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Displays Hardware

Display Format Technologies Comparison 389

Posted by simoniker from the beautiful-pixels dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The differences between LCD, Plasma, DLP, LCOS, D-ILA, and CRT are revealed, as well as their associated advantages and disadvantages, as Audioholics post a new version of their Display Technologies Guide With advances companies like Intel (LCOS) and Texas Instruments (HD2+) are making in chip technologies and cost reductions, one wonders just how soon CRT based TVs will become an antiquity we discuss with our grandchildren as they install their new high resolution, lightweight, affordable displays on their walls."
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Display Format Technologies Comparison More

Display Format Technologies Comparison

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  • A/V Advantages (Score:5, Interesting)

    by irokitt ( 663593 ) <archimandrites-iaur@@@yahoo...com> on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:18PM (#8231878)
    Always good to shoot for good Ausio/Video Equipment like speakers and monitors, since they last longer than PC internals and they aren't pushed into obsolecence as quickly. I'll keep using my 17" CRT monitor untill it dies. Then I'll look at a 21" perhaps...

  • One thing to say (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Quasar1999 ( 520073 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:19PM (#8231890) Journal
    Plasma sucks!

    After paying an arm and a leg for a Plasma screen, I can honestly say that it sucks... worst dollar to value ratio ever. The resolution is okay (I'm not talking about the gateway/circuit city peice of shit that has EDTV resolution)... the picture isn't anywhere near as good as you can get with LCD or DLP... I really don't understand why Plasma still exists!

    • Re:One thing to say (Score:5, Funny)

      by Shut the fuck up! ( 572058 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:28PM (#8232004)
      I really don't understand why Plasma still exists!

      To separate you from your money.

    • Re:One thing to say (Score:5, Informative)

      by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb@NoSPaM.gmail.com> on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:30PM (#8232029) Homepage
      Plasma still exists because it has one advantage over LCD/DLP in the price/performance war: Bigger direct-view screens that can be easily mounted on a wall. Rear-projection LCD/DLP units give better value in terms of screen area but they take up more space. In other words, it's a style-over-substance issue.

      • Re:One thing to say (Score:3, Informative)

        by John Whitley ( 6067 )
        Plasma still exists because it has one advantage over LCD/DLP in the price/performance war: Bigger direct-view screens that can be easily mounted on a wall.

        This isn't a big advantage anymore. Sharp and a few other manufacturers have 30+" and 40+" direct-view widescreen LCD displays now. One new 45" Sharp display, subject of a recent announcement at CES, is a 1080p display! Units in the 32+" range I saw this weekend were priced in the ~$3300 USD range.

    • Re:One thing to say (Score:3, Insightful)

      by eddiegee ( 236525 )
      Plasma is looking like a transitional tech just like it was in the early days of "portable" PCs. LCDs could not be made big enough economically so the Plasma has wormed its way back. With big LCDs [asahi.com] coming soon plasma TVs will probably disappear within a few years.

    • Re:One thing to say (Score:2, Informative)

      by JohnGlenn ( 147738 )
      This is so not true. More like "your plasma sucks". DLP and Rear Projection LCD is great in everway except one. They don't look nearly as good as plasma's. Both DLP and RPLCD suffer from terrible black levels and much worse picture quality than any higher level plasma. I have seen numerous DLP sets and they have all suffered from a very high amount of dithering and pixilization that are completely absent on plasma's. And resolution? The 50" plasma displays now pretty much all have the same, or better resolu

      • Re:One thing to say (Score:5, Insightful)

        by angle_slam ( 623817 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:43PM (#8232181)
        Every review I've ever seen about plasma says that plasma has the worst black level performance of any major technology.
        • that's true - and their high brightness makes them great for daylight displays but fuck all use for anything else - resolution and dynamic range are ptitful by any standards, and power consumption just hilarious!

