Coming for Christmas - the Definitive CRT versus Digital Shootout - Page 2  

There can be no "definitive" CRT vs. digital shootout because digital is still a developing technology and CRT is pretty well acknowledged to be a very mature technology.

The result of such a shootout will be this:

CRT still wins, hands down, at total picture quality, freedom from digital
artifacting, and having no fixed pixel structure or resolution.
Plus the level of contrast ratio that is absolutely essential to a truly first rate
presentation is still ONLY available on CRT projectors.

Digital is still the choice of those who put picture quality SECOND.

Of the various digital technologies, the best by far is JVC's Qualia series D-ILA projectors. There is no visible screen door effect, the fill rate being practically 100 percent, and this contributes more toward making the pixel structure virtually unnoticeable than you'd believe if you hadn't seen it yourself. If they can get the contrast ratio up to about 5000 to 1, I think this technology will truly be competitive with SOME CRT projectors.

CJ

Some things are very easy to predict, particularly when you've seen the latest and allegedly greatest from every major digital projector manufacturer within the last two or three weeks, and were rather underwhelmed by all of them.

When QXGA, or better yet, the 16:9 equivalent resolution, is available on a digital projector and the fill factor is virtually 100 percent, AND its contrast ratio is 5000 or better, AND its bulb life is greater than the expected lifespan of the electronics, THEN and ONLY then will digital projection meet MY personal standard, the point at which digital is now a viable and acceptable trade for CRT technology, in the opinion of me and some others who are very uncompromising about image quality.

Digital isn't there yet. It'll be a while before it gets there, but I have no doubt that it WILL get there. I just won't get into one for serious viewing applications until that day arrives. Digital projectors are just toys to me at this time.

CJ

Do I sense hostility?

May I suggest you get a grip and enjoy the Christmas holiday?

My room may be mostly white, but it's totally light controlled, and that one
photo doesn't reveal the extent of the room darkening treatments in the rest of it.

I'm as uncompromising as I can be on a very limited budget. I'll be happy to upgrade to a 9501LCSIM with a full load of MP mods, just as soon as I can justify the expense. It won't be this week unless I win the lottery tomorrow night. And I'm not going to go in debt to a bank (I'm debt free now) for something that's properly described as a non-essential entertainment device.

But for now, I'm happy to watch movies on my 8000, and STILL get blacks that are truly black, full whites that make me squint, and grey scale performance that truly does make dark night and shadow scenes a pleasure to watch, because they're often as full of detail as any brighter scene.

Right now, I have yet to see a digital projector that can compete on an even footing with a dead stock, fairly well used Marquee 8000. Incidentally, mine (the one shown in the pic in my gallery) is one of three I own, (well, one's an 8110, actually, but I use the 8000 because it arrived first and I had already installed it when the 8110 arrived.) and it's the one I watch, and it has over 18,000 hours on the meter. No idea if the tubes are original or replacements.

I guess they've been replaced at some point, but only because the cathode emissions still test quite strong, and that, coupled with the pristine tube faces, really tends to point at recently replaced tubes. I just can't imagine 18K hour tubes performing that well even if there is no screen burn on them.

CJ

You can lead a camel away from the water but you can't stop him from drinking out of the poison water hole.

Yes, it's not about sides. What I've learned is, it's about Trolls who like to like to cross what they consider the enemy lines, set off a bomb and sit back to enjoy the fallout. I'm washing my hands of this useless thread also.

Merry Christmas,
Chip

QQQ ,lighten up have a couple of bruskis(is that how you spell it?) and relax, don,t get so riled up that you can,t digest Christmas dinner( yes i said it Christmas ! all of you politically correct people that don,t like that term to bad) these comparisons have been hashed over ad nausem.......


p.s merry Christmas, many blessings and good will to you and yours......

