When will traditional monitors come to a point where they are infeasible?

[KimB]

Thats my opinon to, i program a lot and a tft is just great, but for gaming my 21º CRT is the best

Of course There's no way I would give up my excellent 19" CRT at home for an LCD display.

 

[_xxx_]

When will traditional monitors come to a point where they are infeasible?

As soon as we have something better, which is still not the case.

 

[Fox5]

thanks for the welcome



After looking up, you are probably right. The closest equivalent to the brightside lcd I mentioned would be the 40" samsungs, they use around 200W max. The brightside uses max 1600W. So yes, it might get a tad warm

Although I wonder how dense the LED grid is compared to the lcd's resolution. Somehow I doubt there are ~2 million leds in behind the screen..

1600W! Might cause the wiring in some older houses to catch fire when plugged in...

BTW, I prefer my LCD to the humoungous CRT I used to have.
It runs much cooler, which makes a noticable difference in room temperature.
Geometry is correct.
There's no 'shadows' on the image. The CRT I used to have had a vague outline around anything high contrast which looked like crap.
And not to mention, the image isn't blurry. True, I lost my max res of 1856x1398 or whatever my CRT could do, but the image got so blurry at that resolution, or even 1600x1200.
Sure, I might lose color accuracy, but I haven't seen any current games (most of which are still using 8 bit or 16 bit textures) where this affects the image quality severely.
Not to mention there's no way I would have ever brought a 90lb CRT with me to college, heck, I don't even think it would fit on the desks they give us, not with a keyboard and a comfortable viewing distance anyhow.

I'm not sure if I can say the CRT flickering was better or worse though. My CRT had a 100hz refresh rate, and I never noticed flickering, but when I got my LCD I could have sworn the back light was flickering. (is there some natural flicker induced from the 60hz power used?) It was such an eye strain, and I couldn't even turn the brightness down to make it barable as the image quality went to complete crap when I did that, so I had to leave it overbright until I got used to it.

I do prefer an image that is much easier to see with ambient light, LCDs have no glare and don't fade as easily as a CRT image.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

When will current generation monitors need to be replaced?

What limitations do they currently have in relation to 3D graphics?

Is the range of colours of traditional CRTs and LCDs posing as a future problem?

What could eventually replace traditional monitors?

TIs DLP is what im waiting for. The price is the problem, but when the price drops, we will see some DLP monitors.

 

[_xxx_]

TIs DLP is what im waiting for. The price is the problem, but when the price drops, we will see some DLP monitors.

Second that. Looks very promising.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

For more info about DLPs, go here.
http://www.dlp.com/Default.asp?DCMP=TIHomeTracking&HQS=Other+OT+home_p_dlp&bhcp=1
The max res is 1920X1080 for now and that would be great for a 24" monitor when the prices drop on the DLPs.

 

[flf]

Slightly off-topic, but relevant to migrating away from CRTs:

Had I the spare cash, I would punt about four old CRTs out of my computer room and replace them with LCD displays. Not because of image quality, or space, or any of the traditional arguments... but because I need to reduce the amount of heat that is generated in that room.

The one LCD I have produces a small fraction of the heat that CRTs do.

 

[Himself]

Nobody mentioned HDCP yet, that might be a reason for having to switch monitors for some people. Or it will be a selling point that will lure people to displays with dvi inputs with hdcp, just so they won't be limited in what they can do on their computers, everything else being equal.

Crts vs Lcds, I've never seen two crts with the same colours, no doubt they are capable of it, but there is too much analog involved for you to see it much in the wild. You design a nice looking gui for an application and someone else looks at it and are like WTF? Not dark enough, too dark, colours look off, blah blah blah. I like lcds because you just plug them in, you aren't spending hours fiddling with settings and then refiddling with settings when you come across a new application that doesn't look right, and so on.

Eye strain is more about focusing intently at a fixed distance for hours at a time, less about refresh rates unless they affect the focus.

I'm pretty happy with my gateway 21" widescreen lcd (fpd2185W).

 

[Moloch]

Nobody mentioned HDCP yet, that might be a reason for having to switch monitors for some people. Or it will be a selling point that will lure people to displays with dvi inputs with hdcp, just so they won't be limited in what they can do on their computers, everything else being equal.

Crts vs Lcds, I've never seen two crts with the same colours, no doubt they are capable of it, but there is too much analog involved for you to see it much in the wild. You design a nice looking gui for an application and someone else looks at it and are like WTF? Not dark enough, too dark, colours look off, blah blah blah. I like lcds because you just plug them in, you aren't spending hours fiddling with settings and then refiddling with settings when you come across a new application that doesn't look right, and so on.

