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Sony Businesses Media Television The Almighty Buck

Sony Profits Low, Halts CRT Production 270

Posted by Zonk from the pitch-the-baby-the-bathwater-and-the-tub dept.
mtndue1 writes "Forbes is reporting that with lower than expected profits, Sony is halting the production of CRT's for televisions at many of its plants. The restructuring move is meant to catch the company up with other manufacturers who moved to LCD displays more quickly." From the article: " In the second quarter to September, net profit dropped 46.5 pct to 28.5 bln yen, pressured by 32.3 bln yen in restructuring expenses to write down the impaired value of its cathode-ray tube (CRT) plants. Under the plant closure program, Sony will shut down some of its CRT television assembly factories by March 2008 in order to shift its focus to the flat-screen TV business ... In a bid to revive its game division, Sony plans to release its next-generation stand-alone PlayStation 3 game console in the spring. To speed up development of PlayStation 3, Sony plans to devote 410 bln yen to capital investment in the year to March, up from 356.8 bln yen a year earlier."
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Sony Profits Low, Halts CRT Production More

Sony Profits Low, Halts CRT Production

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  • Improve quality? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BenjyD ( 316700 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @09:55AM (#13888949)
    I wonder if this means Sony is going to start improving their LCD TV quality finally? When I was shopping for an LCD TV recently, the Sony ones were overpriced, ugly and had poor image quality compared to competition.
  • If this means there is a much greater supply of LCDs then the price should drop. Does anyone buy who isn't budget constrained buy CRTs anymore?

    • Re:Mostly a good thing (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Mprx ( 82435 )
      If you play fast action games then CRTs are still the best, and until LCDs can display at refresh rates of at least 100Hz without blurring they always will be. People saying you can't notice the difference with frame rates higher than 60Hz obviously haven't tested it. CRTs are also best for playing older or emulated games that require a low resolution.
      • "If you play fast action games then CRTs are still the best"

        You probably baught a cheap LCD. My Sceptre X9 19" 12ms LCD [sceptre.com], cost about 100$ more than the cheapest 19" LCD on the market but the quality is supurb. I can play BF2, wow, quake4, etc.. all look beautiful. 180* turns are flawless with no motion blur. In addition, this particular monitor is shiney/reflective, like a crt, so you get a bit of glare from the sun, but the blacks are truely the most well done i have ever seen.

        Where I work we have hundreds
        • Still maximum displayed frame rate of 75fps, you can definitely tell the difference between 75fps and 100fps. Q4 is also frame rate capped, and BF2 is not the type of twitch gaming I'm talking about, so those are not good examples. Try playing Q3 1v1 instagib, and see how every frame counts.

          Hz does apply to an LCD in that displayed FPS can never be higher than display update Hz. A LCD won't flicker at 60Hz, but it won't give you perfectly smooth movement either.
      • Personally I can't really notice a different in refresh rate above 85 Hz or so. Lower than 70 Hz hurts (ha, pun) my eyes though.

        But LCDs don't have a refresh rate. They don't redraw the image so many times a second, instead they display an image and change which pixels need changing as necessary. The length of time it takes for a pixel to change color appropriately is called "response time" and over the past few years, LCD response times has improved considerably, to the point where many gaming/hardwar

        • Huh, or maybe they do have refresh rates, but they have response times too, of course. I must have misread something a while back about the fundamental technology of LCDs, because now I do notice refresh rate is a listed spec on some models.

          My mistake.

          • Refresh rate in an LCD spec is really what the receiving circuitry can handle/adapt to. It doesn't change how fast the actual LCD elements update. A CRT is constantly drawing the screen, left to right, top to bottom, X number of times per second. So the refresh rate is very important there.... the faster it goes, the less flicker. An LCD emulates this behavior, by letting the monitor update an internal buffer up to X times a second, where X is the maximum refresh rate it supports.

