LCD & PLASMA's not as good as CRT

Rem0te · 06-10-2009, 21:42

Right then, here we go. It may be me, but I haven't seen a single LCD or Plasma TV that i believe offers a better picture than the old CRT.

For example, having watched Football on a Plasma or LCD the picture breaks up (especially on long ball shots) or fast moving seens or simply faces don't look right.

Yes they look good and are more flexible (linking games consoles or PC) but the only decent picture i've seen is a PIXAR film - which if you look is what all electrical shops seem to demonstrate with (or Blue Ray DVD's) - because nothing else works.

Emperor's new clothes and not fit for purpose or I need my eyes tested. Which one is it...theres only one way to find out. FIGHT

tackycomment · 06-10-2009, 21:46

You are right , but only when viewing low quality material.

Unfortunately nearly all sd digital tv is poor quality and viewing close up gives poor results.

But upscaled via Sky HD or V+ box the sd images can be pretty good .

Similarly a good Bluray player will upscale dvd's very nicely.

Obviously for viewing HD tv or Bluray discs a CRT is no use at all

Rem0te · 06-10-2009, 21:49

So does this mean unless someone upgrades they aren't fit for purpose or haven't been sold properly. There must be 100s of households across the UK which have these sets and the owners going 'look at my new TV' and everyone replying 'looks good' and thinking 'rubbish picture'

late8 · 06-10-2009, 21:50

There’s ups and downs with all TV tech.

Plasma for me is the best as it not only offers slim design and High Definition, it also has the best image quality too over LCD. HD is fantastic and blacks can be darker than some CRT's. Faces and colour looks natural too.

CRT is rock solid but suffers from geometry issues and the shear bulk. Screens are smaller and are not HD.

The only downside of plasma is the motion issue - its better than LCD and LED but not a patch on CRT.

So really the only thing CRT has in its favour is motion.

Pugwash69 · 06-10-2009, 21:55

I went from a rather nice Philips 100Hz CRT 36" to a Toshiba LCD 37" 1080p and never looked back. Actually I did, as I gave the CRT to a friend and have since seen it in action, but it only makes me realise how much better my LCD is. It had also cost around half as much as my old CRT, weighed a fraction of the CRT and takes up a fraction of the space.

I read a lot or reviews to find one that handled SD sources well, as at the time most of my viewing was of SD.

ney · 06-10-2009, 22:27

Cant say about sport as I have only had the 22inch LG lcd in by bedroom a few days but watchig Rocky 3 on Saturday night via Freeview the picture was very good on Virgin 1 so was the sound. TV in living room not really noticed sport break up.
TV in living room is a 28 inch Sharp lcd tv thats almost 4 years old and although pitcure is good it dont seem as good as the 22inch LG that I got a few days ago for my bederoom and the 22inch LG TV in my bedroomn is a little slimmer than the 28inch Sharp TV in the living room and both or lcd.
Someone told me that most new lcd TVs are now a little slimmer in style than they used to be a few years ago.

Darren

Chris Frost · 06-10-2009, 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rem0te

Emperor's new clothes and not fit for purpose or I need my eyes tested. Which one is it...theres only one way to find out. FIGHT

Plasma/LCD vs CRT is a bit of a mixed bag. It's not an Apples with Apples comparison.

I'll start by saying that I'm a CRT fan....but it has some very definite limitations. For a start it's worth noting that most CRTs above 28" had some pretty awful geometry problems. This is made worse by the poor regulation of the power supplies which meant that the picture would shrink when a lot of current was required to drive a bright flash of the image. There was also some pretty appalling digital processing going on with some of the cheaper 100Hz sets.

On the positive side though the quality gap between the worst and best CRTs seems fairly small compared to the worst and best flat screens. A manufacturer really had to try very hard to make a truly dreadful CRT. Oh don't get me wrong, there were plenty that tried

They're still trying hard with LCD - and so very very many are succeeding.

I'm not a big fan of LCD as a display technology for video. With the exception of Planar and some top of the range JVC monitors I've not seen and LCD TV picture I could live with. Even after colour calibration to sort out the bloody awful out-of-the-box settings there's still something artificial about the picture.

