Are there any other die hard CRT fans here?

[Dravic]

It is big and heavy, but that's not something I care about.

back when i was using a big NEC 21" monitor.. my response to the size debate always was.. "my desk hasn't complained yet"

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Dravic
You?d be hard pressed to find any video buff that wouldn?t take an equivalent sized CRT over an LCD.

If you called yourself a video buff you'd understand that a some of the strongest advantages of a CRT are dependent on what you are using it for. Obviously if you are playing Quake 3 at 500 frames, you might complain of ghosting on an LCD. But when you are struggling to play Crysis on a GTX 260 with everything maxed out, ghosting is a non-issue on the latest gen LCD. So in practice ghosting has been blown out of proportion. 6 years ago with 16-24ms rseponse times I would have agreed with this major disadvantge.

Your advantages for LCDs also failed to include

1. Color brightness and image sharpness - you get vastly superior vibrancy of color due to improved image brighteness on an LCD. LCDs offer almost twice the brightness compared to the CRT monitor. Arguably this is just as important as black levels since vibrant colors pop out making the image look a lot better than pale colors. CRTs also tend to produce "fuzzy and "blurry" text and as far as I am aware you cannot even enable ClearType on a CRT for those that find the text font unacceptably small on either a CRT or an LCD.

2. Specular Glare: If you use the system in a brightly lit room or with plenty of sunshine coming through the window LCD is the best choice since your CRT will have glare all over its glass screen.

3. Increased resolution image of 1080P in movies and beyond vs. a conventional CRT TV, ability to hook up a 720p feed from a console and high def audio through HDMI vs. 1024x768 for some of the top CRT TVs but mostly 640x480 (speaking of this 4:3 aspect ratio in general for most CRTs). Of course CRTs for PC use have overcome this resolution hurdle of CRT TVs but try using a 19 inch CRT for reading an article at its rated 1600x1200 resolution and you'll quickly realize that this max resolution is unusable for text for prolonged periods of time.

4. Lack of geometry issues. While Mitsu and Sony monitors are about the only true flat CRTs (with all other manufacturers just putting a flat glass screen in front of a convex tube), these tubes have a a faint thin line or two running through the screen to stabilize the grill. I find this very distracting, especially when working on a light background (eg. typing a word document). This makes aperture grille CRTs completely unacceptable for office environments to me.

5. Flicker - One of the most annoying things on the CRT monitor which we all had to suffer was the flickering effect. This contributes towards headaches, unless you happen to be "immune". Also while CRTs might escape some flicker at lower resolutions where the higher refresh rate will offset this problem, a minimum of 72-75hz is required for a flicker free image which most CRTs can't deliver at say 2048+ rez.

6. Power consumption - Higher power usage, more than 200% to an LCD of equivalent size.

7. Burn-in - A little known fact is that CRTs also suffers from burn-in problem. Although this is a very rare occurance, it's possible for this to occur.

Here are some more facts for you how CRT vs. LCD has influenced productivity based on Cornell University's paper

? Visual search times for text targets embedded in a screen of text are 22% faster for LCDs than CRTs, and also faster for low contrast, small characters.
? Eye fixation times are 9% shorter and 15% fewer eye fixations are needed to read the same information from an LCD versus a CRT.
? Visual search error frequency is 22% less when reading from an LCD than a CRT.
? LCDs have been shown to allow for greater postural variety during computer work.

Also to add to point #1, CRTs do have a greater accuracy for color reproduction out of the factory but that is a moot point since a CRT tube fades so fast that in a couple years of usage you can never claim a CRT has superior color reproduction. While blacks look great on a CRT, we all know whites look more like shades of biege and white mixed together or as grey and white.

Both have their advantages and disadvantes (refresh rate for example is far more important for PC gaming vs. movie watching). Also if you are actually watching a movie on a the latest high quality LCD, the screen door effect is virtually non existent on a blu-ray movie unless you watch your movies 2 feet away.

 

[taltamir]

the white vs black is inherant to the method of producing color. an LCD produces white light from a lamp. and then filter out bands leaving you with colors, and eventually "black", but even with all the filters on max, light still escape, causing bad blacks.
A CRT on the other hand has a phosphorous layer on a screen that is black unless struck with an electron, which causes light to occur. Resulting in true blacks (absolute lack of light), but weaker and less vibrant colors.

Excellent post russian. I would like to add.
1. True, also with an LCD, the only "loss" is in the brightness, but I find the original setting too bright, so I take to reducing it greadly (usually to minimum, which is still too bright at first), and increasing it as the screen ages. I can also replace the lamp if I so desire.
In fact, this reminds me, I need to increase the brightness.. There, done! I just increased my brightness from 15% (notice, at 0 the screen is not black, it is just as low as it will allow me to go) to 27%. Good luck unfading your CRT or getting it back into focus so that text is clear(er, still not as clear as LCD though).

