Don't dump your CRT RPTV! - Page 4

1080p sets aren't out of my price range. And who knows when SED or LED DLP will become available to the average consumer. I don't think OLED's will become mainstream for awhile since they can't get blue organics to last more than 1K hours.

Another issue CRTrp's have as was noted a few post before this one is size. It's nice that they roll around making weight a non-issue. But they are so bulky. I've got a 61" sony that's so big I can't turn it around a corner to get it into my daughter's room. So I'm stuck with it either being in the living room or my room without knocking down some walls. It's just not as manueverable as my 60 inch sony lcdrp which is much slimmer.

1) What difference does it make how much it weighs once it's in your room? My 51" CRT RPTV is 150 lbs and I can roll it around wherever I want.

2) Any set can have mechanical problems. CRT is a mature technology and has a very good track record for reliability. Brand to brand differences and quality control is another issue -- just as with digitals.

3) CRTs do not need their coolant changed unless you happen to have one that develops fungus.

4) Most CRTs do not need frequent convergence adjustments. The 15 year-old unit I just gave away required convergence only a couple times per year. My new unit does not drift. Plus, the good news is that I can adjust if needed. Not so with a digital which may have a slight panel misalignment.

Having said all that I like the look of many of the digital displays. I even own an LCD projector. However, for me I wanted a display I could use for every day viewing in a light controlled room, and didn't want to worry about on/off cycles, which is a huge issue with lamp life on digitals.

Golly ... jeepers!

Am I just lucky or stupid or blind? As I noted before, I've had my 65 inch Toshiba RPTV for three and a half years and I'm not cleaning and converging and doing all this stuff people say I have to do to keep the display first-rate and crisp!

We had our basement family room waterproofed last summer and the concrete dust flew and flew. The tv was drop-cloth covered and seems unaffected.

The biggest negative to this set is it is HUGE and heavy (though on casters). Two delivery guys had to take it apart (per instructions) and still had a heck of a time getting it down the steps and through the doorways. And, yes, it requires a separate stand for the vcr, receiver, dvd player, etc.

I'm pretty good about AV but I'd be very, very nervous about opening it up and getting in there and cleaning stuff.

Gee, fixed panel displays don't seem to have (most of) those problems...........

Yea, I will miss;
1. HV sections, flybacks, triplers
2. Convergence assemblies & procedures
3. Focus adjustments
4. Scan lines
5. Blooming
6. CRT ageing, darking
7. CRT going soft, out of focus
8. Higher power consumption (other than Plasma & some Microdisplays with hi wattage lamps)
9. The size, weight and bulk
10. Corner focus
11. Glare (another reason I don't like Plasma)

While LCD, LCoS & DLP technology has its flaws, so does CRTs' and most all of the above posts seem to miss mentioning any of this.

BTW, I won't miss the internal combustion engine either when it finally dies. Both are dinosaurs

I'm tired of how inefficient internal combustion engines are too. Sometimes I wish I didn't know how it worked.

I agree CRT has its flaws. No doubt. That's why I switched from CRT front projection to digital projectors. However, I'd take issue with a lot of what you listed.

Convergence -- a 5 minute procedure required once or twice a year.

Focus -- never for most, once every few years if you're anal.

Scan lines -- not visible from any reasonable seating distance, and no more so than pixels.

Blooming -- only if contrast is set way too high.

CRT aging, darking -- CRTs age very well, with most light drop-off occurring after the 1st year, then remaining very stable for thousands of hours.

CRTs going soft, out of focus -- Maybe after many many thousands of hours. 20 minutes to clean the lenses, mirror and screen are usually all that's needed.

Higher power consumption -- is this really an issue?, especially with all the other juice we pull with our HT systems.

Size weight and bulk -- How many move their sets around frequently. You're not talking 15 pound projector vs. 200 lb projector. You're talking 80 lbs v. 150. Also, size and shape of most newer CRT RPTVs closely mirror digital RPTVs, except for depth. Add the stand to your digital and it's close to the same again.

Corner focus -- True. Better with digials.

Glare -- True if you've got a protective screen. Just remove it.

