BEST CRT TELEVISION SET HDTV.. 30''+++

[vtohthree]

As the title reads, I'm looking into a new CRT TV set, not a monitor.

Anyone recommend any? Panasonic Tau's, Sony wega's, Samsung's..maybe a toshiba(though I've heard their latest models had some "quality issues")

Any one happen to know some great ones that are still out there or some refurbs? Or even places to buy 'em?


I was searching through the net and found some sets made by Samsung and LG that featured the slim CRT models that were 1/3 the depth and had less weight. But I saw numerous reviews on the first models that indicated some kind of color distortion on them.

Here's some model's I'm looking at, but certainly opened to any that are good, especially if people have had experiences to share:


Panasonic CT-34WX15 Tau Series PureFlat TV

https://www.prestigetek.com/displayProd...d=1015&categoryId=3&sourceCode=froogle


Samsung TX-S3082WH 30" Widescreen SlimFit HDTV

http://www.automatedwebhosting.net/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1190

 

[nullpointerus]

I've been wondering this myself. The family wants a HDTV that will fit into the existing entertainment center, so we're stuck looking at 30" CRTs or 32" LCDs. I found the Samsung model that you linked to - you've got the model number wrong in your post? - and am on the fence about CRT vs. LCD. I can't make a decision until I physically go to a store and look at the displays, but any information posted about CRT HDTVs would be much appreciated.

 

[evilbix]

I did research into this not long ago, and it seems that all of the CRT HDTV units have lots of problems. I'd just go with an LCD because their digital (and soon all cable tv will be), they're light, and a good LCD will actually have a better picture quality.

You can do the research yourself if you want, but I remember the sony having a lot of problems. Something with the tube I think.. anyways, I'd just go with LCD and make life easy. I'd recommend the westinghouse. My bro has their 26 inch sitting in his bedroom now and it looks pretty good and was really cheap (he got it for 650 after coupons).

 

[Markbnj]

I agree with what evil said. There are only a few of these left. Sony makes a line of 30-35" (XBR960) but they are hard to find, and the ones I looked at were terrible. First of all they are huge, _heavy_, and hot. Add to that poor convergence and geometry, and you're bound to be disappointed.

There is just zero dollars going into R&D on CRTs now. Zero. It's over. I have a 37" 1080p LCD and every time I watch an HD movie and am flat-out blown away by the picture I think how disappointed I would have been if I had gotten that electron-firing monstrosity.

 

[kylebisme]

I'd can recomend TXR3080WHX/XAA, CRTs do have their drawbacks but so do LCDs, and at I'd easly take a good direct view CRT over any current LCD. I've heard good things about the Panasonic as well, but I've never seen one in person so I can't comment directly on it.

 

[Fox5]

I just got a philips hdtv crt.......30" hdtv for $560. Heavy as hell, but it has very nice picture quality, better than LCDs in the price range (all the LCDs I looked at were under $2000 and looked worse). I really like it, except for it being heavy as hell.

 

[vtohthree]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Yeah, as much as I would like to have a Plasma or an LCD, I'm trying to look for a CRT. I have numerous reasons, all have their share of good picture quality, but another bonus is that guncon lightgun only works with CRT's. And I do find it ironic that CRT's have had reliability issues lately. I have read reviews myself, ironic since its one of the oldest and most "proven" technologies amoung the others. But who know's maybe it was just a few flukes.

Have CRT's that are 19 years old or so and still running strong.

 

[imported_Ivan244]

The Sony 34XBR960 is the best HDTV you can buy under 20K. The reason they look so bad at stores is that they don't want a $1800 TV smoking their high margin $5k LCD/Plasma/DLP Tvs.

Go check them out. They will have the worst signal, and be located far far away from the main marketed TVs.
A properly calibrated Sony 34XBR960 will DESTROY any LCD/Plasma/DLP in color reproduction and have black levels the other TVs only have wet dreams about.

Please go check out the AVS forums for more info. Watch out for SED coming out in the next few years. All the benefits of CRT with none of the weight/heat issues.

 

[kylebisme]

LCDs are also up for some big breakthroughs on image quality here in the near future, but yeah as for now direct view CRTs are the top of the heap in many respects. I would have got a direct view CRT, but as they don't come large enough to suit my needs I settled for a plasma.

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: Ivan244
The Sony 34XBR960 is the best HDTV you can buy under 20K. The reason they look so bad at stores is that they don't want a $1800 TV smoking their high margin $5k LCD/Plasma/DLP Tvs.

Go check them out. They will have the worst signal, and be located far far away from the main marketed TVs.
A properly calibrated Sony 34XBR960 will DESTROY any LCD/Plasma/DLP in color reproduction and have black levels the other TVs only have wet dreams about.