4. Ah, I remember those lines. They were very obvious to me. At first I thought you meant geometry in that, no CRT EVER has square pixels, or a rectangular display area, there is always some curves on it. And it has to be slightly smaller then the full size of the glass (ie, you never cover it completely when calibrating, but if done properly you get close).

5. I have never not noticed the flicker on a CRT.

7. Which is surprising considering how so many people here claim to have used the same CRT for over 4 years. Burn in is the very reason why we have a screen saver. To save your screen from burn in.

 

[tno]

@ Russian:

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
If you called yourself a video buff you'd understand that a some of the strongest advantages of a CRT are dependent on what you are using it for. Obviously if you are playing Quake 3 at 500 frames, you might complain of ghosting on an LCD. But when you are struggling to play Crysis on a GTX 260 with everything maxed out, ghosting is a non-issue on the latest gen LCD. So in practice ghosting has been blown out of proportion. 6 years ago with 16-24ms rseponse times I would have agreed with this major disadvantge.

But you're not actually missing the ghosting, you just aren't saturating the screen wtih enough pixels to really notice it. And, to your point later in your post that the refresh issue is only pertinent in games, not movies, that's nuts! Watching action packed 1080P content on your average LCD TV is an exercise in motion blur. This is because the refresh rates are low. The whole reason that Sony announced a 240Hz TV at IFA today was that LCD motion blur is probably the most common complaint.

1. Color brightness and image sharpness - you get vastly superior vibrancy of color due to improved image brighteness on an LCD.

I'll protest this statement. The black base that a CRT uses means that contrast and changes in hue are more evident. Sure, that red doesn't jump off the screen, but it also doesn't bleed into its neighboring images. And as far as tube fade and degradation, I just don't see it. One of my tubes is 7 years old, and it's still bright, it's still color accurate and its still gorgeous.

2. Specular Glare:

Not as much a problem with a true flat screen, and not something to which LCDs are inherently immune. My CRT might have glare, your CRT will still be completely washed out when that same ray of sunlight glancing across it.

3. Increased resolution image of 1080P in movies and beyond vs. a conventional CRT TV, ability to hook up a 720p feed from a console and high def audio through HDMI vs. 1024x768 for some of the top CRT TVs but mostly 640x480 (speaking of this 4:3 aspect ratio in general for most CRTs).

Top CRT TVs do 1080i and 720p with no difficulties, they are, indeed, HDTVs. So, I don't understand this point.

And then here's the real problem with your arguments: "most CRTs." CRT tech has been around for 100 years. "Most CRTs" were made before LCD tech got adopted. We're not talking about "most CRTs," we're talking about the very best of the technology, which was produced just before the market abandoned them because new tech is cool tech and marketing a product that is half as expensive to produce for the same price is just good business sense.

I frequent several AV forums, and there's a pretty strong consensus that some of the best televisions ever produced were the last of the FD Trinitrons, particularly the 36XBR900, a TV that was considered large just as the LCD tech became all the rage. And to anyone reading this that's looking for a TV right now, get on craigslist, find one on sale (often for ~$300), go see it, tell the seller that you don't think you necessarily want it but you want to see what one of Sony's best TVs looks like. You will end up calling a friend to help you lift it into your car.

[q[5. Flicker - One of the most annoying things on the CRT monitor which we all had to suffer was the flickering effect. This contributes towards headaches, unless you happen to be "immune". Also while CRTs might escape some flicker at lower resolutions where the higher refresh rate will offset this problem, a minimum of 72-75hz is required for a flicker free image which most CRTs can't deliver at say 2048+ rez.[/quote]

This is again one of those "most CRTs" statements that fall apart when you realize that we're talking about the kind of screen that I'm using, which is currently running at 2048x1536 @ 75 Hz. Flicker free. Now, sure, when I bought my first computer it came with a 15" screen that ran at 1024 x 768 @ 60Hz, and it was pretty lousy. It also came free with my computer; it was the equivalent of that 17" 12x10 TN panel that Dell will give away with a desktop. So, considering your use of "most" we can turn it around. "Most LCDs" have low rez screens running at low refresh rates with terrible viewing angles, awful blacks and small screen sizes.

6. Power consumption - Higher power usage, more than 200% to an LCD of equivalent size.

That's quite a figure. Show me sources.

7. Burn-in - A little known fact is that CRTs also suffers from burn-in problem. Although this is a very rare occurance, it's possible for this to occur.

