So I was in a well known department store the other day, and musing with the knowledgeable salesman why the standard definition pictures on all of the plasmas and lcds on display were so awful, when he told me that in his opinion there was nothing to beat CRT for SD, and that of the five salesman in the shop, four of them still had CRT televisions. I pointed out that the shop was pretty quick in clearing them out a couple of years ago, and he said that was down to the difficulty of delivering them, compared to the ease of delivering the slim panels. Then I took a look at Sky HD showing football on some lcds and plasmas, and thought the picture was marginally better in some respects than on my 36" Philips Pixel Plus CRT television - but only marginally.

It's the way the industry has developed and there's no going back now, but I wonder how long it will be before the flat screens reach the dizzy heights of display that we saw long ago with CRT.......

I have the 32" version of the Philips TV you have & put off buying an LCD as I could not find one to beat it until I saw the Samsung LE40M86 & that convinced me. On most SD it's Great via Sky which is how I used my Philips but where it comes into it's own is on HD, now thats something else! especialy sport & although LCD is supposed to suffer from motion blur I simply don't see it on this TV, even with the fastest ball movement in football etc.

you need to-go to a decent specialist AV store and watch a plasma or LCD setup properly. they are all being feed a crappy feeds that CRT seem to take on the chin but plasma or lcd will show up all the imperfections of the signal.

been a plasma screen owner for about 2 years now and never looked back. CRT is old technology and my Panasonic plasma gives me one of the best pictures i have seen. I have no regrets getting rid of my 32" 100hz Sony Wega CRT and replacing it with something bigger and better which hangs on my wall

plenty of threads about this and if you are serious about going to LCD or plasma then goto a dedicated forum for AV called www.avforums.com

you will get all the info you need there.

Dal

Hang on... LCD shows up a bad signal... CRTs look great with one... and that's supposed to prove that LCD is 'better'?

Personally, I have LCD simply to give me an extra 2 feet in my living room. The picture is pretty rubbish compared to CRT.

[quote=!!11oneone;18148617]Hang on... LCD shows up a bad signal... CRTs look great with one... and that's supposed to prove that LCD is 'better'?

POST REMOVED
Last edited by w3dal : 18-09-2007 at 16:14

The newest Samsung F series and Sony X series LCD's are supposed to be comparable to CRT in SD.

Well if you have a 50hz CRT then yes, most are better than Plasma and LCD. However, its the age old thing of lumping a question into 3 answers...LCD, Plasma or CRT, all are not equal.

The CRT does give good picture quality when fed SD with a good digital signal through RGB. There's only a few handful of Plasmas that get anywhere near close. The one thing that drags them all down to the same level is 'in set' digital processing. 100hz CRT's stand side by side with just as many poorly processed LCD's and Plasma's. I did see a couple of 100hz CRT's which were the best of the bunch but they were still no where near as good as the 50hz sets. Philips Pixel plus are just horrible, they don't even improve an analogue picture.

I saw a good example on holiday in a bar, they had the F1 GP showing on 2 tv's. One was a large 36" CRT (cheapo vestel clone), the other a samsung slim 28" CRT 100hz. Firstly it was blatantly obvious of the delay between both sets, the Samsungs internal digital processing (like most do) doing its bit to improve the incoming signal and outputting it an1/8th of a second later.
The 36" had better definition and a quality picture, even reproducing the flaws and crackles in the original broadcast. The Samsung just looked bland and washed out, even with the advantages it had over LCD and Plasma (Back lit screen, viewing angles contrast etc).

The problem is many people (in fact way to many) attribute poor pictures to the panel technology rather than the internal processing technology. The Plasma/LCD/CRT debate is going round in circles dodging the facts and people assume that the most number of certain answers by chumps equal the correct one. It can be just like being in a room of people bullying you into telling you that the capital of Australia is Sydney.

CRTs will still give a better SD image over flat screen, lcd or plasma. the primary function of flat screens is 'mainly' to display HD pictures, which do look miles better if set up well using decent kit.

but also its really just the fact that you can fit more flat panels on a boat from japan than crt sets

Are you talking 100hz CRT's or 50hz or does the picture quality look the same to you or one better than the other?
Honest question and no dig, I'm just curious why some people find 100hz CRT's better than 50hz and for why.

I'm one of the ones who prefers 100Hz, regardless of any reduction in quality (although that point is debateable), because I have huge problems with 50Hz flicker.

Picture quality is subjective - I'm likely to say that the 100Hz processing of my 28" Sony Wega provides a better picture than a 50Hz set.

sorry i realised how un specific that was straight after i posted it!!

that was a general statement about CRTs, however personally i favour 50hz

Disregarding the fact that 100Hz pix were also crap: (which is why the sets were promoted with so many picture processing tricks)


"Incorrectly setup" is the usual excuse from those with lcd and plasma as to why sd pix are crap on them.