        • I must respond here (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Prince Vegeta SSJ4 ( 718736 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @09:51PM (#8233301)
          After Viewing All other technologies (at the time), I purchased two televisions - One A CRT Projection Sony (HDTV) 46" and a Panasonic Plasma (EDTV) 42" (both highly recommended on almost every method of research I performed). Hands down, the Panasonic kicks the Sony's ass, I have NEVER seen a better picture (I've only been to best buy, circuit city and The Big Screen Store, and there ilk). The real word black level performance (eye candy view) is just as good. Matter of fact, I bought the plasma just because the room that it's in was so small. I planned on using the Sony most of the time, especially for movies. The plasma is so much better, the CRT justs sits there most of the time.
    • I agree. I have a relative who got a 50" Sony plasma, returned it for a 50" Panasonic plasma (better image quality), and then got a second 42" Sony plasma. I've spent considerable time watching both regular broadcast, hdtv cable, and dvd movies on them. =)

      My roommate has a 65" Sony HDTV rear projection. I would rather watch movies on that than any of the plasmas any day, hands down.
    • I'm not talking about the gateway/circuit city peice of shit that has EDTV resolution

      Well we Aussies get a really raw deal with plasmas. PAL (which we use here) has a resolution of 576 lines. But the cheaper plasmas (around AUS$6000.00), have NTSC resolution (480 lines). So these massively expensive screens have *less* resolution than any pokey little box that Tandy will sell. It's not good. By comparison, $6000 will get you a damn fine screen using any other technology. You add about $2000 to get prope

    • Re:One thing to say (Score:5, Funny)

      by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld@@@gmail...com> on Monday February 09, 2004 @09:05PM (#8232942) Homepage
      I really don't understand why Plasma still exists!

      Damn it, don't you know what happens if you want some physical element to disappear? Haven't you watched Mystery Science Theater 3000? First of all, some anthropomorphic version of the substance you're wishing away will appear. Then he'll bring you on an "It's A Wonderful Life"-style alternative reality, where plasma doesn't exist. But you won't be able to see anything!

      "Sure it's dark, without plasma those fancy lamps of yours don't work"

      So you'll be like, "well that's alright, I'll just open the shades and let in the sunlight...hey, where's the sun?"

      And Plasmy will be like, "without plasma, there is no sun!", and so on.

      Eventually you'll repent the error of your ways and beg Plasmy to bring plasma back. Then when he does you'll spend the rest of your life boring your friends by telling them how useful plasma is.

      Do you really want to go through that? DO YOU?
  • I liked the wording used in the article... at this rate maybe hdtv will finally be widely available when we have em (not counting you really old geezers that are already near that time of course).
    • Site is slashdotted so I have no idea what it says about grandchildren. However, if you live in a major metropolitan area in the US, HDTV is available to you RIGHT NOW. Either over the air (stations were required to broadcast digitally and most decided to also broadcast HD signals also), via satellite (DirecTV et al.), and via cable. Go here [antennaweb.org] to find out where your closest HD signal is.

  • Invaluable (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I not before heard of these CRTs you speak of. Sounds like its time to upgrade the old audio cone.

  • Kodak GEMS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Broodje ( 646341 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:19PM (#8231897)
    Wake me up when the industry figures this [kodak.com] out. Now _that_ will blow everything out of the water.

    • It's doomed. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by DAldredge ( 2353 )
      If Kodak is in charge then it is doomed. They are the modern day xerox when it comes to marketing what they make. Hell, they had to move production of film off shore because they could no compete with Fuji Film because Kodak said it is too expensive to make film in the USA. Fuji Film is made in America.

    • Re:Kodak GEMS (Score:3, Informative)

      by skoda ( 211470 )
      You're going to be Rip van Winkle, since Kodak killed the GEMS project. (A pity too. Friends were working on it and it was pretty nice.)

  • My favorite (Score:5, Funny)

    by acxr is wasted ( 653126 ) * on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:21PM (#8231913)
    My favorite display format technology has always been paper.

  • They forget to mention projectors (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Via_Patrino ( 702161 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:23PM (#8231939)
    They forget to mention projectors, you get a bigger image cheaper than plasma

    • Re:They forget to mention projectors (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Naffer ( 720686 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:25PM (#8231961) Journal
      Projectors are absolutly awsome if you've got the space for them. Honestly though, someone needs to do something about lamp life. They've made some pretty good strides with decreasing bulb cost, but I still don't want to be replacing a bulb every few months.