Plasma on the other hand can be absolutely stunning. Bearing in mind the screen size difference compare to the average of 32 for CRT it's amazing what a well designed and properly set up plasma can do with basic SD video. Of course that just highlights the big problem with all TV technology...Set up.

One of the few manufacturers to make a TV work properly out of the box was Fujitsu. They made beautiful plasma screens. Sadly though they realised that the average TV buyer is more interested in spending money on the biggest set possible rather than buying some quality. The pulled the plug on their TV production back in 2007, I think. Panasonic have started to pick up the quality baton with their Custom Home Theatre (CHT) products such as the TH-50VX100, and they're doing good things with their higher-end consumer panels too.

Most of the stuff you'll see on shop floors and in peoples homes is very poorly set up, so it's no wonder that the images are so disappointing.

tackycomment · 06-10-2009, 23:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Frost

Most of the stuff you'll see on shop floors and in peoples homes is very poorly set up, so it's no wonder that the images are so disappointing.

Saying that only experts can set up an LCD or plasma is hardly a good advert for them.

LCD and plasma are fine if you are watching HD or if you have decent upscalers in the tv or connected devices.

My Panasonic tv does not deliver as good images via scart as it does when the Bluray player and SkyHD / V+ does the job via HDMI.

But lets face it - most of the public are clueless about quality and most don't care.
These are the same wombats who used to have their Sky boxes to output 4:3 then stretch the messed up image to fill their 16:9 set and view via composite instead of RGB and then say how great it was.

Similarly those buying LCD and plasma 4 or 5 years ago were only fooling themselves by saying the sd images were great because in reality they were shit.

The colour display on flat panels is way way better than CRT so if you were watching animation then the images looked good- but live action sd was rubbish and those that were happy with it were mainly those who bought a thin screen just because it looked sexy and took up less room.

Upscaling devices and genuine HD content made flat panels worthwhile.
As long as you don't buy cheap supermarket crap I would say that from your normal viewing distance SD should be fine - but it wont stand up to closeup scrutiny like it did on CRT - and if you go close it WILL look poor.

RobinOfLoxley · 07-10-2009, 04:46

My Uncle told me 40 years ago that one day we would all be able to hang TVs on walls.

He wasn't wrong, but what he didn't see was CRT/Phosphor remains better.
OK the units are heavy and power consumption is worse.

So what to do? I suspect we will have to put up with crappy LCDs and unreliable plasmas.
As well as energy saving bulbs you cannot read by.

frasera · 07-10-2009, 05:38

complaints don't make sense. if a football breaks up on a new tv its because the goddamned broadcaster is skimping on bitrate or you got a dodgy reception problem. being that its the signals problem a crt can't do better, it can only potentially hide artifacts by being smaller, and lower resolution so you can't make out an artifact:P apples to apples comparison using the same signal the crt isn't going to do wonders. the only half decent crts were the sony super fine pitch models. the others were sad jokes. esp compared to the nicer lcd/plasma of today, the resolution of bluray material is just untouchable.

all these complaints are seriously getting out of date. with high refresh the pixel response issues have been addressed. with led lighting and high color gamut led or regular fluorescent the color gamut is actually higher on many lcds than it is on crt. led/local dimming/rgb led...the new stuff keeps getting better. crt just keeps getting older and more irrelevant.

like it or not its progress. consumers are finally approaching sizes that are starting to make the term home theater have some meaning. during the time when crt was king the average tv was what? 27-32". a wide screen film on those was equivalent to a 25-30" lcd. now with 42+ higher higher getting affordable and practical in an average home the average experience is certainly massively better than how it was in the past. i dont care how good your supposed contrast is if you are sitting back the average 6-8 feet watching a 27" tv your experience fundamentally sucks.

roddydogs · 07-10-2009, 08:01

NOOOOOOO not someone posting this old chestnut again?

Pugwash69 · 07-10-2009, 08:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by roddydogs

NOOOOOOO not someone posting this old chestnut again?

New chestnuts aren't as good as old ones.

Willie Wontie · 07-10-2009, 09:23

Both my 32" LCD and my 42" plasma have far better picture - even on low quality SD transmissions - than my 32" widescreen CRT ever had.

