My situation:

I need two displays; a CRT based display, and a fixed resolution based display. One for watching standard TV, playing my Wii, and watching lower resolution videos on from my PC, and the other for HD-DVD, Blu-ray, HD games, and as a secondary computer display.

I am, of course, only going to ask about the CRT here since this is not the appropriate place for discussion of any other type of display. I recently purchased a samsung Slim fit TV and then took it back mainly because of a bowing image, but also because when I set my PC to display at 1280 x 720, text was not legible. I assumed that if it scans at 720p I should be able to read text, but it looks like I was wrong. The only reason I'm guessing I couldn't read text is because of the aperture grill in use. It was the traditional "brick" patter grill that I've seen in most tube TVs for as long as I can remember, where as computer monitors (as far as I know) never use that type of grill. The grills I've seen in use in CRT computer displays are trinitron, and the other kind that looks like a red green and blue honeycomb.

I dont' know if any of that is correct, as I'm not very experienced in this area, all I know is that I'd like to have a CRT display that can display legible text on it at the appropriate resolution. Does anyone know of a CRT HDTV that can do this? I'm looking for one about 30" or larger that will display legible text. I really dont' know if something like that exist, but if it doesn't, I'm sure that someone here would know.

Thanks for any and all help.

There are a couple of reasons why most, if not all, CRT HDTV's will have trouble with text at that resolution. First thing is the dot pitch of the shadow mask (in your case) or aperture grille (in the case of a trinitron). Next is the signal bandwidth limitations of most CRT video amplifiers. Finally, the fact that, again most if not all, HDTV CRT's use 1080i and convert any incoming signal to that resolution (scaling). The issue about dot pitch is basically that most HDTV CRT's have a somewhat coarse dot pitch, that is why they do not resolve full HD resolutions, they still look MUCH better than pretty much everything on the market right now so I consider it an acceptable trade off. The bandwidth of the video amplifier in the CRT is usually limited because CRT manufacturers know that they are only using 1080i and that the dot pitch will not allow them to resolve full HD resolutions so they can get away with only using a moderately high bandwidth video amplifier. The final issue is the interlaced scanning effect that HD CRT's use, this, naturally, will make text more difficult to read. Despite all of this I still love HD CRT's and I have owned many Plasma's and even a 29" Computer monitor that could resolve 1280x1024 near perfect; the price you pay for the higher resolutions is a significant loss in brightness, I find most CRT HDTV's to be a great compromise that offers a picture that still beats everything out there (of course they do have thier limitations, like in this case, as they do not work so well as computer monitors).

I tried every which way possible to get good text from my 17" Apple Laptop with my hd crt and could never get it to look good enough. Tried both 1080i and 480p. 480p was better but not good enough. However, when hooked up to my buddy's 45" Sharp Aquos 1080p LCD set - WOW. Absolutely incredible.

soloist3 explained it all very well.

There are a couple of reasons why most, if not all, CRT HDTV's will have trouble with text at that resolution. First thing is the dot pitch of the shadow mask (in your case) or aperture grille (in the case of a trinitron). Next is the signal bandwidth limitations of most CRT video amplifiers. Finally, the fact that, again most if not all, HDTV CRT's use 1080i and convert any incoming signal to that resolution (scaling). The issue about dot pitch is basically that most HDTV CRT's have a somewhat coarse dot pitch, that is why they do not resolve full HD resolutions, they still look MUCH better than pretty much everything on the market right now so I consider it an acceptable trade off. The bandwidth of the video amplifier in the CRT is usually limited because CRT manufacturers know that they are only using 1080i and that the dot pitch will not allow them to resolve full HD resolutions so they can get away with only using a moderately high bandwidth video amplifier. The final issue is the interlaced scanning effect that HD CRT's use, this, naturally, will make text more difficult to read. Despite all of this I still love HD CRT's and I have owned many Plasma's and even a 29" Computer monitor that could resolve 1280x1024 near perfect; the price you pay for the higher resolutions is a significant loss in brightness, I find most CRT HDTV's to be a great compromise that offers a picture that still beats everything out there (of course they do have thier limitations, like in this case, as they do not work so well as computer monitors).

