What do you all think are the chances of this ever happening?

Slim & none. We would have to convince marketing managers, accountants, etc, etc, to crank up the CRT making machinery & that would be a miracle on the order of the loaves & fishes...if, indeed, if said machinery hasn't been summarily disposed of by now...

I've said before, that most likely they will on the high-end. Just as today, they still produce turntables and vacuum tube audio gear............for a price. As Sandy says, most likely never for the common TV set. In fact, I don't think there will be TV sets as we know at all, nor computers nor phones. There will be some kind of a one-piece device to handle all communications from television to radio to the internet, and you'll just dock it to a projector or large screen of some sort, for watching movies & ball games at home.

Charles

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But flat--panel sets are SO unrelaible and fragile!! I just visited a place where they repair electronic stuff for Amazon and some warranty. There must be 5THOUSAND flat--panel sets there for repairs...and HALF of them had broken panels!! Panels are so expensive...most often a set gets parted out when that happens.

I personally think that CRT sets MAY come back--at least the CRT display--as it is MANY times more durable and relaible than plasma or LCD sets. With a decent flyback, caps, and soldering, a CRT set could be made to be VERY reliable--and we all know how hard a tube is to break..

(BTW--I may just take a job ar that place I spoke about. The pay (19/H) is not quite what I made at that TV shop before( to start there at first anyway..) , BUT it WOULD be steady work, WITH benefits, I would NOT have to deal with customers,. OR go into ANY homes, AND I would not even have to install most of my own PARTS!! An "installer" is there just for that purpose!! I am wanted for my "diagnostic skills..), (And sets are "pre--screened , for me--to weed out the broken panels and cabinets) AND I would STILL be able to work "on the side", maybe where I do now.

But 7AM starting time...after about 8 months of "working when I wanted to", (when there was work to do, anyway..) that will NOT be easy..but it WOULD be a "guaernteed paycheck" and NOT like now--where I might make 500-600 one decent week and 400 for the next THREE weeks total!!)

I still see a few smaller 13" crt sets with ATSC and QAM tuners for sale. So are they "new old stock" or using up the remaining supply of these tubes, *or* are crts still being manufactured somewhere?

jr

The next time I'm at walmart, I'll look to see if they have any CRT sets left. A few months ago, the only CRT on the floor was a 27" Sansui.

The major glass plants for CRTs are being shut down one by one. No glass, no CRTs, especially not the large ones.

I have a friend who worked at one time for Bendix, who make a LOT of the subassemblies for all things automotive-related-Brakes, electronics, this, that, & the other. He said that once demand for a BR-549 Ford whickerbill assembly dropped below "X" units, it would be discontinued, & often as not the tooling would be scrapped. He said that at some point in the future, a lot of otherwise serviceable cars could be sidelined because of the inavailability of these electronic gizmotrons. Could be fun for future generations of motorheads wanting to restore a 1994 Mustang in say, 2040...Which is about the same amount of elapsed time as us wanting to restore a '64 Stang today...

I don't think that CRT TV sets will ever make a comeback because of several reasons:

1. CRT sets are very heavy, bulky and take up a lot of room.
2. LCD sets are getting larger and cheaper.
3. LCD quality is getting better, especially with LED backlights.
4. OLED will eventually become mainstream and affordable.

Indeed, very heavy an bulky... As much as I would l like to have something like this 40 inch Trinitron, it just aint gona happen. A 325lb TV really is not very practical these days.

http://cgi.ebay.com/SONY-40-FD-TRINITRON-XBR-WEGA-KV-40XBR800-w-SONY-STAND_W0QQitemZ300400787244QQcmdZViewItemQQptZTele visions?hash=item45f1483f2c

But I bet it displays a great picture!:yes:

not affiliated,
jr

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(BTW--I may just take a job ar that place I spoke about. The pay (19/H) is not quite what I made at that TV shop before( to start there at first anyway..) , BUT it WOULD be steady work, WITH benefits...

If people are not excited about $19/hr in Cincinnati then I know where I need to relocate to. I make little better than half that and the large criminal element of New Orleans has murdered two of us in the last two years. (No, I'm not a cop, I'm a service tech for an amusement company.)

CRTs are still widely used in some specialized applications, for example, most portable ultrasound scanners used by equine vets still have a small (about 6") hi-def B/W crt.

There are also a few LCD-based models but they seem to be far less successful than CRT ones, maybe because LCDs are less viewable in daylight, or maybe because LCDs are less tolerant of horse kicks and abuse.

If people are not excited about $19/hr in Cincinnati then I know where I need to relocate to. I make little better than half that and the large criminal element of New Orleans has murdered two of us in the last two years. (No, I'm not a cop, I'm a service tech for an amusement company.)


Oh, don't worry. I AM taking that job, I am telling them Monday morning. The last check I got from the place I have been working for part-time, bounced today, messing up things for my finances again. This WILL be a guarnteed, good pay, EVERY week, no fear of bounced checks or having to beg for my pay, buy my own parts or put up with Bi-polar bosses(hopefully not, anyway.)