I don't understand how this is considered a little known fact. Of course they suffer from burn-in. Like tal said, they created screen savers decades ago to preserve "most CRTs" so this doesn't make sense. So CRTs and LCDs have burn-in, but it's not a problem for either since we have screen savers. So . . .

Here are some more facts for you how CRT vs. LCD has influenced productivity based on Cornell University's paper

I really liked this data. This was fantastic stuff. The trouble is that we are once again dealing with the lowest common denominator, business computers. The article was written as a literature review and was considering those inexpensive monitors that come bundled with the computers with the intention of sitting in front of them and working on documents and the such. Indeed with business in mind they actually cite the poor viewing angles of LCDs as a benefit because it makes for a more secure screen. And then the article brings up a key point.

Do LCDs display similar colors and video?
For most office tasks the color and video quality of both LCDs and CRTs will be equivalent. For high end color graphics, CRTs can offer some advantages because LCDs can only display the colors available in the pixels, and so they can have less of a color depth than CRTs. Some LCDs (low cost, low resolution) have pixels that respond too slowly for accurate video rendering, and some tearing of the video image can occur, which usually is not an issue for CRTs.

Also if you are actually watching a movie on a the latest high quality LCD, the screen door effect is virtually non existent on a blu-ray movie unless you watch your movies 2 feet away.

And how far do you sit from your monitor? So if the screen door effect is noticeable from a few feet away doesn't that mean it'll be noticeable from wherever your monitor is sitting?


I'll say again, there are two things everyone needs to recognize:

- We are not comparing "most CRTs" to "most LCDs," we are comparing great CRTs to both "most LCDs," because the two cost roughly the same right now, and the best LCDs.

- The OP asked whether there were any other diehard CRT lovers out there. He did not ask whether anyone wanted to tell him why CRTs drooled and LCDs ruled. So, for the OP's question, my answer is "Hell, yeah!" and your answer is, "Not I!"

BTW, high def footage in my side CRT and gaming and web surfing in my main is awesome.

tno

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Originally posted by: tno

I'll protest this statement. The black base that a CRT uses means that contrast and changes in hue are more evident. Sure, that red doesn't jump off the screen, but it also doesn't bleed into its neighboring images. And as far as tube fade and degradation, I just don't see it. One of my tubes is 7 years old, and it's still bright, it's still color accurate and its still gorgeous.

Are you shitting me?

LCD's dont bleed AT ALL. DVI connections are pixel perfect images. CRT's over time do too bleed, fade and degrade.

All three of my Sony Trinitrons sitting in my basement have cruddy picture quality. two of them have these two horizontal lines (in different places mind you) that you can see from over 4 feet away. Talk about distracting! Not one of them have retained their brightness over time. One of the monitors nearly puts out beige as a white! No joke! Its the same shade as my girlfriends foundation whenever we go out.

Now, lets look at all 5 of my LCD's.

My old 15" Princeton monitor isn't the brightest monitor in the group, but its still crystal clear and the colors are fairly decent. My 15" HP LCD. Bright as ever and still, no picture degradation. My 17" HP is the same thing.

My 17" dell is really nice. I picked this guy up secondhand from CL for $50. Nice and colorful. No ghosting

My 22" Acer AL2216Wbd LCD is where LCD's really shine. Its affordable and most enthusiasts wouldn't trash it at all once you've got it optimized. Default settings were good, but manually changing color settings make this monitor far better than a CRT. Fast response rate is to the point that I've never seen any ghosting whatsoever. Movies in perfect wide screen. Viewing angles are nearly a thing of the past. You really have to be looking at it form the side to see any distortion in colors.

 

[taltamir]

yea, I also don't get those claims about LCD bleeding, have you ever actually used an LCD?

Why don't you use some REAL arguments against LCDs, none of you die hard CRT fans has yet to mention the one thing you can make out and complain about in LCD geometry; I can actually see the black "lines" seperating each pixel (its like a fine box mesh), which is far less easy to see and distracting then the horizontal lines on flat CRTs, the curveyness of the image on CRT, the flickering on CRT, the refreshing "line" on CRT, the fading of the last refreshed line, and the waving on CRT.

Only one I have to deal with the constant image is those lines.

(If you don't see it, look very carefully and closely at your LCD, preferably somewhere showing gray, like the left side of the anandtech forum, perhaps with magnification at first if you can't see it, and let your eyes focus right. You will see what lines I am talking about). Even if you are not making them out clearly and individually, they "foul" the picture a bit all over.

It is funny that I, an LCD proponent has to make the only valid arguments against LCDs, because the people against them aren't sufficiently familiar with the technology to know / see it.

