Bye-Bye CRT

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15386014/' target='_blank'>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15386014/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"In North America, sales of the bulky traditional TVs are in steep decline. By next year, the tube TV will cede its crown of dominance to LCD sets for the first time, according to the market research firm iSuppli Corp. Sales of CRTs will fall from an estimated 14.4 million units this year to 10.4 million in 2007, while sales of LCD TVs are predicted to rise from 10.9 million units to 17.8 million. By 2010, iSuppli predicts CRTs will account for only 2.1 million of the 44 million televisions sold. The decline comes despite the venerable CRT's bargain prices: $223, on average, compared with $1,007 for LCD or $2,335 for plasma, according to research firm DisplaySearch."</i><br /><br />CRT's still have the absolute numbers as far as what people have in their homes, but are definitely on the way out for new purchases. Of the 6 TV's in our house, 2 are LCD's (23 and 20 inchers in the office and game room), 1 is a 65" HD rear projection unit in the living room, and 3 are CRT's (13 inch, 19 inch, and 27 inch in the spare bedroom, master bedroom, and garage). Two of our 3 CRT's are over 15 years old while both LCD's were purchased within the last year. I hope to replace the CRT in the master bedroom with a 30ish inch LCD within the next 6 months. How about you? What is the breakdown of sets in you home?

[Felix Torres]

CRTs (all are "legacy"):
13 incher in the spare bedroom
27 incher in the bedroom
26 incher cluttering the storage area
LCD:
37 incher in the living room
17 inch monitor with the Office server PC with the All-in-winder card.

I've looked into the 7-9" portable LCDs but I'm waiting for some one to do one with an ATSC tuner.

[Dyvim]

CRT: 34" HD Sony widescreen (weighs 200 lbs!) in the TV room
+ 3 legacy CRT computer monitors in the office

Guess I haven't jumped on the LCD bandwagon yet

[ptyork]

You know, I have an LCD projection TV that replaced an old CRT projection unit and I have a 22 inch flat panel monitor, but quite honestly, this whole flat panel revolution scares me a bit. I mean, my CRT projection screen still looks nearly as good (not saying much) as it did when I bought it 9 years ago. My 10 and 17 (gasp) year-old standard CRT truly look just as good, as does my 14 year'old 21 inch CRT monitor. And this is after tens of thousands of hours of viewing on each. LCD and LCD projection TV's have replaceable bulbs (and least most of the LCD's do), but I really wonder whether we'll be able to find bulbs six or seven years down the road when they wear out for the second time. Now that were building TV's with parts that are designed to wear out, I just feel like we're getting further entrenched into our already ridiculous disposable economy. Will I now be essentially buying new TV's every 5 years whether I like it or not? Are TV's now as disposable as PC's?

I for one think I might wait before replacing most of the rest of my good ol' CRT based products...

Paul

[Felix Torres]

Are TV's now as disposable as PC's?


No.
All products have a rated lifetime of use-hours.
CRTs included.
If you look carefully, most LCDs and Plasmas will*tell* you how many hours of use they are rated for between failures and it is a *lot*.
Typical numbers are 50-60,000 hours which works out to 5,000 days of abuse or close to 16 years of 10-hour days. If you don't use them that much, they'll last longer. And those are conservative numbers.
Realistically, most sets sold today could last 20 years.

Now, with halogen-light rear projectors, the light sources are rated at a lot less but, in return, you get the ability to restore them to factory brightness with a replacement bulb. And by this time next year, there will be LED and laser-driven models with even longer expected lifecycles.

Worth remembering that CRTS lose brightess every day of their life and image quality declines over time as the phosphors wear out. Some of the newer semi-conductor based sets will give you factory-level image quality to the day they die with no degradation.

No step back here; the sets are *not* being designed with planned obsolescence as a feature. 8)

[jeffd]

Well my apt had many crt's, mainly for the computers. I have one 34 inch tv. However due to my viewing habits and now that I have some money, its LCD from here on out. It started early this year when I moved to fl and the heat and power consumption of my 20 inch monitor had to go. I picked up dells 2005 19inch widescreen lcd and have loved every minute of it. Also I have had laptops for awhile now, but they were allways cheap of the cheap on-sale types that you get at best buy on one of their hot deals weeks (usualy close to christmas). Finally this year I upped my budget and got a dell 1505 with the best screen available. Now I don't even bother outputing movies and anime out to the tv, the high resolution widescreen lcd offers way better video, especialy when I am viewing a number of my anime in HD resolutions compressed with h264. Now the only use my TV gets is when I play my PS2.

I only have one computer set up with a monitor in fl, but when I plan to set the others up, I will be ditching the crt monitors they had (they are currently sitting in the garage) and buying an lcd (though not nearly as pricy as the dell, they don't need to be high quality) for them. How ever for now, I do %90 of my time on my dell laptop (its just awsome, it can do everything) and the rest is just hard core games on my desktop wich don't work well on my laptops x1300.

I have no idea if I will ever get an lcd tv, usually they are far more expensive then monitors and yet offer lower resolutions. I just find the money would be much better spent on an lcd monitor. Course I also rarly invite guest over to watch movies. I usualy find movie watching to be most enjoyable alone, where you can block out the rest of the world and enjoy it at your own pace, no interuptions ect.

[ptyork]

Are TV's now as disposable as PC's?


No....
Well, that's good to know. I guess I just assumed that flat panel backlights (frontlights?) had similar MTBF's to the projectors (5 to 10,000 hours). I suppose they must use flourescent or LED or some other form of lighting in the flat panels. Anyway, that makes me feel quite a bit better. Having to plunk down $200 (or more) every couple of years is pretty disturbing. Still, I may wait until we see the lasers, but I guess I won't be so biased against the flat panels anymore.

Thanks!

[Felix Torres]

I guess I just assumed that flat panel backlights (frontlights?) had similar MTBF's to the projectors (5 to 10,000 hours).

Thanks!

Current-gen LCDs use fluorescent backlights, just like PDAs and laptops.
(Starting in 07 you'll see LEDs in some models.)
Plasmas and SED's (if they ever show up) use excited phosphors to generate the light, just like CRTs.

Glad to be of use to somebody today.
Have fun in HD-land... :)