            If I understand the tec

      • Re:Mostly a good thing (Score:4, Insightful)

        by zakath ( 180357 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @11:13AM (#13889548)
        So this is what gets modded as +5 Insightful on /. these days? Guess the trick is to say it like you know what you're talking about and the mods will follow. LCD 'refresh' rates are measured in 'ms' not 'Hz'. Poster also seems to be stuck in 2002...todays LCDs with sub-10ms refresh rates (I believe I read about a 3-4ms LCD coming soon as well) have eliminated the 'blurring' problem evident on older units. I've played many BF2, Doom3 and several others on my 19" 8ms LCD and it's been excellent...no ghosting. Todays units are greatly improved over the old 20ms+ ones. The only area CRTs still maintain an advantage are in displaying high resolution...LCDs outside their native resolution just aren't as nice.
        • So this is what gets modded as 4 Insightful on /. these days? Hz and ms are easily converted from one to the other (e.g. 60Hz approx. = 16 ms, 85Hz approx. = 12ms). And while there are some puny 19" LCDs that can do 10-12ms refresh, those of us who run at 1600x1200 resoltion or larger would be "stuck" buying LCDs at 20"+ that are incapable of such speeds.

          That is why I buy CRTs.
        • I've noticed that if I change the settings on my video card (I have a GeForce FX 5900XT) under "Digital Flat Panel" to "Video Card Scaling" (actually, I prefer "Aspect Ratio Scaling" even better), the picture at sub-optimal resolutions looks outstanding. Apparently what it does is use the scaling features of the video card to output a lower resolution to the monitor at the monitor's optimal resolution. Seriously, you need to try it and see it for yourself, but it can be night and day for certain monitors.
        • So this is what gets modded as +5 Insightful on /. these days? ...'refresh' rates are measured in 'ms' not 'Hz'...todays LCDs with sub-10ms refresh rates (I believe I read about a 3-4ms LCD coming soon as well)...

          In the slashdot article [slashdot.org] you "read", there was a lengthy discussion about how refresh rate still applies to LCDs, and how the ms response time quoted by manufacturers is essentially useless. Similar to a wattage rating on your consumer amplifier. Whether current LCDs are good enough for games i

        • Re:Mostly a good thing (Score:4, Informative)

          by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @12:42PM (#13890407) Homepage
          LCD 'refresh' rates are measured in 'ms' not 'Hz'. Poster also seems to be stuck in 2002...todays LCDs with sub-10ms refresh rates (I believe I read about a 3-4ms LCD coming soon as well) have eliminated the 'blurring' problem evident on older units. I've played many BF2, Doom3 and several others on my 19" 8ms LCD and it's been excellent...no ghosting. Todays units are greatly improved over the old 20ms+ ones. The only area CRTs still maintain an advantage are in displaying high resolution...LCDs outside their native resolution just aren't as nice.

          Well, ms and Hz are just two different units of measurement. What they mean by "refresh" is completely different though. For one, a CRT will flicker, an LCD will not at low refresh rates. Furthermore, a CRT will actually refresh exactly so, while an LCD will not (you will see different numbers for gray-gray, black-white-black, averages vs worst case). Not to mention you have ringing caused by trying to speed up the process. Take the "3ms" screen on slashdot here recently, it has 5ms black-to-black, more like 8ms before the ringing stops. Effectively, that means ~125fps, not ~333fps. Realisticly, most people don't notice more than ~60fps (as it doesn't flicker), so around 16ms actual response time. To make up for the marketing BS you need to buy a "8ms" screen though.
    • Is anyone not on a budget?

    • Re:Mostly a good thing (Score:4, Informative)

      by petabyte ( 238821 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:13AM (#13889079)
      Well yes, me. I just opted for the 30" CRT Television (HDTV widescreen) instead of the 30" LCD. The reason? True black on the CRT and better colors overall. People have mentioned size constraints with televisions and yes, I got a slim fit CRT but it sits on an entertainment center which houses my reciever and DVD player. Since thats a dedicated area for the TV, I don't have a problem with that space being used for the TV and having the best picture I can. When it goes kaboom, I figure LCDs will be the standard and the picture will have improved.

      Now, my desk is another story. I have a CRT for my computer there too but when that goes, the LCD cometh ...
      • Now, my desk is another story. I have a CRT for my computer there too but when that goes, the LCD cometh ...

        Man, I keep pseudo-hoping that my Viewsonic 21PS will die. Maybe then I could justify buying an LCD.