But its a tired excuse.

If AV stores cannot set them up for optimum quality and the manufacturers send them out incorrectly set up (another well worn excuse) then what hope is there for Joe Public to set them up.

And why should they want to.
They want to unpack,plug in and view.

The bottom line is that while SD quality does vary from one lcd to another there's no getting away from the fact that none of them can equal a good CRT.

Of course an LCD or plasma is a beautiful sight (when its switched off) and the way it looks in the living room is more important to most people than what the picture looks like.

Until there are more HD channels and a winner in the HD disc war most will watch mostly SD and for anyone fussy about quality ,LCD and plasma just dont cut it

That pretty much sums up why many people buy them.

(Apart from those who watch enough HD to make it worthwhile)

At least you have the balls to admit it

100Hz sets were an early appearance for the smeary junk that many are now used to with LCD and plasma.

However ,some people can see a flicker with 50Hz sets .

I cant but as another poster said its subjective.

Smeary blurryvision instead of flicker.

Not very good options either way.

If you can see the flicker, then fair enough - personally I've always been VERY unimpressed with 100Hz sets, with 50Hz giving a much better picture.

Customer wise as well, a LOT of customers who bought 100Hz sets complain about the poor picture on them, with the picture looking 'plastic' and 'artificial'. My boss, the managing director and owner, took one home, and his wife complained about the poor picture on it and she doesn't notice the difference between mono and stereo, or RGB and RF!.

100Hz pix are shit ,no doubt about it,but they are pretty good compared to LCD and plasma (on SD).

Dont you have people moaning about the crap pix on those?

Plenty of them do it on this forum

Some certainly do, but usually only because they replace their 28 inch with a 42 inch - and then sit the same distance away. I've installed a LOT of Sony LCD's, and many have been absolutely stunning even on SD, and better than the CRT set it was replacing.

But if you're replacing a good CRT with an LCD it needs to be a quality LCD, and you have to consider the screen size and viewing distance, just as you would with a larger CRT.

I've mentioned it before, but a good few weeks back now I was looking at the TV's in Asda (as you do), they had side by side a number of their cheap crap CRT's, cheap crap LCD's, and two good LCD's, a Sharp and a Sony - these were far better than the other LCD's and the CRT's as well.

Stores don't set them up properly because they can't be bothered or dont have the time to do so.

Most TVs are set up to looking bright and striking in a store and if purchasers can't be bothered to spend a little effort and time with their new purchase to get the best out of it, then they are stupid.

Most of the buying public are though.

I agree that tweaking the settings is number one after installation ,however there have been numerous posts on numerous threads regarding flat panel sets where the excuses about poor SD are often written off by punters claiming it took them hours or even days to get the picture looking good.

The majority of people dont expect to pay £700+ for a tv then have to mess about altering all the controls.

For a start your excuse would relate only to sets on demo display.

Most people will get an unopened new one in a box .

The manufacturers should by now know the settings that will please most people

I must be missing something cos I don't see to many plasma owners complaining about poor quality SD pics on there flat panels, but I do see a lot more LCD complaints.

The demo ones seen in stores are the same sets sold to the public.

The nature of plasma means that it tends to soften out the artifacts of digital SD channels, but IMO that also leads to plasma not seeming as sharp or detailed as LCD when showing HD.

I feel that LCDs are better for HD content while plasma is better for SD. For personal reasons I would only ever buy a LCD.

Good Morning.

At the Royal Welsh Show this July, which as a television engineering village, being the largest output of any tv in Wales, I managed to chat to a BBC engineer, he told me they only use CRT either for SD or HD, as nothing compares to the crispness, they had an array of sets all Sony.

I have my own opinion that my 29 inch Sony CRT is yet to be beaten for SD, in fact the main Sony dealers in Wrexham confirm this,they are inde and honest.

Note I am not talking HD.


Bob Wrexham

CRTS are good if you want a TV under 36"

But if u want a TV over that then Plasma is amazing.

I work with TV'S every day in John Lewis solihull and the quality on the plasmas are mindblowing even on massive tvs on an SD picture like my 50".

Take a look if u dont believe me....

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1229/...da22b02439.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1165/...b6900043a7.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1239/...5325dd0f82.jpg

rant on

well i dont agree with anything you have said above either.

im sorry but going into currys or comet is just not good enough these days to look at a plasma or lcd setup.

you enjoy your CRT mate and ill enjoy my plasma - sorry but for me my plasma is setup properly and will wipe the floor with any of your offerings.

Dal