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Behind the Numbers: LCD vs. CRT 290

Posted by CmdrTaco from the cost-of-being-thin dept.
OrenWolf writes "CNet has an article discussing the difference between CRT's and LCD's - where they've been, where they're going, and what to look for when buying one. They inclde information on how to judge the most important (and most overlooked) features in LCD's, the rise/fall of pixels, something that keeps most gamers away from them." Good summary type piece, although nothing exceptional for the more hardcore techie.
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Behind the Numbers: LCD vs. CRT More

Behind the Numbers: LCD vs. CRT

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  • Everytime (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vinnythenose ( 214595 ) on Friday April 05, 2002 @05:21PM (#3292944)
    Everytime I see an article about this sort of stuff I keep praying that OLED monitors will be out soon. Flat, less power required than in LCD, flatter than LCD, bright like CRT and once in full production likely up to 30% cheaper than LCD.

    • Re:Everytime (Score:2, Interesting)

      by SWTP ( 550956 )
      I agree on the OLED! Esp since it looks like they can "print" them on any plasic surface. Problem is water will wreck if not sealed. Some car radio displays have them. There is also a flat pannel tech that is based off of small pointed emitters that has self generated brilance and cheep. Was in MaximumPC about 3 months back I think.

      LCD are nice but feels like a tech being push hard against its limits to do the task.
    • flatter than an lcd?

      how is that possible? all the lcd's I've seen and used were flat as can be. I have 4 sgi 1600sw's (2 in dual head at work and 2 in the same config at home) and I assure you, they're quite flat.
    • Don't they burn out in less than a year of constant use though? I thought I remembered that being a problem when they were discussing using them for cell phones.
      • Often this is the case with new technology. Blue LEDs and blue lasers were like this for a while, but now both are to the point where their lifetime is viable. Same with OLEDs. They're close, but not quite there yet. They're already seeing use in commercial applications (some cell phones have OLED displays) but they're often in places where the short lifetime isn't so much of a problem (i.e. a cell phone display is going to be off when the phone is not in use.) They're not there yet, but that doesn't mean they won't be in 2 years.
    • I'd love an OLED display like everybody else, but until they can come up with a blue OLED that can survive more than a couple of hundred hours, you ain't gonna be able to buy one.......

      Unless you feel like replacing your screen on a monthly basis :)
  • the difference between CRT's and LCD's -

    about $200.

    • about $200.

      Maybe on the low-end, but on the high-end it's more like $2000. And that's the major reason I've stayed away from LCDs, to get one good enough that I would even start to consider replacing any of my Viewsonic CRTs with it would be prohibativly expensive.

  • Recent LCD experience (Score:3, Interesting)

    by crumbz ( 41803 ) <[moc.liamg>maps ... uj>maps_evomer> on Friday April 05, 2002 @05:28PM (#3292980) Homepage
    I recently had a new 18.1" LCD screen from NEC loaned to me for a trial period. Wow. I used it connected to my HP Omnibook and the larger screen was incredible. I forget the resolution I was running, but it was great for working on documents side-by-side. Going back to the 14" on my laptop was disappointing.
  • In a computer store, you'll often see monitors stacked on a rack and connected to a signal splitter that degrades image quality (with the cheapest monitors on top catching the most glare).

    Kind of like the area that I share with my cube friends.. No splitters but monitors everywhere.

    Far from the "ideal" conditions that I doubt anyone really has.
  • Will be an LCD. I'm planning on buying an Apple Cinema 23" to go with my Dual G4. Then I get to move my 19" Viewsonic CRT to the game box and finally get rid of that old, dim dingy Sony Trinitron. Unless of course someone knows how to make it brighter again. I want the Viewsonic on the game machine because I've yet to see an LCD that can keep up with a fast paced game. I do understand that the OLED's that might be coming out soon will be very close. Now if there was a way to hook up one of those 60" plasma screens (and afford one...).

    • Re:My Next Monitor (Score:2, Informative)

      by bmo ( 77928 )
      CRTs can be rejuvenated. There's a device that tv-repair shops use to blast off the crap from the inside of the back end of the CRT (heater, grids, etc). 90 percent of the time it works and you get another 5 years out of the CRT, but it all depends if it's worth blowing 60 bucks (what I used to charge) on an old monitor.

      If it's a Sony, and it's BIG, it's probably worth it. Otherwise, recycle.

    • Now if there was a way to hook up one of those 60" plasma screens (and afford one...).

      I wouldn't recommend this. At least not yet. Granted I don't know alot about plasma technology, but we recently got a shipment at work for a new exhibit. Mostly showing Flash animations, mixed with some video.

      Burn In is a major problem. A static image can cause burn-in within 20 minutes. They are great if the image is constantly moving, but I have yet to see a game that doesn't have some sort of static image always on screen.

    • This is a shameless plug. But it has a good drool factor so it shouldn't be shunned too bad.

      I work for a company, Rainbow Displays [rainbowdisplays.com], that is making a 37.5" tiled LCD. This was previously covered [slashdot.org] here on /.

      The display resolution is 852x480. This is actually a tiled 3x1 display. Don't expect it in stores soon since we are just starting to get a pilot line (400/month) going.

      The pictures of the display on the web site suck. one could say that they are fake and the product is vaporware. Far from it though. While there is still a lot of work to be done, the displays work and are gorgeous to look at.

      BTW, a lot of plasma displays I have seen have VGA and DVI inputs.
    • I don't know about other Trinitrons, but I bought a 15" Sony 5 or 6 years ago.

      After a couple of those years of being on constantly, I noticed that it was dimmer than before. So dim, in fact, that it was getting nearly impossible to read in ambient daylight.

      DejaNews told me that if I were either brave, stupid, or highly skilled, I'd be able to tweak the gain up with a screwdriver. Someone else had mentioned that this would tend to make the focus drift in time. It seemed like a worthwhile pursuit.