        Except that I have two spare VS 19" CRTs sitting around. Sigh.

        Maybe my toddler will figure out a way to trash them for me...

    • Re:Mostly a good thing (Score:4, Informative)

      by Yaa 101 ( 664725 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:13AM (#13889080) Journal
      All people in need of real colors still use CRTs...
      Those LCDs are ugly, none of them come near to what colors should look like.

    • LCDs are overrated. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      For computer monitors CRTs are still superior for a number of reasons.

      Some examples:
      Much higher contrast between black and white.
      better color definition.
      gamma/color/brightness doesn't change based on fewing angles.
      much faster response/no ghosting.

      People who complain about flickering with CRTs are usually just running the monitor at a to high of resolution. There problems are more related to not spending enough on their monitors rather then serious flaws in CRT monitors.

      even on very nice LCD monitors I get h
    • Some people enjoy a long-lasting TV with high quality colors, brightness and contrast. Some other people enjoy showing off a TV that will hang on their wall and die in five years.

  • Anyone know...? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:00AM (#13888980) Journal
    Have Japanese largely stopped buying CRT televisions and monitors in favor of flat-screens? Given their space constraints, especially at home, I'd imagine it wouldn't take much for them to give up on tubes entirely.

    (Note: I'm looking for replies based on experience with Japanese reality, not on anime. TIA...)

    • Re:Anyone know...? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      (Note: I'm looking for replies based on experience with Japanese reality, not on anime. TIA...)

      Actually, they've quit with TV altogether, and instead battle aliens with huge anthropomorphic robots.

    • Re:Anyone know...? (Score:4, Informative)

      by dduck ( 10970 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:07AM (#13889036) Homepage
      They did so a while back. When I was in Tokyo about 3 years ago, you could hardly find a CRT TV, uch less a CRT monitor. Everything new was flat and thin.
    • (Note: I'm looking for replies based on experience with Japanese reality, not on anime. TIA...)

      It's kind of sad that you had to specify that.

      Can we cite live-action horror movies, though? There was one of those that had a lot of TVs in it, but they were still using VHS! I mean, come on... Sadako really should have cursed someone's TiVo :-)

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:01AM (#13888990)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I can go on about broadcast for you.

      Sony is losing big time there. Right now someone with less than $10,000.00 can buy a XL2 and a no-name editing platform and produce video content that is equlivant to that shot on a DigiBetacam camera that cost $100K and edited on a DME-9000 or any of their other pro video gear.

      when you can build an entire video editing platform for less than the price of one sony deck, sony is going to hurt bad.
    • Sony are to me, at least, beginning to look more like a games company than anything else - if they don't succeed they may well be dodo, if not severely crippled.

      I dunno, I just can't see Sony going under. They still have that great name recognition. As long as they keep putting out electronics with "Sony" emblazoned on them, people will buy them. How else can they keep getting away with higher prices than the competition? Customers obviously think that they're getting higher quality as well.

    • I'd like to see more Sony->Apple partnerships, like, say, iTMS compatability. I know it's apple's cash-cow, but I'd buy a PSP if I could watch stuff I buy on iTunes. I've already got a nano, I'd rather have a more general purpose device than an iPod Video, especially one that can be a highly functional gaming device like the PSP. Now, if they'd just hurry up and start releasing more games...

  • Not good news? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:05AM (#13889016) Homepage Journal
    I don't think this is very good news if you're in the market for a large screen TV in the future and want a CRT. With the supply from Sony dwindling, prices won't be dropping as much as we'd like them to in comparison to LCD. And I wonder how much easier it is to recycle components of an LCD screen device, compared to a CRT's? There will be less lead I'm guessing, but are there any rules about throwing LCD monitors/TVs into the landfill?
  • I love my old CRT TV! It's picture is so, well, it reminds me of being a kid! I don't want to grow up! This opinions expressed in this post are totally random and have nothing to do whatsoever with the posters true feelings or the feelings or opinions of your local stations. Thank you.

    --
    I should be working, but I'm posting on /.! Life is good
    • Got one or more Sony Trinitron monitors or TVs that are in great operating condition?

