TIP: People with rear projection TVs (CRT)

[montypythizzle]

I just finished doing a 10 minute chore that just made my ~4 year old rear projection TV look like a plasma.


No, not wall-mountable, BUT...


I cleaned the lens tops. The contrast is UNBELIEVABLE!!!! The colors are BACK!!! The brightness is BACK!!!!

I saw this old RPROJ TV at my friends house that was junk (they believe... screen was broke, could have made a FPROJ possibly ) and saw that the tubes were just NASTY and filmed over and dusted over with cigarette tar, dust bears, etc....

I thought, EWWW this could be on my RPROJ's lenses and to my astonishment it was there also, just not as bad as it is only 4 years old....

I cleaned them tonight with a microfiber cloth with a light dusting of a less harsh Windex alternative, and just swabbed them, and WOW.

Not much dust or dirt but upon turning the set back on I was drooling.

BIG difference.

Do it.

 

[CalvinHobbes]

I keep meaning to do this with my TV mostly due to curiosity. I just want to see how bad they are after ~5 years. The room it's in is lightly used so it may not be too bad. There's really never any dust on the screen or on top of the cabinet so it may not be too bad.

 

[spidey07]

Yes, clean your lenses. Use a photgraphy lens cleaning kit/cloth.

While your at it do a manual and electrostatic focus. Should be some guides on the intarweb. This alone makes a huge difference in detail. You'll need some kind of grid to isolate R, G and B when doing the focus. When you can see scan lines, you're dead on.

 

[montypythizzle]

Originally posted by: spidey07While your at it do a manual and electrostatic focus. Should be some guides on the intarweb. This alone makes a huge difference in detail. You'll need some kind of grid to isolate R, G and B when doing the focus. When you can see scan lines, you're dead on.

Yeah, IDK how to do that so ignorance is bliss ^_^.

 

[montypythizzle]

Originally posted by: CalvinHobbes
I keep meaning to do this with my TV mostly due to curiosity. I just want to see how bad they are after ~5 years. The room it's in is lightly used so it may not be too bad. There's really never any dust on the screen or on top of the cabinet so it may not be too bad.

Usually you can see the tops of the lenses through the cabinet. If they don't "shine" then you will probably have to do it. I went from ~85 brightness and 75 contrast to 64 brightness and 50 contrast, so yes, it does make a helluva difference.

Whites are white, blacks are black, and detail is back. Went from a nice SD look to an HD plasma look. Yes, do it if possible.

When I did use the yellow microfiber cloth it didn't even look dirty but you could tell the difference after just one tube, you could see the difference between the cleaned one and the others.

I really need to know how to adjust my vertical position, the bottom is too far off the screen while the top is too far down.

I didn't see this option in the SM, all I saw were convergence controls and option controls, ugh.

Spidey, let me lift that Mitsi off you

 

[Mutilator]

Now you need to use the AVIA calibration DVD.

 

[montypythizzle]

Originally posted by: Mutilator
Now you need to use the AVIA calibration DVD.

Yeah, now my contrast and brightness doesn't have to be all the way up now.
Got to burn it again, it skips on the color portion of the basic calibration.
Need the overscan part of it so I can see how much my V position is off.