Eye strain is more about focusing intently at a fixed distance for hours at a time, less about refresh rates unless they affect the focus.


I'm pretty happy with my gateway 21" widescreen lcd (fpd2185W).

Er there are applications where you can setup your crt... Not that you need to.
You set a crt up with the brightness/contrast you like and the geometry and thats it.
I dont know wtf you're smokin...
it takes all of 5 minutes.
Naturally different makes and models look different (I came from a impression 7 to a HP M70) but you get used to the differences in color.
There are also huge difference in brightness/black levels with lcds so you really need to put some thought into your rants.

lcds all look equally bad

Except of course the non consumer LED backlit ones...
Until there are consumer Led backlit lcds with good colors, lcds have few advantages over crts.

 

[Himself]

Er there are applications where you can setup your crt... Not that you need to.
You set a crt up with the brightness/contrast you like and the geometry and thats it.
I dont know wtf you're smokin...
it takes all of 5 minutes.
Naturally different makes and models look different (I came from a impression 7 to a HP M70) but you get used to the differences in color.
There are also huge difference in brightness/black levels with lcds so you really need to put some thought into your rants.

lcds all look equally bad

Except of course the non consumer LED backlit ones...
Until there are consumer Led backlit lcds with good colors, lcds have few advantages over crts.

You can't even get equivalent contrast and brightness between crts, let alone colours, and I've used various software, I've even opened up monitors and adjusted the trim pots for driving levels and bias, analog is a bitch, there is no getting around it. And no you can't get used to differences in color, especially in a multimonitor environment where you drag a window from one monitor to the next and it looks totally different. There is no such thing as perfect geometry and focus all across the screen either, it's maddening.

Given two lcds of the same model and two crts of the same model, the lcds will have the same colour and the crts won't. Try it yourself. So long as there are things like trim pots involved, nobody will get identical colours on crts.

 

[Moloch]

You can't even get equivalent contrast and brightness between crts, let alone colours, and I've used various software, I've even opened up monitors and adjusted the trim pots for driving levels and bias, analog is a bitch, there is no getting around it. And no you can't get used to differences in color, especially in a multimonitor environment where you drag a window from one monitor to the next and it looks totally different. There is no such thing as perfect geometry and focus all across the screen either, it's maddening.

Given two lcds of the same model and two crts of the same model, the lcds will have the same colour and the crts won't. Try it yourself. So long as there are things like trim pots involved, nobody will get identical colours on crts.

Uh duh.. I said that already but if you take averages between crts and lcds you will find a crt has a more correct gamma curve and obviously the contrast will be miles better and different brand lcds also look totally different.
One note about that- I've noticed several LCD fanatics who are unsure what us crt fanantics are talking about when we talk about the lack of deep black levels on lcds and I've found they use them in well lit rooms so naturally you'll have a hard time getting black levels out of either so you really need to look at the differences with the lights out at night or put a blanket or something over the window.
The differences is huge there.
However if you ever see something small and bright running across a crt you can see how it makes the surround area glow
I never got on the dual display craze.. even though I have 2 crts (with vasty different color.. but different brands...) I lost the dvi-vga dongles that came with my 6600GT so I had to use the one that came with my radeon
if you have two different lcds you can also have huge differences in the way they look so it's not limiied to crts ya know- you should be running the same model so you should be able to get them look atleast close.

 

[KimB]

The differences aren't so much in the analog nature, but rather in the phosphors used. Different CRT's use different phosphors, which in turn have different color responses. This can partially be managed by gamma correction.

But the real benefit of CRT's over LCD's is excellent resolution in the dark end of the spectrum.

 

[Moloch]

The differences aren't so much in the analog nature, but rather in the phosphors used. Different CRT's use different phosphors, which in turn have different color responses. This can partially be managed by gamma correction.

But the real benefit of CRT's over LCD's is excellent resolution in the dark end of the spectrum.

...abd the ability to use more than 1 res!
Very important for "gaming" monitors since not all of us have 600+ worth of graphics cards.

 

[caboosemoose]

Well, I must confess to being a devout member of the church of LCD. I do appreciate the advantages of CRTs in term of colour fidelity, black levels, resolution scaling and motion rendering. However, LCDs are closing the gap in those areas bit by bit, day by day (except the res scaling which will have to wait until panels hit crazy, pixels-too-small-to-see resolutions).

