CRT Monitors

[NoStateofMind]

I had forgotten how great the picture looks on them. I haven't had a CRT in years. Went to see a friend who had one of the Sony Trinitron CRTs. Mirroring the image with a Samsung 32" LCD you could easily tell which was more crisp with deep colors and black is black! Now this has me wanting one. I know the holy grail is the Sony FW900 but its quite expensive to get a decent one. I'll probly settle for a 21" if I see one on craigslist.

Anyone know of a refurb CRT website?

 

[nsKb]

http://www.accurateit.com/monitors/crt-monitors

Dat F-dub 900

 

[AdamantC]

*Strokes Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 200* My Precious...

Back on topic I'd like to know of a CRT refurb site as well. You might also want to hit up local tech shops/recycling/goodwills/etc and see if they have any. I found my Diamond back in 2006 at a local tech shop I interned in for a short while.

 

[crisium]

I was still using my 21" (20 actual) Sony Trinitron until February of this year for both PC and PS3 and what I really loved about it is the response time. I had a decisive advantage in online multiplayer, especially fighting games. The only reason I'm not using it is I have switched to a gaming laptop mostly for work reasons.

I'd love to eventually get one of the 24" (22.5 actual) 16:10 Trinitrons. Mmmm, it would be grand.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I had forgotten how great the picture looks on them. I haven't had a CRT in years. Went to see a friend who had one of the Sony Trinitron CRTs. Mirroring the image with a Samsung 32" LCD you could easily tell which was more crisp with deep colors and black is black! Now this has me wanting one. I know the holy grail is the Sony FW900 but its quite expensive to get a decent one. I'll probly settle for a 21" if I see one on craigslist.

Anyone know of a refurb CRT website?

I found 2 Viewsonic PF 225 monitors on Craigslist about a year ago. A word of advice - don't run those out of the recommended specs at their age. They won't last as mine sadly burnt out within a month. Both were found under 50$

god dang it, you got me looking for CRT's again! thanks

 

[Fallengod]

Yeah, I only recently changed from a CRT within the past like year or so. I used to run a Viewsonic PS790-2. And yeah, you can find CRT's usually in the like $20-40 range. Those Sony FW900's were cool, I never owned one but they were badass, and expensive.

I am happy with the Viewsonic 120hz flat screen I have now to replace it though. Cant really complain.

In the end, it eats up like 25% of the juice the CRT did.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

I just sold my Sony FW900 a week ago. It was an amazing monitor, but really it had weaknesses.

Text: You just can't beat the crispness of an LCD in this arena
Geometry: With CRTs you have two choices. 1) Spend endless eye bleeding hours staring at grids to calibrate the geometry of your monitor. 2) Live with it.
Convergence: Same as Geometry

Also no CRT these days is anywhere as bright as an LCD, since CRTs lose brightness over time.

I loved my FW900, but I'm happier with my Catleap 2B @ 100hz.

 

[ctsoth]

Also no CRT these days is anywhere as bright as an LCD, since CRTs lose brightness over time.

You could just replace the bulb. I was a projectionist for a time, and replace bulbs was a routine procedure. Though for that we had to wear protective gear in case they exploded.

 

[MrK6]

I just sold my Sony FW900 a week ago. It was an amazing monitor, but really it had weaknesses.

Text: You just can't beat the crispness of an LCD in this arena
Geometry: With CRTs you have two choices. 1) Spend endless eye bleeding hours staring at grids to calibrate the geometry of your monitor. 2) Live with it.
Convergence: Same as Geometry

Also no CRT these days is anywhere as bright as an LCD, since CRTs lose brightness over time.

I loved my FW900, but I'm happier with my Catleap 2B @ 100hz.

This. There are benefits and detractors to both technologies. I find my eyes can adjust/make up for the lack of contrast on an LCD compared to a CRT, but the loss of sharpness, crisp text, and warping I can't.

 

[Eureka]

Have you looked into IPS screens? Best color reproduction you can possibly get on a LCD.

 

[AnandThenMan]

You could just replace the bulb. I was a projectionist for a time, and replace bulbs was a routine procedure. Though for that we had to wear protective gear in case they exploded.

I'd like to see you replace the "bulb" in a cathode ray tube.

 

[Ben90]

It's right behind the 2 stroke motor.

 

[MrK6]

It's right behind the 2 stroke motor.

That's probably the biggest advantage of LCD's right there, no longer having to mix your fuel.

 

[tweakboy]

I had forgotten how great the picture looks on them. I haven't had a CRT in years. Went to see a friend who had one of the Sony Trinitron CRTs. Mirroring the image with a Samsung 32" LCD you could easily tell which was more crisp with deep colors and black is black! Now this has me wanting one. I know the holy grail is the Sony FW900 but its quite expensive to get a decent one. I'll probly settle for a 21" if I see one on craigslist.

Anyone know of a refurb CRT website?

