Hi everyone, just been browsing through the bbc website and came across the following :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4632931.stm
http://www.bgd.sony.co.uk/
Will CRT production still continue for the forseable future or will the big manufacturers concentrate on Plasma & LCD technologies ?
Thanks

I've still gone for CRT, I think I will stick with it for a couple of years yet and see what happens with Hi-def as LCDs don't look so hot with regular DVDs and TV.

[NicolasB]

CRT is increasingly being phased out except at the low end of the market (and even there LCD is making inroads). The days of high-end CRT sets are almost over.

It's a bloody shame, because a good CRT set is still (IMO) the best standard-definition display there is, and there's no technical reason why you cannot make a high-definition CRT display that will blow away any plasma or LCD screen. Unfortunately there is one commercial reason: the tube would have to be four or five feet long, and so no one would want it.

Unfortunately manufacturers make products to make money, so they make what people will buy. The average consumer (particularly in this country) does not care about the picture quality of a television. (Or at least not nearly as much as he cares about it having a big screen, and having a nice-looking case, and being thin enough to hang on the wall, and generally being "new" and "cool").

If people actually bought TVs on the basis of whether or not the picture looks good, CRTs would still be going strong. As it is, the manufacturers haven't even bothered trying to create a CRT set that competes head-to-head with high-grade plasmas, because they know no one would buy it even if they managed it.

To some extent it's probably an advertising thing too - people perceive plasma, etc. as "new" and therefore better, while CRT is "old" and therefore worse. Manufacturers do a lot to encourage this perception.

[TV Headache]

Originally Posted by ventoboy1000

Will CRT production still continue for the forseable future or will the big manufacturers concentrate on Plasma & LCD technologies ?
Thanks

The only way I can see CRT compete in the long term is if something disasterous happens to the flat panel industry.

Originally Posted by NicolasB

CRT is increasingly being phased out except at the low end of the market (and even there LCD is making inroads). The days of high-end CRT sets are almost over.

It's a bloody shame, because a good CRT set is still (IMO) the best standard-definition display there is, and there's no technical reason why you cannot make a high-definition CRT display that will blow away any plasma or LCD screen. Unfortunately there is one commercial reason: the tube would have to be four or five feet long, and so no one would want it.

Unfortunately manufacturers make products to make money, so they make what people will buy. The average consumer (particularly in this country) does not care about the picture quality of a television. (Or at least not nearly as much as he cares about it having a big screen, and having a nice-looking case, and being thin enough to hang on the wall, and generally being "new" and "cool").

If people actually bought TVs on the basis of whether or not the picture looks good, CRTs would still be going strong. As it is, the manufacturers haven't even bothered trying to create a CRT set that competes head-to-head with high-grade plasmas, because they know no one would buy it even if they managed it.

To some extent it's probably an advertising thing too - people perceive plasma, etc. as "new" and therefore better, while CRT is "old" and therefore worse. Manufacturers do a lot to encourage this perception.

I think you hit the nail on the head there :D

I think flat pannels look nice but I'll hold out till prices fall a little more and perhaps even PQ gets better then I'll upgrade!

Hi, thanks for your replies.
In the US however, HD CRT is available ! Why not here ?

[MartinImber]

They are closing the plant I have had two TVs from, this is the end of an era and is very sad.

My TV is still one of the best pictures I have seen

[PJTX100]

Originally Posted by NicolasB

Unfortunately there is one commercial reason: the tube would have to be four or five feet long, and so no one would want it.

No-one could lift it!

I agree with much of what has been said here. I think CRT TV's will live on for a while because of price differential, but once that diminishes the writing's on the wall. Hopefully by then Plasma's and LCD's will start to produce pics approaching CRT....PJ

[Eiji]

The only HDTV CRT available in the UK is the Samsung SlimFit WS32Z308P which is "HD Ready" although the set itself isn't that good in-terms of PQ.

I have a HD monitor, a 24" Sony Wide-Aspect GDM-FW900. Its 40KG, nearly 2ft deep and on the large size but it displays upto 2304x1440 and displays 720p/1080i/1080p natively

I know a 32"/36" CRT with these kind of specs is beyond scope as it would be too big and expensive but Sony should atleast bring its line of HDTV sets with the Super Fine Pitch FD Trinitron tubes to the UK which can display upto 1400x900i (standard CRT HDTVs display roughly 800x900i) and look better than LCDs and Plasma's.

[red16v]

Hi, this seems to be following a familiar 'modern' path with regards to television in general. We used to have a quite 'brilliant' system of regional commercial television. Then Margaret Thatcher vented her anger on it and reduced it to the centralised 'pap' we seem to have to put up with today. We've have a perfectly good analogue system of broadcasting colour tv pictures for the last 40 years and we could have had an equal and even better digital system - but the money men have become involved trying to squeeze in more and more channels resulting in a overall reduction of the quality of the received pictures. When RCA invented the shadow mask crt to show colour pictures it was a technological breakthrough, and over the years it has been refined to the state we are in today where a modern colour crt is capable of giving superb, hi fidelity results. But no, we now have to phase them out because the money men want to sell us more expensive flat screen technology which in my humble opinion does not approach a crt in terms of overall picture quality (no doubt one day it will I'm sure - but not now). If you were able to see the quality of pictures in a modern tv studio displayed on a professional crt monitor it would make you sit in front of your lcd/plasma at home and cry. What have they done. Regards, yt.

[NicolasB]

Originally Posted by ventoboy1000

Hi, thanks for your replies.
In the US however, HD CRT is available ! Why not here ?

One reason for that is they've had analogue high definition broadcasts in the US for the past decade or more. Back when they started plasma and LCD technologies were hardly even on the domestic product map, so CRT and CRT rear-projection were the principal technologies used.

[MAD ANDY]

Also bear in mind Sony's CRTs are so expensive compared to everyone elses!

As an example the Tosh 36ZP48P is available for £800, the Sony HQ100 £1700+... although I say that, I noticed its disappeared from Currys website as available...

[TV Headache]

Originally Posted by NicolasB

One reason for that is they've had analogue high definition broadcasts in the US for the past decade or more. Back when they started plasma and LCD technologies were hardly even on the domestic product map, so CRT and CRT rear-projection were the principal technologies used.

Analogue HD? Are you sure your not confusing the US with Japan? AFAIK, the US only started HD transmissions when the digital ATSC format was introduced in November 1998.

But your basic point is right that the US had HD before it had plasma or LCD, hence HD CRTs.

Regarding the picture quality issue, having seen 1080i on a Japanese spec LCD TV I can confirm that the picture quality argument in favour of CRT will not last very long. High resolution, high bandwidth TV looks fantastic on the right LCD TV.