My first date with an LCD

[Hauk]

I broke down and bought my first LCD, a Samsung 940B. Like many, I did weeks of research. To sift through the user reviews, to learn about the specificaitons, MAN what a pain in the ass.

I played Quake 4 last night and now I stare at text. I must admit, I really enjoyed my 19" LG Flatron CRT.

Everything I've learned makes sense now. One reviewer said "even the best LCD can't touch a good CRT for gaming and performance in every application."

The Samsung does look great in games, but windows seems so, impersonal now. The positives are there though, and no dead pixels.

I ran games and Windows on my CRT at 1024x768, often questioning why everyone was so freakin concerned about 1600x1200 graphics card benchmarks. I quickly found out, you need higher resolutions for an LCD. Windows and games need 1280x1024 on this puppy. Good thing I just upgraded my PC.

I guess I've evolved.

I still love my CRT however, a top of the line purchase four years ago. My coworkers think I got a promotion as it sits new on my desk. That big bastard! They go back to their 15" fuzzy CRTs sipping coffee, disgruntled... :thumbsup:

 

[Zebo]

"even the best LCD can't touch a good CRT for gaming and performance in every application."

Very true - CRT is 400x faster "response" than the best LCD - LCD's need a true 3ms cross spectrum reponse time and thus motion blur to not be noticable to the good eye. They hover about 14 now. have a long way to go.

With all that said
Even the best CRT can't touch the worst LCD for text. And since they don't even make any good CRT's anymore* (trinitrons and diamonds) LCD is the only way to fly - enjoy.

* they do but it's five grand for a 22"

 

[hans007]

i used to have a kds avitron 19" trinitron monitor. that was for a long time the best monitor i had ever owned. i'm not one who really plays games much and to tell you the truth the blur thing i have never noticed (i think my eyes have pretty slow tracking which might explain why i dont game much).

until my current monitor i though the trinitron based kds i had was better, but my current lcd seems to show that lcds have come a long way. that and as i've moved into the workforce and had to stare at a lot of text, well lcds are just plain better for that. that and my desk has more space.

 

[Elvis2]

interesting....
i use a 6-7 yr. old Sony 19" 420GS trinitron apeture grill monitor. it's been absolutely great for gaming and depending on the video card, text is good as well. i've been thinking about going lcd with my 7800gt sli setup but maybe not...maybe i'll continue to wait. there's nothing wrong with the monitor but it is getting up there in age .

 

[Hauk]

An apeture grill CRT was always my favorite. I bought this LG back then because they were touting their "slit mask" technology to be as good as apeture grill, but with no visible wires. It's been sweet. Text is sharp, games are great. Too bad it weighs 80lbs and takes up so much real estate.

New technology is nice; but if someone has a good apeture grill CRT and can afford the desk space...

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Elvis2
interesting....
i use a 6-7 yr. old Sony 19" 420GS trinitron apeture grill monitor. it's been absolutely great for gaming and depending on the video card, text is good as well. i've been thinking about going lcd with my 7800gt sli setup but maybe not...maybe i'll continue to wait. there's nothing wrong with the monitor but it is getting up there in age .

If it aint broke don't bother. I stocked up on three diamondtons before they were discontinued in dec 2004. Sold one already to a friend and am keeping two. One's in a box one on the game comp in rec room. There are problems with LCD's not worth discusing normally (because again they don't make any CRT worth buying anymore) but since you have a great CRT and are thinking about "upgrading" I think it's important to be aware of these things. LCD Resolution scaling sucks. The only resolution that looks good is native. Everything else is blurry. Second is response time at all resolutions it's the same - poor - IF you have sensitive eyes you will notice motion blur to me it's huge even on my 2005FP which users here claimed was fast. It was'nt - I get seasick if I try and play FPS games on it. And games like AOEIII look blurry when scrolling around screen. Color is one notch below a quality CRT like yours.. But then yours is getting old - may have faded out a bit which I noticed my last trinitron did. What LCD's got is way superior text/crispness/convergence - it's perfect at native resolution, while CRTs can't be, it's a physical limitation. Superior look and size. Superior brightness. And LCD's get the chicks.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: SteelSix
An apeture grill CRT was always my favorite. I bought this LG back then because they were touting their "slit mask" technology to be as good as apeture grill, but with no visible wires. It's been sweet. Text is sharp, games are great. Too bad it weighs 80lbs and takes up so much real estate.