It is just going to be hard for me to "re-adjust" my life to getting up EVERY DAY before 6Am, when since last August, I had NO true time--frame to worry about, and only worked when there was "work to do"(which lately has NOT been very often). I have nearly drained my savings, and have NOT been able to do things like get my Trofeo painted, buy a new computer, or much else.

SO, I will be willing to make that sacrifice, of my "free time" to KNOW that EVERY week, I WILL get a good paycheck, that will meet my expenses.But it WILL be a "difficult adjustment" at first. But probably well worth it!!

I hear you - I made the same adjustment taking this job - after being laid off in 2008 I worked side jobs for over a year and set my own schedule. That regular paycheck and insurance sure makes a difference though!

The sad part about CRT's going away is more than just the tooling. The vendors that supply the materials (and those materials themselves) will go away too.

Just like current tube production overseas will never match the NOS types. I recall on one of our threads where the mica for 6550 GE tubes was supplied by Texas Instruments and I'm not sure when but they are no longer in the mica business(?). What happens to the formulas that were created when something goes out of production? It (I believe) goes away too..never to come back.

Just look at an old RCA tube manual and look at all the chemicals/materials that were used in the manufacture of receiving tubes.

Yeah, that's kinda the point I was trying to make in that long, tedious windy post I made...Its like the nursery rhyme-"All the king's horses & all the king's men/Couldn't put Humpty-Dumpty together again..." People retire/die, the knowlege base becomes dissipated, never to be really reclaimed. I'll about guarantee that all the 55-60 year old guys who ran the glass machine that blew the CRTs, every one of 'em had some little kink he did that he never recorded, that made the operation go smoother...And difficult or well-nigh impossible without it.

Oh, don't worry. I AM taking that job, I am telling them Monday morning. The last check I got from the place I have been working for part-time, bounced today, messing up things for my finances again. This WILL be a guarnteed, good pay, EVERY week, no fear of bounced checks or having to beg for my pay, buy my own parts or put up with Bi-polar bosses(hopefully not, anyway.)

It is just going to be hard for me to "re-adjust" my life to getting up EVERY DAY before 6Am, when since last August, I had NO true time--frame to worry about, and only worked when there was "work to do"(which lately has NOT been very often). I have nearly drained my savings, and have NOT been able to do things like get my Trofeo painted, buy a new computer, or much else.

SO, I will be willing to make that sacrifice, of my "free time" to KNOW that EVERY week, I WILL get a good paycheck, that will meet my expenses.But it WILL be a "difficult adjustment" at first. But probably well worth it!!

Glad to hear you got another job. I know I was rescheduled myself to cover for someone injured where I work at. I used to work late morning to early evenings although I have earlier hours now. It's a little tough for be since I have to get up earlier, I'm not a morning person, if I could mainline caffeine I'd do it, but as the saying goes, it is a paycheck and in this economy, if you have any job, you're lucky. Man, talk about a run-on. :D Seriously, I wish you all the luck, it has to be better than the last place you were at.

Flat panels, especially LCD computer monitors crap out quite frequently, the last month I fixed 9 LCD monitors, all the same crap. Bad chinese power supply caps, no cooling kills these puppies. Also excessive heat at the top of the screen unbonds the fine ribbon cable causing lines and streaks of colors to vertically fill the screen. Seems to me the early LCD's are doing this. That and the Electroluminescent lamp that spans accross the bottom of the LCD gets weak after a bit of use causing a pinkish raster with a substantial loss of brightness.

This, I believe is the LCD's version of "bad guns". Virtualy unreparable. I have done a few but it's almost not worth the hassle.

CRT's, like Kiwick stated, are just workhoses, and LCD's are finicky and cannot take a bump the the screen.

3 to 4 years is all I see LCD's around here lasting.

Flat panels, especially LCD computer monitors crap out quite frequently, the last month I fixed 9 LCD monitors, all the same crap. Bad chinese power supply caps, no cooling kills these puppies. Also excessive heat at the top of the screen unbonds the fine ribbon cable causing lines and streaks of colors to vertically fill the screen. Seems to me the early LCD's are doing this. That and the Electroluminescent lamp that spans accross the bottom of the LCD gets weak after a bit of use causing a pinkish raster with a substantial loss of brightness.

This, I believe is the LCD's version of "bad guns". Virtualy unreparable. I have done a few but it's almost not worth the hassle.

CRT's, like Kiwick stated, are just workhoses, and LCD's are finicky and cannot take a bump the the screen.

3 to 4 years is all I see LCD's around here lasting.

Yeah, you probably read about the 37" Sanyo LCD with a bad inverter board that I just picked up. And, I've got a 19" Emerson with the streaks and lines that you speak of. It's since been in an accident and now has a busted screen; but, I'm keeping it for the boards. I also have a 42" Viewsonic with a damaged screen and bad PS and a 32" Sylvania (dump find) with a busted screen (looks like it fell off the wall). I'm not impressed at all and the only motivation I have for fixing a flat panel set is to finance my vintage collecting habits.