      • Re:They forget to mention projectors (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rimu guy ( 665008 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:41PM (#8232161) Homepage
        Um. Most bulbs have lives of ~3000 hours. You're turning off the projector when you're not using it, right?
      • Projectors are absolutly awsome if you've got the space for them.

        And 100% control over ambient light. You can't watch FP in a bright room, which sucks. Who wants to watch a football game in a theater-setting? That being said, it is generally accepted that they have the best black level and picture quality. And you just can't beat 110" diagonal for that cinematic feel.

      • Re:They forget to mention projectors (Score:4, Interesting)

        by dpokorny ( 241008 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @09:58PM (#8233342)
        I guess I'm ahead of the curve -- I bought a Sharp XV-H37U projector nearly eight years ago. It was one of the first three-panel LCD projectors that had decent picture quality.

        I too was worried about bulb life... since they cost $400-$500 each. I was doubly worried regarding the lifetime since I bought a floor model that had an unkown history to it. (Back then the projector was a $6000 investment, buying a floor model saved nearly $2000)

        However, nearly eight years later I'm still on the original bulb, with no perceptible degredation of brightness. At this point, I'm hoping that the bulb dies so I can justify a modern projector! So far, it's refusing.

        Now the caveats: I'm my home theater I have both the projector and a traditional CRT-based TV. I use the TV for all normal TV watching and only use the projector for nighttime movies and special TV shows. Once the projector is on, it averages 4-6 hours of use, but I'm very careful not to needlessly power cycle it.

        I believe that with some common sense, the bulb-life issue doesn't really exist.

      • Honestly though, someone needs to do something about lamp life. They've made some pretty good strides with decreasing bulb cost, but I still don't want to be replacing a bulb every few months.

        You can run a 2000 hour bulb 40 hours a week and it will still last 50 weeks.

        With my usage, I think my projector's bulb will last another two years.

        There are some front projectors that have 3000 hr bulbs, a few even have 5000 hour ratings. Sometimes one can trade brightness for bulb life.

        What I will do when the b
      • I manage 6 conference rooms with a projector in each. Average use of each room is 20 hrs/week. One of the projectors was used when I got it 4 years ago and I just replaced its bulb before Xmas. It's the first bulb I've replaced. All projectors are Epsons.
    • This article is all about projectors. Just about all of them use LCD or DLP to create the picture. The other technologies in the article are also used for projectors. LCOS is new and not in wide use. CRTs are old school and weren't just used for screens. CRT projection TVs have been around since the 70s.

  • Re-runs in high definition (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:24PM (#8231954)
    Great! However it will still show crap on whatever screen it's made of.

  • Game playing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aardpig ( 622459 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:26PM (#8231987)

    While an LCD monitor has much to recommend it on the grounds of space saving and visual clarity, I find one arena where it is left in the dust by a CRT: game playing. When rushing around in a FPS, the picture on an LCD monitor turns into a blurry, muddy mess; on a CRT, by contrast, it remains crisp.

    In an unrelated but related point (think "tea and no tea"), I find that optical mice are great for day-to-day work, but fall down during FPS play: when you figure that someone is filling your back with lead, and you need to do an instant 180 degree turn, an optical mouse simply can't handle the rate of movement. A traditional ball mouse is the only choice; however, you have to make sure its clean so that the ball doesn't jam when being rolled at high speed. A good tip to keeping your balls clean is to rest your beer on a different table to your keyboard/mouse.

    • Re:Game playing (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:30PM (#8232038)

      A good tip to keeping your balls clean is [...]

      I don't come to /. for that kind of advice, buddy.

    • Re:Game playing (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:34PM (#8232080)
      A good tip to keeping your balls clean is to rest your beer on a different table to your keyboard/mouse.

      Actually - if you can find a midget-hooker, you can rest your beer on her head, AND she can clean your balls as well.