I owned a Sony FW900 for over 10 years. I used 2304x1440 when some of you were in your diapers sucking your thumb.

The real estate was incredible but over the years,,, this res obviously messed up my eyes. now I can sit 5 feet away and see everything perfect........ and read..... etc................ but it was @ 80hz,,,, vsync on games were soo freakin smooth. FPS games with mouse,,, It was a winner but I new it might soon die,,,, I sold it for 30 bucks I believe or was it 40,,,,, I bought it for 2200 thousand bucks lol,,, the good ole days of UT2k4 and CRT monitor.....

For RTS and RPG your fine with LCD with 2ms or higher which will cause mouse lag,,,,,,,,, I get CRT style with vsync on @ 1ms,,,,,, my cousins LG 2ms is soo laggy ,,,,,,not the game,, the mouse its not instant like CRT and laggy and ghosting etc etc...

 

[Soundmanred]

I owned a Sony FW900 for over 10 years. I used 2304x1440 when some of you were in your dippers sucking your thumb.

The real estate was incredible but over the years,,, this res obviously messed up my eyes. now I can sit 5 feet away and see everything perfect........ and read..... etc................ but it was @ 80hz,,,, vsync on games were soo freakin smooth. FPS games with mouse,,, It was a winner but I new it might soon die,,,, I sold it for 30 bucks I believe or was it 40,,,,, I bought it for 2200 thousand bucks lol,,, the good ole days of UT2k4 and CRT monitor.....

For RTS and RPG your fine with LCD with 2ms or higher which will cause mouse lag,,,,,,,,, I get CRT style with vsync on @ 1ms,,,,,, my cousins LG 2ms is soo laggy ,,,,,,not the game,, the mouse its not instant like CRT and laggy and ghosting etc etc...

$2.2 Million for a monitor? That's insane!
I love the way you use "lag" and "ghosting" and "ms" like you have any idea of what they mean. It's cute.
Do you realize how long a millisecond is?

 

[OVerLoRDI]

You could just replace the bulb. I was a projectionist for a time, and replace bulbs was a routine procedure. Though for that we had to wear protective gear in case they exploded.

No

 

[SpeedTester]

$2.2 Million for a monitor? That's insane!

Lol, I was thinking the same thing.
2200 Thousand dollars! ------->Puts Pinky in mouth

I still have a couple high end CRT's downstairs and might have to fire them up to
see how they look.

 

[FalseChristian]

I had a ViewSonic P810 21" (1600x1200 at 75 hertz). I definately like it better thyan my current LCD even though it's a good one. Gaming at 60 hertz sucks.

 

[EliteRetard]

I just sold my Sony FW900 a week ago. It was an amazing monitor, but really it had weaknesses.

Text: You just can't beat the crispness of an LCD in this arena
Geometry: With CRTs you have two choices. 1) Spend endless eye bleeding hours staring at grids to calibrate the geometry of your monitor. 2) Live with it.
Convergence: Same as Geometry

Also no CRT these days is anywhere as bright as an LCD, since CRTs lose brightness over time.

I loved my FW900, but I'm happier with my Catleap 2B @ 100hz.

Text: You cant beat the crispness of a CRT. Text looks bad all stretched, bolded, and blocky on a low-res 1080p 24" LCD. Cant beat a 20" CRT 1920x1440 @85hz 122PPI. I admit I've never witnessed a good quality high-res 27-30" LCD @100Hz (100-109PPI) but they aren't sold this way and it seems to be pretty rare (not even sure how you "overclock" an LCD, and do cards/cables currently support this?) and it also sounds like the quality isn't up to par (color/back light/uniformity issues). No idea how it is with gaming, if a higher refresh rate on an LCD makes up for or reduces input lag. Still, if my CRT died I would probably have to try to get one of these high speed high-res LCDs. If they can make 1080p 5" monitors, and 1800p 15" monitors, I don't understand why they haven't been able to truly replace CRTs with a good quality 24" LCD at even 1400p.

Geometry: Get a flat screen CRT...I've had my Trinitron for at least 10 years, I adjusted it when I got it (did take time to calibrate all the modes I use) and check it yearly for fun (takes 10 minutes to see that its still perfect). I've only had to tweak it once or twice. Convergence, not been an issue since I calibrated it. In fact its much easier to see with the huge pixels on most LCDs the color "glow" on the edges of everything.

Brightness: Not an issue, on average I'm currently at 76% of max (40 of 100) 88% on contrast (70 of 100). In fact most LCDs are FAR to bright...I hate the horrid light bleeding, blown out colors, and glowing "black" that at best is blue-grey. Your screen should look like paper, not the surface of the sun. Of course a high quality LCD can be adjusted to be much more proper, but still can't beat a good CRT since I can adjust brightness, contrast, and gamma for each color separately and the entire screen is even/consistent.