Lol, I feel your pain.

Bumping up an old thread. I sure wish CRTs would return, it's sad not seeing new ones around anywhere. Consumers deserve a real choice, there's still a large niche market that want CRT TVs and the superior picture quality that goes with it.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/31040/lg-goes-retro-crt-television

This is interesting but only in Korea:(

Have you seen all the retro-look tabletop radios that are around now, the "Crosleys," etc.
I wouldn't be surprised to see CRT TV sets make a comeback, at least in a small way.

The public had a wide variety of choices a few years ago, even when flat-panel TVs cost much more than they do today, and consumers made their choices then. CRT TVs do have a couple of picture-quality advantages in general, but overall they are very impractical and inefficient (with space) when compared to flat panel displays. Since CRTs and their support components require a very different set of materials, I doubt they will come back any more than horses have returned to city streets.

I do not believe CRTs will return any time soon, except as noted (for 3D and other specialized applications) -- but not for television sets marketed for home use. The Korean CRT set mentioned a few posts ago is probably a limited edition, not intended for export to the US or anywhere else.

I intend to keep my two CRT sets, out of date though they are, as long as they work. I have nothing against flat panels except that they are very light weight, and are all too easily knocked off a stand, causing irreparable damage to the screen in most cases -- unless the owner is very lucky. These sets are also very intolerant of lightning strikes; one good one, a direct hit on or near a power line, will destroy the set in the blink of an eye, whereas many CRTs will ignore most strikes. Even surge protectors aren't enough to save a FP set from damage by power surges from a very severe electrical storm. There are cases on record where lightning surges have destroyed the surge protector circuitry or even jumped it altogether, thereby going directly into the TV and making it instant junk. :no: :eek:

I can think of a reason CRTs won't come back anytime soon.

Lead.

I disagree with those who say that CRTs disappeared because people didn't want them. In my opinion, it had more to do with the major manufacturers choosing not to make them anymore and, instead, force plasmas and LCDs onto everybody. It got to the point where there were fewer and fewer CRTs for sale until, finally, there were none available at all. Regarding the issue of space, large 16:9 flatscreens, while weighing less, actually take up more space than traditional 4:3 CRT televisions.

Shipping costs killed it for my company. Maintained a fleet of over 250 amusement machines with over half using wells Gardner DI-9200.
I went through over 300 2200 mf caps a year on those. I had to convert
over to Neiman monitors for a while and the freight from Canada was killing us.
Eventually, Neiman transitioned to replacing 29 and 27 inch monitors with
27 inch flat panels (600 bucks plus shipping) each. Company is near out of business now...from amusements to internet service and internet kiosks.
Must have dummstered a couple hundred CRTs with boards when they were phazed out. Most gun games were not working well with flat panels:-(

Let's face it, the last generation of CRT sets built in the noughties were nothing worth bothering with... i actually prefer LCD or plasma sets to them...

Many of you complained about the quality of Chinese CRT sets in the past but maybe you don't have the ultra cheap Turkish made sets we're flooded with here in Europe... these are definitely worse than Chinese sets, their ugly plain cabinets are made of thin crappy plastic with a loosely attached separate base panel and are too weak to support the CRT securely when the back is removed, the chassis is the worst piece of junk you can think about with undersized parts and real poor soldering, the speakers sound like crap, and the CRTs are often from Lithuania or the Czech republic and are usually failing after a few years...

Also the Indian made sets are crappy but they are still better than the Turkish junk...

CRT tubes require very specialized manufacturing. Other retro products that are still around like record turntables do not require such specialized manufacturing processes, being basically mechanical, hence their survival on a much smaller market is more assured.

The picture quality and price drop is very good now for these flat screens. I'm going to get a daily watcher sometime in future w/ extended warranty to avoid any durability issues. A good size set could be bought for several hundred dollars. CRT sets aren't feasible at this point unless $50 to 150$. Of course flat screens don't have nearly the 180 viewing angle of a crt. You can only save money by waiting for price drop, better quality.

The remaining classic sets should be cherished as Americana, but remember, even early semiconductors are being out phased quickly.

I gave up on a project a while ago where parts were a hassle. The ONLY remaining supplier absolutely sheisted for parts, the quality of parts was poor as these refurbished units weren't powered up in years. Future parts may have to come from donor sets.

I suspect 20-30 yrs from now old well made CRT sets with nice heavy chassis and quality wood cabinets will be highly sought after, IMHO. After watching a video of what it take to make a CRT I seriously doubt they will ever come back, just too much of an investment in equipment for what 99.99% of the consumers "think" is inferior quality.

I am sitting here watching a 32" philips that was given to me as part of an "upgrade". the convergence is perfect the screen is bright with deep rich colors, great yellows and even has a tuner that picks up digital signals.