      These adjustments are on the flyback transformer. If you don't know how to take reasonable safety precautions to prevent electricity from flowing across your heart, don't go near this thing - or anything else inside of a CRT. It will kill you if you give it a chance.

      That said, the gain (or bias, or whatever - I don't care) and focus are two little recessed screws. I used a plastic screwdriver to turn them. They're the -only- adjustments on the flyback, which appears as a brick on the end of the dust-covered wire that attaches to the top of the CRT.

      Stay away from that wire, too.

      And never do anything with the thing plugged in or turned on. Electricity, in the form of high-voltage DC, will leap forth, grab you by the arm, and burn the hair off of your chest before cooking you like a hotdog. See movie, The Green Mile for details.

      Having said that, I put the monitor (sans most of its plastic chassis) on a non-conductive surface, turned it on, and started fiddling. I turned the gain/bias/whatever knob up until white (#FFFFFF) was blooming a bit on-screen, and then turned the contrast down on the front panel to compensate. The idea being that, if it turned darker in the next year or so, I'd be able to avoid cracking it open again, and instead just push a button on the front panel.

      I also made the focus as dead-on as I could.

      Results: It was a joy to use again. All the lovely Trinitron colorspace, still visible when the sun was out. The focus was sharper than I'd ever remembered it being before.

      2 or 3 years later, the monitor is still quite bright, with no obvious degradation. The focus is still razor-like. Still has the colorspace I've always liked. Still hasn't been opened up again.

      I'm extremely happy with my dingy Sony Trinitron.

  • Price of CRT vs. LCD (Score:2, Insightful)

    by JBark ( 170224 )
    I hope they are comparing the actual viewable screen size when they are compaing the prices of CRTs to LCD. Most people don't realize this, but a 15" LCD has the same viewable area of a 17" CRT, and a 17.4" LCD has the same viewable area of most 19" CRTs. You can't compare a 15" LCD to 15" CRT, since they really aren't the same size.

    • Re:Price of CRT vs. LCD (Score:4, Informative)

      by felipeal ( 177452 ) on Friday April 05, 2002 @06:01PM (#3293131) Homepage
      but a 15" LCD has the same viewable area of a 17" CRT

      Maybe they have the same viewable area, but most of the times not the maximum resolution. Typically, you can get 1280x1024 in a 17" CRT, but not more than 1024x768 on a 15" LCD (on a laptop, for instance, the monitor must be SVGA+ our USVGA to achieve more than 1024x768).
  • In order of importance, here are the top five numbers to look at when choosing between LCD and CRT:

    Dimensions, Refresh rate, Colors, Response time, and Power consumption.

    While I would agree these are all important, why are response time and refresh rate not linked together? I.E., a crappy refresh rate (50Hz) combined with a crappy response rate (60 ms) could possibly lead to trouble. Also missing are contrast and brightness, two more very important aspects.

  • I dunno (Score:2, Insightful)

    by El Pollo Loco ( 562236 )
    I dunno what the big deal is about lcd vs. crt. As far as power, the average desktop user(including me) doesn't care. The desk space, perhaps. But I've already adapted to my 21" monitor taking up most of the space, so what's the big change gonna be. I guess just a few more square inches for me to fill up with trash!

  • Tom's Hardware has an excellent comparison (Score:5, Informative)

    by Canabinol ( 184830 ) on Friday April 05, 2002 @05:34PM (#3293013)
    This article over at Toms [tomshardware.com] does an excellent job of describing the technical differences between CRT and LCD.

    He also has a recent roundup of the current LCD players [tomshardware.com] and what to look for.

    C.

  • all i know is that LCDs are much less fun (Score:4, Funny)

    by limber ( 545551 ) on Friday April 05, 2002 @05:42PM (#3293045) Homepage
    than CRTs to throw off the tops of buildings.

    note: use extreme caution and some common sense when throwing anything from a rooftop.

  • Why I wont buy a LCD for a long time. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Friday April 05, 2002 @05:43PM (#3293052) Homepage Journal
    A few years back, my CEO's wife said, "We should replace all our monitors with LCD flatscreens to make the whole company look high tech to investors" Eventually that kind of free spending drove the company into the ground.

    LCD's are pretty to look at, that's about it. None of them can match the refresh rate of a CRT. (Yes I know LCD's don't really do vertical scan like CRT's do, but most LCD's sample the analog verticle refresh at 60hz then coverts it to digital unless it has a digital interface to begin with)

    If you really want to reduce eye strain, or just simply get work done, a bigger monitor with a high refresh rate (120HZ+)

    Size and refresh rate are the two most important things for me when I purchase a monitor. I don't care if I can hang it on a wall or off my ass. Unless you absolutely need it to be portable, you're better off using a CRT.

    • Re:Why I wont buy a LCD for a long time. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jeffrey Baker ( 6191 ) on Friday April 05, 2002 @06:08PM (#3293166)
      That's really not true. LCDs reduce eyestrain because their horizontal resolution is much higher than CRTs. A 1600x1200 LCD has 4800 pixels across. This wealth is exploited by software like Xfree86's Xft and Microsoft's ClearType, effectively tripling the horizontal resolution of the screen for reading text. The result is much less eyestrain when reading text on an LCD.

      The other problem with CRTs which causes eyestrain is movement. Display a web page on a CRT, then look at a glyph under a magnifying glass. The glyph will be shaking slightly. Even the best CRTs do this, because the scanning process has some inherent inaccuracy. This problem does not affect LCDs. The pixels on an LCD are mechnically fixed and cannot move. When using a digital LCD, there are no PLLs and amplifiers to distort the signal.

      The combination of these two things means LCDs cause much less eyestrain than CRTs.

    • Refresh rate matters for CRTs because low refresh gives you "flicker". Refresh is irrelevant with LCDs because there is no "flicker" because there is no electron gun lighting one pixel at a time.