The only time I still see ghosting is when I have alternating colors on the opposite of the scale and they are each 1 pixel in width. So moving them causes them to blur into a single color other.
But very rarely does someone decide to use such a design.

 

[CP5670]

You just aren't familiar with the name. That is called the screen door effect and has been mentioned here several times. I find it very easy to see on any LCD with a largely white image like this forum, and IPS panels are the worst with it despite being better than VAs and TNs otherwise.

 

[tno]

Originally posted by: taltamir
yea, I also don't get those claims about LCD bleeding, have you ever actually used an LCD?

That wasn't a particularly civil reply. Bright colors on a black background on an LCD whose brightness and hue settings are oversaturated results in a bloom around the color.

And, as CP mentioned, what your talking about is the screen door effect and we have referenced it and acknowledged it. So, there you go. You recognize a fallibility of your beloved tech. Now that we've broken that wall, let's see whether you'll recognize that LCD image quality is also fallible? I'm guessing you won't.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: tno

But you're not actually missing the ghosting, you just aren't saturating the screen wtih enough pixels to really notice it. And, to your point later in your post that the refresh issue is only pertinent in games, not movies, that's nuts! Watching action packed 1080P content on your average LCD TV is an exercise in motion blur. This is because the refresh rates are low. The whole reason that Sony announced a 240Hz TV at IFA today was that LCD motion blur is probably the most common complaint.

This argument is based on purely subjective preferences of the viewer. You can measure the response time of the pixels on an LCD and scientifically prove that its refresh rate rate is inferior to that of a CRT. However, if the viewer cannot notice the ghosting then it's a non-issue to those that cant and an issue to those that can.

I cannot notice any ghosting on my 1080P 8ms LCD panel. I completely accept that you can notice ghosting but most people can't. Also, 120hz TVs have not shown any improvement in image quality over their 60hz panels - just look at any review on CNET by Katzmaier as the "smoothing" of the image actually makes a film look less like a film due to the dejudder. Also this "smoothing" function introduces significant artifacts. So I'll just leave out your comment about 240hz as is because there is 0 evidence to show that 120 or 240hz LCD montiors improve image quality. My point is YES there is ghosting on an LCD and it can be proven mathematically. But I havnet' seen 1 modern panel that has ghosting in the Matrix or Transporter at 10 feet away. Since you have, we have to agree that I am not a videophile

I'll protest this statement. The black base that a CRT uses means that contrast and changes in hue are more evident. Sure, that red doesn't jump off the screen, but it also doesn't bleed into its neighboring images. And as far as tube fade and degradation, I just don't see it. One of my tubes is 7 years old, and it's still bright, it's still color accurate and its still gorgeous.

OK I think this also comes to preferences then since facts don't help you here. But since I don't notice ghosting, fair enough. Factually though LCDs generally offer at least double the brightness of a 250 cd/m2 CRT. Also, I find the opposite to be true - when you try to calibrate the reds on an CRT, they are never vibrantly red enough for my liking (even though a CRT could in theory produce more accurate color, I like more vibrant reds so the fact that a CRT red matches the color spectrum more accurately doesn't necessarily mean that' what the viewer prefers). Instead after calibration, they are either orange and or they bleed. CRT is also prone to bleeding because the electron guns deteriorate over time.

2. Specular Glare:
Not as much a problem with a true flat screen, and not something to which LCDs are inherently immune. My CRT might have glare, your CRT will still be completely washed out when that same ray of sunlight glancing across it.

I havne't noticed reflections of ceiling lights or my face in an LCD. Those 2 things bugged me the most about any CRT I've had a chance to look at.

3. Increased resolution image of 1080P in movies and beyond vs. a conventional CRT TV, ability to hook up a 720p feed from a console and high def audio through HDMI vs. 1024x768 for some of the top CRT TVs but mostly 640x480 (speaking of this 4:3 aspect ratio in general for most CRTs).

I frequent several AV forums, and there's a pretty strong consensus that some of the best televisions ever produced were the last of the FD Trinitrons, particularly the 36XBR900, a TV that was considered large just as the LCD tech became all the rage.

OK but to me the vibrancy of colors on an LCD, pure whites and watching something on a 65 inch screen easily offset any advantages the 36 inch CRT tube offers. 36 inches is just too small to watch anything comfortably at 10-15 feet away and actually discern the difference bewteen 720P and 1080P for that matter. A human eye is incapable of descerning detail of such magnitude on such a small screen surface that far away. Therefore a 36 inch tube is unacceptable for HDTV viewing in your living room because it'll never be able to produce all the detail captured. A videophile, as you CRT fans call yourself, would have at least mentioned this as a defining problem when discussing HDTV on a CRT argument. Your lack of acknowledgement on this only reinforces that you are arguying your preferences not facts.