    • optical mice & games (Score:5, Informative)

      by David Jao ( 2759 ) <djao@dominia.org> on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:37PM (#8232108) Homepage
      I think older optical mice had trouble keeping up with FPS games but the newer ones have done a lot to fix the problems.

      Even hard core gaming sites like Sharky Extreme [sharkyextreme.com] are now recommending optical mice exclusively in all their hardware guides.

    • Re:Game playing (Score:2, Informative)

      by ydnar ( 946 )
      Your eyes eventually learn to compensate for the ghosting, while annoying at first. As for optical mice, they've come a long away since the first iterations.

      I hate to admit actually paying for a Microsoft product, but I've replaced the mouse on every machine I own/use with an Intellimouse Optical.

      y

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • What the shit are you talking about? Did you just walk out of two years ago?

      New LCD panels have pixel response times that are too fast for the human eye to pick up any blurring. Hell, even the models available over a year ago had response times fast enough to play FPSs without blurring being a factor.

      The Viewsonic LCD panel I'm using as I write this can play Battlefield 1942 just fine. It's about a year old now.

      Wake up and smell the advancing technology, buddy.

  • Burn-in (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:27PM (#8231991)
    I won't buy CRT rear projection or plasma because of the burn in problem. Why is noone looking to fix this major problem with these types of TVs, that prevent much normal use? For now, I'm sticking with a 36-inch Toshiba picture tube set. (which Consumer Reports rated a 'best buy' in traditional CRT televisions) LCDs are AFAIK the only 'new' technology immune from burn-in. (traditional TVs aren't completely immune from this problem, but it is unlikely to happen with normal use) Also, plasmas degrade over time, and in 10 years are completely dim to the point of being unwatchable. So, devide your price of the plasma ($3000) by ten to get a price of $300/year for your plasma TV. With LCD projection, there is the extreme high cost of bulbs. Why should a bulb cost so much anyway?? The hourly rate of an LCD projector can be in upwards of 30 cents. Is there a way to win?

    • Re:Burn-in (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      CRT's only burn in if improperly calibrated/used. Don't show a static image on your screen for hours on end and don't turn max out your contrast and brightness settings and you've got nothing to worry about.

      Regarding technologies, LCD is certainly not the only technology that doesn't have burn-in issues. LCOS and DLP are also immune. You'd know that if you RTFA.
      • CRT's only burn in if improperly calibrated/used

        But he is talking about CRT rear projection sets. RP sets run the CRTs at a very high brightness, and do have burn in issues if you want to use them for games.

    • Why should a bulb cost so much anyway??

      Because they can. Seriously, that's about all there is to it.
    • When GTA: Vice City for the PS2 was first released, I played it so much that I was certain that it would create burn-in on my RPTV. After hundreds of hours of gameplay, I noticed no visual anomolies (except for one spot that turned out to be a smudge on the screen that was easily wiped off). The best way to avoid burn-in is to calibrate the TV, as typically the default contrast and brightness settings are far too high.
    • DLP projection also doesn't suffer from burn-in. Also, most respectable sites state that, while burn-in CAN be a problem with CRT, that problem is minimized if your TV is properly calibrated first.
    • I can't speak for plasma or LCD, but I've seen no burn-in problems with CRT rear projection. Their only drawback seems to be limited viewing angle.

  • Large CRTs are cheaper. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:28PM (#8232017)
    I am typing this from a 19" CRT screen that costs just #150 for a 1600x1200 desktop. A LCD of that size and resoloution are over #1000! I dont need the space savings, Desks are cheap, LCDs are not!
    • Eh. I've got a 15" LCD that does 1600x1200. I wouldn't trade it for *any* CRT (that includes those very nice 21" Sony ones). A good high res LCD is just *so* much easier on the eyes. LCDs may be more expensive than desks, but vision correction surgery is more expensive than either...
    • Interestingly enough, you've just made the case for a lot of "downtown" and otherwise space-limited businesses. There are plenty of cases in the commercial world where saving an extra square foot of desk space, which allows thinner desks, etc, can end up saving quite a bit of money over the expected life of a monitor. Especially when you add in the electricity and cooling savings.