Fatwaz · 07-10-2009, 09:29

can't understand what you mean by picture breaks up on football,sounds like a reception problem not a lcd/plasma problem.i have a plasma and i can honestly say the picture is on a par if not dare i say it,better than my old 28 inch widescreen crt plus the fact it is so much bigger helps too lol.football is great on sd except if watching itv rubbish but hd is just a different league

RobinOfLoxley · 07-10-2009, 11:48

I saw picture problems with sports. Not recently but a few years ago when the broadcasters started using hi-res, hi-speed cameras.

It's a sort of stroboscopic effect on fast moving images.

bobcar · 07-10-2009, 13:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fatwaz

can't understand what you mean by picture breaks up on football,sounds like a reception problem not a lcd/plasma problem.

It sounds like he's talking about the pixelation that is normal on SD football because of the high compression used.

Usually people complain about this with LCDs and plasmas because they are larger and thus the problem is more visible than on a smaller CRT. People fail to realise that if you get a larger screen then the PQ will appear worse because you can see the problems that were always there.

Quote:

i have a plasma and i can honestly say the picture is on a par if not dare i say it,better than my old 28 inch widescreen crt plus the fact it is so much bigger helps too lol.football is great on sd except if watching itv rubbish but hd is just a different league

My plasma is as good as my CRT for football taking into account the size difference however I would say that football is where HD really makes a big difference though Sky is nothing like as bad as ITV.

stvn758 · 07-10-2009, 13:44

I'm somewhat embarrassed that I used to watch TV on a screen that had a bulge.

tellytart1 · 07-10-2009, 14:49

Get one of these:
http://www.play.com/DVD/Blu-ray/4-/3...s/Product.html

And set up the screen properly. Once that's done, you'll be surprised at how good even a low-cost LCD can look once you've turned off all the artificial picture processing the manufacturer turns on by default.

Alternatively, if you have Monsters, Inc. DVD (there are several others) there are setup menus on the DVD to help you set up the TV picture properly.

BTW, I have a Sharp LC37XD10E 1080p 37" LCD screen. This had rave reviews as, once setup properly, the colour gamut and greyscale is about as close to the HD specification as you're going to get on a domestic set.

d'@ve · 07-10-2009, 16:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by late8

So really the only thing CRT has in its favour is motion.

CRT TV maybe but not CRT as such.

I have an HDTV PC card and when I view most of the channels (the SD ones) the picture is far better on my CRT monitor than on my Panny plasma TV. I have no geometry issues and I can set it up exactly as I wish.

For SD TV and using the same screen resolution as my Panny Plasma TV (which is set up and connected correctly) the CRT monitor wins hands down. Viewing distances are equivalent.

The only problem with my CRTs (I have two connected) is that they are 19 inches and too small for viewing from an armchair but I often watch TV on one CRT while working on the other CRT (as now) and then, the picture on SD TV is superior in all respects to plasma, even BBC News channel looks good!

This does not apply to HDTV programmes, where the higher resolution and an adequate bitrate wins over the few things that CRT still does better. But on SD TV, a good CRT is more forgiving (at equivalent viewing distances) than plasma - for SD TV, CRT at its best IS better than plasma. Just not as big!

tellytart1 · 07-10-2009, 16:38

I use Windows Media Centre for my TV viewing, via HDMI - and the PC does a much better job of upscaling SD material than the TV does.

VanillaPod · 07-10-2009, 17:08

Quote:

So really the only thing CRT has in its favour is motion.

No no no! There is one other big advantage. When you get things like Freeview boxes, you can just put them straight on top of a CRT TV - no need for a new TV stand with extra shelves or slots

Chris Frost · 07-10-2009, 18:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by tackycomment

Saying that only experts can set up an LCD or plasma is hardly a good advert for them.

Well I never said they can only be set up by experts. There's plenty of DIY options from downloads and inexpensive set up discs that anyone can use if they want to get much better results from their new telly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tackycomment

But lets face it - most of the public are clueless about quality and most don't care.

That kind of sums up the state of affairs in so much of life, not just TVs.

kokomo · 08-10-2009, 09:35

So really the only thing CRT has in its favour is motion.

One other thing is that CRTs are in a large cabinet which, depending of course on the quality of the speaker units, makes for a far better sound. The sound quality from most flat screen TVs is very poor, necessitating the purchase by a large number of people, of speaker systems.

witham1 · 08-10-2009, 09:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by late8

There’s ups and downs with all TV tech.