      Quit using them now (to stop wear & tear on the tube) and stash them away. When CRT monitors and TVs disappear from the market after a few more years and there will be no more spare replacement tubes available, you'll be able to sell a good working unit to the CRT addicts for much more money than they are worth on the used equipment market right now.

      I'm unsure if I'm being serious or sarcastically humorous on this comme

  • If the CRT dies (Score:3, Insightful)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:08AM (#13889049) Homepage
    it can only mean that other display types will become more affordable. Right now, the really nice TVs are way out of reach for Wal-Mart shoppers such as myself. I look forward to the changes coming soon.

  • Too Bad; LCDs are Overpriced (Score:5, Informative)

    by h4ck7h3p14n37 ( 926070 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:09AM (#13889053) Homepage
    It's too bad that Sony is phasing out it's CRT production. Granted, flat-screens have much better resolution, a smaller footprint and are lighther, but they're still extremely expensive. A 32" Sony Trinitron is going for around $400, while a 32" Sony LCD Wega flat panel is more than $2,000 (the cheapest 32" LCD flat screen I could find goes for $1,300). I just don't understand why anyone would buy one flat screen when they could get four or five CRTs for the same price.
    • Easy. LCDs take up less space and (well, not the really crappy low end ones or some crappy midranged ones) look better.
      Anyone who has to move around a whole bunch can appreciate the whole size (and weight) thing. I've had to move around the TV in my livingroom (furnished, so it isn't mine) quite often. It scratches up the center and weighs a ton. I'd much prefer a smaller LCD to such a large TV.

      Besides, why does anyone need such a large TV?
      • I put my 27" CRT TV on the shelf above my fireplace when I moved in to my house two years ago, and haven't moved it since. I will probably never move it until it breaks. For me (and I suspect a lot of other people), size doesn't matter, except for screen size.
    • Is the price of the 32" that you quoted even HD capable? Based on the price, I doubt it. I think 32" is a little too large to be 480i. Also, the size rating on an LCD isn't exaggerated by 10% like they are on CRTs (rated diagonal is not viewable diagonal on CRT).

      For as long as there is a market for CRT worth exploiting, I'd say just look to other brands. In the next few years, I expect that the price pressure be too great as LCDs get cheaper such that it's not worth making them anymore for anything oth

    • Re:Too Bad; LCDs are Overpriced (Score:5, Informative)

      by b1t r0t ( 216468 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:33AM (#13889238)
      Except that you're comparing apples and oranges. A 32" Wega CRT is about $600-$700, but the HD-ready Wega is about $1000, and was around $1500 two years ago. Oh, and a minor point is that their LCD line seems to be called Bravia, not Wega.

      Mmmm... and that LCD has a PC input, too. I know for a fact that their CRT Wega line isn't designed for PC scan rates on the DVI input. You can get 640x480 to work, but there's overscan, and even if you get your video card to generate ATSC scan rates, anything higher than 480p forces the 4:3 CRT into widescreen mode.

      • I think the point the parent was trying to make is that now that their CRT line is gone, there isn't a replacement technology to fill the same price point. Consumer's can no longer find a sub-$500 Sony TV.
    • If you're talking USD, then you're not looking very hard. Its easy to find 32" sets WELL below $1000, and its fairly common to find 37" LCD sets for $1000.

      And if you don't understand why $999 for a 37" LCD makes sense either you have never lived in a small house and had to move a 35" CRT TV, or you just wanted to post on Slashdot with a contrary view in hopes of getting moderated up.
    • Granted, [LCDs] have much better resolution, a smaller footprint and are lighter, but they're still extremely expensive.

      Still, their price-point has now crept from beyond the horizon and into distant view. So, e.g., anyone who's recently enlisted able bodies to help move a CRT behemoth across the living room has a gut-reaction against buying another... even postponing a purchase, if possible.

    • Space, heat, power consumption, aesthetics. Just to name the most significant reasons.

