Until the 2000s vacuum tubes practically ruled the roost. Even if they had surrendered practically fully to semiconductor technology like integrated circuits, there was no escaping them in everythi…
It’s also utter garbage. We abandoned CRTs because they sucked. They’re heavy, waste tons of space, guzzle power, and have terrible resolution. Even the best CRT ever made is absolutely destroyed by the worst of modern LCDs. The only advantage you could possibly come up with is that in an emergency you could beat someone to death with a CRT. Well, that and the resolution was so garbage they had a natural form of antialiasing, but that’s a really optimistic way of saying they were blurry as shit.
Now-now. With CRTs resolution is not an inherent trait anyway. You could trade off update frequency for better resolution and back.
They’re heavy, waste tons of space, guzzle power,
When CRTs were common, LCD displays also were heavy, wasted tons of space and guzzled power. And for some time after that they were crap for your eyes.
Even the best CRT ever made is absolutely destroyed by the worst of modern LCDs.
No, the best CRT ever made is really not that, but also costs like an airplane’s wing.
Well, that and the resolution was so garbage they had a natural form of antialiasing, but that’s a really optimistic way of saying they were blurry as shit.
An LCD display has resolution as its trait. A CRT display has a range of resolutions realistically usable with it. It doesn’t have a matrix of pixels, only a surface at which particles are shot.
So, the point before I forget it. While CRTs as they existed are a thing of the past, it would be cool to have some sort of optical displays based on interference (suppose, two lasers at the sides of the screen) or whatever, allowing similarly agile resolution change, and also more energy-efficient than LCDs, and also better for one’s eyes. I think there even are some, just very expensive. Removing the “one bad pixel” component would do wonders. Also this could probably be a better technology for foldable displays. As in - now you scratch a screen, you have to replace the matrix. While such a component wouldn’t cost as much a whole matrix, the lasers would be the expensive part.
it would be cool to have some sort of optical displays based on interference (suppose, two lasers at the sides of the screen) or whatever, allowing similarly agile resolution change, and also more energy-efficient than LCDs, and also better for one’s eyes. I think there even are some, just very expensive
I think you’re just describing laser projection TVs ( though the projection is from the front or back, generally). They’re not that expensive — just huge. For their size, they’re much cheaper than LCDs and OLEDs, but they only come in about 100+".
Scanning laser projection is also used in virtual retinal displays, but that’s for stuff like HUDs or a head-mounted display since it projects on (or rather - into) a person’s eye instead of a screen.
Any kind of scanning display will probably have poor latency compared to LCD/OLED flat panels, I think, though.
Yes, except with part of the screen itself being the optical medium, bent light and all that. So that it wouldn’t have to be huge. I’m thinking about portable, foldable, rollable things … Not sure.
If you are measuring fairly, then CRTs do have input lag. You have to take into account the time it takes to stream a frame of video from the connector to the beam to complete the draw. Not doing this is giving CRTs an unfair advantage.
The industry standard is to take the input lag measurement from the middle of the screen. A complete CRT frame in NTSC will take about 16.7ms to stream a frame, so the middle of the screen will be half that. That is, if you press a button to shoot the moment before the frame is drawn and the software miraculously updates the scene before it’s streamed out, then a CRT on NTSC has about 8ms of input lag.
For PAL, it’s about 20ms to draw a frame, or 10ms of input lag.
Which is interesting, because a lot of LCDs have around 2ms pixel response time. The difference between NTSC and PAL input lag is also 2ms.
There is literally 1 game I can think of that uses CRTs for competitions, and I guarantee nobody in this thread plays it at a level to require one.
Motion blur will always be subjective.
I remember when we were transitioning from CRTs to “flat screens.” Everyone and their grandma wanted a flatscreen.
Anyone yearning for a return of CRTs that doesn’t play that one game is most likely trying to be quirky rather than fulfill an actual need. It’ll be fun for 1 or 2 sessions because of the novelty, and then never get used again.
