LCD or CRT better picture quality?

[OnEMoReTrY]

Title says it all.

 

[TitusTroy]

CRT...the gap is closing though as LCD's have gotten better...but still no match for a good CRT

 

[OnEMoReTrY]

Links would be appreciated as he is stubborn

 

[Jules]

lcd ftw

 

[Auryg]

CRT has much better contrast and response time. CRT wins.

 

[VERTIGGO]

LCDs have clarity, as each pixel is a "perfect" square of light. If you look closely at a CRT you can see the fuzzy dots, but CRTs still have better refresh and color quality.

 

[imported_Psykosis]

At the point the technology is, I think that there is not fair to do a direct comparation. LCD has a better overall image clarity due to the digital nature of the screen. On the day to day work, truly is more easy to the eyes and colors are good enought for everyone but hardcore graphic designers.

BUT if you really want to push things to the limit, the LCD becomes expensive and not good enought. Response time is the major downside followed by vision angles and screen uniformity. Its just a matter of what you're looking for and what downside piss you most.

 

[kmmatney]

I think the average LCD is better than the average CRT. It takes a very good CRT to beat even a cheapo LCD in terms of clarity. I have 4 CRTs at home and use several at work, and they all seem fuzzy to me after using an LCD.

 

[JRW]

When it comes to office usage or if you're mainly working with Text I would choose LCD over CRT, However when it comes to gaming and picture quality when watching movies nothing beats a high end CRT.

 

[RussianSensation]

LCDs cannot scale well from native resolution. That factor alone makes them inferior if you want to compare better picture quality across a whole spectrum. Also in terms of clarity, I would tend to argue that point. I've seen many LCDs and if you look up close, the dots/pixels are far worse than CRTs. The dot pitch of good CRTs is .21 vs. 0.255 or so for LCDs. LCDs do reproduce better colour combination.

Bottom line:
The average LCD will be inferior for gaming due to worse refresh rates and ghosting as well as poor dot pitch (go to EB Games and see their games run on Samsung LCD/TV - it looks terrible - blur, large dots on screen). It'll also cost more money. However, for movies and general office work an LCD will be better. It can support wide screen, doesn't take a lot of room and it reduces eye strain.

But until LCDs can scale resolutions, they can never claim to be superior to CRTs. Gamers in particular prefer 85hz at 1600x1200 or 120 frames at 1280x1024, etc. LCDs are stuck at 60/75.

 

[xtknight]

LCDs have issues with saturation in the midtone and dark colors, but they are just as saturated and more accurate on the bright colors than CRTs. Resolution scaling usually leaves something to be desired, but it's bearable if you only play once in a while. The flicker-free and 'calm'-looking screen won me over though. DVI clarity is second to none. But, LCDs are not being manufactured as high-DPI displays yet in the desktop sector (though easily possible (see 15.4" widescreen notebooks)). Viewing angles aren't an issue for me because I only look directly at my display. With the advent of white LEDs, LCDs should have less problems with reproducing colors. Black level may be gray instead of the annoying blue we're used to seeing which, I think, will make it less of an issue.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
However, for movies and general office work an LCD will be better. It can support wide screen, doesn't take a lot of room and it reduces eye strain.

Even this is necessarily the Case. I owned a 24" widescreen dell and I got rid of it for two reasons:
1: That widescreen had terrible viewing angles.
2: I had eyestrain the whole time I owned it.

There are actually significant numbers of people who have much more eyetstrain with LCD:
http://cloanto.com/users/mcb/19960719lcd.html

----------------- Here are the benefits of CRT ----------------------

Scalability: All resolutions from 640x480 to 2048x1536 are native. No wierd scaling errors ever.

Perfect viewing angles: A CRT image always looks the same whereever you look at it from. An LCD tends to really only have a sweetspot where it looks right. Move and it doesn't. This is nothing like the marketing lies that LCD makers quote. 178 Degrees quoted on my Dell 2405, yet sitting in front of the widescreen, the sides were already out of the sweet spot. Moving my head a couple of inches and image quality degraded unevenly.

Perfect Repsonse: CRTs have no ghosting, smearing, input lags that plague LCD. Just smooth fluid motions and responses.

Perfect Video Playback: CRTs again, just do it. LCD as a consequence of overdrive to improve the slow speeds introduce a twinkling effect.

No Banding: I never had a CRT that had banding. Banding is making harsh bands out of what had a smoothing continuous tones. I was still considering an LCD, but the ones I was interested in Dell 2007FP, LG 2000C all have reports of banding issues.

No Burnt pixels: I never saw a CRT with a burnt pixel. But this is a big issues with LCD's.