I know it is Christmas some places, but you really should get in touch with reality. When I see somebody who has done the work to get a top end CRT and even mod it (in some cases) who then sees a digital and prefers the images from it, I think that people who make statements like your's really don't know what they are talking about. And I think it is a little bit offensive to say that somebody who looks at the images and prefers them, damn the cost difference, must be putting picture quality second.

As I think I've made clear, I don't disagree that it is perfectly valid to prefer the images from the CRT, but not understanding how somebody could prefer the images from the digital doesn't show much understanding of everything that goes into images.

I guarantee you that not everybody who switched from a top CRT to a digital did it for convenience (and definitely not for cost). And whether their CRT has the potential to look better if they could get Mike Parker to come to their house with his latest mods doesn't matter when they can't.

--Darin

It's all about personal preferrence really. One person likes this, one person likes that. It's really that simple. If we don't know what the REAL source looked like or if you could compare it side to side with the real source, then how could someone know which is truely better. I have been a drummer my whole life and I can tell you this...I KNOW what real drums sound like and I have been in the studio many many times to record, then I read reviews on speakers/gear and see how these people(most of whom never been in a studio or played an instrument) talk about how this speaker is better and this amp is better blah blah blah.....when in reality NO, and I MEAN NO speaker or amp...ect is going to sound anything like the real record source in the studio. I have heard the real recordings I have done and as well as others have done which were done in a studio that had about $50k worth of recording equipment in them, and then have heard that same recording on a home system the cost 10 times that, and you know which one sounded better......you guessed it! It's the source. My opinion is that CRT's are clearly better but that could just be cuz I preferr that kind of picture get it. Merry Christmas everyone.

I'd say that you're on target, mostly at least. But on some points, I can't agree.

It's true that no recorded sound ever sounds quite like the live event, because the recording is necessarily a mere sampling of the total sound of the live event.
A few microphones can't capture the entire acoustic envelope of the event.
By its very nature, the recording must be a data reduced analog.

The best that any audio system can ever hope to achieve is to faithfully reproduce the RECORDING, but the recording itself is not a complete image of the event that was recorded.

In video, the best that any display could possibly manage would be to reproduce a faithful image of the video source. But like in audio, the
recording is far from the real event. The world is 3D and has no limitations on resolution or field of view, while any recording is 2D with a limited field of view and limited resolution.

CJ

About the recorded music let me clear up what i was trying to get across. The speakers in the studio cost no more then $800 and because they have the real dat tape or the 2" real to real recording they sound more real then any speaker weather they cost $100k or not, and that's because they have closer to the real source. And trust me, hearing a well recorded Hi-Hat in a studio after just playing it sounds pretty darn close to the real thing. And unless you've heard it many times as I have, then you really can't argue it. In most cases, in the studio the rooms are very well sound treated to kill all effects that the mic's might pick up too so... But getting back to the CRT vs digital topic, the rule still applies. How can you really say that one is truely better at displaying what it is really suppose to look like unless you have either the film/or the movie studio's shots of the movie, playing right next to the projectors. You can't really, you can just give what ONE might think is better.

This of course also relates to DVD vs HD. An HD version of a film may look better on a cheap projector than a DVD on an expensive projector. Your point is valid about not knowing what the source looks like, but in the case of HD vs DVD we pretty consistently know which is closer to the source.

In the past when I've been told here that I must not care as much about image quality as someone with a CRT I've pointed out that I had gone to great lengths to make sure I could record HD (before it was easy). After asking whether this person thought that DVDs on their CRT looked better than the HD I was using most often on my digital looked, I got no response. :)

I understand people having different budgets and priorities, but when I see someone who doesn't have a D-Theater deck trashing others as not caring about image quality I have to wonder.

--Darin

I understand that too but just cuz someone doesn't have a good system doesn't mean that they don't know or doesn't care about it. I love ferrari's, but just cuz I don't own one, doesn't mean I don't know how sweet they are and that I can't talk about them. Maybe his point was how he only has to spend $1500-$2000 on an old M8000 to get a VERY GOOD picture and if you go digital you have to spend 5 figures just to get picture quaility equal to or maybe a tad better then his old M8000. Who knows!