  • When will LCD's finally be "affordable" ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by i)ave ( 716746 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:30PM (#8232030)
    The article is an excellent beginner's guide to display technology formats, however, they make that oft-repeated forcast that soon LCDs will be cheap. We've been hearing that for years. Active-Matrix displays have been in use in Notebooks for 10 years and still they are the most expensive part of the notebook. They've certainly come down in price, but I wonder why so many people latch onto this belief that soon they will be so cheap they'll replace everything. Every couple years we hear about a world-wide "supply shortage" which jacks the price of LCDs up about 20%, there are inherent limitations in the design process which require an entirely separate production line to produce a 15" display, a 19", etc... What about Hot-Pixels? How happy would you be to spend $10k on an LCD display that has hotpixels?
    • I've purchased 2 monitors in the past 10 years. One in 1994, and one a few months ago. The first was a monster (deep) 16-inch Trinitron with dual inputs, and the second was a 21-inch LCD. Both set me back roughly a grand.

      I've gone through about 10 computers in that same time period. You do the math.

      y
    • soon LCDs will be cheap

      I don't consider LCDs to be expensive, because I'm not in the market for cheap crap monitors. I'm beginning to see really good LCDs in the $700 to $900 range, which is where really good monitors were seven years ago. BTW, I'm still using a seven-year-old $700 17" CRT monitor--it's still bright, crisp, runs at high frequencies, and is very very usable. When my CRT finally dies off, I'll go get a $700 LCD for the next seven or more years.

  • OLED? (Score:2)

    by gid13 ( 620803 )
    The only new display tech I've heard of and it's not there. Figures.

  • the only difference that gets me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by l0ungeb0y ( 442022 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:31PM (#8232054) Homepage Journal
    I still can't figure out why the gamma on the PC and the Mac are so far apart. Hell, the gamma on a windows system is much lower than a Mac and even darker than a CRT TV!!!

    Why is this? And why is there not a universal standard by which a display is to be callibrated. Sure, you could argue that there is already 3 standards, but my question is why not just one standard?

    As a visual artist I find it irritating to have my imagery appear darker on a PC and when I play a DVD, I notice that the display on my Mac is much brighter than my TV.
    I'm sure movie producers and directors get annoyed by this as well.

    By setting an international gamma/color calibration standard, all visual media would benefit not only because of consistant display but lowered production costs as well.

    • There are standards [w3.org].

      One problem is that CRTs lose brightness as they age. Eventually you squeeze the dynamic range when you compensate by turning the brightness knob up.

      A good place to look at some code for this is cpercep.c in the gimp source code. I'm not sure if the gimp even uses this code (yet), but it's got a lot of the functions and algorithms to do perceptual colorspace transformations taking into account gamma and color temperature of the display device.

  • New fangled displays (Score:5, Funny)

    by apoplectic ( 711437 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:32PM (#8232057)
    Gee, with all of these new, flat monitors and TVs, my cat loses out on the most comfy, warm place in the house.
  • I'm so sick of people trying the predict the end of the CRT, and how digital displays will take over.
    I have not seen ONE digital display (whether it be LCD, Plasma ...) that can rival a CRT when it comes to what matters most: quality.
    CRT screens just look better. The colours are always alive, blacks are black (not grey), and white are white.
    Every plasma screen I have seen, sharp though the image may be, is horribly grainy when it comes to colour. It's just like watching something in 16 bit colour.
    The CRT ha

    • Before making blanket statements, please consider that different people have different needs.

      I work in front of a computer for 8-12 hours a day. The last couple of years I worked with a CRT, after about 6-7 hours I would start to get a headache. In fact, I had to start wearing glasses to stop the headaches.

      At my current job, I'm lucky enough that I get to use an Apple 22" Cinema Display most of the time, and pretty much, from day one, I haven't had a single headache at work.