There's even more going for a good CRT (multiple resolutions is another HUGE plus), but no need to drag this out more...
Basically anybody that complains about CRTs is either doing it totally wrong or has a cheap junker. I tried to get a picture of my CRT, but I don't have a camera good enough to clearly resolve the image, the camera ends up blurring everything D:

 

[tynopik]

Text: You cant beat the crispness of a CRT.

huh!?!

I held onto CRT longer than most, but as far as 'crispness', there is no way a CRT can compare to an LCD. And I went from a high-end CRT (Viewsonic P815) to a cheap LCD, but there is simply no comparison in this area, LCD always wins.

There are many things I still prefer about the CRT, but 'crispness' certainly isn't one of them

 

[EliteRetard]

I have my CRT, a 15" 13x7 TN LCD, a 20" 16x12 (-VA?) LCD, a 19" 16x9 TN LCD, a 24" 19x10 TN LCD, and a 32" 19x10 IPS LCD that I've had all in the same room...my CRT is better. In fact I frequently switch to dual screen with the 20" 16x12 LCD so I can see them running the same picture side by side. Now when the CRT is running the same PPI as the LCD they are comparable in crispness, but I can run a higher PPI and refresh on my CRT and it looks better to me.

Perhaps we're thinking of crisp different? I'm thinking sharp smooth clean lines that clearly contrast from the background with no ghost or color glow. LCD's typically have a lower PPI so the text isn't as smooth and I can usually see an edge color of high contrast items on LCDs. Like with black text on white I can usually see a color glow on the edges.

Here's a fun image, can you read the text in the blue box?

With my CRT I can see each colored line as its layed out, and I can clearly see the subtle off shade text in the blue box (only one of them has it).

Edit: Basically I think my problem is that on LCDs usually the pixels are so large I can see the sub pixel layout and that along with the lower PPI is what ruins the crispness for me. Everything looks like it has been bolded and/or zoomed in 150% and just doesn't look crisp and LCDs seem to have a hard time lighting just a single color subpixel, so there's usually a color ghost, or you'll get lines that blend together (as in the test above). Sometimes I notice the gaps between pixels as well, but newer LCDs have gotten much better with the "screen door" effect. I simply don't have any of that on my CRT.

 

[tynopik]

Perhaps we're thinking of crisp different? I'm thinking sharp smooth clean lines

probably

'smooth' is the opposite of crisp

yes, you can see individual pixels in lcd whereas crt sort of blurs it together.

you might prefer this smoothing/blurring, but it is not crispness

Here's a fun image, can you read the text in the blue box?

With my CRT I can see each colored line as its layed out, and I can clearly see the subtle off shade text in the blue box (only one of them has it).

I never said anything about color accuracy . . .

 

[Ferzerp]

Here's a fun image, can you read the text in the blue box?

Yes, even on my laptop. But then again, I don't buy crap LCDs and compare them to high end CRTs. I buy good LCDs.

 

[EliteRetard]

probably

'smooth' is the opposite of crisp

yes, you can see individual pixels in lcd whereas crt sort of blurs it together.

you might prefer this smoothing/blurring, but it is not crispness



I never said anything about color accuracy . . .

Lulz picture didn't work, it wasn't color accuracy.

Your getting it backwards...your LCD blends my CRT does not. It displays accurately, there are 3 RGB lines next to each other...on LCDs the 3 colors blend together while one set/color sticks out. On my CRT I can see the 3 colored lines individually no matter which layout they are in.

What I meant by smoothness is that circles and bends actually look like circles and bends on my CRT. On an LCD they look aliased because of the large pixels.

Lets see if this works, imagine this as the letter D...your LCD would be the one comprised of fewer letters (PPI) so it looks more blocky:

DDD
D....D
DDD

DDDD
D.....D
D......D
D.......D
D.......D
D......D
D.....D
DDDD

But the letter on an LCD is actually bigger blockier (is that even a word?) and has color glow because of the subpixel layout and light bleeding to other colored subpixels. This gives it a smudgy/blocky look that is less sharp than my CRT. Color accuracy/quality actually does have a little to do with it as well...as contrast and such can make things sharper/clearer while interpolation can make things hazy/fuzzy. Most of this would be evened out with a quality higher PPI LCD though, but as it stands currently there is no display I've found around 20" that is as sharp as my CRT. The higher PPI on a high quality 27-30" high-res LCD may make it as sharp as my CRT, but I haven't seen one in person. I think if the pixels are shrunk enough then the subpixel layout wont cause an issue and any bleeding to other subpixels wont be visible at a small enough size. Along with a good/proper backlight and color/contrast you probably can get an LCD as sharp as a CRT.

 

[Ferzerp]

Everything you're complaining about is panel quality and not inherent to the technology. Buy better LCDs.

edit: You seem focused on image quality, and that's solvable. If you were complaining that you can't have both the best image quality, and the best response time, that would be a valid complaint.