CRT is rock solid but suffers from geometry issues and the shear bulk. Screens are smaller and are not HD.

I thought my Sony 32inch CRT would have geometry problems, but looking at the freeview test card (on channel 105) I can only see small geometry errors in the corners that would not be noticed on a normal picture.

The power consumption is only about 100W. If you look in the shops you will see that LCD TV’s use about 200W and plasma is even more (I know the screens are larger).

The only way I would think of buying an LCD or plasma to watch SD is to buy a DVDO upscaler or to use a PC to do the upscaling.

evansc · 08-10-2009, 10:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rem0te

Right then, here we go. It may be me, but I haven't seen a single LCD or Plasma TV that i believe offers a better picture than the old CRT.

For example, having watched Football on a Plasma or LCD the picture breaks up (especially on long ball shots) or fast moving seens or simply faces don't look right.

Yes they look good and are more flexible (linking games consoles or PC) but the only decent picture i've seen is a PIXAR film - which if you look is what all electrical shops seem to demonstrate with (or Blue Ray DVD's) - because nothing else works.

Emperor's new clothes and not fit for purpose or I need my eyes tested. Which one is it...theres only one way to find out. FIGHT

I used to think the same as you until I bought my Panasonic TH-37PX80BA Plasma. I have since changed my mind, I only currently watch SD Freeview and sometimes analog and I can safely say that the picure quality on all types of program is better that my old Panasonic TX32PL1 CRT tv which had a superb picture.

06-10-2009, 21:42	#1
Rem0te Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 193	LCD & PLASMA's not as good as CRT Right then, here we go. It may be me, but I haven't seen a single LCD or Plasma TV that i believe offers a better picture than the old CRT. For example, having watched Football on a Plasma or LCD the picture breaks up (especially on long ball shots) or fast moving seens or simply faces don't look right. Yes they look good and are more flexible (linking games consoles or PC) but the only decent picture i've seen is a PIXAR film - which if you look is what all electrical shops seem to demonstrate with (or Blue Ray DVD's) - because nothing else works. Emperor's new clothes and not fit for purpose or I need my eyes tested. Which one is it...theres only one way to find out. FIGHT

06-10-2009, 21:46	#2
tackycomment Inactive Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 164	You are right , but only when viewing low quality material. Unfortunately nearly all sd digital tv is poor quality and viewing close up gives poor results. But upscaled via Sky HD or V+ box the sd images can be pretty good . Similarly a good Bluray player will upscale dvd's very nicely. Obviously for viewing HD tv or Bluray discs a CRT is no use at all

06-10-2009, 21:49	#3
Rem0te Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 193	So does this mean unless someone upgrades they aren't fit for purpose or haven't been sold properly. There must be 100s of households across the UK which have these sets and the owners going 'look at my new TV' and everyone replying 'looks good' and thinking 'rubbish picture'

06-10-2009, 21:50	#4
late8 Forum Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 7,052	There’s ups and downs with all TV tech. Plasma for me is the best as it not only offers slim design and High Definition, it also has the best image quality too over LCD. HD is fantastic and blacks can be darker than some CRT's. Faces and colour looks natural too. CRT is rock solid but suffers from geometry issues and the shear bulk. Screens are smaller and are not HD. The only downside of plasma is the motion issue - its better than LCD and LED but not a patch on CRT. So really the only thing CRT has in its favour is motion.

06-10-2009, 21:55	#5
Pugwash69 Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: The Sticks Posts: 3,720	I went from a rather nice Philips 100Hz CRT 36" to a Toshiba LCD 37" 1080p and never looked back. Actually I did, as I gave the CRT to a friend and have since seen it in action, but it only makes me realise how much better my LCD is. It had also cost around half as much as my old CRT, weighed a fraction of the CRT and takes up a fraction of the space. I read a lot or reviews to find one that handled SD sources well, as at the time most of my viewing was of SD.