      I've long had problems with monitor flicker, even 85 Hz refresh. (I like having both high refresh and high resolution so I never really did the 120Hz thing...) I haven't had any problems with refresh since getting a LCD.

      Your point about larger screen size reducing eyestrain remains relevant with LCDs however.

      --LP

    • A few years back, my CEO's wife said, "We should replace all our monitors with LCD flatscreens to make the whole company look high tech to investors" Eventually that kind of free spending drove the company into the ground.

      That has nothing to do with the viability of LCDs and everything to do with the stupidity of the CEO and the financial acumen of the spending department of your company.

      LCD's are pretty to look at, that's about it. None of them can match the refresh rate of a CRT. (Yes I know LCD's don't really do vertical scan like CRT's do, but most LCD's sample the analog verticle refresh at 60hz then coverts it to digital unless it has a digital interface to begin with)

      Well, you said it yourself. Get a digital LCD with a digital interface. That should slaughter the refresh of just about *any* CRT. There's no flicker at all, even though the refresh is only '35' Hz, it's refreshing the whole screen 35 times a second, instead of scanning a single row of pixels 75 times a second.

      Of course personal preference rules, and if you prefer a CRT to an LCD, that's your choice.

      If you really want to reduce eye strain, or just simply get work done, a bigger monitor with a high refresh rate (120HZ+)

      Of course, to be fair, a monitor that can do 120Hz refresh is equivalent to an LCD screen that has 160 degree viewing angle and digital input, IE, not cheapo.

      Size and refresh rate are the two most important things for me when I purchase a monitor. I don't care if I can hang it on a wall or off my ass. Unless you absolutely need it to be portable, you're better off using a CRT.

      Barring the lone Sony 24" (viewable 22.5"), LCDs are bigger, with Apple selling a 22" and 23" (22" and 23" viewable), with IBM, Samsung, and Philips offering similar sizes.

      Refresh rate is personal, but from my eye, an LCD with a 40Hz refresh beats everything I've seen short of a CRT set at 90Hz; but again, that's personal preference. If I were to choose between a Sony Trinitron vs a 17" cheapo LCD, the Trinitron wins. If I were comparing a 21" Goldstar with a 17" Apple LCD, the Apple LCD wins. Design quality means something too.

      • Apple's LCD prices are insane. They're very cool, but for the price of one of the 23" cinema displays, I can get 2 high-end 21" CRTs (and video cards to drive them.) $3500 is a lot of dough to waste on a computer monitor, especially when there are alternatives that are just as good (high end CRT displays will match any LCD image quality and eye-strain wise, without the drawbacks of LCDs.)

        My father runs an ad agency on Macs. When they bought some new G4s, they went out and bought some Sony professional CRTs, not the Apple LCD displays. Why? Price really wasn't an issue; they'll make far more money off these machines than they could ever spend on them, but it was simply that the high-end CRTs are exactly what they need. No need to be flashy and try to impress people with some funky flat LCD, just get some professional monitors that work well.

        Also, LCDs develop burn-in rather quickly (24 hours or less, iirc) and expensive CRTs(though still cheaper than LCDs) won't burn in for months. They have an automated network backup system that powers down the computers every night, so they leave them running every night from whenever they leave to go home till about 9pm. I'm not saying LCDs are bad, I just wouldn't buy one for a workhorse computer or a gaming machine. Too expensive, and I'd get better results with a CRT.
        • Different needs and requirements have different solutions.

          CRTs have moire, convergence, focus, and alignment 'issues'.

          LCDs have viewing angle-color shifting and refresh speed 'issues'.

          CRTs can cause headaches for some people.
          LCDs ghost too much for some people.

          LCDs are too expensive, and CRTs are to heavy/bulky.

          You can't weld a CRT to a laptop, as an example :)
    • The big problem with LCD's is that they're optimized for one resolution, which is not a great idea IMHO. At least the newest LCD's don't have the motion blurring problem that made LCD's very unpleasant to use on multimedia applications.

      This is the nice thing about CRT's--they look good over a wide range of resolutions. On my MAG DX1795 monitor at home, I run 1024x768 @ 75 Hz, though I can in a pinch run 1152x864 @ 70 Hz if I need to see larger images.

      Today's really good 19" monitors from Sony, NEC, Idek Iilyama and Viewsonic can display all the way up to 1600x1200 @ 85 Hz very cleanly, though at 1600x1200 resolution objects on screen are displayed a bit too small for my taste.
  • Apple Cinema Display is absolutely coveted by most of the graphics designers i've met in the last year or so.

    • Re:"Graphics designer would not touch a LCD" -- BS (Score:5, Informative)

      by John Whitley ( 6067 ) on Friday April 05, 2002 @06:03PM (#3293143) Homepage
      Not only are the Apple Cinema (and Studio) LCD displays coveted by graphic designers and other professionals who do color work, you can actually use external color calibration equipment with them just as is done with CRTs and get reliable results for production printing. This article's information, while accurate for run-of-the-mill LCDs, perpetuates a lot of "old news" about LCD tech that is soon to go by the wayside.

      BTW, the stated viewing angle on these is 170 deg, and they darn well mean it. Comparing (e.g.) a laptop LCD to these is wholly inaccurate -- not all LCD panels are created equal these days.

      Anyone know of other displays that have managed to ship with panels of this quality?
      • Viewsonic VP201mb [viewsonic.com] and VP230mb [viewsonic.com] are the some nicest LCD monitors. I've no idea how good their color-fidelity is, though.

      • BTW, the stated viewing angle on these is 170 deg, and they darn well mean it. Comparing (e.g.) a laptop LCD to these is wholly inaccurate -- not all LCD panels are created equal these days.