I don't mind a good debate. But let's keep a little perspective. By the way, we're talking about the positives of CRT in this thread. If you wish to extoll the virtues of digitals feel free to start you're own thread.

Originally Posted by John Mason
Curious if you feel inverse telecine, reversing 2:3 pulldown for 1080i, with 1080p display at even frame multiples of movie 24 fps, has a significant advantage over CRT RPTVs if it eliminates judder normally visible with 1080/60i CRT display? -- John

My query was based on something Greg Rogers wrote in one of his reviews--something to the effect that many haven't seen good inverse-telecined movies at the proper frame rate. And the supposed judder elimination with this approach is said to be one of the benefits. With my ancient 1080i CRT RPTV, haven't seen it myself, so would be interested in the opinions of those who may have compared good inverse telecine and deinterlacing with displaying 24 fps at 1080/60i (my RPTV). -- John

The closest I've come is with my NEC XG1100 8" CRT projector running a nicely equipped HTPC with TheaterTek DVD using a 72 hz refresh rate. It was a very smooth image. 24 or 48 resulted in too much flicker.

my 56" panasonic dlp with hd2+ dmd smokes all y'alls 300 pound dinosaur tvs in hd picture quality.

Thanks for participating. Valuable insight indeed

i know what i'm talking about. my dad has a 65" mitsu crt rear proj and his sd is better, but my hd is better.

Can't be a very good job after only five minutes.
Or ther CRT has gone 'soft', or the PS is bad or poorly designed from the start.
Not with the dozens of direct view smaller screen TVs' that I have seen that get darker every year LONG after the first year! Actually, I can't remember ever seeing a TV loose much outout after only the first year.
Not surprised about that comment. Yea, lets just load up the power grid with hundreds of thousands of 'power hogs'. Who cares? Let your kids worry about that...............
Just how does one do that with a direct view CRT?
How can you have a "good debate" without telling the whole story; the other side?

Sounds as a comment from the White House.

Potlical comments aside, we're talking about CRT RPTVs, not direct views. Notice the forum we're in? By the way, power supplies and poorly designed sets apply to all technologies.

Regarding power consumption. How much does a digital draw v. CRT? And, is the difference part of a purchase decision considering how much your other home theater eqipment (or anything else in your home) draws? I'm not suggesting energy conversation doesn't matter (you really have no idea of my perspective on that).

I had over 100 point convergence on my CRT projector and 117 on my RPTV. Touch up is rarely required, and takes no more than a few minutes. If you're talking about initial set up on the CRT projector that's another matter entirely.

I agree. Many of today fixed pixel displays are just flat out garbage. I've owned several of them. When it comes to PQ they are still severly lacking. I think what's driving the fixed pixel market is a bunch of lazy gamers. They care more about screen burn-in than they do pure picture quality, that is why you hear some of them making negative noise towards SED.

If you like your black crushed it does. And please don't tell me Your DLP doesn't crush blacks.

Come on Auditor55, his DLP cannot even do black

When will you miss;

1) Yelllowish whites
2) Crushed whites
3) Crushed blacks
4) Gray blacks
5) purple tinted blacks
6) Screen Door Effect
7) Silk Screen Effect
8) Mosquito noise
9) Edge enhanced/overly sharp digitized look
10) Rainbows
11)Blown blubs
12) purchasing $300-500, 180lbs glass stands
13) poor shadow detail
14) poor reliability
15) oversaturated primaries
16) green blobs

Yuk, this what you get when you get rid of a mature technology.

Makes perfect sense. I have a Honda that's better than my friend's Ford. Therefore, all Honda's are better than Ford's.

Anybody see the problem with that logic?

Careful Auditor, videobruce will hit you with a non sequitur and you'll be responsible for the hole in the ozone layer.

makes about as much sense as "my black & white tv is stiiiill purty, therefore all dlps suck."

Let him wait for SED. Then he can wait for the next 'new and improved' technology.

Just about all he listed referred to specific technologies and specific models, surely NOT across the board reflections on all non-CRT sets.

Strickly speaking, neither does film in it's native projected theatrical setting.

Nobody's suggesting that (nor anything close). You're the one who posted that DLPs are better at HD than CRTs because of how your set compares to your Dad's. That error in logic is called a "Hasty Generalization" fallacy.