Please go check out the AVS forums for more info. Watch out for SED coming out in the next few years. All the benefits of CRT with none of the weight/heat issues.

I'd agree with you, but are you saying that the store tweaked the geometry and convergence off to make the set look bad? I'm not talking about signal strength or color calibration issues. The geometry and convergence absolutely sucked on the three demo sets I saw. You don't have either problem with a flat panel.

 

[Hadsus]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

Originally posted by: Ivan244
The Sony 34XBR960 is the best HDTV you can buy under 20K. The reason they look so bad at stores is that they don't want a $1800 TV smoking their high margin $5k LCD/Plasma/DLP Tvs.

Go check them out. They will have the worst signal, and be located far far away from the main marketed TVs.
A properly calibrated Sony 34XBR960 will DESTROY any LCD/Plasma/DLP in color reproduction and have black levels the other TVs only have wet dreams about.

Please go check out the AVS forums for more info. Watch out for SED coming out in the next few years. All the benefits of CRT with none of the weight/heat issues.

I'd agree with you, but are you saying that the store tweaked the geometry and convergence off to make the set look bad? I'm not talking about signal strength or color calibration issues. The geometry and convergence absolutely sucked on the three demo sets I saw. You don't have either problem with a flat panel.

Convergence? I don't think this TV has convergence settings, does it?

 

[kylebisme]

Yeah, they do, they are usually in the service menu. But Ivan244 was clearly talking about signal quality, not display settings.

 

[Sonikku]

Originally posted by: Ivan244
The Sony 34XBR960 is the best HDTV you can buy under 20K. The reason they look so bad at stores is that they don't want a $1800 TV smoking their high margin $5k LCD/Plasma/DLP Tvs.

Go check them out. They will have the worst signal, and be located far far away from the main marketed TVs.

I don't believe that for a moment. In my best buy the Sony's always take priority in the best signals. The other sets, like the samsung, toshiba ect. get composite. Everyone is like oooooooo the Sony is teh so much better'!

 

[kylebisme]

Some stores handle things different that others. I've never seen an HDTV in my local Best Buy getting anything less than component, but sometimes it gets split up pretty thin sometimes and hence some TVs get better quality out of the signals than others.

 

[Hadsus]

I really like the Sony......even considered it for a short while. Thought the PQ was excellent with the source material I saw through it. Last time I checked it had a pretty good reputation. Anyway, as far as a TV monitor is concerned, it just isn't big enough for my purposes.

 

[JRW]

I bought a Sony 34XBR960 CRT about 6 months ago and it looks fantastic, You wont find a TV with better overall picture quality regardless if its LCD / Plasma etc. Sony's XS955 and XBR960 line are the only models that use a "Super Fine Pitch CRT" (65% more lines of resolution versus other CRT HDTVs) and believe me it shows,Im still in awe when watching Hi Def material on it and Xbox360 looks superb.

Another big advantage CRT's have over LCD / Plasma etc. is the 480i / 480P pic quality, since CRT's dont have to 'downscale' from a native resolution even standard cable channels look great.

Also Geometry & Convergence can be adjusted in the service menu.

 

[Ichigo]

The Sony you guys are talking about seems to have a maximum horizontal resolution of 1400 according to Cnet. That's not so great it seems. Unless Cnet is BSing.

 

[JRW]

Originally posted by: Ichigo
The Sony you guys are talking about seems to have a maximum horizontal resolution of 1400 according to Cnet. That's not so great it seems. Unless Cnet is BSing.

1400 lines is a lot more than any other CRT HDTV (which are usualy 800 lines), CNET still uses the XBR960 as a refrence TV when rating other types of HDTVs (up to 40" in size) so thats saying a lot

digicam shots of the XBR960 can be seen here.

 

[Markbnj]

1400 lines is a lot more than any other CRT HDTV (which are usualy 800 lines), CNET still uses the XBR960 as a refrence TV when rating other types of HDTVs (up to 40" in size) so thats saying a lot

I think he is talking about columns, not rows, but maybe I misunderstood. My Sceptre LCD has 1920 columns, and 1080 rows. I don't know that the difference between 1400 and 1920 is worth a lot, and most content has to be scaled up to 1920 anyway.

Someone made the point about standard def on an LCD, and that is definitely true, although I find that from a realistic viewing distance the picture still beats my old electron beamer.

The issue with CRTs is more fundamental, and it is exacerbated by wide screen and large screen formats. They are high energy systems with a lot of analog tunings that have to be just right for everything to come together. I've probably bought five or six high-end CRTs for computers over the years. When I say high end I refer to something like the $1100 Nanao FX that I bought in 1995, or any one of several $800-$1000 NECs. Most of these monitors have had detectable imperfections in geometry or convergence. If corner warp and other geometry issues don't bother you, then this isn't a big deal, but for me they always were. My last CRT purchase for the family room was a 27" Toshiba, one of their best sets. The power button broke off within a week, and three years later its color was shot (lost the blue gun). We replaced it with the Sceptre.