        Any decent laptop screen is **DESIGNED** to have a narrow viewing angle, so the guy sitting next to you on the plane can't read your document.
        • Good point, but that view isn't shared by all consumers or manufacturers these days. Recall that laptops are often used for presentations, such that huge displays w/ wide viewing angles are considered a positive feature.

          Moreover, with laptops becoming a popular home computing system due to small size, portability, and convenience... this has been changing the demographic away from the jet-setting to the couch-sitting. I've had friends in the former category actually complain about the wide viewing angle on newer laptops for just the privacy reason you mention. The usual solution is an add-on privacy screen that replicates the por viewing angle of older LCD panels... 8-)

  • As a gamer I've been waiting for good LCDs because they're much easier to carry to a LAN party then my 19" monitor.

    I've just found the 18.1" NEC 1850x [necmitsubishi.com] which supposedly has a refresh rate of 15ms from black to white and white to black, but am uncertain if this is "real" anyone seen any reviews? From what I've read this would make a good gaming LCD monitor. Though I must say the $1300 pricetag is a kick in the wallet.

    Anyone found any new technology that will make us wish for something other then LCDs? I've seen all the articles about the different process technology for LCDs, but nothing exciting.

    Anyone seen DLP [dlp.com] flatscreen monitors? DLP seems to do everything you want, they make kick ass tvs.

  • Poll Suggestion (Score:2, Interesting)

    by brogdon ( 65526 )
    This is a little OT, but can we get a poll to see what kind of monitors everyone is using and in what sizes? I'd love to know how many of us are using LCDs or dual-monitor setups, and what size screen most /.ers gaze upon daily.
    • I'm using a SGI 1600SW flat panel display. It's about a 17" flat screen but it runs at 1600x1024 resolution on its wide screen. If you're familiar with the Apple Cinema Display, the 1600SW looks like a darker 3/4 scale model.

      If finances permit, I'm planning to replace it with the new Apple Cinema HD display (1920x1200 resolution). A shade expensive at $3,500.

      I love the LCD monitors because they have incredibly sharp text, and as you probably know most geeks spend more time looking at text than pictures. High ext sharpness reduces fatigue and eyestrain significantly, making the LCD well worth the extra bucks.
    • I'm using a MAG DX1795 at home right now. I want to get a good 19" CRT monitor from either Viewsonic, Sony or Samsung once I have the money. :-)
    • At home: 17" TTX 1787 CRT, 800x600, 100hz. Higher resolution = harder to see stuff, less refresh rate = instant killer headache. ;)

      At work...usually a 17" generic CRT at 800x600, 85hz (damn cheap embedded video systems...ow, my head... ;) )

      On most monitors, I have to have the brightness/contrast maxed out, unless it's a brand-new high-quality screen. Dark monitors also give me headaches. ;)

      I detest LCD screens. I have never seen one I would consider using except on a laptop or somewhere else where portability was essential. Every LCD I've looked at (even the really good ones) has annoying color shifts as I change my viewing angle, fuzzy screens, poor motion display, and are usually far too dim and faded for me to use for extended periods. Not to mention the fact that they're usually "best viewed at" some ungodly high resolution that I can't see with or without my glasses (said glasses make a 17" screen appear about 13-14"... :-/ ). No thanks. I'll stick with my nice, crisp, bright, sharp CRT, thanks ;)

      DennyK
  • If you want a damn good techie white paper on the basic physics and engineering of LCD technology, I recommend the mildly dated but still highly informative SGI 1600SW white paper [sgi.com].

    Their display used to have the unique advantage of a very low pixel response rate, great for avoiding ghosting in video, but I can't seem to confirm that in their specs nowdays.

    --LP
    • I have a 1600SW, but their newer panel is a more or less typical 18" unit which doesn't seem very distinguished compared to the competition.

      It does have a very fast pixel response; I can send my mouse on long voyages to the mysterious worlds on the right of the screen, and it never seems to echo.

      I like it a lot but want to get the Apple Cinema Display HD thanks to the huge number of pixels it has and the physically much larger screen. Curiously, it claims excellent pixel response, but for some reason the spec doesn't give figures - anyone know what it is? (List for either the plain Cinema Display or the new HD).

      What does seem odd is that Apple's specs put it in the middle of the pack for LCD screens per the c|net article, but when I actually use an Apple Cinema Display, it seems brighter than anything out there. So either the article's wrong or Apple is quite a bit more conservative in its specs than one might think.

      D

  • LCD's are horrible for photographs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PhantomHarlock ( 189617 ) on Friday April 05, 2002 @05:54PM (#3293098)
    The current generation of LCD displays are terrible for viewing photographs. The square pixels and variable contrast makes for a number of bad artifacts:

    1. JPEG compression is terribly magnified on an LCD. look at a typical Yahoo News press photo on an LCD and then on a CRT, especially close ups of people.

    2. Contrast is variable from top to bottom while looking dead center: On my recent model VAIO laptop, when looking at the screen from dead center, the top is too dark, the bottom is too bright. (in terms of black level)

    3. Colors shift depending on left to right viewing angle, and typically subtle hues of red and blues and purples will not appear as pleasing and natural as they do on a CRT.

    4. Overall gamma is poor, with the falloff happening in all the wrong places, which wrecks havok on portraits and figure photography. (which means yes, pr0n!)

    So it's interesting to note that on a recent visit to Vertis studios in San Francisco, the people who often do the Macy's catalogs, that each digital photography station consisted of a high end scanning back camera and a macintosh with a 22" LCD monitor! I mentioned this to one of the supervisors and he said "Yea...we're aware of the problems with LCD...we carefully calibrate them and make sure to stare at them dead center, or we get the color shift problem left to right." I figured that someone had sold them on those setups purely for the 'cool' value, and they fell for it hook line and sinker.

