LCD Overtaking CRT 317
prostoalex writes "IDC has a new report out, claiming that revenues for LCDs by the end of this year will top the CRT revenues. The only market not susceptible to the shift will be gaming and graphics-intensive applications, where the refresh rates of LCDs are not satisfactory yet."
Burned out pixels suck (Score:1, Informative)
Graphics Design (Score:5, Informative)
They're also sensitive to heat, both from the operating environment and duration of use causing further shifts in appreciable color and (perceived) refresh.
OLED display's promise to eliminate the contrast and color calibration issues, but until those are more viable in cost and lifetime graphics design will still rely alost solely on CRT's.
Re:But Do They Run Linux? (Score:2, Informative)
Digital video card support is limited, but it is there, AFAIK, in Linux.
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
That being said, I hate the lack of variable resolution on LCD's. Can't have everything, I guess.
Re:Burned out pixels suck (Score:5, Informative)
Many manufacturers guarantee their LCDs from burned out pixels with a pixel defect policy. The policies will differ as to the amount of defect will warrant a free replacement, and you should check to see the duration of terms of the policy prior to making a decision.
In fact, Tom's Hardware Guide posted a recent article with regards to pixel displays. You can find the article here: http://www17.tomshardware.com/display/20030319/lc
Re:Burned out pixels suck (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Graphics Design (Score:5, Informative)
I've proofed on one of the SWAP monitors, and *damn* Quite nice. Of course, all ouput is different, YMMV, etc.
Re:But... (Score:1, Informative)
Oh. Ok. I'm an idiot.
My resolution gripe (Score:5, Informative)
To get the res I'm used to on a 21" CRT (1920x1440), I need some $3k 24" LCD display.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Informative)
Refresh rates != response time (Score:5, Informative)
I believe the poster is mistakenly trying to apply CRT terminology to LCDs. The refresh rate of a CRT, which is the number of times an image is painted on the screen per second, doesn't quite apply to LCDs. What does apply, however, is the response time. This is usually measured in ms and refers to the time period for a pixel to completely change its state. Response times are typically around 25 ms, but are often slower for black -> white transitions. Slow response gives the effect known as ghosting and makes these panels undesirable to gamers.
As for the graphics artists, it's kind of a mixed bag. They get perfect geometries as a trade off for true color. Most modern LCDs operate at only 24 bit color.
The office user/casual gamer makes up the vast majority of the population and won't notice any of these downfalls. Thus, despite the price, these things are selling like hotcakes due to the easiness on the eyes and uber-coolness. Besides, chicks dig em.
Re:But Do They Run Linux? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Its not the refresh rates (Score:3, Informative)
small review. (Score:3, Informative)
The monitor's 16ms response time is good for gaming and much better than the 17" Dell 1702FP (40ms) which I had returned.
There is also much less color banding with the NEC compared to the Dell; however, some color banding is still visible, most notably with my digital photgraphs. Additionally, the colors seem to be off slightly, with colors veering towards blue.
I do not consider the color-issues major as it is only a slight problem and I am not a graphic artist for which it would be a MAJOR problem. I would not buy this monitor if colors were terribly important.
The biggest complaint I have is that there appears to be a small vertical spacing between pixels. This results in a very faint, but disturbing, 'striped' effect. I find it highly distrubing in applications and especially while viewing photographs. I do manage to forget about it occasionally. I never notice it during games.
The NEC is a great monitor for gaming, but nothing else.
Re:But Do They Run Linux? (Score:3, Informative)
Be weary of the Intel i845. Integrated chip, has horrible problems. Better support in 2.6 when it gets released, but for now you can get the DVI running. No sound or anything.
If you do get a system with an i845 in it, go immediately to Intels site and search their knowledge base. Or use google and do the same.
Let's not forget short life-span (Score:2, Informative)
So not only are they not as bright, not as contrasty, and not color-accurate, with limited viewing angles and severely constricted color gamut, they wear out quickly and cost much more!
The Age of LCDs is not here yet. But let's hope that misguided reports like this spur more development of better, competing technologies
Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Informative)
$800? You can get a SONY SDM-M51 15.1" Monitor for $335 [amazon.com], and their "professional quality" Sony SDMX52 15" Flat Panel LCD (with additional input jack for DVI-D, and integrated speakers) is around $379 after rebate [amazon.com].
If you've got $800 to spend you could one of SONY's higher end 18" LCD monitors such as the Sony SDMX82 18" Flat Panel LCD (also with additional input jack for DVI-D, and integrated speakers) which is only $737 after rebate [amazon.com].
Where do you shop that you pay List Price on electronics?
Re:refresh rates (Score:5, Informative)
The response times are getting faster and cheaper, but still leave a bit to be desired.