Frankly the pic is so good I really can't see how it could be all that much better, and the idea of dropping hunders or dollars on flat screen which I question the durability of, keeps me happy to stay stuck in the past.

Frankly I don't miss CRT sets for one reason - scanning. LCD sets paint a picture without any flicker at all, and while plamsa sets do flicker (since a phosphor can only be on or of, so it's the length of TIME it's on that controls brightness) there is no line crawl or false motion as you move your eyes across the screen.

Lest we forget, the principle behind plasma displays predates scanning beams. It's the oldest technology. The earliest laptop displays were plasma. Other than differences in HOW the phosphors are excited, CRTs are still with us in the form of Plasma displays.

OLED, the best display technology, is already here, but it's very expensive right now.

...

Frankly I don't miss CRT sets for one reason - scanning. LCD sets paint a picture without any flicker at all
I agree completely. I never did like how CRT TVs flickered unless I looked straight at them. When I visited the UK and Ireland, it was even worse with the 50 Hz refresh rate-those sets flickered constantly for me.

One way that flat panels do beat CRTs is in resolution. Although a CRT HD set looks good, you're missing a LOT of the resolution. I doubt even the best CRT HDTV can resolve more than about half the resolution.
There were two Sony Trinitron CRT computer monitors that could display a full 1920x1080 (actually, up to 1920x1200) resolution, and I connected mine to an HDTV tuner once and the picture was really nice (though not very bright compared to a regular TV set). The model numbers were GDM-W900 and GDM-FW900. Dell, Sun, and Silicon Graphics had their own rebranded versions of at least the GDM-W900.

...

Some patriotic American tycoon (I know that sounds like an oxymoron) needs to buy the rights to the Zenith name and resume CRT manufacturing in the United States. This can be done only by concentrating on the very low end of the TV price range, and the smallest sized TVs - sets that are 9 inches and 13 inches with a 4:3 display. Build them in a low-tax, low-regulation state like Texas with a MSRP in the $90-$100 range. These sets would have an increasing amount of appeal to the American consumer, especially as the economy continues to get worse and retro styles become more popular. On the sets that are 13 inches, emulate the style of the Korean LG retro CRT that came out last year.

And if this were to happen, the Japanese and Korean TV manufacturers would eventually suffer the same problems that RCA and Zenith suffered in the 1980s when they had to compete with lower cost Asian imports. American consumers at that time wanted more reliable and less heavy TVs that cost less. They were getting tired of the big, heavy furniture-sized consoles and wanted portability and lower cost sets instead. The big, expensive, failure-prone Rectangular Plastic Crap (RPC) sets will someday go the way of the dinosaur and something will need to come along to fill that vacuum. Why not CRTs?

I think it is likely, because their image can be utterly brilliant, whereas flatscreens are still struggling with coming near them, and that's only the best of them... Especially in some high end areas, this might simply be the best solution. Like it has already happened with a new curved Alienware monitor that seems to be CRT judging from its brilliant image as well as its relative thickness. I still have an old CRT TV and it's better than anything I've ever seen in flat consumer TVs or monitors. It's the kind of image quality where you often don't notice that it's just an electronic image. With flatscreens you can never really forget.

It's DLP with LED lighting.

http://www.desktopreview.com/default.asp?newsID=868

It's also $8000.

Barring a new development where they can make a 50+ inch CRT that weighs less than 100 lbs and doesn't require a lot of floorspace I don't see them returning.

It's been a while since I last checked, but CRTs have a similar burn in problem that plasma flat screens have or had. And CRTs are far more heavy and bulkier. I like CRTs over LCDs (I think CRTs are better at color reproduction) but plasmas I think can also do that. Only thing is that CRTs take having footballs thrown at them better than flat screens. Many people find that out during the football post season and Superbowl games... :no: :nono:

It's only wishful thinking hoping that CRT's somehow will make a comeback. LED television is here to stay, people like the convenience that the flat panel provides, its easier to move around if need be, and the pictures they provide are outstanding. Enjoy your CRT sets for what they were, they are now a historical landmark in the timeline of progress in electronics technology.

I have a flat screen and two CRT TVs. I intend to keep the CRT sets so that I will have a TV if or when my flat screen goes bad next year (I've had it for a year already; it has a 2-year factory warranty, which is just about when most flat screens bite the dust -- just after the warranty expires). I just read, online, several pages of complaints concerning Sanyo flat screens going bad within a year, and am so glad I did not purchase that brand when I bought my FS TV in August 2011.

My flat screen is an Insignia (house brand of Best Buy) 19" set that has worked (and continues to work) very well over the past year. Insignia says in its advertisements that, in paraphrase, they don't manufacture junk. I'll find out if there is anything to that claim when the warranty on my set expires next year. These TVs are made in China, mostly or entirely of LG parts; LG, which also owns the rights to the Zenith name and crest logo, appears to be a much better brand of HDTV and other video gear (I have an LG Blu-ray player) than many other flat screens on the market today, so I'll just wait and see if the company's claims are credible.