    He then took me into the finishing room, where, to my pleasure, there were several workstations outfitted with high end CRT monitors with hoods around them. I knew there was no way they were doing catalog work without CRT's, given the pickiness of fashion retailers over the color accuracy in the catalogs.

    When I was working at Digital Domain in Hollywood, as well as every other VFX company I've ever worked for, there was nigh an LCD in sight, because you can't do critical adjustment on an LCD.

    Despite all this doom and gloom, it IS getting better all the time, and eventually, unless it's replaced by DLP or other "every pixel is a tube" flatscreen technology, then I'll be calibrating my photographs for viewing on LCD, because that's what everyone will have. Until then, I prefer my high end Sony FD trinitron above all else.

    --Mike

    • Re:LCD's are horrible for photographs (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Otterley ( 29945 ) on Friday April 05, 2002 @06:02PM (#3293139)
      Saying LCDs are bad because you can see JPEG compression artifacts is like saying microscopes are bad because you can see germs in them.

      JPEG is lossy compression and always has had artifacting. Because you've never seen it before says more about the blurry monitors you're used to than anything else.
      • I agree - LCDs are cool because you *can* see JPEG compression artifacts. I use a laptop to save/view photos while I'm out of town. The camera can also plug into the TV but the LCD is about 1,000,000,000x better than the shoddy TV picture. I'll take the LCD anyday for viewing photos...

        I have wondered though if professional digital photographers will start a demand for tiny CRT monitors. Think of a 5" CRT that can do fairly high resolutions... Just a pipe dream and probably the degree of percision required to get a good picture at high resolution on a CRT plus the market size would make it a no go for any sane person.

        But it would be interesting...
      • Saying LCDs are bad because you can see JPEG compression artifacts is like saying microscopes are bad because you can see germs in them.

        Absolutely. I watch my old DivX encoded B5 episodes on an LCD, as well as my current crop of Enterprise MPEG4 encoded episodes, and on the 18.1" LCD you do see the artifacts (though it is quite watchable from typical TV viewing distance).

        Watch the same videos on a CRT and most of the artifacts go away ... indeed, the DivX v. DVD comparison starts to make DivX look pretty good.

        Do the same thing with MJPEG or raw ieee1394 on the other hand, and the LCD, sans the glare of the CRT, looks much better. No flicker, no glare, just crisp, clear, beautiful video. And for viewing DVDs .... it is very nice (although interestingly the DVDs have many more atifacts than either the raw ieee1394 or MJPEG video does, on both the CRT and LCD ... go figure).

        And on my 4x3 18.1" ViewSonic I've not been able to create scaling or motion artifacts (though on a colleagues 16:10 SGI Flatpanel they are regrettebly there, in the form of ugly horizontal lines about 1/4 inch long, that go away if a max screened xine is moved one or two pixels to the right. Most odd.)
    • LCD's really are dramatically better than they used to be. Mike Massee's statement above was certainly true a few years ago, but it is no longer the case. At Illusion Arts, many of the matte painters are using LCD screens. Some of these people went straight from real paint to LCDs without ever seeing CRTs.

      thad
    • Why are square pixels bad? What's better - _round_?! Or would you prefer some wierd rectangular pixel? Seems to me the most pixel per space would be square or rectangular. The nice digital cameras (high-end ones) have square pixels in them, so the original picture is being taken with square pixels in the originals now. I'd rather have square pixels.

    • Re:LCD's are horrible for photographs (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear.pacbell@net> on Friday April 05, 2002 @06:46PM (#3293371) Homepage
      Not trying to pick an argument, but some thoughts on your opinion:

      "The current generation of LCD displays are terrible for viewing photographs. The square pixels and variable contrast makes for a number of bad artifacts:"

      I suspect the problems have as much to do with software being optimized for CRTs as much as real problems with LCDs.

      "1. JPEG compression is terribly magnified on an LCD. look at a typical Yahoo News press photo on an LCD and then on a CRT, especially close ups of people."

      I would argue that this actually says more about the visual clarity of the LCD, in being able to pick up the artifacts that CRTs blur away.

      It's akin to claiming that certain brands of cameras with extra high speed film and extremely good lenses are bad for taking portraits because all of the makeup, flaws, and blemishes show up in the photographs, and that it's better to use a slower film and a less precise lens.

      "2. Contrast is variable from top to bottom while looking dead center: On my recent model VAIO laptop, when looking at the screen from dead center, the top is too dark, the bottom is too bright. (in terms of black level)"

      It is certainly true that CRTs have a wider viewing angle and more uniform color because each pixel is more like a point light source that radiates in a sphere, where an LCD pixel is a cone of light. Newer LCDs, like Apple 15" and 23" LCDs, have much better contrast ratio, 350:1, better viewing angle, 160 degrees in either dimension, and better brightness, at 200 nits, than their older 22" LCD;300:1 and 180 nits. I can't google anything about the VAIO laptops, but it's not uncommon for, say, a ViewSonic 17" LCD to hit 220 nits and a 300:1 contrast ratio; brighter and more evenly lit, but not nearly as black.

      "3. Colors shift depending on left to right viewing angle, and typically subtle hues of red and blues and purples will not appear as pleasing and natural as they do on a CRT."

      This does have something to do with the viewing angle; as per the 'pleasing or natural bit', that's about color optimization, I believe. LCDs have a different gamut and visual quality than a CRT, and if the software doesn't take that into account, that's like having overhead flourescent lights on a CRT without a hood!

      "4. Overall gamma is poor, with the falloff happening in all the wrong places, which wrecks havok on portraits and figure photography. (which means yes, pr0n!)"

      Can't speak for that, you may be right about the gamma.

      "So it's interesting to note that on a recent visit to Vertis studios in San Francisco, the people who often do the Macy's catalogs, that each digital photography station consisted of a high end scanning back camera and a macintosh with a 22" LCD monitor! I mentioned this to one of the supervisors and he said "Yea...we're aware of the problems with LCD...we carefully calibrate them and make sure to stare at them dead center, or we get the color shift problem left to right." I figured that someone had sold them on those setups purely for the 'cool' value, and they fell for it hook line and sinker."

