Dan Wesnor
Second Unit
- Joined
- Apr 28, 1999
- Messages
- 389
For the purposes of this discussion, I'm talking about consumer-grade, CRT-based RPTV's only.
Every time somebody here asks about new technology X, someone invariably says CRT is better. These discussions almost always center around black level and leave out some of CRT's biggest problems. I've been looking closely at my 2 CRT's lately, one a Mits and the other a Pioneer. The Mits is a more-expensive-than-average 42", and the Pioneer is the venerable SD-532-HD2, which was, with the exception of the PRO Pioneer models, the best TV on the market when I bought it. You'd expect both to be above the bar in terms of quality, especially with the slew of $1200 HDTV RPTVs on the market these days.
This is just a list of things I see every day when looking at either of these sets, many of which are rarely mentioned in the CRT vs. X argument. Neither has been professionally calibrated.
1. Geometry
This has to be one of CRT's biggest problems. Unless you have a grid and access to the service menu, you have to live with the geometry out of the box. It's rarely what I would call "good". I can see bends in the lines near the edges of the screen. Areas of the screen where linearity is off are plainly obvious during camera pans. Otherwise, poor geometry is hard to spot when looking at a normal TV picture, but is one of those things that degrades the realism of the picture even if you don't notice it directly. It's what takes a lot of the sharpness out of the picture. Will drift over time, so that professional cal you paid for will need to be redone every few years. The Pioneer was gridded in one mode about 6 months ago, and I can already notice geometry variations. (BTW - About 8 hours to make the grid and reset the geometry for one mode. There are five modes. That's a whole week of work.)
2. Convergence
Try as you might, you can never get convergence perfect. Even if you do, it will drift over a period of weeks, and you get to do it again. I just reset the convergence on the Mits last weekend and I can already see red/blue edges creeping onto white lines near the edge of the screen.
3. Internal reflections. Never seen a CRT RPTV without them. The Pioneer has Duvatine installed over everthing except the lenses themselves, and there are still halos around bright objects in dark scenes. Nothing can be done about it, because the reflections occur inside the guns themselves.
4. Focus
Red will always be out of focus on one side of the screen, blue on the other. This causes not only blurriness, but also some unevenness in color.
5. Color
It's laughable that people talk about "good color" on any consumer-grade TV set. The issue is not the color capability of the CRT's themselves, but the color decoders. The decoders are tuned to make the TV stand out on the brightly lit showroom floor. The color temp is incredibly hot, giving the picture a pale blueish cast. Then the red is cranked up to keep people's faces from looking ghostly white. RPTVs tend to be worse, because the lower light output needs more help to fight the flourescent lighting in the store. Of course its more-or-less correctable by a pro, but then the light output is reduced enough that it's hard to watch the TV in a decently-lit room. This is probably one of the biggest reasons high-quality FPs are preferred over other CRTs - they are based on commercial-grade (not consumer-grade) units that have an honest color decoder. Color drifts over time because the guns fade unevenly.
6. Black Level
The much vaunted strength of CRT. But set the black level for a dark room, and dark details disappear in a bright room. Set it for a bright room, and its high for a dark room. Can be overcome on some sets by setting one input for a dark room and another for a bright room, and running the signal to both inputs. Pick the correct input for the current lighting. All displays will suffer the same background lighting variabilities. I only point this out because if black level is one of your top reasons for going with CRT RPTV, it may not matter a bit if you watch with even a small amount of lighting.
7. That %^$& Box
Big, ugly. There's no missing it. Having a big black box in any room makes the room feel smaller, more crowded. I could build cabinetry around it, and it would look better, but that would make the room even smaller. My Pioneer takes up 9.7 sq. ft. of floor space. I paid $84/sq. ft. for my house. So that's $815 for the patch of carpet the TV sits on. This is a valid issue, because the TV effectively reduces the length of my room by 2 feet.
Just thought some people might want to see an honest assessment of CRT from somebody who's never used anything else.
Every time somebody here asks about new technology X, someone invariably says CRT is better. These discussions almost always center around black level and leave out some of CRT's biggest problems. I've been looking closely at my 2 CRT's lately, one a Mits and the other a Pioneer. The Mits is a more-expensive-than-average 42", and the Pioneer is the venerable SD-532-HD2, which was, with the exception of the PRO Pioneer models, the best TV on the market when I bought it. You'd expect both to be above the bar in terms of quality, especially with the slew of $1200 HDTV RPTVs on the market these days.
This is just a list of things I see every day when looking at either of these sets, many of which are rarely mentioned in the CRT vs. X argument. Neither has been professionally calibrated.
1. Geometry
This has to be one of CRT's biggest problems. Unless you have a grid and access to the service menu, you have to live with the geometry out of the box. It's rarely what I would call "good". I can see bends in the lines near the edges of the screen. Areas of the screen where linearity is off are plainly obvious during camera pans. Otherwise, poor geometry is hard to spot when looking at a normal TV picture, but is one of those things that degrades the realism of the picture even if you don't notice it directly. It's what takes a lot of the sharpness out of the picture. Will drift over time, so that professional cal you paid for will need to be redone every few years. The Pioneer was gridded in one mode about 6 months ago, and I can already notice geometry variations. (BTW - About 8 hours to make the grid and reset the geometry for one mode. There are five modes. That's a whole week of work.)
2. Convergence
Try as you might, you can never get convergence perfect. Even if you do, it will drift over a period of weeks, and you get to do it again. I just reset the convergence on the Mits last weekend and I can already see red/blue edges creeping onto white lines near the edge of the screen.
3. Internal reflections. Never seen a CRT RPTV without them. The Pioneer has Duvatine installed over everthing except the lenses themselves, and there are still halos around bright objects in dark scenes. Nothing can be done about it, because the reflections occur inside the guns themselves.
4. Focus
Red will always be out of focus on one side of the screen, blue on the other. This causes not only blurriness, but also some unevenness in color.
5. Color
It's laughable that people talk about "good color" on any consumer-grade TV set. The issue is not the color capability of the CRT's themselves, but the color decoders. The decoders are tuned to make the TV stand out on the brightly lit showroom floor. The color temp is incredibly hot, giving the picture a pale blueish cast. Then the red is cranked up to keep people's faces from looking ghostly white. RPTVs tend to be worse, because the lower light output needs more help to fight the flourescent lighting in the store. Of course its more-or-less correctable by a pro, but then the light output is reduced enough that it's hard to watch the TV in a decently-lit room. This is probably one of the biggest reasons high-quality FPs are preferred over other CRTs - they are based on commercial-grade (not consumer-grade) units that have an honest color decoder. Color drifts over time because the guns fade unevenly.
6. Black Level
The much vaunted strength of CRT. But set the black level for a dark room, and dark details disappear in a bright room. Set it for a bright room, and its high for a dark room. Can be overcome on some sets by setting one input for a dark room and another for a bright room, and running the signal to both inputs. Pick the correct input for the current lighting. All displays will suffer the same background lighting variabilities. I only point this out because if black level is one of your top reasons for going with CRT RPTV, it may not matter a bit if you watch with even a small amount of lighting.
7. That %^$& Box
Big, ugly. There's no missing it. Having a big black box in any room makes the room feel smaller, more crowded. I could build cabinetry around it, and it would look better, but that would make the room even smaller. My Pioneer takes up 9.7 sq. ft. of floor space. I paid $84/sq. ft. for my house. So that's $815 for the patch of carpet the TV sits on. This is a valid issue, because the TV effectively reduces the length of my room by 2 feet.
Just thought some people might want to see an honest assessment of CRT from somebody who's never used anything else.