I probably won't like going back to a CRT TV, but knowing that my RCA CTC185, bought new almost 13 years ago and now in storage, still works well I'll just live with it if I have to. I'll just have the cable company (Time Warner in my area near Cleveland) put a cable box on the old set; hopefully, by then, they will have reduced or eliminated the rental fee for these boxes (I read online that these fees may be reduced or even dropped eventually). It won't be HD but I'll at least have a TV, and I will be watching a set that has outlasted, by many years, most of today's offshore-manufactured flat screens.

I've never (yet) heard of any brand of flat screen television lasting anywhere near a decade. I think the manufacturers planned it this way so they will sell more sets, but I do believe it is ridiculous to have to buy a new TV every couple of years -- and for most people that is a strain on their budget they cannot afford. Whenever I read in the blog posts on FS TV makers' websites of people having to do without TV when their flat screen goes, I wonder why they didn't keep the old CRT set (if it still works) as a backup, knowing that the flat set would likely go bad within a year or shortly after the warranty expires, whichever comes first.

Color TV broadcasting in the U.S. went 100% color, in prime time by the 3 networks in the 1965/66 season. By the early 70's, we can say color TV was mainstream after prices dropped substantially. Large screen flat TV's have been around for 14 years.

Today's average buyer, in their 20's and 30's, maybe 40's, will consider a big CRT TV as obsolete, to big, to heavy and not big enough. They were not around to appreciate the romance of the post-war televisions, black and white (I Love Lucy) and the dawn of color television.

Having said that, I suspect that most of us here, are technical types, and TV repairmen, present and former who grew up with CRT televisions and the romance of CRT televisions will remain fond and nostalgic for all of us.

Small correction: 1966-67 was the first with every show in color. The previous season was a patchwork quilt of color and black & white shows.

I'll likely NEVER tire of I Love Lucy......and this show for some reason ONLY looks right fullscreen on big 'ol black and white CRTs and little paper speakers. Looney Toons and Tom&Jerry similarly belong in BIG and glowing color. I just wasn't around for cartoons being on the big wide theater screens.....so they belong on big 'ol Saturday morning TV sets :-)

I'm too damn STUPID to learn how to fix 'em, but I absolutely LOVE the old stuff..

SandyG: It starts with a fuse, next time it's just a tube. Next time you check a couple suspicious lookin resistors, next thing ya know YOUR FIXEM UM.

I agree that OLED is the 'next big thing'... to the consternation of the 3D folks. I've seen a small 15-inch-ish consumer set (Panasonic, maybe?) and while it was too small to evaluate resolution, the overall image, color, and contrast was pretty remarkable.

Our "ancient" Hitchai 55" plasma left for college this week with my son, so we'll be looking for something as a placeholder until Target has an OLED 65" for $800. (Not holding my breath on that one...)

I'd almost rather buy from a craigslist fixer/reseller, as you can actually try it before you buy it, and you know where to go when it needs fixing again.

What's more likely than a CRT comeback is some sort of "Instagram" for video, where the display generates its own oval-screen, cobwebby, slightly scratched overlay, (complete with lighting glare and dead fly in the corner) -- as a frame or skin thru which you view your content. Coupled with B&W/sepia tone color choices, film scratch simulation, and software to un-do pin-registered film-to-tape transfer accuracy. Just like the good old days! Patent pending, of course.

Chip

Chip

I've never (yet) heard of any brand of flat screen television lasting anywhere near a decade.

Now you can say you have. My 1998 Pioneer 50" Plasma is still going strong, and gets daily play. The thing is built like a tank though. I think it has 10 or more fans in it. The old commercial-grade stuff (Pioneer, NEC, etc) can still be found running. Now, consumer-grade stuff is another story ;)

Had I been born a couple of decades earlier(in addition to other perks I could have had) I would have devoted a part of my career to building a thin large screen CRT based on an idea I've had floating in my head for the better part of a decade.

That idea being a "video wall CRT". The term and idea comes from something called a video wall which was a bank of CRT monitors arranged in a grid and each fed a part of an image so that the grid of monitors could display a giant image the size of their combined screen space. The drawback of the video wall of yore was that the image had a window paining effect because of the individual CRT edges and monitor masks.

My idea for a solution for this is to fuse the screens of the CRTs together into a kind of super CRT where each section of the screen is scanned by a different election gun/deflection assembly...In so doing cabinet depth would become an inverse function of not only deflection angle, but also number of gun/deflection assemblies used to collectively scan the whole of the screen. With the flat face CRTs that were made near the end of the CRT era as a base all that would need to be done is to take each electron guns scanning area and mask it off with a shield extending from near the phosphor screen in towards the electron gun so that an individual gun can't scan another guns phosphor section....something like a grid of square tunnels from near an individual electron gun's yoke to near the screen.

