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Sony Media Television

Obituary For the Sony Trinitron 297

Posted by kdawson 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."
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Obituary For the Sony Trinitron More

Obituary For the Sony Trinitron

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  • That's the one thing that bothered me with trinitron monitors as they got more obvious with time.

    My first First Post?

    • Re:Obituary for the 2 horizontal lines (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:15AM (#22633874) Homepage

      That's the one thing that bothered me with trinitron monitors as they got more obvious with time.
      When I first got my Trinitron TV, I didn't realise that it was meant to have the faint horizontal line- I thought it was a fault and took it back. I got used to it pretty quickly though, even though I was also using it as a monitor for my Amiga (nice crisp picture with RGB SCART, although the dot pitch was coarse).

      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?

      • Re:Obituary for the 2 horizontal lines (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:24AM (#22633910) Homepage
        Oh... and one other thing. The TV still gives a picture as good as the day it was bought after approaching 15 years of (almost) continuous use, and I've *never* had it serviced or repaired in that time.

        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.

        • Re:Obituary for the 2 horizontal lines (Score:5, Informative)

          by lymond01 ( 314120 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @11:02AM (#22636376)
          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

          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.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by MaineCoon ( 12585 )
            SD is unwatchable on LCD and Plasma panels, agreed.

            But thats why I got a 55" Sony SXRD rear projection. It uses 3 1080p LCOS chips to generate the image (unlike the DLP which use a half-1080 chip and a spinning color wheel - so no rainbow effect). While it takes about 45 seconds to warm up to full brightness, thats perfectly tolerable - image us viewable within 10-15 seconds of turning it on. Standard Def looks great, even at 55", in any of the 4 aspect modes available (no change, stretch to widescreen,

        • Re:Obituary for the 2 horizontal lines (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Black Cardinal ( 19996 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @12:36PM (#22637930) Homepage
          CRTs still beat most flat-panels in terms of color, because they inherently have a logarithmic response that is very close to that of the human eye, but flat-panels have an intrinsic linear response. In order to accurately mimic the logarithmic curve, either an exceptionally high number of bits is required, or tricks need to be played with the illumination or driver circuitry.

          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.

  • Memories (Score:5, Informative)

    by pravinp ( 869909 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @05:53AM (#22633746) Homepage Journal
    I still have my 10 year old sony and it works fine :)

    • Re:Memories (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Daimanta ( 1140543 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @05:59AM (#22633776) Journal
      My sony monitor is from 1993 and it is still working. In fact, I am looking at it right now, typing this post.

    • Re:Memories (Score:4, Interesting)

      by simcop2387 ( 703011 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:12AM (#22633850) Homepage Journal
      thats nothing we've got an old sony tv thats at least 25 years old now, picture tube still working great (gain is only up half way) and its had at least a hundred thousands of hours viewed on it.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Corporate Troll ( 537873 )

        its had at least a hundred thousands of hours viewed on it.

        Assuming a whopping 8h per day viewed: 100000h / 8h per day = 12500 days / 365.25 days per year = 34.2 years.

        For a 25 year old TV? I doubt your statement.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by simcop2387 ( 703011 )
          try more than an average of 16h a day :) (though most of that was in its prime)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ucklak ( 755284 )
      I have a 22 year old 27 inch NEC that has VTR inputs

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mzs ( 595629 )
      I still have the 19 inch one my parents bought in 1981. It was the second 'new' thing my parents bought in the USA. Everything is phenomenal about it, not just the picture. My wife's aunt bought us a new RCA TV with a remote for the bedroom and it is miles worse in terms of picture quality.

      The Sony survived tow falls, one off of the back of a moving truck and another being kicked by a friend as it was falling to try and prevent it from hitting the ground while being carried up stairs. The sound and the tune

  • X-itron (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @05:54AM (#22633754)
    Too few technologies have the -tron suffix nowadays. It works with everything, so why not use it? This is the future, dammit!

