CRT or LCD not such an easy choice at moment.

Merlin

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Studying LCD displays I see aberrations, spangly noisy edges to text and non uniform coloured fills to it whilst on CRT its not there, or a lot better.
Turn sharpness down on Sony LCD and its better but still not as good as CRT.
Softer edges to snooker balls on LCD v CRT and so on ,
Generally LCD image is a bit less well defined than CRT, given current transmissions, DVD commercially available movies, my camcorder and vcr recordings etc. This is the problem !...just what to do to see these as good as at present.

Where LCD takes off is with HD.
I have seen and been blown away by true HD transmission, not the belgian signal or a promo DVD showing what it might be like, but a Jap one, see the porcelain footage . Truly awesome !

If I go LCD then my existing vhs library and all the Hi8 and MiniDV footage I have filmed will look fuzzy compared to the better picture on the CRT, having tried out a few now with such. Do I buy for the future and accept an inferior picture from everything I have, I am glad I have not replaced my vhs pre-recorded tapes with dvd versions as both look poor on LCD v CRT. wait until they are available in High Def then buy, but for those people who have bought all over again as DVD, what a waste. They will look lousy compared to the HD versions on bluray that will no doubt appear.

Will High Def transmission be affordable or will I be stuck with fuzzy pics and wishing I had gone CRT. Current TV dead so must buy CRT or LCD now...being forced to decide now not knowing what viewing prices are is a nuisance. Its going to be 6 yrs before central TV (UK) are High Def so if I get LCD then I am in the hands of Telewest, whatever they decide to charge. I do watch some of their channels so just what might I find myself forking out ?...having paid an arm and a leg for the LCD set ?

CRT 1/3 the price of equivalent LCD size, £1800 is a lot of money to watch fuzzy current technology on, I will want to watch most of my footage again at some time and not chuck it.
If only LCD was as good as CRT for current broadcasts and footage I have then I would go LCD.
Perhaps I get a CRT for current recording and DVDs and get an LCD for HD transmissions, even more expense !

What to do ?
Merlin
 
i would have that you've answered your own question here !
second hand highest quality crt for the short term untill hd arrives and sorts out its problems.
by them proper full hd panels will panels will be more available, prices should be a bit better.
but , its your choice.
good hunting !
 
I've just seen a Toshiba LCD 30WL46 which has a diagonal size very close to the visible diagonal of a 32" CRT and picture from RF aerial was rather sweet - the best I've seen so far (a Quadro model was very close - would you believe it)...Toshiba sells for the equivalent of £800 in my local currency...what can I say, a Schneider 40" LCD with HDMI sells for £1590...great deal for a true HDTV display!!!
 
I was in the same boat, TV blown up, need something now & decided to get a HD display to future proof a little & also xbox360 just round the corner, a sensible approach, or so I thought.

Having looked at lots of LCD's, i too decided that they just chew up a poor source too much, especially on footy from sky, which I watch most of. So I thought I'd box clever & get a HD CRT, but unfortunately these chew up a poor source in exactly the same way, due to their digital signal processing (they all have it in one form or another). I currently have a samsung slimfit (awaiting return) & most channels on sky look terrible, PS2 looks terrible, any football looks awful & DVD's look good.

Having done more digging, my decision was to buy a dirt cheap bog standard CRT, save the money & wait a year or two to see what happens with HD broadcasting.

PMF
 
Im not convinced at all by lcd. I went into a hifi shop the other day, and on display was a sony 32" lcd panel with a surround setup. The picture was awful with lots of blocks being generated in the shadows. Hmm I say pic not too good is it an old panel. "No brand new model", How is it connected then? "via an expensive dvi" must be the player then?, "nope its a denon 3910". blimey I thought picture wasnt a patch on my tosh36"crt. Ive seen quite a few around the shops that are a bit iffy but I always think its probably the way comet or whatever has set them up - but these guys had spent a lot of time trying to get the picture right and I couldnt think of way they could have improved it. I would love to get rid of my huge tv but for me the alternatives would have to be better.
 
This is a very interesting thread. I'm in the same position that you are all in.

>>Having done more digging, my decdision was to buy a dirt cheap bog standard CRT, save the money & wait a year or two to see what happens with HD broadcasting.

This is roughly what I am going to do. (I'm going to get a 2nd hand 28 inch widescreen CRT.)
 
I know - Mag reviews that give 5 stars for picture quality for some of these screens?

Pretty misleading when you go into a store and actually see them.
 
