We're all in denial - Who agrees?

NoDad

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Even the best LCDs are nowhere near as good as CRT on fast motion.
Still or slow moving images can be stunning on LCD but fast motion is diabolical.
I wonder if LCD will get below 1mS for B/W switching, or will other technologies overtake them?
Can't justify £1.5k - £2k for something which just doesn't do the job.
Is anyone else brave enough to agree with me.
 
NoDad said:
Even the best LCDs are nowhere near as good as CRT on fast motion.
Still or slow moving images can be stunning on LCD but fast motion is diabolical.
I wonder if LCD will get below 1mS for B/W switching, or will other technologies overtake them?
Can't justify £1.5k - £2k for something which just doesn't do the job.
Is anyone else brave enough to agree with me.

Not sure really. Some SD broadcasts are definitely not as good as CRT, however some are, and HD stuff is a lot better, including any of the tennis and world cup that I watched. So I'd say it was swings and roundabouts, and on balance would not go back to CRT.
 
Bought my 32" Toshiba LCD a couple of months back and its 10 times better than any CRT i've ever had. Before this LCD i had a 32" JVC flat screen and it was so dark i could hardly see any picture on it. The picture on the LCD is superb and when hooked upto SKY HD it is simply stunning. Watched every World Cup match on it and never seen any problem when Terry Henry was at full tilt.

I had a toshiba CRT in the bedroom which i have just changed for a Sagem 26" LCD and the difference in colour and depth is far superior to the CRT.

So no i don't agree.
 
i don't agree... i use my tv primarily for divx content (upscaled to 720p) and i like it much better then my old crt. if i happen to watch sdtv some times, the pq doesnt really bother me, i dont see much difference

and even if i would have issues with the pq, the aesthetics of a flatscreen would make up for that :p
 
I'm not sure I'd agree with you really - it depends what you're comparing. For interlaced 480i/576i video, unless you're buying a good LCD then yes, it's likely to blur, as most don't do a good job deinterlacing. But that's not due to it being an LCD. It's a non-issue with progressive scan/HD.

While we don't have "perfect" response times, I've not seen any smearing on the best LCDs available today. (any other kind of blurring is not response time related) There can still be a little "defocusing" but it's not too obvious at the distances you should be watching TV.

I've certainly seen far longer trails behind objects on a CRT than I have on an LCD. (really obvious with a bright object moving over a black background)

LCDs can be set brighter, and have non-reflective screens, making them much more visible in a bright room during the daytime.

There are no geometry, convergence, colour uniformity, blooming, shifting black-point, power regulation issues etc. Not to mention being free of 50/60Hz flicker and scanlines.

I'm not sure I buy the "CRT has better colour" argument either, and there are certainly no issues with LCD displaying shadow detail now. (I can tell the difference between 0,0,0 1,1,1 2,2,2 black etc)

This is a custom profile of my LCD created with a Spyder2PRO comparing the colour gamut of my LCD versus a standard crt monitor:

profileqx1.jpg


(LCD is the solid colour, the CRT is the wireframe)


All display types are a compromise, but overall, the advantages of LCD over CRT far outweigh the disadvantages, in my opinion. I recently went back to a CRT to try it, and had to stop watching after about 20 minutes because the flicker was causing so much eyestrain and starting to give me a headache. (not to mention the huge scanlines and geometry / convergence isses.)
 
Yep, yep and yep on all issues (colour, geometry, saturation [not contrast]) but not on motion. Have a look at a plasma (which has the same sort of response as a CRT) next to an LCD. No comparison. Don't get me wrong, LCD can produce stunning pictures particularly with Hi-Def and slow pans but the fast motion stuff :nono:
 
andrewfee said:
All display types are a compromise, but overall, the advantages of LCD over CRT far outweigh the disadvantages, in my opinion. I recently went back to a CRT to try it, and had to stop watching after about 20 minutes because the flicker was causing so much eyestrain and starting to give me a headache. (not to mention the huge scanlines and geometry / convergence isses.)

You must have spent a fortune on Anadins before the advent of LCD's then mate.

:rotfl:
 
Nice one Normsky.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
 
Normsky said:
You must have spent a fortune on Anadins before the advent of LCD's then mate.