  • All those years and we're still sentimental fools (Score:5, Insightful)

    by syousef ( 465911 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @05:57AM (#22633766) Journal
    Can someone explain to me why geeks fall in love with their gadgets despite the flaws? Aren't we smarter than being brand loyal sheep? Hey I'm sure there were some great Trinitrons but there were also some very defective units shipped from what I've read. I only ever owned one - a 15" computer monitor that's lasted almost 15 years and is still working at my mother's house but on its last legs. It was the most expensive monitor I've ever owned and was greatly surpassed in quality by a cheap (at less than half the price) CTX 17" monitor about 3 years later. There are plenty of bits of equipment that are classics because they don't get outdone, but for me this monitor isn't one of them. This is just about blind brand loyalty and the triumph of modern marketing over common sense.
    • It's not really the Trinitron brand itself which is the big deal, it's the concept of an aperture grill CRT in general. It's a big deal technologically, and luckily for all involved Sony's patent expired in the 1990s.
    • Many of a geek's fond (or not) memories are tied to pieces of technology. We're allowed to reminisce about the old days, old technologies, old brands, etc. It doesn't make us blindly loyal to the brand. If it did, by now we'd all have PS3s and Sony Bravia TVs or whatever they're called.
    • Very strange. I picked up an old Sony 15" Trinitron monitor about 7 years ago. It was the best quality small screen I ever saw. Substantially better than my Belinea 19" monitor I bought a year before that. The text was vastly sharper and the colour much better. Despite the size difference, the sharpness meant it would more easily display any given resolution. Around the same time I actually bought a cheap 17" CTX monitor for my parents. Because of their eyesight, they preferred the bigger screen, but
    • The best CRT I ever owned in terms of picture quality was a 19" Trinitron. It's still going strong on one of my other PC's though I've long since switched to LCD's on my primary boxen.

      The thin line through the middle vanished for me after about a day. The brain has wonderful abilities to filter some things out. The crispness of the picture and the depth of the colors was fantastic compared to my NEC and CTX CRT's.

  • Respect (Score:2, Informative)

    by El Lobo ( 994537 )
    Yes, there was a time when owning a Trinitron set was just the awesomess...

    I remember the day when I got my first Nokia monitor with Trinitron technology.... The screen was heavy and took a lot of space, but hell, the quality of the image was just incredible for that time... My games never looked so good.... Gotta love Sony.

    Rip...

  • I want tougher LCD's (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jollyreaper ( 513215 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:10AM (#22633840)
    Bitch about CRT's all you want, God knows I do. Those bastards are heavy, awkward, and should never be larger than 17". I had an old 21" I lugged around. Madness!!! But they were durable. You could bludgeon a hippo to death with one and it would still work. LCD's? The damn screens are too fragile. Put a layer of glass over the front for protection, I'll accept the weight penalty.
    • Put a layer of glass over the front for protection, I'll accept the weight penalty.

      This layer of glass is one of the reasons why, when buying a refurbished Mac this week, I decided to get the current (aluminum) iMac instead of one from the previous (white) generation.

  • Those two lines vs eye strain (Score:5, Informative)

    by msgmonkey ( 599753 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:10AM (#22633842)
    Yes there where two visible lines, but (for me atleast) if you was actually concentrating on the job at hand, such as coding you never noticed them. To me having a much sharper display with less eye strain was worth it.

    My 19" was the last Sony product I ever purchased, their LCD screens just seem expensive and not much better than the competition. I guess they do not manufacture their own panels.

  • My Sony Trinitron TV is still going strong (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blind biker ( 1066130 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:11AM (#22633848) Journal
    This piece of home electronics was engineered and built phenomenally. Not a single problem in 11 years. The picture is great, too.
    Since I can't really tell the difference by watching high definition video on HD TVs and normal DVDs on my set, I don't think I'll be upgrading anytime soon.

    • Not that I want to get into a pissing match over who has the oldest Trinitron, but I have a 13" Sony Trinitron in my that my parents gave me for Christmas in 1987. It has survived dorm life, a summer of couch-tripping and a dozen long distance, stuff everything in a hatchback-style moves. Only recently did I discover any limitations with it - lack of non-coax inputs. Easy enough to work around to get a DVD player hooked up to it. The TV still looks as good as it did when I was 15... either that or my e

  • Sumo TV (Score:5, Funny)

    by ShakaUVM ( 157947 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:14AM (#22633862) Homepage Journal
    "...too later fall under the weight of plasma and LCD technologies."

    As someone who just bought an LCD TV and is trying to figure out how the hell he'll get his 250lb 38" Hi-Def Sony CRT to his sister 400 miles away, I find this statement just a little ironic. The damn thing weighs more than most people.

    • Re:Sumo TV (Score:4, Funny)

      by Mushdot ( 943219 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:43AM (#22634008) Homepage

      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.

      • Funnily enough I have a white Trinitron portable sitting right next to me with my Dreamcast plugged in to it. When I were a lad it was our second TV (we weren't posh or owt, though). Its even got a seperate RF input on the front for plugging your speccie in without having to take the arial out the back. I only had to stop using it recently because you can't get freeview boxes with RF outputs and it pre-dates scart by about 2 centuries.