  • Hard choice (Score:5, Informative)

    by boa13 ( 548222 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:10AM (#13889066) Homepage Journal
    It must have been a hard choice for mtndue1, torn between hyping up his scoop so that he would have a chance to be published on Slashdot and not telling outright lies. So he took both approaches:

    Sony is halting the production of CRT's for televisions at many of its plants

    Sony will shut down some of its CRT television assembly factories by March 2008 (emphasis mine)

    No, I didn't read the fine article, but I did laugh out loud.

    • Re:Hard choice (Score:4, Insightful)

      by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @12:41PM (#13890394)
      The mention of Sony's allocation of a big pile of money "to speed up development" of the PS3 falls into a similar category of inaccuracy, I think. At this point in the product lifecycle, Sony should be ramping up MANUFACTURE of PS3 units. If they're still in the DEVELOPMENT phase for the hardware, they're lagging behind and may have already lost the next-gen console battle to the Xbox 360.
  • I think I'm right in saying that most people here would thank Sony for allowing them to buy the Playstation 3. A large percentage of us are looking forward to spending our money on it when it is finally launched.

    However, it's interesting to see the Forbes' take on the release: In a bid to revive its game division, Sony plans to release its next-generation stand-alone PlayStation 3 game console in the spring.

    Funny how a slightly different viewpoint casts a whole new light on a subject...
  • 38,500,000,000.00 JPY = 334,047,807.86 USD
    32,300,000,000.00 JPY = 280,239,409.58 USD
    410,000,000,000.00 JPY = 3,556,690,039.42 USD
    356,800,000,000.00 JPY = 3,095,187,819.67 USD


    Thanks xe.com [xe.com]

    • Re:Yen (Score:3, Informative)

      by digidave ( 259925 )
      You know you can just use Google for that, right?

      Google "38,500,000,000.00 JPY in USD" (no quotes) and you'll get "333.42001 million U.S. dollars" as the answer. I'm not sure why the number is different.
    • Thanks for putting it in more comprehensible terms, but that only helps us Americans. Do you think you can convert that to even more intuitive units like Rolex watches or pirated CD values?
  • Sony have always made some damned fine CRTs. Their Trinitron range has always been pretty much the cream of the crop.

    Of course, myself, I got a second hand 21" Sony Trinitron VGA monitor for about $80, so I'm fine :)

    Mmmm, obscenely high resolution...

    • Yeah, I'm reminded how fine their monitor tubes are every day I look at the two support wire shadows on my screen. yes it's less than 1 pixel tall and hard to see unless you are looking at a white screen but the defect is there and on EVERY trinitron monitor.

      sony trinitrons have ALWAYS suffered from these in their 19 inch and larger tubes. and made us move away from them as they had no plans to fix it.
      • That's not a defect, it's by design.

        A Trinitron tube has thousands of tiny vertical wires to disperse/channel the electron beam. The horizontal wire is necessary to keep the vertical ones from moving. To see it, you generally have to know what you're looking for and explicitly try to find it... it's not at all obvious. That's the price you pay for the superior picture.

        The really big 24" monitors have two wires, at 1/3 and 2/3 the way down the screen.
      • I'm reminded how fine their monitor tubes are every day I look at the two support wire shadows on my screen. yes it's less than 1 pixel tall and hard to see unless you are looking at a white screen but the defect is there and on EVERY trinitron monitor.

        That's not a "defect", any more than the legs on a table or the wheels on a car are a "defect", even if it'd be nicer to have tables or automobiles that floated unsupported. Until the Singularity and we're all uploaded into Cyberspace we'll have to put up wit
  • The implication there is that it needs reviving. As far as I'm aware it's the healthiest part of the company by a long shot. Sony really are banking on SCE: when the PS2 began to approach saturation point (pre-slimline PS2) and sales dipped, Sonys profits dropped by some obscene percentage.

  • CRT (Score:2, Interesting)

    by certel ( 849946 )
    No one wants to purchase CRT. DLP is the new Plasma.

  • WOuldn't it be funny (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:43AM (#13889323) Homepage
    WOuldn't it be funny if one day, only the expensive TVs will come with CRTs, what with the better colors and saturation...