:rotfl:
I actually did get a lot of headaches, and used to have the screens turned down really dull to avoid noticing the flicker as much. As soon as I could afford a 100Hz CRT I bought it, despite motion not being handled as well on them, and then moved to LCD as soon as I could too. (and as soon as I thought the technology was ready)

You notice it a lot more when you've been using LCDs for any length of time.

NoDad said:
Yep, yep and yep on all issues (colour, geometry, saturation [not contrast]) but not on motion. Have a look at a plasma (which has the same sort of response as a CRT) next to an LCD. No comparison. Don't get me wrong, LCD can produce stunning pictures particularly with Hi-Def and slow pans but the fast motion stuff :nono:
I wouldn't be so sure about contrast - in anything other than a pitch-black room, LCD blacks are totally black now - you can't tell if the TV is on or off when you put up a full black screen, and glossy LCDs (typically only smaller screens atm) have a huge amount of depth and three-dimensionality to the image.

I've spent 100 hours with a 9th Gen Panasonic Plasma, and I disagree about them having as good response times as CRT or LCD even. Because they're flickering, you don't get the slight "defocusing" of the image (it's the lack of flicker that causes LCD "blur" now; although it's an optical illusion - the panel isn't blurring at all) but Plasma has some serious response issues with high-contrast scenes. (very obvious when playing games) You can often get inch-long green trails behind objects due to the green phosphors having a long decay time. It's the same kind of trailing you get on CRTs, but much worse. (and on a CRT it's not green) This can also cause you to see blue/yellow flashes with quick contrast changes. (also more obvious in games) There was also some juddering with slow motion. (was very obvious when scrolling around the map in "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" for the Xbox 360) Plasma only looks good in a pitch-black room though, anything brighter and there's a serious drop-off in contrast, and they're hopeless in daylight. If anything, it's the slower movement where LCDs do "worst" right now as well though, rather than fast-moving stuff. (which naturally blurs on the camera and our eyes anyway)

If you're talking about things turning into blocks with quick motion - that's actually a fault of the source, but due to the extreme sharpness of LCD, it can be more obvious.

In a dark room, there's no comparison between LCD and Plasma right now, I'll give you that; and I would still prefer a Plasma over a CRT despite its issues. However, most of the time, I'm either watching with the light on, or during the early evening where my room gets very bright. Under these conditions, in my opinion, LCD is best. (particularly a glossy screen like I have right now)
 
andrewfee said:
I actually did get a lot of headaches, and used to have the screens turned down really dull to avoid noticing the flicker as much. As soon as I could afford a 100Hz CRT I bought it, despite motion not being handled as well on them, and then moved to LCD as soon as I could too. (and as soon as I thought the technology was ready)

You notice it a lot more when you've been using LCDs for any length of time.


I wouldn't be so sure about contrast - in anything other than a pitch-black room, LCD blacks are totally black now - you can't tell if the TV is on or off when you put up a full black screen, and glossy LCDs (typically only smaller screens atm) have a huge amount of depth and three-dimensionality to the image.

I've spent 100 hours with a 9th Gen Panasonic Plasma, and I disagree about them having as good response times as CRT or LCD even. Because they're flickering, you don't get the slight "defocusing" of the image (it's the lack of flicker that causes LCD "blur" now; although it's an optical illusion - the panel isn't blurring at all) but Plasma has some serious response issues with high-contrast scenes. (very obvious when playing games) You can often get inch-long green trails behind objects due to the green phosphors having a long decay time. It's the same kind of trailing you get on CRTs, but much worse. (and on a CRT it's not green) This can also cause you to see blue/yellow flashes with quick contrast changes. (also more obvious in games) There was also some juddering with slow motion. (was very obvious when scrolling around the map in "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" for the Xbox 360) Plasma only looks good in a pitch-black room though, anything brighter and there's a serious drop-off in contrast, and they're hopeless in daylight. If anything, it's the slower movement where LCDs do "worst" right now as well though, rather than fast-moving stuff. (which naturally blurs on the camera and our eyes anyway)

If you're talking about things turning into blocks with quick motion - that's actually a fault of the source, but due to the extreme sharpness of LCD, it can be more obvious.

In a dark room, there's no comparison between LCD and Plasma right now, I'll give you that; and I would still prefer a Plasma over a CRT despite its issues. However, most of the time, I'm either watching with the light on, or during the early evening where my room gets very bright. Under these conditions, in my opinion, LCD is best. (particularly a glossy screen like I have right now)

I was just kiddin. I wasn't meaning to offend.
 