      • 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.
        Thanks, this was hilarious. I am sorry for your friend - hope his foot recovered, though?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 )

      The damn thing weighs more than most people.


      You must be European?

  • Unintended Ownership (Score:3, Funny)

    by halcyon1234 ( 834388 ) <halcyon1234@hotmail.com> on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:14AM (#22633868) Journal
    I wouldn't have known I even owned a Trinitron if it wasn't for this article. I've had this 19", 2,874lb beast on my desk since I lugged it home from the thrift shop, but never noticed the brand name up in the corner. So that's what those lines are. I just figured they were what-I-paid-for bugs.

    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)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak AT yahoo DOT com> on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:19AM (#22633896) Homepage Journal
    Well, I'm personally not impressed by LCD or plasma. I'm old-fashioned, perhaps, but I question whether you can achieve the same resolutions, the same refresh rates, the same dynamic ranges for the same screen size, once you pass a critical size. CRTs can work with distributed tubes, it's just the logical inverse of an array of receivers. You can't parallelize plasma so easily and I'm not convinced you could parallelize LCD well enough. Ultimately, I think CRT will survive in the very high-end market, the same way thermionic valves have, because their replacements have limited range.

    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)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Depends on what you mean. LCDs aren't universally better or worse than CRTs. In terms of resolution, yes they can easily exceed a CRT. The ones made for desktop use don't normally because people don't want ultra tiny pixels (until recently OSes haven't done a good job with DPI scaling) but they certainly can be.

      Refresh rate really isn't meaningful to an LCD, they don't refresh, the image is stable until changed. Now, for various reasons, they still get signals in the same format as a CRT and thus the "refre
  • Ok , you can't get a 50" CRT and they suck up electricity like its going out of fashion, but for picture quality you still can't beat a good CRT so its a shame that the trinitron tube is being discontinued because IMO it'll be some years yet before LCDs and Plasma picture quality matches it.

  • Tipping my hat and a moment of silence. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AbRASiON ( 589899 ) * on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:22AM (#22633906) Journal
    As a "diehard CRT fanboy" I'd like to pay my respects.

    About 9 months ago, I finally caved in, I fought tooth and nail to the bitter end, from forum to forum across the web, valiantly defending the honour of CRT vs LCD in the great debate, I held on long, much longer than most of the die hard CRT junkies, there's few of us left.

    I am a man who had slowly given up PC gaming I finally bit the dust, accepted a good price for the sale of my old 22" trinitron (philips 202P40) and accepted the new Dell 2407 WFP HC model into my life also at a great price, it was a combination I couldn't refuse.

    Sure I loved the desk space saved, I loved the crisp text in the native resolution, hell even in games I didn't mind non native resolution honestly, once you're playing, it doesn't matter.
    Also the monitor was appealing to look at, it came with USB, CF, SD and other such ports, it was sexier, it was lighter etc etc!

    Still.. to this day as a die hard CRT fanboy, I can not use that Dell 24" LCD in dark (DARK!) games, like Doom, like Oblivion, the black levels, despite what the 'forum people' tell me! are STILL not good enough.

    I seriously do not exaggerate for a second, when I say widescreen Oblivion, the sides of the monitor - with it's huge width, tight viewing angle and so on, combined in to the 'perfect storm' of shimmery, nasty black levels, which made the walls in the caves of Oblivion quite honestly impossible to look at.
    I felt as if 'sleep' as in my eye - I was constantly rubbing it to get the shimmery light sappy stuff from my eyes out.
    Obviously though... it wasn't really in my eyes to begin with.

    I love my LCD for so many reasons but for so many others, I still hate it.
    Co-incidentally the night of this news article, it's in a box behind me now, being re-sold to someone else.
    Sure I'm typing this on a 19" LCD but I don't intend to play games on it, I'll wait for something with REAL black levels, with REAL viewing angels, something actually, genuinely superior to the CRT I so foolishly sold for my the LCD.
    (100hz at 1600x1200 no less!, it was a good CRT!)

    Yes CRT has it's flaws, yes it's heavy, no it's not ultra crisp but that almost gives it a 'free AA' feel to be honest
    Sure they are rare now but if one feature hasn't been surpassed it's by far the black levels, by a long, long way!
    When you can plonk me down, in front of a widescreen LCD and I can say the picture surpasses my old CRT - then I'll be a happy man.