No backlight bleed: CRT's tend to be quite consistent.

Better performance in Dim lit environments: I am old school. I like a dim computer room and I like a display that can scale down to match. Most LCD's don't. Either they just stay way too bright or look like crap if they can be turned down.


------------------- NOW the LCD advantages ---------------------
Brighter: Good if you want to use them outside, but really they are too bright for most circumstances.

Perfect Geometry: This is nice, but CRT are good enough, you would never notice the CRT geometry issues without a test pattern.

Size: Yep they are smaller, so if you want a portable screen, it is the way to go. Yep CRT's are bigger and heavier.

Easier on the eyes: I call BS on this one. There are significant number of people who have perfect eye comfort with CRT and eyestrain with LCD. See link above. This one is a non issues unless you are sure that for some reason a good CRT (not old blurry dead one that is flickering at 60Hz) is causing you more eyestrain than reading a book for the same amount of time is.

Sharper: Yes without question they are sharper. This tends to be the over-riding factor for everyone coming over from dead fuzzy CRT's. I may delve further into this in another post. But for now I ask does this on advantage over-ride all the disadvantages, is there such a thing as sharp enough? Too sharp??

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Trust me, CRT gives more eyestrain than LCD. I have a QUALITY CRT. That means a Samsung Syncmaster 700NF that runs 160 Hz @ 640x480, 140 @ 800x600, and it lets me select 100 Hz @ 1024x768 but the maximum is 116 listed in the manual. I can then run at 87 @ 1280x1024. But honestly, 85 is not enough. Not even 100. Once you go to LCD, you can't come back. Yes it was a damn clear monitor. It was almost as sharp as my parents' 15" LCD. It definitely beat my old 17" CRT. In fact it beat out pretty much every CRT I've used. Maybe thats why it weighs in at 46 lbs, which is your standarrd weight for a 19" screen but mine was only 17".

I had so much trouble working with CRT after using an LCD for just 2 weeks. Why do LCDs give eye strain? Well the crappy ones of course. I got eyestrain from a Samsung 930B because its just too bright and thec olors are too crayolaish. Anyone who's used this monitor knows how much it sucks.

However, if you get a GOOD MONITOR.... I know a 2005 and 2405 do NOT fall into this category so Dell FANBOIS, PLEASE SHUT UP. I have a 2405 and I dont like it at all. Ever check out the Samsung 193P or the Viewsonic VP930b? Those monitors are godly. If you use one of those, you will NEVER EVER come back to CRT. EVER.

 

[JRW]

I've never had a problem with eyestrain on my Sony PC CRTs, Even after using them all day long. My 2001FP LCD was another story...

Samsung 193P? Man that LCD is OLD and has 20ms response time, You must be basing you're comments on text work which I would agree with.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: guidryp
No backlight bleed: CRT's tend to be quite consistent.

Actually, they have a better black level at calibrated settings, but uniformity is no worse or no better according to this article: http://www.behardware.com/articles/613-5/the-last-crt-survey.html

Intensity of colors at lower tones falls off faster in LCD than CRT, Plasmas, and DLP, which is important to point out. Until full white LED backlights come out, skin tones and dark games won't be quite as saturated. Chi Mei hopes to fix this with their Natural Color Technology.

Here's a graph of color saturation per tone displayed: http://www.extremetech.com/image_popup/0,1694,s=25500&iid=93318,00.asp

 

[CP5670]

I saw the VP930b in a guy's office at one point and although it looks considerably better than the 2405, it's still a far cry from my CRT in a dark room (the X was very noticeable on the one I saw). The only LCD I think may be comparable to my CRT is that NEC 20WMGX2, and some others with that coating also look very good in a brightly lit room.

OP: I would say in general, the average LCD is better than the average CRT and a good CRT (not just a good model, but a good individual unit) is better than a good LCD. Since you specifically mentioned "picture quality," a good CRT is the obvious choice, even though those are next to impossible to get now. A good CRT has perfect black levels, no screen door effect, smooth gradients, fairly uniform colors, has a higher maximum resolution in most cases and looks good at any resolution. And that's not taking the whole motion factor into account. A good LCD has better sharpness and geometry (although a good CRT with the focus properly adjusted comes very close), but those things don't matter much for graphics, only for text. The "vibrancy" of bright colors on LCDs is often brought up as one of their advantages, but the newest CRTs with the extended brightness modes actually look very similar.

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: guidryp
No backlight bleed: CRT's tend to be quite consistent.