New technology is nice; but if someone has a good apeture grill CRT and can afford the desk space...

the problem with the fake flat screens that samsung and lg were selling 3-4 years ago was to make them flat i know that the geometric distortion in the corners was greater.

 

[stelleg151]

I would give it a bit more time. It took me a couple of weeks before I fell in love with my 2005fpw. At first I could feel the response time, especially in mouse movement, but I dont at all anymore, and the crisp, bright colors make me happy. As for gaming, I think it varies a lot with different LCD's but the resolution scaling is great on my monitor,and I actually prefer playing many games at non-native resolutions.

 

[Hauk]

The LG Flatron is not a shadow mask (curved on the inside), thus a fake flatscreen. The Samsung's were. It's pretty much an apeture grill with vertical tension wires instead of horiztonal. IMO, it's as good as a Sony's apeture grill. My buddy has a CTX PR960F (sony apeture grill). The LG pic is just as good.

Ya know, I thought about leaving the details of my CRT out of the story because I knew there'd be someone who'd stray from the point and have to freakin tout Sony or Mitsubishi.

One nice thing about Sony CRTs, they explode real good when used as range targets... :evil:

 

[yomafire]

They dont build 30 incher crts therefore me like lcd

 

[Fadey]

i got a phillips 109s4 19inch crt , had it when i got my pentium 4 2.53ghz 1 gig ram ti 4200 about 3 - 4 years ago and ive kept it for this comp. It has a nice program called lightframe 3 that allows the colours and pictures to be alot sharper. So you can turn it on while u watch movies and stuff =).

 

[redfoot12]

Originally posted by: Elvis2
interesting....
i use a 6-7 yr. old Sony 19" 420GS trinitron apeture grill monitor. it's been absolutely great for gaming and depending on the video card, text is good as well. i've been thinking about going lcd with my 7800gt sli setup but maybe not...maybe i'll continue to wait. there's nothing wrong with the monitor but it is getting up there in age .

I have this same exact monitor and have the same sentiments when it comes to getting an LCD. I want a screen size that's at least bigger than the 19" Sony. Maybe Zebo will be my hero and sell me one of his Diamondtrons.

 

[Wolfshanze]

I bought one "nice quality" LCD... the Viewsonic 912B... I suppose it's a nice LCD for it being an LCD... but I could just never get into it compared to my CRTs (of which we still have two good 19" CRTs in the house).

I love the LCD in native mode, but I don't stick to just one resolution, and out of native resolution, the LCDs plain suck.

I'm done with LCDs... my wife can keep the darn thing (she always sticks to one res anyways). I'll never, EVER buy another LCD again. Thankfully I won't have to stick with CRTs much longer either.

I'm just going to forget about buying ANY monitors until the SED Monitors come around... thin, light and CRT quality on scaling. Shouldn't be much longer to wait now, then LCD will go the way of the dinosaur overnight.

 

[xtknight]

I still like my old CRT too in terms of response, but to be honest the problem hasn't arisen with my VP930b. They do have LCDs that reach a real 8 ms now that you may want to consider (only Samsung 730BF/930BF and ViewSonic VX922). The only thing I'd gripe about is color contrast. But all of these things should improve (typically in big steps at once) and it will be good news for all of us, especially for AG CRT users. Once you see an LED-backlit, color-filter-less one (divide response time by 3) with perfect blacks, you might not look back. (Hint, it may be a while until they're affordable.) Yup, native resolutions are a problem, and even I can't stand lower resolution interpolating. Windows Vista will hopefully fix that with its vector graphics system. Unfortunately, games will still have to be interpolated if you want better performance from your graphics card.