Holy shit the memories! I got one of those wide flat screen Sony guys out of a trash pile the garbage men left cause it was too heavy ig. I grabbed my homie for down the street and we carried it the couple hundred years to my house at about 50 feet a minute so to stop and rest. Good I wish I had that back again! (Both the tv and my actual teenage musculature).
Absolutely, in the beginning there were pros and cons, with the cheap TN-LCD having serious annoying display issues.
But with better LCD technologies like IPS arriving and improving fast together with lower prices, there is no doubt that today even a cheap IPS display is way better than any CRT can ever be. With better clarity, colors and black, and even less ghosting, because CRT definitely has ghosting too.
Back in the day my Sony 29" CRT TV weighed about 60 kg without speakers. (the speakers could be detached).
And the CRT weight increases exponentially with size, because with bigger screen the glass needs to be thicker to withstand the significant pressure of the vacuum in the tube.
So a 60" TV CRT would most likely weigh above 250 kg!! The tube alone would be more expensive to make than an entire modern TV of similar size!
But more than that, it would be very difficult to make a 60" CRT screen that doesn’t flicker, and the extreme speed needed for the ray to cross the entire screen, would require enormous power to light the phosphorous surface, within the nanosecond time it has for each pixel. Even just normal HD 1980x1024 at 60 frames per second and 3 RGB subpixels per pixel, is 364.953.600 sub pixels per second, so an analogue signal that needs to control the cathode ray at that speed would require enormous power.
The result would be a 200kg+ TV with smeared/blurry images and very poor color quality, due to the inherent imprecision. and even with clever tricks to make the tubes slimmer, developed near the end of CRT popularity, it would require almost a meter distance from the wall, to make room for the huge cathode ray tube.
There is no way CRT is making a comeback, CRT is inferior in every way, for every size of display, and also in blackness, contrary to what he claims in the article.
Edit PS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_PVM-4300
The biggest CRT ever made was 43" and weighed 199.6 kg (440 lb).
So a 60" would weigh way above 250 kg.
Also notice that even this prestige project by Sony, does NOT have a black screen, so the idea of perfect blacks on CRT as the article claims are pure idiocy.
It’s also utter garbage. We abandoned CRTs because they sucked. They’re heavy, waste tons of space, guzzle power, and have terrible resolution. Even the best CRT ever made is absolutely destroyed by the worst of modern LCDs. The only advantage you could possibly come up with is that in an emergency you could beat someone to death with a CRT. Well, that and the resolution was so garbage they had a natural form of antialiasing, but that’s a really optimistic way of saying they were blurry as shit.
Now-now. With CRTs resolution is not an inherent trait anyway. You could trade off update frequency for better resolution and back.
When CRTs were common, LCD displays also were heavy, wasted tons of space and guzzled power. And for some time after that they were crap for your eyes.
No, the best CRT ever made is really not that, but also costs like an airplane’s wing.
An LCD display has resolution as its trait. A CRT display has a range of resolutions realistically usable with it. It doesn’t have a matrix of pixels, only a surface at which particles are shot.
So, the point before I forget it. While CRTs as they existed are a thing of the past, it would be cool to have some sort of optical displays based on interference (suppose, two lasers at the sides of the screen) or whatever, allowing similarly agile resolution change, and also more energy-efficient than LCDs, and also better for one’s eyes. I think there even are some, just very expensive. Removing the “one bad pixel” component would do wonders. Also this could probably be a better technology for foldable displays. As in - now you scratch a screen, you have to replace the matrix. While such a component wouldn’t cost as much a whole matrix, the lasers would be the expensive part.
Anyway, just dreaming.
I think you’re just describing laser projection TVs ( though the projection is from the front or back, generally). They’re not that expensive — just huge. For their size, they’re much cheaper than LCDs and OLEDs, but they only come in about 100+".
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Hisense-L5H-4K-UHD-Ultra-Short-Throw-Laser-TV-Projector-with-100-Light-Rejecting-Screen-Dolby-Vision-Dolby-Atmos-Google-TV/5003861077?classType=REGULAR
Scanning laser projection is also used in virtual retinal displays, but that’s for stuff like HUDs or a head-mounted display since it projects on (or rather - into) a person’s eye instead of a screen.