I think we'll have to agree to dissagree on this one Andrewfee.
Even slow movement on an LCD results in a mush in place of fine detail. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the problems are also very restricted bandwidth on SD transmissions.
I do have an LCD which I drive from a PC with Hi-Def material in progressive mode and it doesn't stay sharp even on slow pans.
 
andrewfee said:

Nice image. I should imagine though that it means little or nothing to the many viewers of this thread especially those with few postings(hint).

But fear not - even though I have few postings I am not patronised in any way shape or form because I, unlike many others, understood every word.

I have been running SETI for years and quite frankly I reckon you should get in touch with Berkley. You could be onto something!
 
Normsky said:
I was just kiddin. I wasn't meaning to offend.
Don't worry about it - no offense taken. :)

NoDad said:
I think we'll have to agree to dissagree on this one Andrewfee.
Even slow movement on an LCD results in a mush in place of fine detail. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the problems are also very restricted bandwidth on SD transmissions.
I do have an LCD which I drive from a PC with Hi-Def material in progressive mode and it doesn't stay sharp even on slow pans.
It's only the slow-pans where I would actually notice a loss of sharpness (anything quick and it's no more than the camera itself is already doing to the image) but it's not the LCD itself blurring, it's an optical illusion due to the lack of flicker, and your brain is blending the images together. On the latest panels this is very minimal, and about as good as it's going to get without a strobing backlight. (which Philips have introduced on their latest models)

But I would rather have this very slight "defocusing" (I wouldn't call it blurring, as there aren't any trails behind objects) than headache-inducing flicker.

Here's an awful photo I got while trying to capture an image from a game:
sample-and-hold.jpg


Now, my camera has blended several frames together here, as it was a long(ish) exposure, due to things being dark, but as you can see, there is no blurring / smearing with motion in the top-right corner; it's a series of pin-sharp images, and this is on an old 16ms screen. It's the lack of a strobing effect that causes your brain to "blur" the motion. (wave your hand in front of a light and it'll blur - wave it in front of a strobing light, and you'll see a lot of pin-sharp images.) That's the effect the flicker of a CRT / Plasma has on the image. (but also why many people suffer from eye-strain and headaches)

EDIT:
Normsky said:
Nice image. I should imagine though that it means little or nothing to the many viewers of this thread especially those with few postings(hint).

But fear not - even though I have few postings I am not patronised in any way shape or form because I, unlike many others, understood every word.

I have been running SETI for years and quite frankly I reckon you should get in touch with Berkley. You could be onto something!
I just felt I should point out that CRT vs LCD is a little more than just "oh well LCD blurs end of story" and figured I'd get rid of some of the myths around it, as the image from an LCD is better in almost every other way.
 
im in the hunt for an LCd , but for SD they are a poor second to CRT from what i have seen.

Blind tests tend to also show this to be the case.

wasnt there a Gadget show recently that compared a load of TOP range Plasmas and LCDs against a £300 CRT and the CRT WON!


I think if people could get CRT pictures in a Thin Tv screen format they would snap it up.

Its funny how when anyone talks abut SED they talk about it being as good as CRT!

The impression i have got from a lot of LCDs I have seen is that the picture looks 'Painted' on and a bit 1 dimensional compared to a CRT.

Obviously LCds and plasmas can display Hi def but thats still a long way from becoming widely available.

2012 anyone??
 
Spacecat said:
im in the hunt for an LCd , but for SD they are a poor second to CRT from what i have seen.

Blind tests tend to also show this to be the case.

wasnt there a Gadget show recently that compared a load of TOP range Plasmas and LCDs against a £300 CRT and the CRT WON!


I think if people could get CRT pictures in a Thin Tv screen format they would snap it up.

Its funny how when anyone talks abut SED they talk about it being as good as CRT!

The impression i have got from a lot of LCDs I have seen is that the picture looks 'Painted' on and a bit 1 dimensional compared to a CRT.

Obviously LCds and plasmas can display Hi def but thats still a long way from becoming widely available.

2012 anyone??
The problem is mostly resolution - a lot of people are buying HDTVs with no intention of using HD. Have something like a TH37PD60 and it'll blow away any CRT available now. (there are no good CRTs made anymore) Most people are used to CRT-like images though, and it takes a little time to get used to the new type of image. Not to mention that most LCDs/Plasmas are horrific out of the box. (and Plasmas need at least a 20-50 hour run-in time)

Properly set-up, an LCD will not look "painted" - honestly, I've not seen anything that looks as good as this LCD now that it's been fully calibrated.