LCDs and Plasmas have their own issues, i.e. dead pixels, backlight bleed (LCDs), crushing of dark tones. They're far from perfect. But overall I still don't see how on balance you could reasonably prefer a CRT for everyday viewing use. For some applications where color precision or the absolute best IQ are required, they might still make sense.

But even so, they're history. The manufacturing and shipping costs are too high, they're too heavy (200+ pounds to get a 34" diagonal image?), and they suck power.

 

[JRW]

I don't get why people complain about the weight of a CRT, Do you guys move your TV's around that often? Hell if anything a bulky 200lb TV is less likely to be stolen ,think of it as an added security feature

I currently have a 4.5 year old FW900 CRT (24" widescreen) and the XBR960, The FW900 has extremely straight geometry & convergence corner to corner while the XBR960 has only minor issues in the corners but nothing that degrades the experience of watching movies or playing video games.

Toshiba's quality went way downhill ever since they started outsourcing there TVs to Orion in Thailand awhile back and are known to be very unreliable with degraded pic quality ever since.

 

[Ichigo]

1400 lines of horizontal resolution means not being able to play 1080p videos at full resolution. That irks me.

 

[JRW]

Originally posted by: Ichigo
1400 lines of horizontal resolution means not being able to play 1080p videos at full resolution. That irks me.

CRT's HDTV's output 1080i max anyhow (1080p will get converted to 1080i) , If you want 1080p you'll have to buy another display type.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: JRW
I don't get why people complain about the weight of a CRT, Do you guys move your TV's around that often? Hell if anything a bulky 200lb TV is less likely to be stolen ,think of it as an added security feature

I think that's stretching it a bit. The problem with the weight is that it's not always easy to get around to the back of the TV when changing connections. The TVs I'm looking at would have to fit into an entertainment center as opposed to simply sitting on a stand. I really don't want to drop a 200lb set on my toes. It weights more than I do!

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: vtohthree
Thanks for the replies everyone. Yeah, as much as I would like to have a Plasma or an LCD, I'm trying to look for a CRT. I have numerous reasons, all have their share of good picture quality, but another bonus is that guncon lightgun only works with CRT's. And I do find it ironic that CRT's have had reliability issues lately. I have read reviews myself, ironic since its one of the oldest and most "proven" technologies amoung the others. But who know's maybe it was just a few flukes.

Have CRT's that are 19 years old or so and still running strong.

HDTV CRTs are much more complex than SDTV (as well as draw much more power) so that could be the reason for the lower reliability. When you're pumping 500 watts through something, it's much more likely to fry even with better components.

Oh, I wouldn't count on the guncon working. My dreamcast lightgun doesn't calibrate properly on my philips HDTV. Not sure why, it might be the flat screen since the gun calibrates just fine on a computer monitor.

The Sony 34XBR960 is the best HDTV you can buy under 20K. The reason they look so bad at stores is that they don't want a $1800 TV smoking their high margin $5k LCD/Plasma/DLP Tvs.

The sony 34xbr960 is also like 350 pounds.
Oh, and it's hard to compare tvs in store, they're usually all hooked up to a grainy analog cable split among all the tvs.

Another big advantage CRT's have over LCD / Plasma etc. is the 480i / 480P pic quality, since CRT's dont have to 'downscale' from a native resolution even standard cable channels look great.

Most CRTs scale anyway. Most CRTs will pick 1080i as their native res (sometimes 480p as well) and then rather than switch between resolutions like a computer monitor, they just scale to that native res, so you can still get scaling artifacts. Of course, at least you don't get LCD artifacts on top of that where the image is scaled to 720p, but the LCD's native res is 1440 or something. For a CRT, it doesn't really matter if the input res doesn't match the output res.

The Sony you guys are talking about seems to have a maximum horizontal resolution of 1400 according to Cnet. That's not so great it seems. Unless Cnet is BSing.

That's higher than any other CRT ever produced near that size, even computer monitors. Too bad it can do 1080p though, only 1080i.

Do you guys move your TV's around that often? Hell if anything a bulky 200lb TV is less likely to be stolen ,think of it as an added security feature

Lol, I'm planning on bringing mine to college, almost regret not spending $200 more to get an LCD, but then I think about how the LCD looks crappier. In addition, since it's college, I kind of like the idea of having a 100 to 150 lb hdtv rather than a 20 lb plasma that someone could just pick up and walk out with while I'm at class.

 

[Snakexor]

what about the xbr 970? is that as good as the 960?