Some of the advantages of such a scheme would be(in addition to the obvious lighter weight bigger screen CRT that would result) EASE of incorporating MULTI PIP viewing in to such sets, ULTRA high resolution capabilities(given over eight gun assemblies with each gun scanning a section of phosphor with near NTSC resolution), mostly generic tried and true circuits with some kind of digital frame-store/image-segmenter converter (Might even be able to drive all the yokes with a single pair of deflection circuits and some networks between the yokes to allow for adjustment of sweep angle, centering and linearity), plus all those traits that make CRTs good.

With my idea if one scanned a 50" screen with a 10X10 grid of electron guns each sweeping 5" of screen the set would likely not be much deeper than a normal 5" color CRT set!
If CRTs had stayed longer I'd have kept this idea secret and tried to develop it, but it is a good idea whose time was about past when it was finally conceived, and it is close to worthless now except as a vision of what could be.

Now you can say you have. My 1998 Pioneer 50" Plasma is still going strong, and gets daily play. The thing is built like a tank though. I think it has 10 or more fans in it. The old commercial-grade stuff (Pioneer, NEC, etc) can still be found running. Now, consumer-grade stuff is another story ;)

Bet that thing cost 50 grand new! How about a pic?

I agree that OLED is the 'next big thing'...
I sure hope not. With LCD, we finally got past burn-in and finite-life issues on video displays (within reason), but OLED, though it has viewing-angle advantages over LCD, is a big step backward in the longevity comparison. Thanks to Samsung's AMOLED displays, I have officially seen the first burn-in on a cell phone. Not for me, no way!

What we REALLY need is "regular", non-organic LED display panels. THOSE should be the end-all in video-display technology. Some day...

In around 2005 or so (about the time Stringer showed up and killed all things robot for Sony...and I left..for Kia...to be on the design team for funny little hamster cars), Sony came out with a little OLED set that would run you like $1600. It was VERY small. I think 11" or so.

Every single one of those that friends bought (employee discounts, etc)....are DEAD now. Almost every one of them have lost the blue OLED to age. One I know that was built into an Xbox thing.....is HORRIBLY dead and has a burn-in you ONLY see when it's on.

OLED looked REALLY beautiful.....but even the little "KIWI" computer in one of my cars with a tiny OLED display, is burned in. It always seems the blue is a problem still with longevity. They really HAVE to get past the longevity issues....and of course these are also still WAY too expensive.

So far....I'm having GREAT luck with a 55" Samsung LED backlit set I replaced a dead 37" Viewsonic LCD with (lost a backlight...since replaced and is a FlightSim monitor). That Sammy was like $2,500 about three years ago. I hope it lasts at LEAST five years for that kinda money, but would be of course much happier if I got closer to TEN years out of it before wanting the next thing. At THIS point.....I think LED backlit LCD is deffinately the CRTs killer. I have heard of several things that do go wrong with Samsung LED sets though. I hear ALOT about power supply caps.

I think what will happen to CRT TVs is somewhat like what happened with Steam engined trains. There will be some people like us who restore them and watch them(the VideoKarma group), but no new ones will be made.

As with the train Steam engine-no new ones will be made.

Technology has moved on.

What is the Tech behind Apple's Retina display? Is it just very high resolution LED or?

It's just a high DPI screen with a higher resolution in the same small space.

Every single one of those that friends bought (employee discounts, etc)....are DEAD now.
AiboPet-

Since you are an industry insider, I appreciate your confirming my fears and comments. Beside the burn-in problem I saw on the Samsung AMOLED cell phone (it was a Galaxy S3), I noticed that that display (as well as another AMOLED phone a friend owns) has a serious blue-green tint to it, and I saw comments online that say the blue-green tint is part of an attempt to compensate for the OLED display colors getting weaker as time goes by.

I am sorry to hear that those Sony sets lasted such a short time period. They were also available in the USA for a high price.

I also have a Samsung LED-backlit LCD TV, and it has a wonderful picture with true black on the screen between scenes.

My Samsung LED set is so black that I had to LEAVE the little annoying red "smile" LED indicator configured in so I would KNOW the set is still on. I've seen MANY times when I was playing with it's HDMI inputs and a PC....where I turned the computer off...and even in the dark of midnight....would notice I left the Sammy on. You can NOT tell its still on by looking at it if there is no signal.

And the OLED thing. I have many little "toys" that use an OLED screen....but was told VERY early on to NOT buy that little 11" TV set for EXACTLY that reason. I am in USA (San Diego)...and I do remember that set retailing for like $1600 or so. It was STILL almost a thousand LESS than any of the robots I was writing code for though (Still have one of each model of our AIBO robot). The little KIWI driving computer I have in one of the cars uses an OLED display.....and it usually stays on two bar graphs of "current" and "average" mileage. The two green bars of that graph are burned in, but it's not the same as a CRT burnin. You see it as a loss in brightness. So what I see now is the "bottom" of the two bars...are real dark now (because that area is ALWAYS lit)...and get brighter at the "higher" values that are not always lit up.