06-10-2009, 22:27	#6
ney Forum Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Scotland, Dunfermline Area Posts: 10,704	Cant say about sport as I have only had the 22inch LG lcd in by bedroom a few days but watchig Rocky 3 on Saturday night via Freeview the picture was very good on Virgin 1 so was the sound. TV in living room not really noticed sport break up. TV in living room is a 28 inch Sharp lcd tv thats almost 4 years old and although pitcure is good it dont seem as good as the 22inch LG that I got a few days ago for my bederoom and the 22inch LG TV in my bedroomn is a little slimmer than the 28inch Sharp TV in the living room and both or lcd. Someone told me that most new lcd TVs are now a little slimmer in style than they used to be a few years ago. Darren

06-10-2009, 22:47	#7
Chris Frost Forum Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Cheshire Posts: 6,462	Quote: Originally Posted by Rem0te Emperor's new clothes and not fit for purpose or I need my eyes tested. Which one is it...theres only one way to find out. FIGHT Plasma/LCD vs CRT is a bit of a mixed bag. It's not an Apples with Apples comparison. I'll start by saying that I'm a CRT fan....but it has some very definite limitations. For a start it's worth noting that most CRTs above 28" had some pretty awful geometry problems. This is made worse by the poor regulation of the power supplies which meant that the picture would shrink when a lot of current was required to drive a bright flash of the image. There was also some pretty appalling digital processing going on with some of the cheaper 100Hz sets. On the positive side though the quality gap between the worst and best CRTs seems fairly small compared to the worst and best flat screens. A manufacturer really had to try very hard to make a truly dreadful CRT. Oh don't get me wrong, there were plenty that tried They're still trying hard with LCD - and so very very many are succeeding. I'm not a big fan of LCD as a display technology for video. With the exception of Planar and some top of the range JVC monitors I've not seen and LCD TV picture I could live with. Even after colour calibration to sort out the bloody awful out-of-the-box settings there's still something artificial about the picture. Plasma on the other hand can be absolutely stunning. Bearing in mind the screen size difference compare to the average of 32 for CRT it's amazing what a well designed and properly set up plasma can do with basic SD video. Of course that just highlights the big problem with all TV technology...Set up. One of the few manufacturers to make a TV work properly out of the box was Fujitsu. They made beautiful plasma screens. Sadly though they realised that the average TV buyer is more interested in spending money on the biggest set possible rather than buying some quality. The pulled the plug on their TV production back in 2007, I think. Panasonic have started to pick up the quality baton with their Custom Home Theatre (CHT) products such as the TH-50VX100, and they're doing good things with their higher-end consumer panels too. Most of the stuff you'll see on shop floors and in peoples homes is very poorly set up, so it's no wonder that the images are so disappointing.

06-10-2009, 23:52	#8
tackycomment Inactive Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 164	Quote: Originally Posted by Chris Frost Most of the stuff you'll see on shop floors and in peoples homes is very poorly set up, so it's no wonder that the images are so disappointing. Saying that only experts can set up an LCD or plasma is hardly a good advert for them. LCD and plasma are fine if you are watching HD or if you have decent upscalers in the tv or connected devices. My Panasonic tv does not deliver as good images via scart as it does when the Bluray player and SkyHD / V+ does the job via HDMI. But lets face it - most of the public are clueless about quality and most don't care. These are the same wombats who used to have their Sky boxes to output 4:3 then stretch the messed up image to fill their 16:9 set and view via composite instead of RGB and then say how great it was. Similarly those buying LCD and plasma 4 or 5 years ago were only fooling themselves by saying the sd images were great because in reality they were shit. The colour display on flat panels is way way better than CRT so if you were watching animation then the images looked good- but live action sd was rubbish and those that were happy with it were mainly those who bought a thin screen just because it looked sexy and took up less room. Upscaling devices and genuine HD content made flat panels worthwhile. As long as you don't buy cheap supermarket crap I would say that from your normal viewing distance SD should be fine - but it wont stand up to closeup scrutiny like it did on CRT - and if you go close it WILL look poor.

07-10-2009, 04:46	#9
RobinOfLoxley Forum Member Join Date: May 2009 Location: Devon Posts: 12,873	My Uncle told me 40 years ago that one day we would all be able to hang TVs on walls. He wasn't wrong, but what he didn't see was CRT/Phosphor remains better. OK the units are heavy and power consumption is worse. So what to do? I suspect we will have to put up with crappy LCDs and unreliable plasmas. As well as energy saving bulbs you cannot read by.