Are you saying that HD CRTs always scan interlaced, even when displaying 720p? Are you also saying that they never change the scan rate either? I guess that would make since, because in all CRT monitors for computers, when you change the resolution, you have to adjust the geometry of the tube and since you never have to adjust the geometry of CRT displays it would make since that they only scan at one rate :\ which is very disappointing considering that it doesn't have to be that way. I mean, computer monitors scan progressive, support high resolutions, and text is legible on them.

bah, either way text doesn't have to be crystal clear, just clear enough to where it doesn't give me a headache. I don't plan on using it as a computer monitor, I'm just wanting to use it to watch videos and stuff that I have on my computer, but to get to those videos I have to dig through folders until If find the files that I need.

Just out of curiousity, would a CRT projector play text clearly at high resolutions? I have been wanting to set up a nice home theater room for a little while, and a CRT projector might be the answer to my problems, but I currently know nothing about them (I'm in the middle of reading about them, but I'm lazy so it will take somet time :p)

Yes that is exactly what I mean, all CRT HDTV's scan 1080i (there are maybe a few that change from 480p to 1080i and vice versa but I do not think so). In order for a CRT to be able to sync to different resolutions it would have to have a flyback transformer that could handle variable H and V frequencies, such a setup would substantially increase the price of the TV, plus using a scaler to handle odd resolutions means that, like you mentioned, you do not have to mess with geometry settings (the scan pattern stays the same and the signal is converted to fit it).

Like I had mentioned earlier I have owned 29" Computer monitors, an NEC XM29 and an XP29, both have a native resolution of 1024x768 but the XP29 had a flyback that could scan 1920x1080 16:9 and 2048x1536 4:3 (both progressive), it also had a video amplifier that could resolve a lot of it (even if the shadow mask could not), even with the "High Contrast" mode enabled it was not as bright or enjoyable to watch compared to any HDTV CRT I had owned or seen. Additionally, EVERYTHING except computer rendered video (which actually came in at 1920x1080 or other very high resolutions) looked awful on the monitor because you could see every artifact and imperfection in the signal (DVD's, which usually look amazing on a CRT HDTV looked almost like how VHS looks on an HDTV when watching them on the monitor). I know that everyone complains about how they never made a full 1080p tube and how great it would look but honestly I think that the CRT HDTV's they made looked great and again were a good compromise as far as contrast/brightness v. maximum supported resolution. The Sony Super Fine Pitch tubes were about as close as I think you would want to be to full HD (in that size), even those have phosphor trailing issues because Sony had to use a different persistence phosphor to regain the brightness lost by the finer resolution.

Yes that is exactly what I mean, all CRT HDTV's scan 1080i (there are maybe a few that change from 480p to 1080i and vice versa but I do not think so). In order for a CRT to be able to sync to different resolutions it would have to have a flyback transformer that could handle variable H and V frequencies, such a setup would substantially increase the price of the TV, plus using a scaler to handle odd resolutions means that, like you mentioned, you do not have to mess with geometry settings (the scan pattern stays the same and the signal is converted to fit it).

Like I had mentioned earlier I have owned 29" Computer monitors, an NEC XM29 and an XP29, both have a native resolution of 1024x768 but the XP29 had a flyback that could scan 1920x1080 16:9 and 2048x1536 4:3 (both progressive), it also had a video amplifier that could resolve a lot of it (even if the shadow mask could not), even with the "High Contrast" mode enabled it was not as bright or enjoyable to watch compared to any HDTV CRT I had owned or seen. Additionally, EVERYTHING except computer rendered video (which actually came in at 1920x1080 or other very high resolutions) looked awful on the monitor because you could see every artifact and imperfection in the signal (DVD's, which usually look amazing on a CRT HDTV looked almost like how VHS looks on an HDTV when watching them on the monitor). I know that everyone complains about how they never made a full 1080p tube and how great it would look but honestly I think that the CRT HDTV's they made looked great and again were a good compromise as far as contrast/brightness v. maximum supported resolution. The Sony Super Fine Pitch tubes were about as close as I think you would want to be to full HD (in that size), even those have phosphor trailing issues because Sony had to use a different persistence phosphor to regain the brightness lost by the finer resolution.


(sigh) well that is quite dissapointing, and in fact, very upsetting. What annoys me the most is that if they can do it with computer monitors (and those are cheap, even the larger ones) then they can do it with TVs, but they don't :( Oh well, does sony still make super fine pitch tubes? If so I guess that's what I'll have to pick up.

Sony has discontinued Super Fine Pitch tubes. Good luck finding one.

Sony has discontinued Super Fine Pitch tubes. Good luck finding one.

arg!

Hmmm...well what about CRT projectors? They are bulky, expensive, and pretty much built for a dedicated home theater room, but I've been wanting to build one of those anyway.