      No, there are real reasons to use a LCD over a CRT, more than just 'cool' value.

      Size, energy output, eyestrain-flicker, digital precision (digital input to digital output, consistent guaranteed visual quality across all LCDs if gamut and color space are taken into account, etc), and visual precision (no convergence, alignment, moire, or focus problems).

      LCDs suffer from different problems entirely; instead of moire, convergence, focus, or alignment problems, they suffer from narrower visual focus, and lower contrast ratio and brightness. In fact, LCDs are *much* sharper than just about any CRT because there is no alignment, no convergence, no focus problems because there's no reliance on three electron guns aimed at a phosphor coated screen.

      You also have the issue that CRTs aren't linear, where an LCD can be made so. CRT electron guns are nonlinear devices between the 0 and 1 signals, while an LCD's ramp between the totally off and totally on signal *is* linear; I'm talking about the value of Red0-Red255, or Blue0-Blue255, or Green0-Green255.

      Then there's refresh. CRTs must refresh a line at a time, where LCDs refresh the whole screen at once; less headache, less flicker, less eyestrain.

      "He then took me into the finishing room, where, to my pleasure, there were several workstations outfitted with high end CRT monitors with hoods around them. I knew there was no way they were doing catalog work without CRT's, given the pickiness of fashion retailers over the color accuracy in the catalogs."

      This will change when designers and fashion retailers start using LCDs; then when you have digital images end to end, you can start seeing more focus on better compression algorithms (ne horrible JPEG artefacting), better gamma and gamut and color space taking advantage of the fact that LCDs have linear color response and deterministic color response.

      "When I was working at Digital Domain in Hollywood, as well as every other VFX company I've ever worked for, there was nigh an LCD in sight, because you can't do critical adjustment on an LCD."

      You couldn't do it, doesn't mean you can't. There are problems right now, but doesn't mean there also aren't advantages.

      "Despite all this doom and gloom, it IS getting better all the time, and eventually, unless it's replaced by DLP or other "every pixel is a tube" flatscreen technology, then I'll be calibrating my photographs for viewing on LCD, because that's what everyone will have. Until then, I prefer my high end Sony FD trinitron above all else."

      Yeah, new technologies and software (such as Apple going all LCD) should help a lot.
  • would be for size, or the lack therof. My new tower takes up far too much room by itself, add my 17" Monitor, and we're lookin' at ENIAC, for cripe's sake.

    Not to mention the huge amount of heat CRTs put out! In my old apartment, my gas went out (ok, I didn't pay the bill :P), but my computer room was always toasty warm with 3 CRTs going. You haven't lived, till you've used a Mac SE for a foot-warming ottoman!

  • The article mentioned that graphic art types prefer CRTs because of a more true color depth? This being the result of the electron gun having better intensity control than LCD. (Article's point, not mine) I'd like to know why SGI makes such awesome flat panels? When I worked with a wide-screen flat panel SGI monitor, I was so taken back by how sharp the image was and how easy it is to read a wide monitor, I never wanted to go back.

    But wouldn't SGI reject the LCD monitors due to color quality? What's the story there? Are the SGI monitors better than PC flat panels?

    • Re:Question about Graphic Artists?? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by stubear ( 130454 ) on Friday April 05, 2002 @06:05PM (#3293154)
      The reason graphic artists (like myself) avoid LCD monitors is because of the lack of consistency of luminance across the entire screen. The same color can look completely different because its brightness value doesn;t look the same even though, according to the software, it is. If you are working on any work which requires color accuracy, this will not do. Hopefully the OLEP screens will eliminate this luminosity problem and larger screens will be available at a much more affordable price.
  • LCDs have held a lot of promise, and I have been told that the Apple Cinema display was the culmination of what LCD brings, and I got a chance to use one and was extremely disappointed.
    Truly, I didn't see any hint of ghosting effect, and the absence of refresh is nice to know, but has no visual impact. The idea that the signal is kept digital logner doesn't make a damn bit of difference to me, but the more precise usage of the visible screen does.
    However, the thing still looked bad in terms of color and brightness. On smaller LCDs the field of vision is pretty good, but when you have something the size of a Cinema display, looking at any particular part of the screen makes the portions away from focus really dark. While LCD tech has drastically improved, it doesn't seem to scale well at close distances (my subjective experience). I have never seen an LCD with an adequate viewable angle. Now OLEDs may become what LCD should have been. LCDs are certainly not worth the extra cash, but an OLED display might be more tempting, all the pluses of LCD with none of the disadvantages...

  • My main monitor is a 17" HP F70 LCD; it is sharp, brilliant, fast, and clear at 1280x1024. I play StartFleet Command, Wizardry 8, Heroes of Might & Magic IV, Destroyer Command, and Combat Flight Simulator with no problems at all.

    Of course, I could have bought three nice 19" CRTs for the same price, but the CRTs would have continued to give me a headache, I suspect. My eyes don't twitch after 12 hours of coding on the LCD... and that's worth something.

    My advice -- stay away from cheap LCDs and the bargain 15-inchers. You get what you pay for...

  • From the article (2nd page): "To vary the transmission of light through color filters, LCDs use magnetic fields to twist particles floating in a liquid--an inherently less precise process."