    So long trinitrons, alas - we knew thee well.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bemymonkey ( 1244086 )
      I know exactly how you feel - moved my Sony G520 (another one of those beautiful 1600x1200@100hz models) to my girlfriend's house a few days ago and replaced it with a Samsung SyncMaster 223BW, and though the TFT looks great for text, I've gotta say - the whites and blacks are awful. Not to mention the reaction time (*shudders*)... just moving the mouse around the desktop, I can easily tell the difference between TFT and CRT (I've still got my SyncMaster 959NF arpeture grille CRT as a second monitor).

      Really

      • I've still got my SyncMaster 959NF arpeture grille CRT as a second monitor

        Considering that the story here is the demise of Triniton, it's a bit funny that you think your SyncMaster is an aperture grille CRT.

        Trinitons are aperture grille.

        Samsung uses an invar shadow mask CRT in the SyncMaster 959NF (as well as all the other recent SyncMasters I've come into contact with).

        That's why you SyncMaster doesn't have two nasty lines across it like your Sony does (which is a Triniton) ;-)

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jugalator ( 259273 )

      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)

      by value_added ( 719364 )
      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.

      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

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MtViewGuy ( 197597 )
      Good as it was in terms of contrast and color quality, CRT's are disappearing as computer monitors for a couple of reasons:

      1) They use WAY more power on a per-size basis compared to modern LCD panels.

      2) Adjust CRT displays for proper geometry can be a frustrating experience--most LCD panels usually don't have such problems.

      3) Today's latest LCD panels now have pretty good picture quality.
  • We have an old Trinitron, which we acquired as a result of an elderly relative passing away. We don't have the instruction book. It's model number is KV-2092-UB. The Sony website knows nothing about such a model. What I want to know is; is it new enough for s-video to work over its SCART connection? Asking here because I obviously don't trust Sony enough to give them my personal details which is a requirement for asking them. Anyone know?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by ZERO1ZERO ( 948669 )
      press the source button to cycle throught the vid sources. On my 25" trinitron i have 2 s vids sources (indicated by an S-> on screen ) one is the round port at the front (source 3) and the other is my 2nd scart (source 2)

      I would think that if you didn't have this then the answer would be no.

  • Triniton monitors sucked (Score:5, Informative)

    by sd.fhasldff ( 833645 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:33AM (#22633956)
    I never understood why so many people loved their shiny Triniton monitors. Don't get me wrong, the technology made for GREAT televisions, at least at standard PAL and NTSC resolutions (and typical viewing distances), but as a high-resolution monitor, the two lines(*) across totally spoil it for me. It's like buying a shiny new LCD and having not just one bunch A LOT of dead pixels right smack in the middle third of the display.

    I've accidentally ruined the experience for at least a few new Triniton owners who had not previously noticed the lines. When someone points them out to you, it's apparently quite hard to ignore them again. For me, the lines were always just too much of an annoyance.

    (*)For anyone interesting in knowing *why* there are these fine lines across a Triniton display, but not on most other conventional CRTs... go read up on aperture grille vs shadow mask. I was going to whore myself for some informative karma, but the Wikipedia article with images shows it better than I can tell it, so go read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_grille [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)

      by gaspyy ( 514539 )

      I never understood why so many people loved their shiny Triniton monitors

      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:

      • Great contrast range; solid blacks, excellent reproduction of shades of grey;
      • Brilliant, accurate colors
      • At 100-125Hz, flicker was invisible
      • Very sharp (compared to other CRTs)

      Like others, I caved in and got a fancy LCD (I brought my lapto

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pimpimpim ( 811140 )
      Hmm I'd say you're a bit trolling here. The overall viewing quality compared to other CRTs is much higher, and compared to LCDs, text is more easily readable, it easily gets blurry on an lcd. Watching a movie with a lot of black in it on an LCD still sucks like hell, I could reason that I cannot understand why people pay for that, it's like going to the cinema where the screen is made out of aluminum foil.

      I still use my IBM P200 (with 13w3 connector!) day in day out, I know about the wires, and I don't se

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *
      The great thing about the aperture grille for TV's was that it allowed the Wega line to do 16:9 anamorphic squeeze (giving you as much as 33% more resolution on anamorphic DVD's) back when no other U.S. TV line could do it (and at a bargain price too).

  • Still in use for Pro Video (Score:3, Informative)

    by DTemp ( 1086779 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @06:47AM (#22634020)
    Trinitron tubes are still in use by pro video editors as monitors. My school's visual arts program uses trinitron tubes as monitors (besides two large LCDs used for the actual editing, timelines, etc), and with good reason: CRT technology is STILL just plain better than LCD tech for a couple tasks.