      Now, some of this I attribu

    • I agree with you, to a point. I bought a relatively 36" TV last year, and spent roughly $650. Ok picture, great price.

      If one is willing to spend $2500+, you can get a really nice 50" LCD TV that has pixels that seem smaller than my computer moniter's.

      I was a Best Buy recently (granted they are not the best buy to be had) and compared the LCD against the CRT. Standing really close, with the same video source (not sure what the source was, but it was the same on ALL the screens) the LCD won hands-down.

  • Overview (Score:5, Interesting)

    by athorshak ( 652273 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:40PM (#8232148)
    The article was slashdotted, heres my personal guide:

    CRT - Still probably capable of the best picture for now (especially at the high end, think G90). Requires much more maintenance than digital technlogies (convergence, etc.). Essentially infinite on/off contrast, not quite as good ANSI contrast. No screendoor. High end guns capable of fully resolving 1080p.

    DLP - Best contrast numbers of the digital technologies. Consumer units limited to 720p for now. Screendoor is pretty limited. Some people may see rainbows on one chip devices due to color wheel (pretty limited on new HD2+ machines). Most machines not terribly bright when compared to LCD. Limited to projection devices.

    LCD - Poor contrast, very hight black level. Most screendoor of the digitals. Can be in projection or panel configurations. Considerably less expensive than other digital techs. Scales to higher resolutions than DLP for now.

    LCOS - Least screendoor of digital technologies. Often appears "smoothest" or most like a CRT to people. Contrast numbers not up to DLP's standards. Not a large number of LCOS unites on the market for now, but looks like more will be coming soon. Many see it as the ultimate sucessor to CRT rear-projection.

    Plasma - Least bang for the buck of the digitals. Only a flat-panel technology, no projection. Reletively poor contrast numbers.

  • CRT vs. other technologies (Score:5, Informative)

    by Experiment 626 ( 698257 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:43PM (#8232185)

    The newer technologies are nice in that they are thin and all, which is especially good for monitors. But, they do still have their drawbacks. LCDs don't display black as well as a CRT, making watching movies with dimly lit scenes annoying. LCDs have a very clear picture, but lose some of that sharpness if not run at native resolution or another that divides evenly into it (interpolating from one resoution to another causes slight bluriness or jaggedness of the pixels). Also, I have doubts as to whether the time between failures on LCD backlights is as good as CRT picture tubes.

    Plasma is kinda neat, but has a reputation for burn-in and slowly losing brightness over time. If I was to buy a multi-thousand dollar TV, I'd want it to work for 8-10 years until the next big thing comes along.

    For now, I'm still a CRT user. 35" Sony Trinitron for TV watching, 21" ViewSonic professional series for the PC. Keeping an eye on the new technologies but they're not quite "there" yet as far as I'm concerned.

    • Plasma is kinda neat, but has a reputation for burn-in and slowly losing brightness over time. If I was to buy a multi-thousand dollar TV, I'd want it to work for 8-10 years until the next big thing comes along.

      Yes, burn-in is a potential problem with plasma, but it's also a problem with CRT and any other technology that uses phosphors. Modern plasma displays have a half-life approaching 60,000 hours. Even if you leave it on 24/7, you've almost got your 8-10 years. Besides, after 60k hours, the brightn

  • 2 CRT's or 1 LCD (Score:2, Insightful)

    by C. Alan ( 623148 )
    When I bought my last system, I could have bought two decient 17" CRT'S for the cost of 1 19" LCD display. So I am now sitting in front of two 17" CRT's and I have twice as much desktop space.

    Oh happy me!