OK OK .... you have a point, my having the largest dick on the forum may have something to do with it.:D

Art

Art, you mean "double dick", don't you, as you have stacked G-90s!!!

Art, are you getting Mike Parker's D-Theater mod? Mine's being done as we speak. This mod will get you the "double dick plus"!!!

I see what you're saying, of course. It fits in well with what I've heard from other sources. Nothing sounds better than a live mike feed straight through a good amp and into good monitors. It'd be great if we could put THAT sound right on the recorded media, but there are always more steps to go through, and every one of them leaves a signature on the recording. Mixing, processing, mastering, compression, filtering...all of these have an impact on the final results.

If I could choose how my music was delivered to me, it'd be on a Nagra D reel to reel digital deck at 192 KHz sampling rate, raw and uncompressed. Video I'd want delivered via D1 digital master for standard sources, and whatever the favored equivalent HD master format is for HD source material.

But neither of those is exactly practical for consumers in general.

CJ

When someone states he's got an IQ of 200 and the largest dick, another one exclaims he's going to challenge that by getting his digicam, I guess the argument has gotta be between americans! What can you prove about your IQ by taking pics?

Yes it seems that we are on the same page here.

Quoted from SirJMon... "It's all about personal preferrence really."

For me it is! I haven't seen much of the digital projectors or plasma screens or other stuff. I fell in love with the CRT Front Projectors I saw in use while I was in college. I never thought I could actually own one (and now I've got two.)

Someday, A video device could potentially surpass the CRT FP for some measureable video quality (in some ways actual film projection is better) but I simply love CRT Front Projections image and I don't think I'll be upgrading from it when and if the time comes.


(Ok, so maybe no one cares and that's just my take on the situation. I'll let you get back to the "measurements")

-Brian

Ya think the digicam remark might have referred to the dick? I guess the American humor went right over your swedish head (pun intended). ;)

SC

First of all watch the cracks about Canadians eh. :D I think the main issue here is to have a good time discussing our choices in equipment I myself have been to all the big shows to date, and did the circuit in Detroit, Canada, Ann Arbor and beyond, to see the latest and the greatest but I still prefer CRT. Art I have not seen your setup but hope to as it would be as close to my idea of a perfect picture as I can think of you guys get mad when someone does not agree with you on what you think is perfect well thank God for choice we all have one. No I don't think any digital projector including the highly regarded Sony Qualia is good enough for me but thats my opinion, the point is if you think its good then why slam somebody else for there choice just enjoy what you have and help other to get what they have to look as good or as good as what you think good is. I have seen the Sony and yes it was good but in my (notice) I said MY opinion its still got a ways to go before it can whip an Art double stack G-90 set up I would own a G-90 but don't have the room but my NEC is the cats ass to me now if I can just get in touch with Art's guy to calibrate it man I could be watching nirvana. :D

Are you calling him a Swedish meatball?
Sorry, that one was too easy... :D

QQQ, are you getting the Panasonic 7700 for the comparo?
Now, that would be interesting...

I tell you what little digital people?

Go back & espouse the virtues of the latest digital p.o.s. In YOUR OWN FORUM.
When a collective group of crt`ers feel there is a digital worth looking at we`ll give you a call.
Till then Go forth and multiply..
If Darins digital agenda wasnt apparent before even the densest of crt`ers must see it now-hes sending in QQQ digital moron To do his dirty work ;-)

Why do these guys have a burning desire to come in here-who are they trying to convince? Themselves It seems.

Happy Xmas to all!

This should be posted April 1st..There is NO digital yet made that can come anywhere near a Cine 9-get real you imbecile..

I think QQQ's whole purpose is an attempt to drive down the prices of G90's to something that HE can afford.:D

LOL!!! You're either on to something, or on something!:D

I'm on to QQQ, that's what I'm on to.:D