The total response time of a pixel can be (typically) anywhere from 15ms to 40ms for an LCD monitor. Most are between 25 and 35. 30ms response time is pretty much average. If the whole screen is changing quickly (think fast FPS gaming), you would only be getting the equivalant of 33Hz or so. At 15ms (for considerably more $$), you are looking at an analogous 66Hz refresh.
Most of the hardcore gamers I know don't like less than 85Hz on their CRTs, so still lots of room for improvement on the LCDs.
Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Informative)
If you're a videophile, it's probably not good enough, but personally I've been very impressed with newer LCDs' ability to support various resolutions by something resembling on-the-fly "resize" in Photoshop...my wife's 2000 laptop has that awful double-some-pixels effect, but my "Cornea" desktop LCD and my Dell laptop handle it pretty gracefully. (Good thing to...the Dell with its 1600x1200 laptop screen is too fine a resolution for my eyes to deal with, but makes the lower resolutions look almost native.)
Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
This baby just came out last week.
Re:refresh rates (Score:5, Informative)
Already there for games (Score:4, Informative)
Re:CRT Disposal (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, disassembling a CRT is just as dangerous as a television. There are capacitors charged to many kilovolts, which maintain this charge long after being turned off. You can easily be killed working inside a CRT. But if you know how to safely take it apart you might be able to make a few bucks selling the pieces.
Re:How often do you move your monitor (Score:4, Informative)
If you like a high refresh rate then you will LOVE an LCD. As much as you don't want to hear it, and LCD is MUCH better on your eyes mainly because of the refresh rate. Because if a pixel doesn't change color, then the refresh rate is infinitely fast. That is why LCDs shouldbe set at a refresh rate of 60 Hz. No more headaches for you. EVER.
And I have yet to see any ghosting on my Dell FP2000 or my sgi 1600SW. Cheap LCDs may ghost though.
I'm sure brightness is the same or close to a CRT, but picture geometry can't come close. On my LCD every line is PERFECTLY straight. No CRT can claim that. And 2 years from now, every line will still be perfectly straight.
Other nice things include 4 inputs on my FP2000; DVI, analog, S-video, composite. And I can watch the S-video or composite signals for Picture in Picture inside the DVI or analog screen. Very nice.
About the only thing CRTs have over LCDs in color trueness. But LCDs are catching up fast and this really only applies to graphic designers who need to use perfectly color calibrated monitors.
Still kinda funny you said not to mention 'better eye sight' and 'I get a headache' in the same sentence.
Re:My resolution gripe (Score:5, Informative)
From a signal-processing standpoint, it might actually be preferable to have pixels drawn as overlapping blobs rather than perfect squares, but squares will always look sharper to most viewers than blobs.
Re:Burned out pixels suck (Score:4, Informative)
If something (a speck of dust perhaps) was blocking the aperature grille, the electron beam would never reach the Phosphor to illuminate it. Dirty manufacturing facilities could be to blame. You don't see this often because manufacturers check for this sort of thing, and don't generally let defective CRT's leave the factory.
I am not a technician... (Score:4, Informative)
Refresh rates = 1 / response time (Score:3, Informative)
On an LCD:
1 / (response time) = maximum frame rate
Whereas on a CRT:
refresh rate = maximum frame rate
So you can loosely compare refresh rate to the inverse of the response time.
Most modern LCDs operate at only 24 bit color.
How many video cards can put out more than 8 bits per primary? Only really high-end graphics people are going to care about that anyway, the gamut is probably much more important.
Re:apparently you didn't read (Score:2, Informative)
LCDs have no scanning beam. If you were hyperfast, you would notice that the pixels on your monitor get very bright as the cathode ray hits them, then fade away over time. This is why you can see flicker at low refresh rates. But like watching a movie, you don't see the refreshes, you see a moving image.
With an LCD, the backlight is constantly on. LCD pixels don't have the surge in brightness, they stay a uniform color. When the signal says change color, it transitions to the new color. The time it takes to change can be significant, thus limiting the "refresh" rate of the LCD -- really, the maximum change rate -- and causing ghosting, as pixels retain some of their old color longer than they should.
Re:Burned out pixels suck (Score:3, Informative)
Re:not only reason... (Score:4, Informative)
On a JVC TV I had, I just had to simutaneously press two buttons ("Display" and "Video Status", IIRC) on the remote to produce a nice color menu of the plethora of configurable shit present in a recent TV. Geometry controls (is this what you're after when you speak of "overscan"?) are just the tip of the iceberg.
Sony TVs require a certain sequence of button-presses to be completed in a certain amount of time, as another example. Their menu is usually not quite as pretty as JVCs.
And I dare say that such features are nearly ubiquitous. The very cheap 19" Sanyo that I've got in the bedroom has a rather expansive array of configurable settings.
The potentiometers may be gone, but the software is there. You just have to find it... (and get a new more-clued repair shop, while you're at it.)