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BBC Reports Demand Exists for Cathode-Ray Tube TV's

Power Pop 23

Power Pop 23

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One market for tube TV's comprises video game players who prefer the way graphics of select older games are displayed on a tube TV versus a flat TV.

www.bbc.com

'You just can't recreate that glow': The people who hunt old TVs

They are televisions from another era, replaced by the flat screen, high-resolution displays of the modern era. Yet cathode-ray tubes are still surprisingly in demand.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
They can have them.

Though I still think LED technologies can't match the contrast dynamics of plasma.

Rick "measuring quality using weight scales" Denney
 
I'm very happy with OLED myself having previously had a plasma TV.
 
rdenney said:
They can have them.

Though I still think LED technologies can't match the contrast dynamics of plasma.
Click to expand...
Good last-gen plasmas did maybe about 400 nits. Modern OLEDs do about 1000 nits, high-end models can do even more, though not full screen. Incidentally plasmas suffer from similar issues. MiniLED though, can be much brighter (4 to 6k nits) also for large areas, but have lower contrast due to the backlight, even though it can be turned off. But in reality it can be really close to OLED…. Pick your battles;)

I really think your plasma love is mostly nostalgia.

At least the CRT crowd have some limited technical reasons to choose the damn things… but to be fair some of these would also apply to plasmas.
 
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voodooless said:
Good last-gen plasmas did maybe about 400 nits. Modern OLEDs do about 1000 nits, high-end models can do even more, though not full screen. Incidentally plasmas suffer from similar issues. MiniLED though, can be much brighter (4 to 6k nits) also for large areas, but have lower contrast due to the backlight, even though it can be turned off. But in reality it can be really close to OLED…. Pick your battles;)

I really think your plasma love is mostly nostalgia.

At least the CRT crowd have some limited technical reasons to choose the damn things… but to be fair some of these would also apply to plasmas.
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Lessee, an OLED of 65 inches is how much? About a thousand bucks or more.

How much is my current plasma TV that I paid for probably 20 years ago? Zero.

Nostalgia applies to people who pay more for something because it reminds them of their youth. Don't confuse being nostalgic with being a cheapskate.

When I did this evaluation last year--and I repeat it every several years--the only TVs on the market that I though were better than what I have, at least for those things I care about (which is not ultimate resolution), were the better OLEDs. They are just too expensive. I didn't see any conventional LED technology that could even approach the appearance of the plasma TV, especially off-axis (which is a requirement in our space).

The Samsung plasma TV I use in my YouTube-watching room cost me $50 used. It was at least ten years old and it works great. We paid a lot for the larger plasma TV in our main TV-watching system, but that was 20 years ago, and by that time we simply had to change technology because of the arrival of HD and widescreen formats. We just couldn't tolerate letterboxed widescreen on 4:3 CRT televisions.

I don't know what the so-called issues are, but I have not found that our plasma TVs have really suffered much from age. No burn-in, no ghosting, no whatever. They are heavy, to be sure. And they have limited resolution, to be sure (1080P for the larger one and 720P for the smaller one). But when I visit other people's houses, and watch their TV's, I do not find myself in any way awestruck. And the sound system on mine is usually much, much better. :)

Rick "eventually, the OLED will be cheap enough" Denney
 
rdenney said:
Lessee, an OLED of 65 inches is how much? About a thousand bucks or more.

How much is my current plasma TV that I paid for probably 20 years ago? Zero.
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What does price have to do with contrast dynamics?
rdenney said:
When I did this evaluation last year--and I repeat it every several years--the only TVs on the market that I though were better than what I have, at least for those things I care about (which is not ultimate resolution), were the better OLEDs. They are just too expensive.
Click to expand...
Did you compare them side by side? If not, as with audio, all bets are off.
rdenney said:
I didn't see any conventional LED technology that could even approach the appearance of the plasma TV, especially off-axis (which is a requirement in our space).
Click to expand...
Yup, if you need off-axis, OLED is king, but MiniLED is slowly getting better. If you really need it, get an OLED… or just keep your plasma ;)
 
voodooless said:
What does price have to do with contrast dynamics?

Did you compare them side by side? If not, as with audio, all bets are off.

Yup, if you need off-axis, OLED is king, but MiniLED is slowly getting better. If you really need it, get an OLED… or just keep your plasma ;)
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What does OLED have to do with LED? I did constrain my original statement. Sorry it poked a sore spot.

Yes, I compared them side-by-side, and as a result, boxed it up and took it back. What I boxed up was conventional LED.

I will get an OLED when they get cheap enough or when my current plasma TV dies, which it may at any moment.

Rick "didn't think I needed to say 'LED--NOT FREAKING OLED' :)" Denney
 
I know plenty of retro gamers who still have CRTs. I have one myself but it’s not hooked up at the moment.
 
I'm fine with a flat panel TV. Having carried a 30" CRT from one room to another I'm very happy with an *LED. I'm, gasp, even happy with 1080P. My 15" 1080P monitor works great for watching video from 18" or so.
 
Tektronix' desktop "PC" computers (e.g., the 4051) had storage displays, and very good graphics for their era. I wrote a little game based on ballistics for the one I had access to in the early days of grad school Fun as heck to watch in a dark room, in a slightly altered state of consciousness. :)
 
It's funny that CRTs come up here and now.
Just yesterday a thread elsewhere (ahem... Hifihaven... ahem) reminded me that there are not one but two rather large (naaah -- I'd say effing large) CRT monitors in my basement.
One of them isn't even mine, at least per se. It's my son's.
Both, I think (??) are branded Dell, but I believe they were made by Philips. They do have good video.

We used a CRT TV (hand-me-down from my parents... a Toshiba they must've bought ca. 1983) until very recently. Fact is, though, we watch so little TV that it was just taking up space, so I - uncharacteristically - junked it a couple of years ago (end of 2023).




My son (same one mentioned above) passed along a roadside find Samsung flat panel TV/monitor to me when he moved from Farmville, VA to Lexington, VA, some years back. It's taken the place of the above-mentioned Toshiba.
 
CRTs had 'built in' front facing and comparatively larger size speakers, which was nice to have.
 
Hiten said:
CRTs had 'built in' front facing and comparatively larger size speakers, which was nice to have.
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The flash photo of that old Toshiba above reveals the modest dimensions of its loudspeaker drivers. ;)
 
Two former members of our household were strong CRT fans and were devastated when we replaced our hot deep CRT computer monitors with thin cool LED displays.

Our cats.

One each, sleeping on top of the hot monitors while we worked. Occasionally they slipped off and fell onto the keyboard so we developed very fast reactions to catch them before they messed up our code.
 
We had one (Griswold, by name) who liked to help my wife type emails, back on the day of CRT monitors... but I digress.
 
Go ahead and enjoy your CRT while you go blind. Loving my QOLED at the moment.
 
The major benefit of my OLED TV is support for HDR and wider gamut.
 
Power Pop 23 said:
One market for tube TV's comprises video game players who prefer the way graphics of select older games are displayed on a tube TV versus a flat TV.

www.bbc.com

'You just can't recreate that glow': The people who hunt old TVs

They are televisions from another era, replaced by the flat screen, high-resolution displays of the modern era. Yet cathode-ray tubes are still surprisingly in demand.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
Click to expand...

The retro gaming market for CRTs has been a thing for ages - pretty much since I first got interested in emulation probably around 2010 I can remember people discussing the best crts for gaming and trying to track them down and debating how significant the benefits were for old game systems.
 
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