A good thread and a situation that a lot of us have (or will) find ourselves in, i went down the fairly cheap crt route and bought the Panny 36PL32 from Currys at £499, lovely set and very happy with it until all the HD kit is well established and there are known choices to be made in terms of blue ray or HDDVD. I still think at the moment a good 32/36'' crt is a good bet. Most of the HD plasmas/lcd's still only have 1 HDMI input which given dvd players,sky, future freeview boxes (maybe) and god knows how many others sources seems a little stingy. I will wait, after all 36'' crt is more than enough for your average UK living room.
 
I'm in the same situation, I was convinced on an LCD screen until I thought about the cost/benefit ratio and it was pretty low! At the moment I'm on the hunt for a Toshiba 32ZP46 but I can't find them anywhere.

Can anyone reccomend a 32", 100HZ screen with component inputs and progressive scan which is available? This is my holy grail!

Thanks all..
 
sparticus said:
Im not convinced at all by lcd. I went into a hifi shop the other day, and on display was a sony 32" lcd panel with a surround setup. The picture was awful with lots of blocks being generated in the shadows. Hmm I say pic not too good is it an old panel. "No brand new model", How is it connected then? "via an expensive dvi" must be the player then?, "nope its a denon 3910". blimey I thought picture wasnt a patch on my tosh36"crt.

Did it not occur to you that the problem might be in the source material? If the source (presuming it was from DVD) was poorly mastered in the first place you may well see macro-blocking in shadow areas, particularly on LCD and Plasma which show up such faults more than CRT. It ouldn't be the first time a shop was trying to show off their wares with less than convincing source material...
 
Also (I know i'm being dead boring here) connection type MATTERS...if you use component from a prog player I don't see how picture could be fuzzy...RGB is close but deinterlacing ruins the edges (where the problem is most visible)...you should really avoid S-video and composite, while RF is by no means a way to judge the PQ...i'm only sorry that the guys at stores are reluctant to connect properly...they either say they have no cables or no remotes thus telling you politely then can't be bothered like that...maybe if you manage to persuade them to connect properly you may change your mind about LCD...some models should be cheap now because they don't take HD...
 
Hi
Yes it did occur to me it could have been the 3910 but are they that bad for macroblocking? I was watching Sahara as it happens and I know I get no issues with my copy. You can only speak as you find , and I was shocked which is why I wrote about it. I cant be the only person who would have expected a top class dvd player dvi'd to a top class lcd to be superb. I have been back to the shop since and they have moved the display to another part of the shop and are now playing the same cgi movie that everyone uses for demonstration. All in an effort to inprove the pic. Good for them but I hope potential purchasers get a chance to try it with a good range of software. I have three hundred movies but only ten are cgi. I guess the point is - not all of my transfers are equal but none are as bad as the one I saw.
 
I replaced my CRT with the Sammy slimfit because everyone convinced me CRT was superior. Well the Blocking and Geometry problems along with digital artifacts etc etc turned me off it . :suicide: I returned it and got the Samsung LE32R51BD. What a difference. The pic is fantastic. Blows away the CRT's. :D I have no digital artifacts, Smearing or Blocking and the Pic is sharp and clear from all sources. :smashin:
I've been converted, alleluha!!! :thumbsup: :clap: :clap:
 
Hello - fairly new here, so here goes: My brother has just bought a (very expensive) 32" Samsung LCD, and my neighbour has bought a (even more expensive) 43" Pioneer Plasma.
Leaving the HD question to one side - I just can't see any vast improvement over my faithful 4-yr old 36" Panasonic CRT.
It produces big, sharp, colourful pictures (both with DVD & Freeview) and the sound is spot-on. I haven't gone mad on cables (Profigold and Vivanco)...and although I'm trying desperatley to convince myself that I NEED an LCD or Plasma, its just not stacking up when I see the respective picture quality. The CRT more than holds-its-own. Honestly.
I know one day I will take the Plasma or LCD plunge..its just a little frustrating when I've been spoilt with SUCH a good TV over these last few years.
As for the HD question - I have no doubt it will be an improvement on normal standards, but I also have no doubt that SKY will charge handsomely for the privilege -either up front or via the monthly subs. Again - I won't be jumping in straight away with that either.
Just my opinions. Thanks for reading.
 
I'm a fan of CRT, but I also realise that the writing is on the wall for big glass sets.