Any kind of scanning display will probably have poor latency compared to LCD/OLED flat panels, I think, though.
Yes, except with part of the screen itself being the optical medium, bent light and all that. So that it wouldn’t have to be huge. I’m thinking about portable, foldable, rollable things … Not sure.
besides input lag, and motion blur
If you are measuring fairly, then CRTs do have input lag. You have to take into account the time it takes to stream a frame of video from the connector to the beam to complete the draw. Not doing this is giving CRTs an unfair advantage.
The industry standard is to take the input lag measurement from the middle of the screen. A complete CRT frame in NTSC will take about 16.7ms to stream a frame, so the middle of the screen will be half that. That is, if you press a button to shoot the moment before the frame is drawn and the software miraculously updates the scene before it’s streamed out, then a CRT on NTSC has about 8ms of input lag.
For PAL, it’s about 20ms to draw a frame, or 10ms of input lag.
Which is interesting, because a lot of LCDs have around 2ms pixel response time. The difference between NTSC and PAL input lag is also 2ms.
There is literally 1 game I can think of that uses CRTs for competitions, and I guarantee nobody in this thread plays it at a level to require one.
Motion blur will always be subjective.
I remember when we were transitioning from CRTs to “flat screens.” Everyone and their grandma wanted a flatscreen.
Anyone yearning for a return of CRTs that doesn’t play that one game is most likely trying to be quirky rather than fulfill an actual need. It’ll be fun for 1 or 2 sessions because of the novelty, and then never get used again.
No chance I could lift a CRT enough times over and over to beat someone to death with it.
Some of them were heavy enough to do it in one shot. Looking at you Sony Trinitron
Holy shit the memories! I got one of those wide flat screen Sony guys out of a trash pile the garbage men left cause it was too heavy ig. I grabbed my homie for down the street and we carried it the couple hundred years to my house at about 50 feet a minute so to stop and rest. Good I wish I had that back again! (Both the tv and my actual teenage musculature).
You should hit the gym more, just in case shit pops off.
Absolutely, in the beginning there were pros and cons, with the cheap TN-LCD having serious annoying display issues.
But with better LCD technologies like IPS arriving and improving fast together with lower prices, there is no doubt that today even a cheap IPS display is way better than any CRT can ever be. With better clarity, colors and black, and even less ghosting, because CRT definitely has ghosting too.
Back in the day my Sony 29" CRT TV weighed about 60 kg without speakers. (the speakers could be detached).
And the CRT weight increases exponentially with size, because with bigger screen the glass needs to be thicker to withstand the significant pressure of the vacuum in the tube.
So a 60" TV CRT would most likely weigh above 250 kg!! The tube alone would be more expensive to make than an entire modern TV of similar size!
But more than that, it would be very difficult to make a 60" CRT screen that doesn’t flicker, and the extreme speed needed for the ray to cross the entire screen, would require enormous power to light the phosphorous surface, within the nanosecond time it has for each pixel. Even just normal HD 1980x1024 at 60 frames per second and 3 RGB subpixels per pixel, is 364.953.600 sub pixels per second, so an analogue signal that needs to control the cathode ray at that speed would require enormous power.
The result would be a 200kg+ TV with smeared/blurry images and very poor color quality, due to the inherent imprecision. and even with clever tricks to make the tubes slimmer, developed near the end of CRT popularity, it would require almost a meter distance from the wall, to make room for the huge cathode ray tube.
There is no way CRT is making a comeback, CRT is inferior in every way, for every size of display, and also in blackness, contrary to what he claims in the article.
Edit PS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_PVM-4300
The biggest CRT ever made was 43" and weighed 199.6 kg (440 lb).
So a 60" would weigh way above 250 kg.
Also notice that even this prestige project by Sony, does NOT have a black screen, so the idea of perfect blacks on CRT as the article claims are pure idiocy.