    No, LCD's use electric fields. CRT's use magnetic fields to focus and scan the beams. Why do tech-oriented mags hire technical idiots?
  • LCDS
    Pros:
    weight

    Cons:
    Pixel Burnouts
    Ghosting
    Price
    Viewable Angles
    Native resolutions

    Monitors
    Pros:
    Cost
    Picture Quality is Better
    DVD & Movie playback (No ghosting)
    Ajustable Refresh (its not a con, when its selectable!)
    Ajustable resolutions

    Cons:
    Size

    Humm, Ill stick with my 22 inch flat screen monitor which is perfect. Ill use a LCD for when space is tight, thats it.
    • More LCD Pros:
      Power consumption
      Digital interface
      Sub-pixel text rendering

      More CRT cons:
      Power consumption
      Power supply & amp failure
      Analog interface
      Focus
      Convergence
      Radiation

      Seriously, I have sitting right here on the desk with me the Sony GDM-F500R, still the best monitor Sony makes, and a Samsung SyncMaster 210T, both running at 1600x1200. There is no contest. I can stare at source code continuously with the Samsung (thanks to the sub-pixel rendered text, the horizontal resolution is 300dpi), but with the Sony I need to take breaks. Focus and convergence on the Sony are worse in proportion to the distance from the center of the screen. The Sony needs to go to Irvine, CA (100lbs shipping cost) for professional adjustment and maintenance every two years or so.

      Sure, the CRT has terrific color and response, but that isn't enough to overcome its annoying electro-optical problems.

  • stuck pixels (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dickens ( 31040 )
    Here [iastate.edu] is an article entitled "LCD Panels and Customer Expectations". It talks about "stuck pixels" among other things.
  • My laptops have LCD displays. My IPAQ IA-1 has an LCD display. And we have an LCD display on the console switch for the servers, because, when the power is out, I want 24W on the UPS, not 240W.

    That's it. For everything else, for now, CRT's are superior. The 19" monitor I'm working on right now displays 1600x1200 crisply, can go higher if I really want to, and yet, can produce 800x600 without artifacting.

  • Some wrong information in article (Score:3, Insightful)

    by yakfacts ( 201409 ) on Friday April 05, 2002 @06:19PM (#3293218)
    One of the "questions and answers" claims that
    when purchasing a tube-type (CRT) monitor, "any CRT will do".

    I won't bother being graceful here. That's a bunch of crap.

    Cheap monitors are junk. The CRT is the major difference between cheap and good-quality monitors. I am typing this on an NEC MultiSync FE950+ which is a beaufiful flat-face CRT monitor. It costs a lot more, but it is worth it. The other two monitors on my desk (a Sun/Sony 20E20 and a Misubishi DiamondTron) are of similar quality. They will last me through several computers...in fact, the Mitsubishi already has.
    • Right on about the cheap CRTs. I have a Nanao T2-17TS that I bought in 1995 for just under $1000. It still has a beautiful picture, and can support high refresh rates even at 1600x1200. The controls are modern, and it has all the adjustments you could want, including Moire and tilt controls. It has HD-15 and RGB BNC inputs. Also, the video cable separates from the monitor, which is an important feature you don't get with el-cheapos.

      I think the PC I owned at the time had a mighty AMD 486-100 CPU, and a VESA localbus video card from Orchid. Seven years later it looks even better with a P-III and a GeForce3 driving it. I also have a Micron brand 19" monitor, that came with my Micron brand PC, but it just does not have the sharpness of the Nanao. And the video cable is permanently attached.

      My new Inspiron 8100 laptop with Radeon Mobility 7500 (64Mb!) and 15" UXGA+ is the first laptop I have used that is definitely game-ready. The display is fast - really fast (< 25ms up/down cycle). Q3A at 1600x1200x32 is awesome, with only the slightest touch of shearing or smearing. It totally kicks butt.
    • One of the "questions and answers" claims that
      when purchasing a tube-type (CRT) monitor, "any CRT will do".

      I won't bother being graceful here. That's a bunch of crap.

      You're right. Try quoting their full statement next time:

      "Almost any CRT will do." And then you click on that statement, and they provide more information about what they mean. "Virtually any CRT monitor on the market today will provide a stable, acceptable image for most applications."

    • Amen! Can I hear another! "Amen!"

      I get asked a lot about what computers to buy, what's good, what's bad.

      My advice has been consistant for years: spend whatever money it takes to get a good monitor, sacrificing CPU speed, HDD size, or RAM--whatever it takes. You spend all of your time looking at the monitor, and almost none waiting on the computer. Get a good monitor that's big enough to see stuff. Nothing is sadder than to hear some dweeb going on about his P4, 1.9Ghz, 1Gig RAM, and watch him look at the world through a blurry 15in monitor.

      I like Trinitrons (those are usually decent), some of the NECs and Hitachis (or RasterOps, which are just rebranded Hitachis).

      Spend that cash on a good monitor. You can always carry it over to your next computer, or upgrade your current box. Good monitors (and keyboards, but good keyboards are still cheap) make the computing experience safer and more pleasurable.

  • I just bought a new notebook, a Dell Inspiron 8200, but I'm still waiting for it to arrive (still a month away).

    I went for one of the new UltraSharp (aka Enhanced UXGA) [dell.com] LCD.

    Has anyone seen one of these LCDs, or have any comments on their performance?
    • I ordered an 8200 as well, but didn't get the Enhanced version of the display. This discussion is making me think I should call them up and dump the extra $100. The contrast ratio increase is quite significant.

      I wish I could get it with LOWER resolution though. I'm afraid that 1600x1200 on a 15" monitor is going to kill my eyes. I think this stuff is just designed for Windows, where you are expected to bump the font size up. Oh well, I guess I can start 16 terminal sessions at once.
      • I recently got an 8100 with he UXGA display, and I had all of your fears, and they've all since been eliminated. It's flat out the best display I've ever used. Text is small, but it's so sharp that it's very easy to read. People who look at it are amazed. And I can't find a single dead pixel on the thing.
  • IBM has had a ~$2k 20.8 inch 2048x1536 ITQX20 TFT display [ibm.com] with very deep blacks and great viewing angle for about three years already. I have seen it in real life. It is very nice. Unfortunately, everyone who makes a monitor around this card wants ~$6k for the monitor and video card. This is understandable since quantities are low at that price point and it is necessary to stock and ship a bunch of these displays.