The friend who showed me his "portable Xbox" he built many years ago, we put a blank raster on the Sony OLED set to see where the color problems were coming from. A blank white raster will show ALL SORTS of what we thought were "persistancy" problems. A REAL common problem with EARLY lcd screens (which you can "excercise" out). Turns out it's exactly the opposite. Any borders and areas where numbers or stats were constantly displayed...were dark. You don't see OLED burn in when the screen is off like an old CRT. If you have ever seen an old Pac-Man arcade machine with it's original CRT...that is a PERFECT example of CRT burn-in. You'll almost ALWAYS see the "maze" on the screen if the tinted glass artwork is removed (I have an OLD Donkey Kong upright that had this with the original Sanyo monitor). A burned in OLED doesn't show this when off. It just simply doesn't light up those pixels as bright...so you see it especially in bright scenes. The Sony sets....are pretty much all losing the blue pixels faster than the rest because that "recipe" for those pixels was just not quite there for longevity. I'm not really up on the "current" state of this technology though. I do hear that some celphone displays are OLED now...but no idea WHICH ones. I assume my Pantec "Breakout" is still an LCD.

Sony's new Playstation Vita handheld game system has an OLED screen, and most high-end Android phones have some version of OLED now. Samsung likes to use a cheaper "RGBG" version that doesn't have a full triad for each pixel, which gives a blue/green shift to the overall color reproduction. None of them have been out long enough to really get a feel on reliability.

I think there may be some new crt sets being sold in a few deveoping nations.

It's my understanding, that the CRT in my Samsung, is the same CRT used in Pac-man, lol..

If Total Recall accurately portrays what technology will be like in 2084, then yes. Apparently Curtis-Mathes makes a comeback too. Seriously though, someone on imdb complained about the futuristic inaccuracy of this movie, mentioning the presence of CRT monitors and vehicles that still travel on the ground for instance (I dig the ones that vaguely resemble the AMC Gremlin). On a side note, can one imagine the problems caused by air-traveling vehicles? It would be Airport 1975 x infinity. Anyway, I must counter that imdb poster's argument about the CRT monitors by saying that perhaps the general public finally realized by 2084 just how crappy flat-panels are, forcing TV and monitor manufacturers to go back to CRT.

So many CRTs in Bladerunner.....so they just HAVE to come back!

Even my flip top Panasonic TV makes a victorious return from obscurity for 2019!!

They'll likely NEVER make a comeback. The workers will age retire & die off, the glass-blowing machinery will be scrapped, the formulas, specs, etc will be relegated to some warehouse, if not out & out disposed of.

Never will. Too expensive, too heavy...too much lead, too much power, too much heat, too fragile, etc, etc.

It's best for US to keep them around as best we can so we can enjoy them...and show them running 50 years from now. Our next challenge will be to keep video gear going that will output the signals to our modulators. DVI, HDMI and "DisplayPort" (or whatever it's called) are not gonna do it for us.

My sub-collection of the little cheap "Coby" sets in all different configs....is a mild fascination for the "last ever reference design for B/W CRT sets". Alot of companies were having alot of fun making these novelty sets.

I got THIS little set just today...and let's hope this thing....NEVER!....EVER!.... comes back :lmao:

For those curious WHY I got a bright pink BARBIE set....I was quite curious about the big ring around the front for tuning. I just HAD to see this up close....and of course this is another weird presentation of that same chinese reference design, just a little more quirky, and pink is a color I don't have...even if it is a bit different than the other sets of this ilk.

Awwwwww...It's so CUUUUUUUUUTE !

There's HDMI to Composite converters, and coupled with an RF modulator, you're still good to go.

It's actually pretty big and klunky for another cheap 5" B/W set.....but I wanted to see how they handled the big HUGE tuning dial around the outside.

I also find it somewhat amusing that some company trying to "cash in" on the whole Barbie franchise.....actually put some thought into doing something unusual. You KNOW they coulda just taken the same old "jelly set", painted it pink, put some decals on it and call it a Barbie set...and Smithers (The poofter from the Simpsons) woulda TRAMPLED your grandmother to get one!

if THIS set is even running in 20 years....it'll be a curiosity at the very least.

@Inx64.....Glad to see someone is still paying attention to HDMI to composite. I think I saw some VGA to composite stuff once, but for now I am counting on my cable box still having composite outs. I can almost bet the next one will NOT. I'm not sure I will ever go to "UltraHD". It's just a bit much...and I do **NOT** wanna see Andrew Zimmerman or any of those Top Gear idiots in 4K!!

Thing to worry about though, most new DVD players don't have composite anymore.. :/ It's sad.

