How long before flat panels catch up with CRT's??

[aircooled]

Eventually I want to replace both my TV and computer monitors with flat panels... When will the price/performance ratio make since to go that direction?

 

[Gosharkss]

From the computer monitor point of view I think they already have.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

About 2 years. I figure the combination of FFD and one more tech redesign will bring LCD's to equal-footing with CRT's. This includes screen response time, color reproduction, and max resolution.

Of course, just my opinion.

 

[heliomphalodon]

I agree that for computer monitors, the time to switch to flat-panels has come. I've abandoned my old NEC MultiSync CRTs for flat panels, and while it wasn't cheap by any means, I couldn't be happier.

Your mileage may vary

 

[Gosharkss]

From a TV perspective I doubt that TFT LCD technology will ever be as good as a conventional CRT based TV, especially when it comes to color saturation. Plasma technology is much better for TV since it uses phosphor to generate the color.

The major problem is LCD?s use a matrix of cells that define the native resolution of the screen. The dot pitch multiplied by the resolution defines the size of the panel. Thus a low-resolution panel would need a very a large dot pitch to work as a TV.

Standard TV is extremely low resolution compared to today?s computer monitors. In order to get a clean picture the LCD TV would need to run at TV?s native resolution. HDTV will be better at 1900 x 1024 resolution, however this is a 16:9 format and is not the optimal aspect ratio for computer work. Most computer users prefer 4:3 aspect ratio.

TV?s and computer monitors although similar in many ways are designed for two completely different applications, thus there will always be a trade off when you try to use one for the other. If you want the best TV, buy a TV. If you want the best computer monitor buy a computer monitor.

The trend now is to add a TV tuner to a standard 17 ? 18? LCD monitors. 17 and 18? LCD monitors have a native resolution of 1280 x 1024. They typically look great as a computer monitor however they loose focus and become grainy due to the scaling of the TV signal to the 1280 x 1024 format. You will be very disappointed if you expect your new LCD monitor (with TV tuner) to have as crisp and clear TV image and color saturation as your standard TV.

 

[aircooled]

Thanks guys.. All good information...

I'm actually not looking at a combo. I want seperate units (the monitor to be a monitor and the TV to be a TV). But I want flat and thin to be my next purchase for each.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

LCD vs CRT
http://www.hitachidisplays.com/how_monitors/flatpanel.htm

 

[fluxquantum]

good info, Gosharkss. thanks

 

[lobadobadingdong]

For TV's a Good plasma screen is hard to beat, better quality than many digital capable tubes, and almost unlimited sizes .5" to 160" diagonal that I've seen to choose from(price goes up exponentially though.) I agree with the 2-3year term on LCD's over CRT's for PC's thought, even top o' the line LCD's have tearing and ghosting at high frame rates, and are a little sluggish on the response times of the pixels.