    What I wish someone would make is a kit consisting of everything except display module, which one could buy directly from IBM. That is: a plastic housing for the display, a power supply and a video card. The video card needs to be driven by 4 24-bit LVDS transmitter chips, which were $8 each when I looked in it--I think the chip may have beeen the National Semiconductor DS90CF581 [ibm.com]. 4 x $8 = $32 chip cost x 5X markup for retail = $160 additional cost of video card plus cost of two LVDS connectors (using the hokey rule of thumb that I've heard that total electronic component costs are typically 20% of the suggested retail prices of the resulting product).

    Without the need to stock the display component, there would not have to have such a big mark up to cover storage, damage, etc. I think the kit without the display could easily cost under $1k.

    The video card would be the significant engineering task. The two LVDS streams have to be kept in sync, so you cannot just use two of the LVDS cards that can drive an SGI-1600SW display. It looks like you really do have a make a new video card. The big question that I had not gotten around to researching was whether were was a VGA chip or chip set that could deliver the digital output for two screens without convering the signal to analog,that is deliver two 24-bit parallel streams (the display interface is basically that of two 1024x1536 LVDS flat panels, side by side). There are a number of dual head VGA cards. I just never got around to looking into whether it was possible to get digital output from their chips.

    I think that if a kit like this were available, some computer retailers would assemble it and the panels to offer the finished product, and that would reach untapped section of the flat panel market that I think there should be significant deamnd for (a $3k 20.8" TFT for CAD, engineeringing, graphic art, etc.).

    One minor drawback that might slightly impede the popularity of this display as it gets closer to the consumer range is that the housing for it is currently not very thin. The housing is about four inches thick, making it a bit less sexy looking from the side than most other flat panels.

    • Oops. I meant to links to existing products based on IBM's 20.8" 2048x1536 ITQX20 module. Here they are.

      Raintree Systems IN 2080-50 [raintreesystems.com] and National Display's Nova [nationaldisplay.com] have the standard IBM dual LVDS digital inputs. I think there was an outfit in the UK called "Gemini Electonics" that was going to produce a similar device, but I could not find a link to them right now. RealVision has a dual LVDS video card [rvu-inc.com] for driving these monitors, although they promote it more for the electrically identical 6144x1536 grey scale version of the ITQX20. Finally, IBM's T-210 [monitoroutlet.com] apparently uses the ITQX20 module, but only allows analog input, and only at something like 30Hz if you want to full resolution.

      I have no financial relationship to any of these vendors.

  • during the last 25 years of working with computer and video screens:

    1. Uncalibrated monitors are worthless except for texual information. Might as well be black and white. Hardware calibrated is best. Calibrated by eye with test patterns is better than nothing.

    2.) Ambient light is key. Correct light is a source behind the monitor (no other sources) that is roughly (no more than) 20% as bright as the light from the monitor, and has the same color temperature. Refresh is key. Incandescent is best, or match the refresh of flourescent to monitor refresh. One of the best ways to get a headache is standard office setup: overhead flourescents oscillating at a different, subliminally perceived, refresh than the monitor's subliminally perceived refresh. And at a different color temperature. At first, you don't notice, but your brain is going "WTF!?! Are you TRYING to hurt me?!?!"

    3.) Trinitrons suck. All inline tubes suck. Triads of dots, not stripes, are best for displaying anything not rectilinear and vertical. Trini's are nice and sharp when looking at office buildings; look at curves (or rotate the office building 14.3 degrees) and your res has just dropped through the floor due to aliasing) As Joe Kane (Google it) said, "When I look at a Trinitron, all I see is stripes".

    There's LOTS more. but I'm too drunk and tired. But I've calibrated my TV's since 1990 and my monitors since the first 24 bit display hit the market, and my point is, hardware is the least of it. The least. Anyone who knows what they're doing can make a POS display look better than a zillion dollar unobtainium, proof of concept flim-flam, and with a little homework, you can too. The work's all been done for you (and me, I didn't make this shit up, I learned it). Go find it and use it.
  • I set up my new G4 last night. I bought the 17" Studio Display with it. Other than my four year old laptop, it is the first LCD I have used for any amount of time.

    My last set-up was two 15" CRTs, one of very good quality (ViewSonic G653), and one was crap (PackardBell VGA monitor).

    Right now I am running the Apple and the ViewSonic in dual screen. I plan on doing some photo work (nothing too big, but things were I would like to be able to view it on a CRT) and having the nice CRT there, even in a small size, will help out a lot.

    Having used dual monitor set-ups for several years now, I cannot imagine not using them. This way I also get the advantages that both screen have to offer.
  • A few observations...

    As many have said, I have also noticed the clarity of an LCD on a digital interface (DVI). Note that running an LCD on an analog interface doesn't really give you the whole picture. The conversion from digital-analog-digital loses some of the clarity.

    And on that note, I wish that more LCD manufacturers would make reasonably-priced LCDs with DVI inputs. I've been trying to find an LCD monitor for my wife's machine (which has DVI output) and the only one I could find without going to the higher-end stuff was the HP F50 (15") at $499 (counting the $100 rebate). It shouldn't cost much to put the DVI port on the monitor, and they're becoming much more common on video cards.

    And one other note... A room at work where we have about twenty big (19") CRTs was recently converted to LCDs. The temperature of the room dropped almost 10 degrees. They had to go through adjust the ventilation. That many CRTs put out quite a bit of heat.

    Milalwi
  • I have to 15" LCDs on my desk at work and, of course, one on each portable I have (3 as of today). The only CRT I have is on my gaming system upstairs that I only use for that purpose.
    No that I'm all LCD I don't think I'd ever go back.

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