I can't even give this old CRT away on Craigslist

[RPD]

One reason to trade, the energy savings from CRT to LCD/LED must be huge. Those things can heat rooms (CRT).

 

[yhelothar]

Has contrast on LCDs matched CRTs yet?

In my undergrad days, I worked in a visual cognition lab that stuck with high end CRTs. They had to go through some immense digging to find the CRTs they needed. There weren't any LCDs that approached the CRTs in black levels.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

That connector you are talking about may have been Scart connector

Indeed it was. I couldn't for the life of me think of what it was called.

Edit: actually no, it wasn't SCART. It looked like a floppy connector, had straight pins identical to those used on IDE/floppy devices. I don't remember the pin count. Hell it might not have been an input. I'm going to dig more.

Edit2: Figured it out! man that took some googling. Model number of the tv was KV-25xbr. It had a 34 pin connector that was a proprietary RGB connector. Sony sold an adapter:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SONY-PC-701-RGB-INTERFACE-ADAPTOR-/310253791007#vi-desc

It allowed you to use the TV as a computer monitor via an IBM CGA interface. I guess at the time Sony didn't want to commit to one RGB interface for computer input. I can't blame them, there were a number of interfaces at the time. Going proprietary and selling adapters allowed them to make extra money and not get involved in a format war. So unlike Sony..

I'm glad I figured that out. I still regret getting rid of that TV. Perfect size and great quality for retro gaming.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

I just recycled my CRT monitors. Felt kinda bad since they were still working fine. :'( I'm keeping my FW900 though.

:thumbsup:

My FW900 is a bit dim, especially compared to my lcds, but i love the blacks and the deep colors. Oh and the 85hz, and awesome response time.

 

[RiDE]

:thumbsup:

My FW900 is a bit dim, especially compared to my lcds, but i love the blacks and the deep colors. Oh and the 85hz, and awesome response time.

Not sure if you live in So Cal but LAGRUNAUER on Hardforums recalibrates these badboys. Mine looks even better now than when I bought it. He used to work for Sony and now does this on the side. When I went to pick mine up a guy from some movie studio was picking up a Sony C520K... apparently the best CRT monitor Sony ever made.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Not sure if you live in So Cal but LAGRUNAUER on Hardforums recalibrates these badboys. Mine looks even better now than when I bought it. He used to work for Sony and now does this on the side. When I went to pick mine up a guy from some movie studio was picking up a Sony C520K... apparently the best CRT monitor Sony ever made.

Familiar with LAGRUNAUER, I drove 8 hours to pick up my FW900 from good ol' Unkle Vito So mine is already calibrated by him. The monitor has drifted since and needs a bit of love. I have a TTL-USB adapter and Windas fully setup on a second machine. I just haven't gotten around to sitting down and screwing with the G2 and "Maxoverdrive" settings in the config file. To a certain extent CRTs just dim over time and there is little you can do to restore them to their original brightness. Thankfully Sony gave us a back door through Windas to enable us to tweak these monitors and get the most out of them throughout their entire life.

I'll have to look up the C520K

 

[yhelothar]

Not sure if you live in So Cal but LAGRUNAUER on Hardforums recalibrates these badboys. Mine looks even better now than when I bought it. He used to work for Sony and now does this on the side. When I went to pick mine up a guy from some movie studio was picking up a Sony C520K... apparently the best CRT monitor Sony ever made.

Wow I'm going to have to contact him. A brand new FD Trinitron is just gorgeous!
When they get old, the sharpness goes down drastically. You have to turn down the brightness considerably so that the image doesn't get fuzzy.

 

[alkemyst]

Most of the time Goodwill or other places will not take CRTS anymore esp monitors.

I think around here the CRT has to be in good condition and 32" or larger.

 

[Anubis]

I heard they sell CRTs at Goodwill for like $5.

we tried to take a CRT TV to goodwill this past weekend, they would not take it

 

[Nebbers]

One reason to trade, the energy savings from CRT to LCD/LED must be huge. Those things can heat rooms (CRT).

The energy savings goes both ways there. I went a whole winter once without turning the heat in my apartment on... third floor + three CRTs and it was 70+ all winter, haha.

 

[Nebbers]

we tried to take a CET TV to goodwill this past weekend, they would not take it

I did a bit of volunteering at a thrift store a while back and they told us to flat-out refuse any CRTs including TVs, period. Even PCs they wouldn't take unless they were less than a few years old. The stuff just doesn't sell.