A "Straw Man" fallacy is when you misrepresent an opponent's position with one that is easy to refute, and then argue against that position. It's what you just did with the black & white tv v. DLP comment.

I'm sure we don't need another CRT v. digital debate here. If you want to go down that path start your own thread and see how long it lasts.

Very true. But I don't see having black level which is better than film as a bad thing. What film has and what I see CRT has being able to come closest to is shadow detail in dark scenes. With any technology this can be improved greatly with proper greyscale, color calibration, and gamma. For me this is one area CRT really shines.

Thanks. Aside from image smoothness, what about comparisons of fine details supposedly blurred by judder with 1080/60i movie viewing versus inverse telecine with 48, 72, 120 fps viewing? Others? Understand lots of recent 1080 hardware can do inverse telecine with 480i but not 1080i, so while this may seem like minutia, it may relate to just how much is being lost, sharpness-wise from resolvable details, between fixed-pixel at 24p multiples and 1080/60i-only CRT RPTV viewing. FP CRTs, as above, can show these higher frame rates progressively, while most CRT RPTVs are limited with 1080 at higher frame rates; (higher display frequencies and currents require too-costly components).

Maybe Discovery's "Sunrise Earth" 1080i episodes are a good test, as well as movies. Sunrise is captured on HDCAMs at 1080/24PsF, just like some TV comedies and dramas. Always find the various episodes fascinating, with good video, but also notice on my 1080/60i RPTV that there's a blurring of the finest details, like the rock structure in a distant stone wall or even each grass blade or twig.

Such details are often more resolvable when the HDCAM capture is at 1080/60i (for most documentaries/travelogues), not 24PsF. Some of that is 1080/60i HDCAM's smoother motion from 60-field-per-second capture, but perhaps it's also judder from displaying 24-fps capture at 1080/60i. This, supposedly, doesn't appear with inverse telecine and display (not at 60 fps) but even multiples of the original 24 fps. Of course, even if such judder elimination clearly boosts the resolvability of 24p-captured details (compared to 1080/60i RPTV display), that still leaves weighing all the other pros versus the cons of fixed-pixels and CRT RPTVs. -- John

Good points to such a ridiculous post with such exaggerations. Obviously, this guy isn't very objective. And, regarding corner focus, not even really noticable during "real world" viewing with movies so long as you have done as good a reasonably good job with convergence in those areas. In other words, it might not be perfect on crosshatch patterns, but fine for regular viewing. And who watches the corners of the screen the entire time during a movie?

I've never seen film with SSE or sparklies. Microdisplays are plagued with sparklies ,which is like having a glaze over your entire screen, that glaze impairs clarity and greatly hurts believability. SSE is a constant reminder that your display is flawed.

I have been very happy with my 53" Pioneer which is in its 7th year. I agree with many of the posts above re the picture beneifts of CRT-RPTV. Yet, I will likely get a different type of set after Xmas. Why?

1. HDMI/DVI is the present and future. The more time that passes, the less we will be able to get via component, HD-DVD and BluRay being prime examples.

2. Even though it has wheels, it is still a royal pain to pull it out and get behind it for hookups of other components (which sit on the top of it).

3. Generally, the bigger the crts, the shorter the lifespan - I may get another 2-3 years out of it before one goes.

4. Like all projection displays, it lacks the depth or dimensionality that an emmissive display like plasma produces.

5. The glare/reflection is horrible during summer days and the screen isn't removable, nor is that a good option for people with dogs/kids.

6. Like many others, mine locks into "full" mode when fed a progressive signal.

It still kicks rear re DLP. LCOS is nicer but the SSE drives me nuts on SXRDs (I'm curious about the new JVCs). LCD is too pricey for a large size and the blacks suck.

Plasma is far more appealing. I love the depth and color fidelity. There is glare/reflection but not as bad. Zero maintenance, perfect geometry, digital accurracy, no convergence issues, etc. The Pios and NECs have great stretch modes. There is a great post comparing the two set types by Rich Harkness.

For me, the only downside is that I won't be able to put my indoor antenna on top of the set!

My CRTRP has a serious SSE issue.......