This is again one of those "most CRTs" statements that fall apart when you realize that we're talking about the kind of screen that I'm using, which is currently running at 2048x1536 @ 75 Hz. Flicker free.

OK but I think we are comparing apples and oranges. I have a 37 inch LCD for computer use. I can work comfortably in Excel from Column A to Column AF! Even if you claim that your monitor can produce flicker free images at its highest rez, such resolution is worthless for any kind of prolonged office work on a 21 inch viewable area. Try building models in Excel on a 37 or 42 inch LCD for hours and I wouldn't want your 21 inch CRT for free.

So while your 2048x1536 21 inch CRT offers superior real estate for work, I would label that largely inferior for my purposes compared to say 37 inches on 1920x1080! This doesn't just apply to a CRT though and I would just as much label a 21 inch LCD with such rez inferior because to me resolution is secondary to screen size when it comes to work. Of course this is precisely why guys like N7 haven't switched to a larger screen because higher rez is more important to them. But I am not going to bring out the magnifying glass for comfort.

I suppose it's impossible to argue personal preferences? I think we both agree we have differnet priorities. But I am not claiming an LCD is superior in all situations in this thread. I have mentioned on multiple times that it depends what you using it for. Point being whether for movies or games, you can alleviate the effects of inferior resolution and so forth by sitting farther away, but you cant' make your screen larger. So in use some 'spec sheet advantages' disappear in practice. At least that's how I feel.

6. Power consumption - Higher power usage, more than 200% to an LCD of equivalent size.

In the article linked already, it was estimated that Japan alone would save 1,000,000 kW hours, or equivalent of 3 nuclear power plants if 76% of its population switched to LCDs over CRTs.

LCDs have burn-in.

You are confusing the terms here. Burn-in is not the same as LCD image persistence. - LCD Image persistence explained. Unlike burn-in, image persistence, in most cases, isn't permanent. Also it's a lot more difficult for an LCD to develop this problem.

I really liked this data. This was fantastic stuff. The trouble is that we are once again dealing with the lowest common denominator, business computers.

OK but I use my LCD for both business and pleasure. So in context of comparing the two, I chose to be fair and compared how a typical user would use their monitor. So I thought it was relevant to provide productivity data.

Indeed with business in mind they actually cite the poor viewing angles of LCDs as a benefit because it makes for a more secure screen.

So 176* viewing angle isn't sufficient for you? I wonder how much enjoyment a group of 6 people will get from watching something on a 21 inch computer CRT over a 37 inch LCD? Or 6 people watching a movie on a 36 inch CRT TV over a 65 inch LCD is? I bet they'll complain more about the viewing angle when they are watching the Superbowl .... and none of them will say "OH that guy should get a larger TV for next year's party!"

Do LCDs display similar colors and video?
For most office tasks the color and video quality of both LCDs and CRTs will be equivalent. For high end color graphics, CRTs can offer some advantages because LCDs can only display the colors available in the pixels, and so they can have less of a color depth than CRTs.

I have already said that CRTs produce superior color than LCDs when it comes to the color spectrum. But the tude fades over time and the electron gun starts to deviate as it wears out. LCD at least provides consistent performance for a longer period of time.

And how far do you sit from your monitor? So if the screen door effect is noticeable from a few feet away doesn't that mean it'll be noticeable from wherever your monitor is sitting?

For computer use 3-4 feet away on a 37 inch. When watching movies 10-15 feet away. I can easily notice the pixels at 3-4 feet away but my eyes cant notice them at 10 feet away because I don't have eagle hawk vision you have

- The OP asked whether there were any other diehard CRT lovers out there. He did not ask whether anyone wanted to tell him why CRTs drooled and LCDs ruled. So, for the OP's question, my answer is "Hell, yeah!" and your answer is, "Not I!"

If I came off as trying to put down CRTs, I apologize. But if everyone said "I love my CRT, my CRT rules!" / End thread. We are trying to peacefully discuss the pros/cons for each and at the end of the day you and I are both extremely happy with our choices. I realize that heck it's just preference at the end :beer:

BTW, high def footage in my side CRT and gaming and web surfing in my main is awesome. tno

eheh let's hope your CRT lasts long enough so we can finally purchase something that's superior to both LCDs and CRTs and not have to make the choice we have now.

 

[taltamir]

I know it is called the screen door effect, I just don't recall a single reference to it.

And LCDs are not my "beloved technology", they are full of flaws and issues. They are just superior to CRTs. I'd ditch them in an instant for something better.