Want CRT, but should Go HD???

[niietzshe]

Hi there, thanks for looking.

I just recently got rid of a 42" toshiba Rear Projector TV because I moved in with two friends who play lots of games and was worried about screen burn!

I have a miniMac that I mainly use for automatically backing up my projects and syncing them between various computers, but I also want to run it as a media center with something like http://www.itheaterproject.com

The miniMac has DVI out on it, so I thought about getting a 32" LCD screen, but they're more than I want to pay for them (I'm only planning on having it for 2 years) but at least I could have my mini mac connected straight through a DVI cable.

What I really want is a 36" Toshiba Tube/crt screen, they have component imputs for my dvd play, comes with a stand, and will probably be better screen quality than an LCD at my price range (for an LCD no more than £800, I'm only a student!!!)

So my question to you cats in the know is..
If I hook my mini mac up to the screen by other means (dvi>S-video converter etc..) what kind of problems am I going to run into?
And is it going to be satisfactory enough to watch h.264 movies in quicktime through my MiniMac to the TV???

Thanks for any advice, I will be buying in about 7 days time (sometime after the 3rd..)
Christian

 

[sean5302]

What screen is there to burn on a rear projection tv?

I just don't understand.

A RP tv is just a boxed projector, where you look at the image effectively behind the screen. The electronics reverse the handedness.

A plasma, pile of old tack, is very prone to screen-burn. It's old-technology and has been abandoned by the likes of Sony and Samsung. Both state they'll sell no more plasmas with their names on.

But RP tv. No. No danger of screen burn. There are no phosphors on the screen to burn.

 

[Chris Frost]

What screen is there to burn on a rear projection tv?...

A plasma, pile of old tack, is very prone to screen-burn. It's old-technology and has been abandoned by the likes of Sony and Samsung. Both state they'll sell no more plasmas with their names on.

Err...not entirely accurate there I'm afraid.

Many of the entry level RPTVs generate the image from 3 phosphor tubes. It's a CRT projector in a box. Driven hard enough it would be possible to burn the tubes. RPTVs based on an LCD or DLP projector shouldn't have as issue.

As for plasma being dead, I think there's evidence to the contrary...

Fall in plasma TV prices to slow: Samsung SDI
Tue Sep 13, 2005 1:54 PM BST

TOKYO (Reuters) - Samsung SDI Co. the world's top plasma display panel maker, expects plasma panel prices to stabilize with a fall of 3-5 percent in the third quarter and 1-2 percent in the fourth, a company executive said on Tuesday.

"Manufacturers are having difficulty meeting demand," Kim said. "That's why prices are stabilizing and manufacturers are investing in capacity. We're expecting this will continue until the end of next year."
Kim confirmed that his company's plasma operations, which generate roughly 30 percent of total revenues, are expected to break even this quarter after two consecutive quarterly losses.

"I guess we're reaching a point where we can recover what we've invested for many years," he said. "I think it's going to be a healthy margin in the future."

Kim said Samsung SDI had yet to decide on a new investment plan to boost capacity.

LG Electronics said last month it would boost output capacity by 63 percent to 310,000 panels per month in September as it started operations of a fourth production line, and it plans to further boost capacity to 350,000 panels next year.

Matsush*ta plans to start operations in September at a new plasma display panel plant in Hyogo prefecture, western Japan.

Matsush*ta's plant will have initial output of 1.5 million panels per year, a calculation based on 42-inch panels. Output will be ramped up to 3 million units per year in late 2006, boosting the company's total annual output to 4.8 million units.

Samsung SDI expects its plasma sales will more than double to 2.2 million units this year from 870,000 a year ago.

Industry research firm DisplaySearch expects the plasma TV market to more than quadruple in size to 12.3 million sets by 2008.

- end -

There's certainly a shift from standard to high definition Plasma which is where LCD has an inherent resolution advantage, but Plasma manufacturers such as Pioneer have had hi-def panels for the last four years, and Samsung recently showcased the worlds largest Plasma (102") at IFA in Berlin.

As for the issue of Plasma screen burn, there's been some recent independant research carried out by IDC that suggests this is no longer an issue (at least for A brand products).

Part of IDC's test proceedure involved holding a still image of a Half Life 2 menu onscreen for 48hrs, then ran continuous video for 24 hrs after. Their conclusion was that although the three different brands of plasma all showed some image retention after the still test, it was completely gone after running video.

Christian, I'm sorry I can't answer your question re the Minimac, but I hope the info on plasma is useful.

 

[niietzshe]

Yeah thanks.
I knew I was right about the Rear Projectors! I just didn't want to argue
Well I think I'm going to go with a normal tube TV as I'm going to get a better image out of it than a cheap LCD. Also I will only be spending about 50% of what I was going to spend on an LCD.

I will just have to put up with whatever S-Video out of a computer looks like while playing films!!!

Later
Christian

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Moved from CRT Projectors forum

 

[chuckalicious]

If you were using a PC with an ATI Radeon card you could connect it to the TV by making a VGA-RGB Scart cable and use Powerstip. I don't know if you can get powerstrip for the mac, and you'd still need an ATI card.