CRT vs LCD

  • Thread starter LoudMusic
  • 53 comments
  • 1,953 views

What's your favorite display type?

  • LCD - Liquid Crystal Display

    Votes: 23 62.2%
  • CRT - Cathode Ray Tube

    Votes: 13 35.1%
  • I LIKE BEANS!

    Votes: 1 2.7%

  • Total voters
    37
CRT all the way... unless space is too tight. Because of space, I bought a Hyundai L90D+ - wonderful colors, very fast and responsive. It's no crt for quality, but it's reasonably close as long as I don't do anything for print work
 
Flerbizky
I need an "I agree with this post button" so I don't have to post another completely useless post...

Yup. Might be nice. Something that adds a line of text to the bottom of the post you agree with saying "Flerbizky agrees with this statement."

More on that post you agree with - the display is still visible, it just rapidly grows dark. I have seen some that are better from an angle, but not by a whole lot. However, from a computer monitor perspective it is only a problem when you are trying to show something to someone else. For all practical uses the limited angles of an LCD are more than good enough. You square yourself on the display anyway, right?
 
I can view my LCD from over 60 degrees to the side... and its not a fancy smancy one.

It really depends on the company, the cost, the design, model, and all that crap.
 
LoudMusic
I'm going to go ahead and argue against that. I have a 17" Dell "Ultrasonic" what-ever-that-means LCD sitting here and when I get more than 15 degrees off center it starts to go dark quickly. It's less than a year old, so I'm pretty sure Dell isn't shipping old technology as a new product.

DSTN is an older technology but it still used. Believe me if I say that with a LCD TFT, you can go "off center" and still have a very good view!!!!! I have a neove S-18 LCD TFT and a BenQ 19" TFT. I can, with both screens, go "off center" as far as I want and still have a clear view. Believe it or not, it is the truth.
Google, ask in your local computer store, do whatever you want but I am right about this!!

DSTN gives you a dark view if you go off center. TFT doesn't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
It's interesting that people are saying they get less eye strain from LCD, because that's the exact opposite of my experience. I get much less eye strain from CRT.

However, I think it's down to refresh rate. Since LCDs use an always-on backlight, you can run them down at (default) 60Hz with no flickering. However, CRTs will flicker at this refresh rate, and you need to set the rate much higher - 85Hz is about optimal. My experience is that very few people actually do this, and I have in the past been called "a magician" for "curing" people's persistent headaches where all I've done is re-set the refresh rate. Some people can't see the flickering consciously, but it's still straining their eyes (there is a wealth of evidence that you see much more than you consciously apprehend).

In my office, I have done round all the machines with CRTs that are in my field of vision, and asked their users to re-set their refresh rates (and done it for them if they have been unable), because I don't want their screen giving me a headache. I get some funny looks at the time, and then they come to me and thank me for doing it a few days later.

As far as the quality of CRTs goes, they pretty much have to be full flat screens based on the Sony Trinitron tube (you can detect this by faint grey conductor lines at 1/3 and 2/3 screen height). The Mitsubishi DiamondTron ShadowMask displays were never as good.

All you guys with your Dell monitors are almost certainly using Trinitron tubes.
 
Pako
I would have to say LCD. I have far less eye fatigue when using LCD monitors for extended periods of time for normal daily use.

This pretty much is my main argument for me never going back to CRTs. No matter which CRT I was infront and what Hz it ran on I always got sore eyes and a slight headache after long sittings (3+ hours).

With an LCD the problem was solved. And I really like the lack of distortion too.
 
LCD's are small and great if you have little space. however, i could never get such a defined, crisp and colour correct picture from a LCD
 
kikie
With the TFT technology, you can sit whereever you want (not behind the screen of course) and still have a crispy clear image.


Uhhh....yea thats what i was saying, it goes black when your behind the screen..... :lol:
 
GilesGuthrie
As far as the quality of CRTs goes, they pretty much have to be full flat screens based on the Sony Trinitron tube (you can detect this by faint grey conductor lines at 1/3 and 2/3 screen height). The Mitsubishi DiamondTron ShadowMask displays were never as good.

All you guys with your Dell monitors are almost certainly using Trinitron tubes.

Another tell-tail sign that it's Trinitron is the wording in the upper left corner of the face of the monitor - it says "Trinitron" (:

Dell's high end displays are Trinitrons, but I think the rest of their stuff is ViewSonic. I have no way to verify that.

What are you guys's (wow, that can't be proper English) experience with color on LCD monitors? From what I've seen they're much more vivid, even when you don't want them to be. The contrast is crazy high, making them less "photo-realistic". Am I crazy, do I have bad hardware, or is this the norm?
 