    • Re:2 CRT's or 1 LCD (Score:2, Informative)

      by gooberguy ( 453295 )
      Umm, a 19" LCD is equivalent to a 20-21" CRT. Remember, CRTs are measured by the total size of the monitor case, while LCDs are measured by their actual screen size. I prefer the crispness of LCDs, and you mention having more desktop space with CRT. I have more physical desktop space, and with a 15ms response time, my LCD is more than adequate for my gaming needs. $250 for a 15" LCD is more than worth it to me (I got it almost a year ago). Now when I use a CRT, I notice the horrible flicker from the monitor

  • I suggest everyone read this thread... (Score:4, Informative)

    by JohnGlenn ( 147738 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:54PM (#8232291)
    Good info from people who know what they are talking about....

    http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s= &threadid=361807&highlight=DLP

  • My 42" HDTV-ready 16x9 projection TV cost $1300 over a year ago. Comparable size plasma is a minimum of $3000! Plasma, LCD, and DLP restrict you to a single optimum resolution, whereas CRTs (and thus projection TVs) are infinitely variable. Probably your best best is to stick with a CRT until all broadcasts are done at a specific HDTV resolution, then buy a DLP projector that handles that resolution. If you really think it's worth paying twice as much for something because it's only 4" deep instead of 24" d
  • One aspect of display technology that I don't hear discussed often is the need for multiple resolutions. As a software developer, and a GUI developer at that, it is important to me to be able to quickly view my work cleanly in all standard resolutions to see how it will appear to the end user. Fixed-element displays such as plasma and liquid crystal are simply useless for this: yes, a good driver will attempt to interpolate but this produces garbage from a developer's standpoint. I have resisted attempts

    • C'mon now. (Score:4, Informative)

      by rjstanford ( 69735 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @08:40PM (#8232747) Homepage Journal
      I've been developing on LCDs for years now. When you adjust the resolution, set the monitor to just center it rather than trying to scale to fill the screen. That way, your 1600x1200 monitor just has a large black area surrounding the 640x480 test screen. Way simple.

  • LCD View Angle Problems (Score:4, Informative)

    by tomRakewell ( 412572 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @08:01PM (#8232372)

    As LCD monitors get bigger, the viewing angle problem gets more severe. I just got a ViewSonic 19" LCD with supposedly good "viewing angle" specs. The problem is that you normally sit within 2 feet of your monitor. At this distance, your eyes view the top of the screen at a very different angle than the bottom of the screen. With a large LCD like this, there is absolutely no way to view the screen without severe differences in color... the monitor is just too big and you are sitting too close to it. I find myself constantly adjusting the monitor, or raising and lowering my head to try and read things.

    This is a problem I never noticed on my smaller (laptop) LCDs, simply because the monitor is much smaller.

    Obviously this wouldn't be a problem for an LCD in your living room, where you view it from quite a distance. But large LCD monitors are a problem. (At least mine is!)

  • I'll wait until... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by praedor ( 218403 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @08:07PM (#8232423) Homepage

    The organic-based displays come out. Flexible, brighter than LCD, superior to plasma (no burn-in).


    OK, OK, I'll wait until the organic displays are around for a while and their price reaches non-astronomical levels. That should be in about 7-8+ years from now assuming a soonish release.


  • OLED (Score:3, Informative)

    by SJ ( 13711 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @08:44PM (#8232775)
    What ever happened to OLED screens. They werre supposed to be the next big thing as far as display technology goes.

    http://www.wave-report.com/tutorials/oled.htm [wave-report.com]

    • Re:OLED (Score:4, Interesting)

      by afidel ( 530433 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @11:25PM (#8233943)
      Poor pigment life has killed them commercially until a new generation of longer life ones can be developed (if at all). While people complain about plasma the avg life of older units is 30K hours and the newer generation is 60K, thats a LONG time. Lamp based units have fairly expensive bulbs to replace but at least you aren't scrapping the whole tv.

  • DLP and LCOS (Score:3, Informative)

    by Zed2K ( 313037 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @01:08AM (#8234545)
    I originally was all psyched over LCOS. But with the problems they've had with it and the price I'm now looking toward buying a DLP based tv later this year. Toshiba is dropping its LCOS line (has discontinued it already) and will be releasing a ton of DLP based models in a few months. Initially with the 6 panel color wheel, but then the 7 panel one.

    I would never get an LCD tv. The black level is trash.

    If you've got the space stick with CRT, but if you want something skinnier go with DLP. Should be interesting to see what Intel does later this year with LCOS but I wouldn't touch it just yet.

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