  • Where did they all go? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by whichpaul ( 733708 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @07:09AM (#22634118) Journal
    280 million Trinitron displays equals how many billion tonnes of lead and other human-unfriendly substances?

    These products are dead and (soon to be) buried but they're not going anywhere. Rather than being mildly nostalgic we should take this as an opportunity to look forward to the next generation of displays and ask ourselves the questions that really matter; what impact does the manufacture have, what happens to these materials once they reach the end of their short life, do these valuable materials really need to be entombed forever?

    I don't want a Sony Trinitron cocktail when I take a drink from the tap!
  • I have four GDM-5011P 21" Trinitrons made by Sony for Silicon Graphics in their trademark 'granite' finish. STUNNING build quality. They're about a decade old now but even with my three Samsung 244T 24" LCDs, I still find myself using the Trinitrons quite regularly. Crisp, clean and fantastic color.

  • Back in the 80's, I picked up a 15" Trinitron TV/Monitor at a garage sale for 25 bucks. The exterior was pretty beat up, but it still worked like a charm (and had quite a few years on it already). I used that thing for at least another decade, finally giving it away to a friend, still producing a sharp, clear, well-balanced picture. That's how they used to make things.

  • Still in use here... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Retron ( 577778 )
    I'm using a whopping behemoth of a TV still, an 8 year old 28" widescreen Wega which weighs a ton (or at least a 20th of a ton). It's still got absolutely superb picture quality though, with an RGB feed from a DVD player / DTT box looking pin-sharp. Ironically it's not really pin sharp, as the same material played on an LCD monitor shows up MPEG artifacts if you look closely.

    I still have an old 17" Trinitron monitor which I use for an elderly PC hooked up to a weather station. Just for fun a few weeks bac

  • My main monitor is a 19" Dell-branded Trinitron CRT.

    It's wonderful. It looks like it's at least a decade old (I bought it at First Saturday a few years ago, so I don't know when it was made), and the picture quality blows any LCD out of the water.

    This is why I avoid LCDs--the picture quality can never compare to a good CRT. I have to use an LCD at work, and I'm so happy when I get home, because it means I can use a monitor that doesn't suck.

  • Typo (Score:2, Informative)

    by mismetti ( 1169567 )
    The year under the Watchman should be 1982 not 1992.
  • Right when CRT screens above 21" for PC monitors became price value worthy, PC makers stopped selling them. Now your monitor costs more than your PC. So when can we see a corresponding price drop in LCDs. A year ago the 25% drop year over year for the previous few years came to an abrupt halt and prices have remained stable for more than 12 months.

    Thanks for the 'upgrade', dudes.

  • Ancient Trinitron (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gallenod ( 84385 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @08:14AM (#22634480)
    I have a 20" Sony Trinitron I acquired used 21 years ago. The picture is still great. My wife keeps hoping it will die at some point so she can buy a better-looking TV for the bedroom, but it refuses to die or degrade. It is proof you can build good, reliable, lasting technology if you want to.

  • Gravitational pull is right. (Score:5, Funny)

    by szquirrel ( 140575 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @08:26AM (#22634566) Homepage
    Few Sony inventions have had the same gravitational pull as their Trinitron display technology...

    That's because a Trinitron weighed as much as a small neutron star...
  • It was a revelation - I remember when I saw my first trinitron. Up until then color TVs were washed out blurry affairs, barely superior to black and white - the trinitron brough real, sharp color into the home. The trinitron made watching porn far more exciting! The jump in quality was like going from VHS EP to upscaled DVD.

  • not bad 4 a technology invented to avoid a patent (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @09:20AM (#22635046)
    Trinitron was invented to avoid paying royalties [everything2.com] on the original shadow-mask design. They ended up with a cleared, brighter picture than the original.

    I suppose nowadays somebody that didn't invent anything would have patented "sending TV pictures in colour" and everyone would have had to pay royalties to them.

  • was the crt the last vacuum tube? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The_Rook ( 136658 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @07:16PM (#22644346)
    obviously, there are still companies making vacuum tubes (for guitar amps, audiophiles, etc.) but was the crt the last vacuum tube on which serious r & d money was still spent?

    when i think of mainstream and state of the art electronics (retro stuff notwithstanding) i can't think of any modern electronic devices that use vacuum tubes except for the crts found in computer monitors and televisions. this announcement seems to be mark the end for the vacuum tube - this is not just the passing of what was once the best video display technology, but also the final passing of the vacuum tube, once used in every electronic device ever made including the first digital computers.

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