Thats something I forgot as well.

CRT, despite how I set them up with the refresh rate and what not, have always given me a headache after a while. LCD feels easier on my eyes...
 
They seem to be a bit more vibrant... but i think it has to do with how they are lit.

Some I've seen have absurd contrast, and others don't. My LCD is a bit brighter than my CRT was, but the CRT was dark compared to most everything. I like the feel of this display, it seems to work pretty good for colors and what not...
 
LoudMusic
Another tell-tail sign that it's Trinitron is the wording in the upper left corner of the face of the monitor - it says "Trinitron" (:

Dell's high end displays are Trinitrons,
And my IBM P96 as well...
 
Slick Rick
Uhhh....yea thats what i was saying, it goes black when your behind the screen..... :lol:
errr, you got me there, very funny :ouch: ;)

In this case, even my tv goes black when I am behind the (screen) tv. :yuck:

What I have been wandering about, for years, is the X-rays, produced by a CRT (TV or PC screen).
These X-rays are non existing in LCD screens.
And the only thing that is bottering me about LCD screens is the response time, causing ghosting when gaming. I believe some have a very fast response time about 8 to 12 ms.
But most of the LCD screens are still at 18-25 ms, which isn't good if you want to see a replay from GTR with all the options on full. :guilty:
 
LoudMusic
What are you guys's (wow, that can't be proper English) experience with color on LCD monitors? From what I've seen they're much more vivid, even when you don't want them to be. The contrast is crazy high, making them less "photo-realistic". Am I crazy, do I have bad hardware, or is this the norm?

What are your guys' perhaps? :odd:

Anyway yes i believe it's normal that colours on LCDs are a little over the top. For general use and browsing etc. this is actually nice, makes everything look lovely, but again yes, for photoeditting it doesn't help matters.
 
LoudMusic
What are you guys's (wow, that can't be proper English) experience with color on LCD monitors? From what I've seen they're much more vivid, even when you don't want them to be. The contrast is crazy high, making them less "photo-realistic".
That's why I am always complaining about the graphics not being realistic enough, more like cartoons (==> GT Legends)!!
 
If you want to play games, changing resolutions properly is important and CRT is best. However, if you need to view a screen for a long period of time, LCD is obviously far better - fine for most business and home applications. Its also more practical in terms of bulk and wieght, obviously.

For me, the colour reproduction of CRTs is vastly superior to LCD, hence most designers prefer CRT. I can work on LCD, but need to do final colour checks and balances with my fav CRT monitor (before a print test). The way LCDs change brightness and tint wildly due to slight differences in viewing angle, coupled with the weird contrast (hardly subtle enough), just makes them painful for design work. They are getting better, but they really are much less natural than CRTs. Hence good CRTs are actually getting more expensive now (the demand is far less these days due to LCD taking over), but us designers are left paying a fortune for them!!
 
I don't have a crt screen, and it was such a long time ago since i had one that i've forgotten how good they are. LCDs are a bit rubbish, but we bought one with our desktop a few years ago, simply because the crts on offer were so big that they didn't fit on the desk. And, up to the point a year ago when i discoved flatscreen ones existed, i thought they were crap. I was amazed by a reasonably old sony flat panel monitor i saw in a pc shop the other day. If i had the room, that's what i would have, a crt, but i don't. However, i'm amazed by the quality of the brightview screen on this compaq notebook of mine. I've got a standard lcd monitor next to it, and it's ramazing how much you notice the difference. Still, i'd like a crt if i had the space, but it would have to be a flatscreen. I won't go near any other TV since i got my 21inch flatscreen one last year.


Is it me, or are lcds less bright at times? I was watching friends series 10 on the tv in my livingroom, when the dvd recorder decided that it didn't like the last disk, so i got out the laptop and watched it on that by whoa parts of it were dark. Infact, the same goes with gran turismo 4's photomode. It's fine on my tv, but put it on the laptop and it goes really dark. I made a movie with the pictures, put the movie on a dvd, and played it back on the tv, and the picures were fine :confused:.
 
I always thought that LCDs were brighter. My LCD is def. superbright as most panels coming out now are.

Don't see how you can compare an old LCD to a CRT ;) CRTs have been around for ages, so are reasonably good even a few years old. However LCDs are getting better by the day. I'd wager your old LCD is actually quite poor when compared to new panels.
 
I've got an old lcd, and a brand new brightview one on my laptop. The laptop screen, in everyday use, looks just like a crt, but when you are watching a dvd or viewing pictures, it's a different matter.


The old one is made by tiny btw, and the new brightview is on a compaq notebook, which means it's made by HP.
 
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