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No more CRT Arcade monitors? :(

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keefyboy:

I'm running on my 1920x1200 monitor I bought 6 years ago. At 1920x1200, no CRT can touch it. No one with half a brain argues that at anything other than native LCDs fall flat - but you don't spec a system to run at other than native anymore. There's no such animal as a new 37" LCD computer monitor - 30" is the max, possibly other than TVs marketed as a PC monitor. Gaming - Fallout: New Vegas looks great on my 6 year old monitor, thank you.

LCDs are cheap as chips - if they don't last beyond 5 years - who really cares? Throw it away and get something better for cheaper. You find me, in 1990s prices, a 24" CRT for under $300. The best one, the Sony 24" GDM-FW900 (widescreen, BTW), was WAY over $1000 new. Used on eBay is $400-$900. I can find 24" LCDs that are way superior by swinging a dead cat for under $300 nowadays. I *almost* rescued a 17" LCD from a *dumpster* for crying out loud yesterday - the deep gouge was the only thing stopping me. If you have an LCD made from 2003-2008 that's dead, learn to solder and replace the blown caps. It is a well-known issue that all makers specced caps that were inferior - Sony and a couple others might have been the exception.

HDTV? No. Your old CRT compared to the latest 60+" LCDs... Don't even go there.

Again, I *HAVE* a CRT for my MAME cabinet. But if you were to ask me to use it for my family's main TV? *sigh* No.

Look - I'm all for using CRTs for classic arcade gaming. But you are wrong if you think there's market support for CRTs going forward. Arcade monitors are a DEAD market, and you and I are holding onto antiques - and I'm not happy about that. Fortunately, Wei-Ya still makes new, large, CRTs. I don't expect to be able to buy a new one on December 23, 2020.

SavannahLion:


--- Quote from: keefyboy on December 22, 2010, 12:31:05 pm ---LCDs are cheap as chips - if they don't last beyond 5 years - who really cares? Throw it away and get something better for cheaper.
--- End quote ---

I love how environmentalists treat LCDs as the best thing since sliced bread yet don't give a second thought to throwing away their TV in under five years.


--- Quote ---If you have an LCD made from 2003-2008 that's dead, learn to solder and replace the blown caps. It is a well-known issue that all makers specced caps that were inferior - Sony and a couple others might have been the exception.

--- End quote ---

I don't believe all the manufacturers spec'ed lower caps. Wasn't it more to do with theft and shoddy Chinese cap formulations we're all still paying for to this day? I still see pc hardware with "Japanese caps" emblazoned on the box.

DJ_Izumi:


--- Quote from: keefyboy on December 22, 2010, 12:31:05 pm ---At 1920x1200, no CRT can touch it.
--- End quote ---

*sets his 70lb Dell Trinitron P1110 CRT to 1920x1200*  Sup? :)

However the P1110 is 4:3 so that's not a good resolution for it to run it, but it can also do 1856x1392 @ 85hz.  Which is infact a HIGHER resolution than 1920x1200. :)

1920 x 1200 = 2 304 000 pixels
1856 x 1392 = 2 583 442 pixels.

So considder your 1920x1200 very much 'touched' by a CRT. :)

MonMotha:

So, here's how things work when you outsource manufacturing to China (and other distant, "low cost" manufacturing centers):

*You send a Bill of Materials for your device
*The manufacturing company alters it to use components and such that they can easily and cheaply buy locally and sends you their revisions for your approval
*You approve or reject their revisions and arrive at a consensus as to what will work but that can be easily/cheaply bought near the factory
*The manufacturer ignores everything you said and substitutes willy nilly to reduce cost as much as possible often several months into a manufacturing run after the initial oversight "heat" has died down
*You end up with merchandise that has components with the same basic specs, but all the subtle "second order" specs are totally unreviewed and may be totally unsuitable for the application

The fun part about this is that things will initially work.  The device will turn on and run, and, as such, it will pass the basic "functional test" QC step.  However, eventually all those "subtle specs" that were unsuitable for the actual application will cause things to break prematurely.

Yes, I'm referring mostly to capacitors, but other easily substituted parts like inductors and resistors also suffer.


If we want to get into a resolution pissing contest, my GDM-FW900s can do about 1900 visible lines at 60Hz.  I don't like 60Hz on CRTs, though, as it's a flickery (and a bit choppy on LCDs, mind you, and you can't go any higher on most LCDs), so I run it at 85+.  At 85Hz, I'm limited to about 1350 lines.  I can actually do 1920x1200 at up to about 96Hz.  DJ_Izumi's P1110 is basically the non-widescreen version of an FW900 (IIRC, it's a Sony GDM-F950 or something like that).  LCD's can't touch these things in many ways, but they are lighter weight and can have slightly better color gamut.

If you want to see something unreal, crank a good CRT up to 160Hz refresh.  Motion is so smooth it seems wrong.  Even the "600Hz sub field drive" plasmas and "240Hz" LCDs can't touch it, mostly because that's all done with fake upconversion whereas an analog video path CRT being refreshed at 160Hz is actually being fed 160 frames per second.

DJ_Izumi:


--- Quote from: MonMotha on December 22, 2010, 04:41:31 pm ---If we want to get into a resolution pissing contest, my GDM-FW900s can do about 1900 visible lines at 60Hz.  I don't like 60Hz on CRTs, though, as it's a flickery (and a bit choppy on LCDs, mind you, and you can't go any higher on most LCDs), so I run it at 85+.  At 85Hz, I'm limited to about 1350 lines.  I can actually do 1920x1200 at up to about 96Hz.  DJ_Izumi's P1110 is basically the non-widescreen version of an FW900 (IIRC, it's a Sony GDM-F950 or something like that).  LCD's can't touch these things in many ways, but they are lighter weight and can have slightly better color gamut.
--- End quote ---

The P1110 isn't that good.  It's only a 21" 4:3 where as the GDM-FW900 is a 24" 4:3.  I listed 1856 x 1392 as it's the highest res I can get these things to ands till do 85hz.  I find that 60hz on these tubes are painful.  That said, I normally run them at 1600x1200 cause anything higher and everything is too small on the screen for my tastes. :)

Right now one of my P1110's is dieing and needs replacement.  Trying to locate one but I also found someone selling an FW900 for $150.  Trying to see if he'll do $50.  I know it's a lowball but you dunno how long a 10yo CRT will last once you buy it.  I've already tossed one P1110 after the heater on the tube died and one is starting to flicker and get overbright so it needs replacement.

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