As I said, all display technologies are a compromise right now. A lot of people put up with CRTs because they're used to the problems, or aren't aware of them. Spend a week or two with a properly set up top-tier LCD, and you will be surprised by how the CRT looks when you go back to it. (and not in a good way)
 
CRT is still the best technology out there, just that there are limitations in producing (cheap) large screen CRT alternatives to LCD or Plasma.

LCD is also not as forgiving as CRT, since you have to worry about having to scale everything to the native res, rather than just being able to display the native resolution of the source.

I have a 21" CRT monitor which I've not seen any LCD come close in any areas. But to produce a 32" CRT of this quality 1) would be rather expensive and 2) you'd need a crane to get it into your house.

It's not about which is a better technology, but what fits our overall requirements.
 
I have a Sony 26S2010 as a bedroom TV and a Toshiba 100Hz 36" CRT (36ZP) as the main TV downstairs.

When the world cup was on some of the games looked absolutely terrible on the LCD, and when I checked them on the main TV close up they looked just as bad.
 
sorry I'm not in da nile - I'm in Manchester, who else here isn't in Egypt (sorry for the bad joke)
 
My lcd is superiorr in every way to my old 36" panny crt, wouldn't go bak if you paid me. Not just for HD either, the SD picture is also superior. No motion problems, better colour, better contrast, no geometry/ convergence problems. Much better resolution. Game over as far as I'm concerned. :)
 
I agree 100% with Andrewfee. I always got slight headaches after a while from CRT flicker -- I could watch a normal-length TV programme, but I had to watch films in two sittings with at least a 15-minute break -- so I've embraced LCD technology with both arms. Out of 9* screens in this flat, only one of them is a CRT and that's the 21" Trinitron we used before we got our LCD, and it never gets switched on any more.

As my eyes have got used to LCDs everywhere (I use a panel at work too, now) I've got less prone to "brain blur" and more able to continue to make out fine details on panning scenes. I was actually anal enough to test this by logging into World of Warcraft and running past people while trying to read their names; I used to have trouble with this, and now it's much easier :D

I don't agree that CRTs are better for standard def content, either. SD games that I used to play on our old Sony 4:3 TV (which has excellent RGB) look a hundred times better on our LCD TV: brighter, clearer, more colourful, more detailed, and just generally more awesome in every way. The diagonal on a 4:3 image is about the same size on the old telly as it is on the new, so I've had a nicely direct comparison.

So, even if I didn't have any HD stuff to play on this TV, I'd still choose it over my old Sony, my Dad's super-expensive Loewe CRT, or a hypothetical larger version of my old 17" flatscreen CRT monitor. I'm a convert.

* One LCD TV, two LCD PC screens, one PSP, two DSes, and our old Sony telly. Yes, I've counted the two DSes as four screens :D
 
Alyson said:
So, even if I didn't have any HD stuff to play on this TV, I'd still choose it over my old Sony, my Dad's super-expensive Loewe CRT, or a hypothetical larger version of my old 17" flatscreen CRT monitor. I'm a convert.

I had one of those super expensive Loewe crt TV's and my new LCD (also pretty damn expensive) is better in all respects.
 
When you look at LCDs in the shops, they look dreadful. When you get one home (and set it up properly), you realise that LCD is much better than CRT. A side-by-side comparison with my top-of-the-range Sony 36" CRT revealed a lack of sharpness, muddy colours, geometry problems and a colour tinge in white scenes at the edge of the screen. It was an interesting experience.
 
Forgot to mention the eye strain and headaches ! Often used to get eyestrain after a long viewing session and used to suffer fairly frequently with headaches too. I just don't get eye strain anymore and consequently no headaches (except from alchohol :D ). I guess it was down to the flicker of an interlaced screen.
 
It has been said many times on these forums that CRT's have phosphor decay times of 40ms this is the equivalent to response times of LCD panels, 100Hz CRT televisions had bad smearing which was caused by bad signal processing.
 
Yawn... In the end "what we see" will largely depend on how crap the signal is. Crap signal will look like crap. Only CRTs are more forgiving because they add flicker and geometry issues (just to name a few) so that hides the fact that what the signal we get is below VHS quality sometimes.
 

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