Setting aside price and HD-Ready for a moment I've been asking myself what else sets flat apart from CRT. Once you get past the screen type and resolution what it really comes down to is the quality digital picture processing.

A flat screen is likely to see a much wider range of source quality than a typical CRT, so I think that's going to mean more digital processing. And that processing is going to need to work differently for the various signal resolutions. But how many of us demo a set and leave the default settings in place for everything and expect the set to cope?

Regards
 
As the owner of a 36” CRT TV with component input, I spent a long time looking at LCD & Plasmas and opted for CRT. I also went for a set with component input in the even that down the line HD transmissions from Freeview boxes may come in component form as well as HDMI. Currently via RGB scarts CRTs are much superior to LCD-Plasma from Freeview & Sky boxes to my eyes anyway. LCD-Plasmas look acceptable to me when fed DVD-V via PAL/PS & digital, but that’s much much cop if you need to watch TV transmissions from RGB sources. Also back from the US from a holiday, I checked out a couple of plasmas (samsung & pannys) which were showing HD TV from cable and I guess Im not that fussed about HDTV from what I seen TBH. Although digitally from DVD-V these displays looked great. I was not exactly bowled over by what I saw being honest.

Thus HDTV Im yet to be convinced by it, a good picture from RGB from Freeview is as good as my eyes get @ 36”, especially via a superior display like a CRT TV. I wonder how many people will buy into HDTV being superior - maybe on 42” displays and above that may be the case – but how many people have displays as big as that at home ? or will have ? – certainly not me – 32”-37” seems to be the norm.

FWIW I agree that the days of CRTs are numbered but Im a bit sad about it as with the same feeds as LCD-Plasmas they would be superior by a good distance, well that’s what I found with component PAL/PS displays, RGB wise they are even further ahead.
 
markhiscock said:
I'm in the same situation, I was convinced on an LCD screen until I thought about the cost/benefit ratio and it was pretty low! At the moment I'm on the hunt for a Toshiba 32ZP46 but I can't find them anywhere.

Can anyone reccomend a 32", 100HZ screen with component inputs and progressive scan which is available? This is my holy grail!

Thanks all..

Hello Mark - Not sure about the specific connections, but in the the latest (Awards) issue of What Hi-Fi Sound & Vis. they've given one of the gongs to a 32" Panasonic CRT and literally raved about it. They quote the price as £700 but also state its much cheaper than that if you know where to look!
Get the mag and take a browse.
 
markhiscock said:
Can anyone reccomend a 32", 100HZ screen with component inputs and progressive scan which is available? This is my holy grail!

Panasonic 32PD30
Toshiba 32ZP48

Or 36"

Panasonic 36PD50
Toshiba 36ZP48

Still avilable on the net, if you search google.
 
kbj242 said:
Hello Mark - Not sure about the specific connections, but in the the latest (Awards) issue of What Hi-Fi Sound & Vis. they've given one of the gongs to a 32" Panasonic CRT and literally raved about it. They quote the price as £700 but also state its much cheaper than that if you know where to look!
Get the mag and take a browse.

Yeah i think i saw that review as well, now the ACUITY (Panny PD30/50) is long gone (discontinued some time ago, leftovers on the web have been considered dubious and possible returns) there's only the top IDTV and standard CRT's panny sell - still good TV's judging from the ones i've seen on display (as far as source/settings allow) but not quite in the same league.

If you're looking at that kind of new price range and you really wanted a Tosh ZP46, why not go that little step further and get the ZP48 (same TV, with 5.1 / amp / sub built in and external speakers - just rear?). Same TV but costs a bit for for the surround gubbins. As far as avforum members views as concerned this has been the most applauded set on here since the acuity went the way of the dodo (and the 2 were constantly fighting for top spot when it was available). If you have already got a good 5.1 setup its a bit of a waste of extra cash i spose (same here).

Unless you fancy trying a 2nd hand CRT? (like panny PD30/50 or others - Sony WEGA, Phillips pixel plus, etc)

I've just started looking for a John Lewis price match for the Tosh ZP set (probably a 32" as im only about 8ft away eyes to screen, to maintain PQ - 32ZP48). If anyone knows a good real in-store price for me to try (Scotland/Fife/Edinburgh/Glagow area, i think its area sensitive) for "never knowingly undersold" give me a shout or PM.

Depends on your budget and if you're willing to get a cheaper deal online but risk hassles if you need it replaced or repaired (that no quibble JL 5yr gaurantee has been praised on here too many times to count).

Cheers, Brim.
 

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