What I love is the people around here listing their old Dell P4 systems online for like $100+. We have a government surplus store that sells old systems, mostly from schools, for around $15 a pop. Most of them are Core 2 Duos.

Yes, there's a moneymaking scheme here but I'm almost certain it's a serious violation somehow.

 

[PingSpike]

Nobody wants a CRT. I tried giving away my 32" Sony Trinitron five years ago and even then nobody wanted it. I always see CRTs on the sidewalk with signs taped to them, "Works. Take me" and nobody ever does.

LOL. I put a couple CRT that worked fine with a sign saying as much at the end of my driveway and eventually they got rained on before I took them to the dump. Previously I had put a VCR out there with a sign on it that said "broken" and some one took that in half a day! What they were planning on doing with that VCR I have no idea but apparently a broken VCR is more valuable than a working CRT.

 

[holden j caufield]

so 21" CRT computer monitors are a no go, how do I get rid of them? I have a few and I love them for their colors but don't have the space anymore.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

For those not wanting to pay for recycling, you may see if you have a UNICOR facility in your area. Run by the Bureau of Prisons, they take pretty much everything electronic for no cost.

 

[mmntech]

Has contrast on LCDs matched CRTs yet?

In my undergrad days, I worked in a visual cognition lab that stuck with high end CRTs. They had to go through some immense digging to find the CRTs they needed. There weren't any LCDs that approached the CRTs in black levels.

LCD will probably never match the black levels. Nor will any backlit/projection display. Just an inherent limit of the technology. Plasma comes close. OLED is the only tech I've seen that can match and exceed CRT.

 

[BurnItDwn]

While I use LCDs on my main PC, I've got a CRT on my server that I use about once every year or two, and I'm still using a CRT on one other PC which gets use about once every couple of weeks.

 

[waggy]

LCD will probably never match the black levels. Nor will any backlit/projection display. Just an inherent limit of the technology. Plasma comes close. OLED is the only tech I've seen that can match and exceed CRT.

my LCD died like a year ago. i drug up my 20 inch samsung crt and plugged it in. i couldn't beleive how good it looked. Far better then the LCD.

BUT no way in hell would i go back to a CRT it started to hurt my eyes after like 20 minutes.

 

[alkemyst]

Too many try to compare their $99 LCD to a CRT that sold for over $500 10+ years ago.

My NEC 2490WUXi compares very favorably to my G500 I had.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Wow I'm going to have to contact him. A brand new FD Trinitron is just gorgeous!
When they get old, the sharpness goes down drastically. You have to turn down the brightness considerably so that the image doesn't get fuzzy.

When I spoke to him he had a few fw900s left, but they were starting at 600+. At one point he had new in box fw900s, but they were 2500+. Getting your hands on an FW900 today is not a cheap undertaking, unless you find someone who is getting rid of it, and doesn't know its worth.

 

[alkemyst]

Also in my experience getting a carrier not to mishandle even a 21" Trinitron was difficult.

They honored the insurace, but it took 5 separate shipments to have one get to me intact. Even when entirely blow-foamed into an over-sized box.

A 24" CRT is substanially heavier and larger, I could only image the beating it will take.

 

[TheShiz]

i still have a 36" sony CRT for classic gaming. got it for next to nothing years ago. if you want a cool retro gaming setup a crt is a must. been playing some castlevania 1, bloodlines, and castlevania 4. awesome. and the speakers on the tv are actually pretty decent when you compare them to the garbage they typically have on LCD tvs these days.

 

[Scout80]

There's awesome capacitors and an awesome transformer in there. Salvage it for those parts and build a tesla coil!

Agreed. Tons of fun. If you are into trying some electrical experiments pull out the flyback transformer and build a jacob's ladder or a tesla coil. But be careful, those things put out some serious voltage.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Also in my experience getting a carrier not to mishandle even a 21" Trinitron was difficult.

They honored the insurace, but it took 5 separate shipments to have one get to me intact. Even when entirely blow-foamed into an over-sized box.

A 24" CRT is substanially heavier and larger, I could only image the beating it will take.

This is why I drove so far to get my monitor. It had a better chance with me than it did with ups.

 

[Dude111]

BUT no way in hell would i go back to a CRT it started to hurt my eyes after like 20 minutes.

Hmmmmm the opposite for me..... If i look @ those new monitors/TVs I often get headaches.....

 

[Joseph F]

There's awesome capacitors and an awesome transformer in there. Salvage it for those parts and build a tesla coil!

Hell yeah. Flyback transformers are fucking awesome.