If they can get big OLEDs working, they will be everybody's dream. Lower power than LCDs (I think), perfect blacks, extremely bright color components, and they're flicker-free. I'm fairly sure the viewing angle problems are also solved. Both SEDs and OLEDs do have native resolution, so you'll want to get used to it now. SEDs still flicker, so there goes another choice for me (flickering is very hard on my eyes), unless they get it to 200 Hz probably. You can believe I'll be the first to jump on a 200 Hz SED or OLED.

 

[redfoot12]

Ahh..SED...
If my CRT can just last 3 more years, while prices come down on that technology.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Both SEDs and OLEDs do have native resolution, so you'll want to get used to it now. SEDs still flicker

Yeah, and CRTs have native resolution too... you just never notice because they can adjust about 1,000 times better then LCDs to differant resolutions... SEDs are closer kin to CRTs then LCDs, and will show non-native resolutions of equal (or better) quality then CRTs because of the way they work.

Sorry to burst your attempt to burst the SED bubble, but once SEDs come out, with CRT-like multi-resolution capability, with sharp pictures and thin-light cases, LCDs will look like something Fred Flinstone would use. LCDs are living on borrowed time, and I'll bet SEDs will be available and affordable in one to two years tops.

OLED technology will NOT be a desktop monitor replacement. OLEDs will probably end up in laptops and small hand-held devices. SED monitors will be the true desktop monitor replacement, and will kill-off CRTs and LCDs in one fell swoop once they become "mainstream", which shouldn't be long from now.

SED's are going to replace both LCDs and CRTs in short-order... and multi-resolutions will be a reality again, while LCD owners will be left in the dust... you'll want to get used to that now.

Ahh..SED... If my CRT can just last 3 more years, while prices come down on that technology.

I don't think it's going to debut as high as you might think... and I'm sure it will be "affordable" in two years tops.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Wolfshanze

Both SEDs and OLEDs do have native resolution, so you'll want to get used to it now. SEDs still flicker

Yeah, and CRTs have native resolution too... you just never notice because they can adjust about 1,000 times better then LCDs to differant resolutions... SEDs are closer kin to CRTs then LCDs, and will show non-native resolutions of equal (or better) quality then CRTs because of the way they work.

SEDs will have the exact same problems interpolating.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2666&p=8

Like LCD and DLP technologies, SED displays are fixed pixel displays and there are three electron emitters per pixel. The downside to a fixed pixel display of course is that you end up sacrificing quality if you display content isn't at the same resolution as the native resolution of your display. In other words, there should be a 1:1 mapping of content pixels to each group of RGB electron emitters to obtain the absolute best image quality. However, as hardware scalers become more and more powerful the 1:1 pixel mapping problem becomes less important.

Sorry to burst your attempt to burst the SED bubble, but once SEDs come out, with CRT-like multi-resolution capability, with sharp pictures and thin-light cases, LCDs will look like something Fred Flinstone would use. LCDs are living on borrowed time, and I'll bet SEDs will be available and affordable in one to two years tops.

Unfortunately you will still be stuck at native res (see above). And OLEDs have sharp pictures, and even thinner cases. They also have much higher resolution capability, at least until the SED nanotube technology debuts. If they get the lifetime of the blue organic cell over 10K hours, it may become a reality. I believe they have prototypes of 100K hours already.

OLED technology will NOT be a desktop monitor replacement. OLEDs will probably end up in laptops and small hand-held devices. SED monitors will be the true desktop monitor replacement, and will kill-off CRTs and LCDs in one fell swoop once they become "mainstream", which shouldn't be long from now.

SED's are going to replace both LCDs and CRTs in short-order... and multi-resolutions will be a reality again, while LCD owners will be left in the dust... you'll want to get used to that now.

It's very hard to manufacture a small-dot pitch SED at this point, so that's debatable. They will first debut in the large TV sector.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Unfortunately you will still be stuck at native res (see above).

I think you're confusing the term "native resolution" as meaning a blanket statement that all future native resolution issues of today's LCDs equal the native resolution issues of tomorrow's SEDs. That is simply NOT the case. Native Resoltion is NOT the same problem between LCDs and SEDs.