Actually, they have a better black level at calibrated settings, but uniformity is no worse or no better according to this article: http://www.behardware.com/articles/613-5/the-last-crt-survey.html

I think the CRTs they got in that article all more or less suck. (two are shadow masks, and the third is an obviously defective Diamondtron with the same problems I have seen on many duds)

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: CP5670
I think the CRTs they got in that article all more or less suck. (two are shadow masks, and the third is an obviously defective Diamondtron with the same problems I have seen on many duds)

I could be wrong but I don't think that affects uniformity. The phosphors used are more or less all the same (P22).

 

[imported_Reagle]

I like my home computer monitor to be used in darkness. I kind of like CRTs. But I have never had a flat panel, except one that killed my eyes.

I sorta am leaning to buying a high end crt and run it at a very high refresh rate. Maybe I am crazy but I think a high end CRT running 200 hz refresh rate is the way to go....

Everyone else probably disagrees with me. But whats the problem with a properly adjusted high end CRT ??????

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Reagle
I like my home computer monitor to be used in darkness. I kind of like CRTs. But I have never had a flat panel, except one that killed my eyes.

I sorta am leaning to buying a high end crt and run it at a very high refresh rate. Maybe I am crazy but I think a high end CRT running 200 hz refresh rate is the way to go....

Everyone else probably disagrees with me. But whats the problem with a properly adjusted high end CRT ??????

God knows why there's always arguments about it? Some people prefer one some prefer the other. It's just that people think their opinion is 'right'.

 

[CP5670]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: CP5670
I think the CRTs they got in that article all more or less suck. (two are shadow masks, and the third is an obviously defective Diamondtron with the same problems I have seen on many duds)

I could be wrong but I don't think that affects uniformity. The phosphors used are more or less all the same (P22).

The generall brightness uniformity is actually a major problem on many of the defective aperture grills. The duds I ran through were downright terrible in this respect. As for shadow masks, I think their overall uniformity is good (if they aren't defective) but they suffer from something similar to the screen door effect that LCDs have, where a completely white image seems to have small specks/pattern of a slightly different color sprinkled across it. It almost looks like a piece of paper, if you know what I mean, instead of the pure, locally uniform white on good aperture grills.

 

[sandorski]

CRT, specifically Aperture Grille, is still the best. My friend just got a 20" Dell widescreen LCD, he comes over to my place and we're playing a game we both play online(Freelancer) and he says my monitor is too dark. I explain to him that it's not dark, it just displays authentic Black, he looks at me funny. A week later I'm at his place, watch him play the same game and try to bring up the subject again, pointing out how his LCD isn't displaying Black, but actually a dark Gray. He looks at me funny again.

Something else I noticed between the 2 different monitors was that the LCD monitor's colours were off. Instead of bright reds/oranges, they had a flat almost pastel look to them. I'd really like a LCD monitor due to size and power useage, but I'm really not impressed with picture quality with LCDs after using this Mitsubishi Diamondtron for 4ish years(had a Sony AG for 4 years prior to that). I'll stick with my CRT until it dies, hopefully something better than LCD comes out in the meantime.

 

[TitusTroy]

Originally posted by: JRW
When it comes to office usage or if you're mainly working with Text I would choose LCD over CRT, However when it comes to gaming and picture quality when watching movies nothing beats a high end CRT.

Exactly....

on a side note...why are manufacturers aggresively pushing LCD's on consumers?....most high end manufacturers don't even make CRT monitors anymore...my Sony 21' GDM-F520 CRT monitor is going on 6 years now with no problems whatsoever...best monitor I have ever owned and won't upgrade until this one dies

 

[imported_Reagle]

Sandorski, so if your monitor went out today. What would you but given your knoweldge of your monitor versus your friends ?

 

[Heartbreaker]

Think profit margin. Right now a 60 lb 20" viewable CRT cost less than 20" viewable LCD that wieghs 10 lbs. The manufacturing cost for that monster CRT is almost certainly more these days. LCDs get cheaper to build every year while CRT is very old tech that has flatlined as far as cost reduction goes.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Originally posted by: Reagle
I like my home computer monitor to be used in darkness. I kind of like CRTs. But I have never had a flat panel, except one that killed my eyes.

I sorta am leaning to buying a high end crt and run it at a very high refresh rate. Maybe I am crazy but I think a high end CRT running 200 hz refresh rate is the way to go....

Everyone else probably disagrees with me. But whats the problem with a properly adjusted high end CRT ??????

Everyone else doesn't disagree. Lots agree, see my big list above. I too had one LCD experience. I got rid of it after it killed my eyes. They are not for everyone and they just plain suck in darkened environments as they don't scale down to low brightness level well at all. Along with a host of other issues.

You shouldn't need to run a CRT at 200Hz. 75 or above is perfectly fine.