Can CRT televisions make a comeback in the future?

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by AiboPet

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.

[AiboPet]

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.

[ischmidt]

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.

[rose14]

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

[lnx64]

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

[Jon A.]

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.

[AiboPet]

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!!

[Sandy G]

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.

[AiboPet]

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

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.

[Sandy G]

Awwwwww...It's so CUUUUUUUUUTE !

[lnx64]

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

[AiboPet]

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!!

[lnx64]

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

[AiboPet]

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.

[Sandy G]

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"..