07-10-2009, 05:38	#10
frasera Inactive Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 8,063	complaints don't make sense. if a football breaks up on a new tv its because the goddamned broadcaster is skimping on bitrate or you got a dodgy reception problem. being that its the signals problem a crt can't do better, it can only potentially hide artifacts by being smaller, and lower resolution so you can't make out an artifact:P apples to apples comparison using the same signal the crt isn't going to do wonders. the only half decent crts were the sony super fine pitch models. the others were sad jokes. esp compared to the nicer lcd/plasma of today, the resolution of bluray material is just untouchable. all these complaints are seriously getting out of date. with high refresh the pixel response issues have been addressed. with led lighting and high color gamut led or regular fluorescent the color gamut is actually higher on many lcds than it is on crt. led/local dimming/rgb led...the new stuff keeps getting better. crt just keeps getting older and more irrelevant. like it or not its progress. consumers are finally approaching sizes that are starting to make the term home theater have some meaning. during the time when crt was king the average tv was what? 27-32". a wide screen film on those was equivalent to a 25-30" lcd. now with 42+ higher higher getting affordable and practical in an average home the average experience is certainly massively better than how it was in the past. i dont care how good your supposed contrast is if you are sitting back the average 6-8 feet watching a 27" tv your experience fundamentally sucks.

07-10-2009, 08:01	#11
roddydogs Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 6,353	NOOOOOOO not someone posting this old chestnut again?

07-10-2009, 08:57	#12
Pugwash69 Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: The Sticks Posts: 3,720	Quote: Originally Posted by roddydogs NOOOOOOO not someone posting this old chestnut again? New chestnuts aren't as good as old ones.

07-10-2009, 09:23	#13
Willie Wontie Inactive Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 2,847	Both my 32" LCD and my 42" plasma have far better picture - even on low quality SD transmissions - than my 32" widescreen CRT ever had.

07-10-2009, 09:29	#14
Fatwaz Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Essex Posts: 1,992	can't understand what you mean by picture breaks up on football,sounds like a reception problem not a lcd/plasma problem.i have a plasma and i can honestly say the picture is on a par if not dare i say it,better than my old 28 inch widescreen crt plus the fact it is so much bigger helps too lol.football is great on sd except if watching itv rubbish but hd is just a different league

07-10-2009, 11:48	#15
RobinOfLoxley Forum Member Join Date: May 2009 Location: Devon Posts: 12,873	I saw picture problems with sports. Not recently but a few years ago when the broadcasters started using hi-res, hi-speed cameras. It's a sort of stroboscopic effect on fast moving images.

07-10-2009, 13:42	#16
bobcar Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 14,718	Quote: Originally Posted by Fatwaz can't understand what you mean by picture breaks up on football,sounds like a reception problem not a lcd/plasma problem. It sounds like he's talking about the pixelation that is normal on SD football because of the high compression used. Usually people complain about this with LCDs and plasmas because they are larger and thus the problem is more visible than on a smaller CRT. People fail to realise that if you get a larger screen then the PQ will appear worse because you can see the problems that were always there. Quote: i have a plasma and i can honestly say the picture is on a par if not dare i say it,better than my old 28 inch widescreen crt plus the fact it is so much bigger helps too lol.football is great on sd except if watching itv rubbish but hd is just a different league My plasma is as good as my CRT for football taking into account the size difference however I would say that football is where HD really makes a big difference though Sky is nothing like as bad as ITV.

07-10-2009, 13:44	#17
stvn758 Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 17,338	I'm somewhat embarrassed that I used to watch TV on a screen that had a bulge.

07-10-2009, 14:49	#18
tellytart1 Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: London Posts: 3,638	Get one of these: http://www.play.com/DVD/Blu-ray/4-/3...s/Product.html And set up the screen properly. Once that's done, you'll be surprised at how good even a low-cost LCD can look once you've turned off all the artificial picture processing the manufacturer turns on by default. Alternatively, if you have Monsters, Inc. DVD (there are several others) there are setup menus on the DVD to help you set up the TV picture properly. BTW, I have a Sharp LC37XD10E 1080p 37" LCD screen. This had rave reviews as, once setup properly, the colour gamut and greyscale is about as close to the HD specification as you're going to get on a domestic set.