For now...my little tiny "CyberHome" DVD player does...and goes to my little Tandy switcher (4 sources)...and goes into my HLLY transmitter. I don't think I have watched a DVD on the CRT sets in like two years. I'm switched to the cable box as a source most the time...so that it "extends" my regular TV to allover the house. Another source for the switcher is an Archos AV700 with a 100GB drive for shuffle/repeat of a bunch of vintage stuff when I REALLY wanna play fun stuff on the old sets. I think my switcher still has the S-video input DIN plug for each of it's four inputs if I should ever need it. I may someday put my Panasonic dual-sided LD player back as the fourth source, and I think THAT has S-video out.

What have the newer DVD players gone to as primary output? component? HDMI? I know alot have abandoned S-video, and you don't see S-video as an input on any new sets either...despite still seeing composite in most cases. I think this is because most game systems completely leapfrogged S-video, and composite seems mostly for old game systems.

Well, I'll be the Iconoclast, the old mad fool w/a Blonder-Tongue Agile Modulator, who can transmit strange images to his weird little TVs that aren't "Digital"..

If anyone within two or three houses from me ever "explored" the VHF-high channels....they would find the odd little channel with the vintage stuff I have going 24/7. Nobody ever seems to mention this odd programming though. Other times, they would be curious why the Discovery Channel, History or whatever...shows up at a smidge above channel 13. That little 50 milliwatt transmitter on a regular 'ol pair of rabbit ears....appear to be good for around 400 feet from my second floor. This isn't at all intentional, but I'm glad I can watch something down on the driveway when working on a timing belt or something.

It'll likely be a curiosity for MANY many years if someone ever turns on an old TV around here :P

You know, I'd probably run my agile modulator 24/7, but I get a red OVER light on the video modulation that blinks occasionally, usually when I'm in the antenna's path. I'm assuming that this, like any transmitter, needs a proper antenna match.

Thoughts? A bit off topic, I realize....

I think the over lights are for adjusting before it's modulated.. It happens when something to bright or too loud occurs.

I got THIS little set just today...and let's hope this thing....NEVER!....EVER!.... comes back :lmao:

For those curious WHY I got a bright pink BARBIE set....I was quite curious about the big ring around the front for tuning. I just HAD to see this up close....and of course this is another weird presentation of that same chinese reference design, just a little more quirky, and pink is a color I don't have...even if it is a bit different than the other sets of this ilk.
Wasn't curious about your reasoning for getting it, in fact I was wondering when you would take the plunge on something like this. ;) (not implying anything bad here).

Was really only the price that kept me from getting it before At $39, deffinately the most expensive of the "cheap chinese" ones....but I saw it this time and got it before it got too scarce. I rarely buy something "New In Box"...because a RUNNING set is nice for a change, but I like troubleshooting and fixing them.

I'm not beyond getting a Barbie set.....or if there was a "My Little Pony", "Hello Kitty" one...or even Tinky Winky (I would HAVE to have that...even if just for the funny antenna!). I'm especially fond of quirky....whether it's quirky looks, or even better, some unusual approach to design.

I think I'm gonna look for one of those Zenith miniature wooden console 9" B/W sets pretty soon. They seem to be harder to run across lately...and I really want one.

Better watch out, you might get a break-in from Smithers. ;)

Anyway, got anything like this, micro-man?

http://file.vintageadbrowser.com/iey7rc3w0shpfa.jpg

Yeah....Have one of these but it's not running. Only has sound. Also just got ahold of the little tiny JVC one as well.

This Sinclair has a REAL weird CRT with no yoke. I think it's electrostatic and I have NO idea how to work on one. I only have three sets that are "static display" (not working), and this is one of them. The others are a Panny Tr-1010 that died like a year ago....and a handsome little Sony 9" B/W "9-51UW" that I never really got into yet (sound, no pic). I guess I could also put one of the two Singer TV6U in that category. REAL pretty, but not running (yet).


Oh....I just also got today on ePAY (Was relisted like FIVE times so what the hell)...A perfect version of the CHEESY version of a Barbie TV. Looks to just be a Windsor 5" B/W set that you have seen a MILLION of in the early 80's .....but in PINK, and with a Barbie decal on top. No other Barbie specific stuff. The set even still says "Windsor" on the front. I thought at first someone just customized it, but apparently WAS a real Barbie licensed thing. (Pics when I get it Monday'ish). I generally don't really like those "big long box" 5" sets...but figured I should have at least one, so why not a real weird one.

I don't even know how a flyback could be made to fit in one of those. A CRT without a yoke, that's a new one to me.

Those little Panasonic "TR" sets have a traditional 1.5" CRT....and a little TINY silver box that is it's flyback. I can't seem to get the hang of FIXING them because they are so small and the "flexi" circuits always tear if I get too hamfisted. They also have so many little TINY surface mount capacitors that I'm just not good enough to work with unless I have a "micro workstation" with binocs.

I managed to fix the vertical on the 1010 one time a long time ago (cold joints)...but later turned it into a "basket case" attempting some other repair like a year ago. Now I have a 1030 that has intermittant focus trouble...and I won't look at it for fear of trashing THAT one.