuinely really do like the thin, lighter screens.
Like it or not a television is one of the most dominant objects in a many peoplees homes. They don't want it big, bulky and ugly.
One theory I read awhile back was that there has always been a significant number of wealthy men who wanted to go buy a big screen televeision, but were basically restrained by their wives who didn't want the huge ugly beheamouth in their living room. Sure, that flat screen costs twice as much, but now the wife says go for it because its not ugly.
Re:Doesn't add up... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't add up... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, watching TV shouldn't remind them of their spouse!
Re:Doesn't add up... (Score:3, Funny)
Get a projector (Score:5, Informative)
Of course this solution doesn't fit all comers, as you have to put the projector somewhere that doesn't always see direct sunlight, and you need something to provide the signal (cable box, DVD player, game system, VCR with tuner, etc) and the audio (most use a stereo or 5.1 home theatre system), but in the end a lot of people I know who have gone the projector route are far happier with it than if they just got the TV. And in the majority of cases it's cheaper too. Even factoring in replacement bulbs. As my brother-in-law summed it up: "After everything is said and done, this is costing me $0.15 an hour to have a movie theater experience in my TV room!"
Re:Get a projector (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless you're in some kind of theater-sized room, however, the delay really won't be noticable. In a big living room I doubt it takes sound more than 1 ms to travel across the room. In really big rooms with multiple speakers you usually use digital delay generators - not t
Re:Doesn't add up... (Score:4, Insightful)
In the same way, they think that electronic voting machines must be better than other methods.
Re:HD 101 (Score:5, Informative)
I'm going to address CRTs as far as good brands go, because if you're not getting a CRT you're prioritizing something other than image quality under normal viewing conditions. As such the non-CRT recommendation process becomes very specific to your priorities and it's hard to give a good answer. I'm not trying to be snotty here, because I certainly understand that it's often the case that display quality is not even close to the main decision parameter. For example, the last TV box I bought was a small projector, which I knew perfectly well wasn't as good as a CRT. But I was living on a 5th floor walk-up apartment and not about to haul a good TV up there when I had a short-term lease.
Anyway, Mitsubishi's high-end Diamond CRTs have the best factory calibration regime I'm aware of to make sure they are faithfully displaying their inputs, and their less expensive models are invariably at the top of the accuracy (and build quality) heap as well. Usually on the expensive side in get what you pay for fashion. At lower price ranges, Toshiba CRT sets usually give the best accuracy relative to their price. Some of the Sony sets look very good, but talk to any statistically significant number of people who have dealth with Sony repair centers and you'll never consider one of their products again.
As always with TVs, displays in showrooms are totally bogus unless you are verifying color temperature and brightness/contrast/sharpness yourself across sets. Most showrooms sets are too bright and too blue, because those are the characteristics that make people prefer a TV at first glance in the same way that louder stereo equipment always seems better at first.
Re:Damn, missed first post. (Score:4, Funny)
Oh wait. No I didn't. I got a flatscreen CRT and put it wherever the hell I wanted.
Re:Why flat-screen is better (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:CRTs better? (Score:3, Informative)
Crispness is one of the few aspects where LCDs do best CRTs, because LCDs have precisely defined pixels whereas CRTs just have an electron beam that sweeps across the screen. The CRT wins in other areas, like blackness (compare a CRT and LCD "black" screen, there's no contest), resolution flexibility, and color response.
Re:CRT is Better? Says who! (Score:3, Interesting)
That word was unknown before the LCD era. It's a strictly LCD-related problem and still serious though great advances have been made...
CRT has full 180 degrees viewing angle. So does Plasma. LCDs are the ones with problems in this area.