  • Sad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by courtarro ( 786894 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:43AM (#13889324) Homepage
    This is a big loss. A few years ago my Sony display bit the dust after only 1.5 years of use. I was ready to move away from Sony because of that quick failure, so I looked at all sorts of alternatives. I couldn't afford an LCD that could match a CRT for color, so a CRT it was. I came close to buying a ViewSonic display for just over $100, but when I checked it out at the store it was amazing how poor the video clarity was compared to the Sony I had. I finally checked some reviews and went with a 19" Sony CRT from Newegg, and it's been great since. I've seen monitors from all over, and Sony CRT displays are clearly above all other consumer CRTs. Dell displays that use Sony tubes are equally excellent.

    It's hard for me to say that CRTs are still superior to LCDs because I haven't actively researched the best LCDs, but of the many LCD displays that friends and labs use, I can't imagine what I'll do when my current CRT comes up for replacement. There's simply no comparison. The LCD blacks are fake on many of the Dells (they seem to cheat to get a good contrast ratio - perfect black is dark, but the dark grey levels are much lighter). There's also the abrasiveness of the tri-color split of LCD pixels.

    I guess I'm an old-fashioned dinosaur, and maybe the CRT v. LCD battle is comparable to the tube v. solid state amplifier battle, but this day marks the end of the era of beautiful CRT displays. I'll mourn.

    • Re:Sad (Score:4, Informative)

      by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Thursday October 27, 2005 @11:14AM (#13889554) Journal
      Although the sharpness of a modern LCD monitor is better than my 21in Sony Trinitron monitor at home, overall, the Trinitron has them beat. Not just because the colours are better - but also that they don't change if you move your head or change your seating position, or adjust the monitor stand! The rather nice LCD I have at work - this Slashdot section here, if I move my head to the side, the background on the comment titles all but disappears, and the brightness changes. This is inherent in the way LCDs work.

  • You can pry my Trinitron from my cold dead fingers (Score:4, Funny)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @11:07AM (#13889497)
    Thanks but I chose to stay with CRT's forever.
    I do not like LCD or flat panel TV's or monitors at all.
    The response time is god awful, the resolution is god awful.
    They just flat out suck... Not to mention the abysmally short life span of the LCD/plasma/whatever screens.

    I have a number of 21" Sony Trinitron CRT's stockpiled as backups.
    I have a matched pair sitting on my desk right now and 4 spares stuck away because I KNEW this was going to happen...

    I have a few 27" TV's that I never really watch but I suppose that sometime in the not to distant future I'll go out and purchase a few of the very large Sony Trinitron CRT TV's. My uncle is a big Sony fan (100% Sony in his home) and has several very large Sony Wega CRT sets in his home and man, I'm here to tell you those sets have magnificent pictures!
    I can imagine they are very expensive but I expect the price to drop as Sony tries to push old stock out the door to make way for the dinky little flat screens that all the LEMMINGS just *have to* run out and buy. It's the "me too syndrome". You know, keeping up with the Jones and all that.

    People are basically stupid and will buy stuff just because the voice on the idiot box tells them it's cool and trendy and that you MUST run out and get yours today.

    Not me. I stick with yesterdays technology. It's tried and tested and no one is jealous of my Fred Flintstone equipment and decor... Not to mention, I save a lot of money by not replacing all my stuff every commercial break..

    • The response time is god awful
      Plasma and newer LCD screens have fine response time, exhibiting no ghosting at all. Early-generation technology will never be that great, but it has gotten a lot better.

      the resolution is god awful.
      God-awful resolution? 720p is the same on a CRT than it is on an LCD/Plasma/DLP.

      They just flat out suck... Not to mention the abysmally short life span of the LCD/plasma/whatever screens.
      Modern plasma screens (at least Panasonics) have a life of 80,000 hours. That is appr

  • The End of an Era? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Jerrry ( 43027 )
    I'll be sad to see CRTs finally become extinct. Although LCD and plasma screens have come a long way in the last few years, there's nothing like a good CRT when picture quality really matters, and this news of Sony cutting back production brings back nostalgic memories of the old days.

    Many people today don't realize how far CRT TVs have come in quality and usability. I got my first TV set, a 19" Admiral B&W set, for my 8th birthday back in the 1960s. Admiral was one of the big brands back then, along wi

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