Mathiass99 covered this already... below are his explanations of why SED is the future and why us CRT folks will be happy with multiple resolutions, because "native resolution" issues of today's LCDs are NOT the same as upcoming SEDs:

There is no reason that a fixed-pixel display with a high enough dot pitch cannot look just like a CRT when running multiple resolutions. CRTs *also* have a 'native' resolution -- there are a fixed number of phosphors on the display, and everything effectively gets resampled to that resolution. There's nothing magical about them other than that the effective dot pitch is quite good compared to today's LCD monitors. Higher-density LCD, OLED, and SED monitors will make resolution scaling a lot better.

What I'm saying is that ANY display can look "as good as a CRT" if it has a high enough pixel density and the scaling algorithm doesn't totally suck. A 19" CRT usually has around ~1600x1200 phosphor triads, and a 22" CRT has somewhere around ~2000x1600 phosphor triads, and they are usually 'interleaved' so they are significantly closer together than the subpixels on an LCD display. This means they usually look okay at almost any resolution -- but unless your calibration is flawless, and you are running at no more than maybe 1600x1200 (or 1280x1024 on a 19" CRT), the image will not be as sharp as on a fixed-pixel display running at native. Because of the use of a deflected electron beam to do the scanning, it is also VERY hard to get a sharp image near the edges/corners of ANY CRT.

Basically, when you compare a 19" CRT to a 19" LCD panel, you're comparing an 18" viewable CRT with ~1600x1200 pixels to a 19" viewable LCD with exactly 1280x1024 pixels. Between the lower pixel density and the larger space between pixels on an LCD (which leads to the so-called 'screen door effect'), the LCD just doesn't look as good at multiple resolutions. But if you had a 19" LCD that had 3840x3072 pixels, it would probably look better than the CRT at any resolution, and would just blow it away at native.

SEDs are supposed to have a very high pixel density (even higher than most CRTs).

It's very hard to manufacture a small-dot pitch SED at this point, so that's debatable. They will first debut in the large TV sector.

Basically, OLEDs are supposed to be very light, potentially VERY thin (and/or flexible) displays. They are essentially like LCD displays, but with much lower response time, and much better black level/contrast ratio.

SEDs are thinner and lighter than CRTs, and may have higher pixel density than anything else (including today's CRTs), but will probably end up being significantly thicker and heavier than OLED or LCD flat panels. They are not as thick as a CRT, but it would be extremely difficult to make them flexible, and they may still be quite heavy if the front panel is glass rather than plastic. They should, however, match a CRT in terms of IQ.

If both technologies pan out in the next few years, I suspect they will coexist, displacing LCD/Plasma/DLP in TVs and computer monitors (except for LCD/DLP front projection, and maybe LCD/DLP rear projection for big, cheap displays). OLEDs are *already* seeing use in portable electronics (a number of cellphones and cameras released in the last year use them), and once scaled up will be an excellent choice for any sort of portable display device (for instance, in a laptop, or for portable DVD players, or just smaller TVs). SEDs would be a better choice for home theater or desktop computer uses, where you can install them once and rarely have to move them.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Meh, gaming on a 2005fpw, I'd never go back to CRT. The sharpness and brightness of LCD kills CRT .

 

[xtknight]

Notice he said "scaling algorithm that doesn't suck". There's the problem. I'm going to PM him and ask him about the pixel density thing, because it seems to contradict everything else I've heard about SEDs. If what he is saying is true, then OLEDs will reap the benefits first, because they are much higher resolution to start with.

Native Resoltion is NOT the same problem between LCDs and SEDs.

How not so? Can you elaborate on that? The chemical shutter (crystal) on the LCD is blocking or accepting backlight in one subpixel, and a mini electron gun exists within each subpixel of an SED, which is directed to a phopshor where the light glows. OLEDs have organic cells that glow by themselves when voltage is applied. Other than the way they emit the light, how do you think SEDs are magically going to scale better all of a sudden? Am I wrong on something here?!