07-10-2009, 16:30	#19
d'@ve Forum Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Darn Sarf Posts: 28,743	Quote: Originally Posted by late8 So really the only thing CRT has in its favour is motion. CRT TV maybe but not CRT as such. I have an HDTV PC card and when I view most of the channels (the SD ones) the picture is far better on my CRT monitor than on my Panny plasma TV. I have no geometry issues and I can set it up exactly as I wish. For SD TV and using the same screen resolution as my Panny Plasma TV (which is set up and connected correctly) the CRT monitor wins hands down. Viewing distances are equivalent. The only problem with my CRTs (I have two connected) is that they are 19 inches and too small for viewing from an armchair but I often watch TV on one CRT while working on the other CRT (as now) and then, the picture on SD TV is superior in all respects to plasma, even BBC News channel looks good! This does not apply to HDTV programmes, where the higher resolution and an adequate bitrate wins over the few things that CRT still does better. But on SD TV, a good CRT is more forgiving (at equivalent viewing distances) than plasma - for SD TV, CRT at its best IS better than plasma. Just not as big!

07-10-2009, 16:38	#20
tellytart1 Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: London Posts: 3,638	I use Windows Media Centre for my TV viewing, via HDMI - and the PC does a much better job of upscaling SD material than the TV does.

07-10-2009, 17:08	#21
VanillaPod Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: London Posts: 219	Quote: So really the only thing CRT has in its favour is motion. No no no! There is one other big advantage. When you get things like Freeview boxes, you can just put them straight on top of a CRT TV - no need for a new TV stand with extra shelves or slots

DS Forums

LCD & PLASMA's not as good as CRT

07-10-2009, 18:13	#22
Chris Frost Forum Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Cheshire Posts: 6,462	Quote: Originally Posted by tackycomment Saying that only experts can set up an LCD or plasma is hardly a good advert for them. Well I never said they can only be set up by experts. There's plenty of DIY options from downloads and inexpensive set up discs that anyone can use if they want to get much better results from their new telly. Quote: Originally Posted by tackycomment But lets face it - most of the public are clueless about quality and most don't care. That kind of sums up the state of affairs in so much of life, not just TVs.

08-10-2009, 09:35	#23
kokomo Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 83	So really the only thing CRT has in its favour is motion. One other thing is that CRTs are in a large cabinet which, depending of course on the quality of the speaker units, makes for a far better sound. The sound quality from most flat screen TVs is very poor, necessitating the purchase by a large number of people, of speaker systems.

08-10-2009, 09:39	#24
witham1 Forum Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Witham, Essex. Posts: 266	Quote: Originally Posted by late8 There’s ups and downs with all TV tech. CRT is rock solid but suffers from geometry issues and the shear bulk. Screens are smaller and are not HD. I thought my Sony 32inch CRT would have geometry problems, but looking at the freeview test card (on channel 105) I can only see small geometry errors in the corners that would not be noticed on a normal picture. The power consumption is only about 100W. If you look in the shops you will see that LCD TV’s use about 200W and plasma is even more (I know the screens are larger). The only way I would think of buying an LCD or plasma to watch SD is to buy a DVDO upscaler or to use a PC to do the upscaling.

08-10-2009, 10:39	#25
evansc Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wolverhampton Posts: 636	Quote: Originally Posted by Rem0te Right then, here we go. It may be me, but I haven't seen a single LCD or Plasma TV that i believe offers a better picture than the old CRT. For example, having watched Football on a Plasma or LCD the picture breaks up (especially on long ball shots) or fast moving seens or simply faces don't look right. Yes they look good and are more flexible (linking games consoles or PC) but the only decent picture i've seen is a PIXAR film - which if you look is what all electrical shops seem to demonstrate with (or Blue Ray DVD's) - because nothing else works. Emperor's new clothes and not fit for purpose or I need my eyes tested. Which one is it...theres only one way to find out. FIGHT I used to think the same as you until I bought my Panasonic TH-37PX80BA Plasma. I have since changed my mind, I only currently watch SD Freeview and sometimes analog and I can safely say that the picure quality on all types of program is better that my old Panasonic TX32PL1 CRT tv which had a superb picture.