The best of the current crop of panels offers enough in those departments to satisfy the vast majority of users. Then there's the clear benefits of LCDs. Firstly, obviously, there's perfect geometry. Related to that and probably more important is perfect pixel focus. This is a major benefit for those using their screens day in day out and along with reduced electromagnetic emmissions and surface reflectivity (except those glossy panels, of course) results in much less eye fatigue in my view.
Of course, the best of the current crop of LCDs is also much brighter than any CRT monitor. I'm currently running an HP 2335 23-inch widescreen panel with a native of 1,920 x 1,200 and I very much doubt anyone who had experience of a panel such as that would choose to go back to a CRT unless they had extraordinarily exacting needs. To be honest, the CRT vs LCD argument is pretty much dead for most PC users, it's flat panels all the way, regardless of the pros and cons. My only complaint is that you have to go to 20-inches or more to get a decent amount of desktop real estate.
The first 19-inch monitor to offer a higher native than 1,280 x 1,280 will clean up, I reckon (though from what hear none of the actul panel makers have plans in this area). Overall, I'd say a monitor like Dell's 20-inch widescreen 2005 fpw is pretty tough to beat in the sensible money space and will give most users an experience that they thoroughly enjoy. As for the future, I suspect the combination of a fine grid LED array backlight delivering high dynamic range with improved LCD siwthcing tech will be the next step and when that arrives there'll be no contest.

 

[Nappe1]

...abd the ability to use more than 1 res!
Very important for "gaming" monitors since not all of us have 600+ worth of graphics cards.

umm.. while I own mid-end graphics card (6600GT) I am ready to drop quality levels to get native resolution of my TFT. of course this is personal choice of everyone. Still, in most DVI / TFT displays you can still set so that the panel does not upscale the signal, but places it to panel as centered. This again makes image smaller, but at least you get superior sharpnes.

Plus, there's quite huge difference in display side scalers. in my old 15" TFT, it's pretty much bad, but again in my new 26" WXGA TV with DVI, it looks ok.

 

[Moloch]

umm.. while I own mid-end graphics card (6600GT) I am ready to drop quality levels to get native resolution of my TFT. of course this is personal choice of everyone. Still, in most DVI / TFT displays you can still set so that the panel does not upscale the signal, but places it to panel as centered. This again makes image smaller, but at least you get superior sharpnes.

Plus, there's quite huge difference in display side scalers. in my old 15" TFT, it's pretty much bad, but again in my new 26" WXGA TV with DVI, it looks ok.

Well it's a choice you have to make because of the limitations of the technology.
Since I have a crt I'm content to drop the res down to 1024 before dropping detail considerally.
I useally like to atleast get try to keep texture quality up and lower the fancy stuff.

So how long until TFT's can scale an image good to where you have to look really closely to notice and untill they have some kind of a tech to have good black levels (comparable to crts).
I only use a CRT because it was free and I'm a bit of a videophile.

 

[Nappe1]

I only use a CRT because it was free and I'm a bit of a videophile.

...and I am a bit of Animationholic, in which case the vibrant colors and crisp sharpness can easily give you same amount as what you lose in black levels in dark scenes.

Basically, I don't think it matters much which display you use, as long as you are happy with it and it fits on your needs.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Speaking of the scaling problems with LCDs. Is there any reason why there hasn't been a hardware scaler that utilizes something like a Bicubic or Lanczos Resize? I'm pretty sure the scaling wouldn't be nearly as blurry if something like that was available.

 

[Moloch]

...and I am a bit of Animationholic, in which case the vibrant colors and crisp sharpness can easily give you same amount as what you lose in black levels in dark scenes.

Basically, I don't think it matters much which display you use, as long as you are happy with it and it fits on your needs.

Vibrant colors don't mean accurate...
If you go into a home theater place a trick to sell more expensive tvs is to crank up the saturation as most people know.
I find my crt sharp enough, not totally sharp but I rather like it since I watch movies on it and it's just plain better suited for watching moves than any traditional lcd.
it fits my needs:smile:

 

[Nappe1]

Vibrant colors don't mean accurate....

Of Course I tuned it with Nokia Monitor Tester. (suprisingly the auto setup did splendid job for contrast / brightness setup. Brightness was correct to start with and contrast needed on 2 notches down.)
After watching The Lion King and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, there's huge difference to CRT in animation color reproduction. (these two movies especially, because both still have several different drawing techniques applied. CG animations look really synthetic compared to these. (Not that it would mean those being worse, but more like different.))

Also, I was positively supprised the effect that active backlight gives. TV has detector for Ambient light in room and it changes brightness of backlight acording to room light conditions. (more expensive version has even color temperature adjust, but I am happy with this already. and of course, you can turn it off, if you don't like it.)

If you go into a home theater place a trick to sell more expensive tvs is to crank up the saturation as most people know.

yeah, plus using ONE image source to all tvs and SCART splitter does not help the image quality either.