Community Newsletter: Q&A forum: 12/16/05

Maybe I'm confused on these are they the same?

Matt

"I will try not to sway you one way or the other"

Ummmm... right

LCD ROCKS!

''The only advantage CRT has is the graphics and screen resize...''

Hmmmm, to me graphics quality and screen resolution are the most important factors for a monitor.



''It's bulky, heavy, more energy consumption, EMI prone, heat, static...''

These factors are not enough even all together to sway me towards and LCD if a CRT offers a better picture and high resolutions.

LCD still has a way to go to get me to buy into the technology. In just a year of our company using LCD's we have returned (warranty) 8 HP 1825, HP 1925 and HP2035 LCD's with dead pixels and subpixels. and 3 others that just died all together. And there are others that don't have enough dead pixels/sub-pixels to warrent a replacement so the usres just have to live with them. Not a good track record out of roughly 400 LCD monitors. And these problem are not just specific to HP as I've seen problems with other mfrs. CRT monitors are a more mature technology and thus suffer less reliability issues.

Very informative reply but you didn't mention TFT , many people confuse LCD with TFT and visa versa

I HAD BIN USEING A OLDER 19 IN. CRT MONITOR. ONE OF MY FREIND'S HAD PURCHASED A NEW 19 IN. LCD. HE WAS USEING A OLDER HP 15 IN LCD. HE IS LETTING ME USE THE 15 LCD. I REALLY THOUGHT OF BUYING AN LCD BUT WHEN I HOOKED UP THIS 1 I WAS INPRESSED. MY PC BOOT'S FASTER, GRAPHIC'S ARE WAY MORE SHARP. TO PUT IN TO WORD'S I WAS BLOWN AWAY BY THE DIFFERNCE BETWEEN THE THE 2. THE ONLY THING IS SIDE VEIWING. BUT THE NICE THING ABOUT THE LCD IS THE THIN DESIGN YOU CAN MOVE IT TO WHERE YOU NEED IT. I'M CHECKING OUT THE DIFFENT LCD'S OUT AN PLANNING TO BUY MYSELF A 19 IN. FOR CHRISTMAS.

One drawback of most LCDs - the native resolution is a set resolution and can be changed, but you may get quality loss and performance loss.


Hi, this is actually in my answer and the above was taken directly from it. But thanks for the information.

Take care, Paul

Thank you for pointing that out. The reason I was very torn about my answer as well, is the fact that all that is changing and rapidly. LCD will very soon be able to change the resolution among many other issues and in some cases has happened but hasn't quite had the proverbial stamp put on it. There are LCDs that use some CRT technology to change resolution but as I stated above, the stamp on it. Right now was a tough time to answer that question if ever there was due to LCD being on the verge of many new breakthroughs and improvments. I do have a hard time, (not you) but many commenting that CRT will remain and LCD is junk. Anyone who knows about technology knows it will change regardless and LCD or perhaps a different type of monitor. History has shown us this time and time again. I do appreciate the way you felt to correct me as most did so in a completely ignorant way. I don't choose my answer , I just do my best to write it and send it in. I was taking it personal on some others but the old saying , "you can't please everyone" remains in my mind. Any way, thank you for your follow up and being civil about it. You take care , happy holidays,
Paul

Three things not mentioned in this first, award-winning answer :

CRT's have a problem with "Burn-in" - the reason that I was told I could not buy a HUGE Plasma Display for computing.

CRT's have no "focus point" - I realized this in 1984 when I began computing. The electron beam, creating "essentially" a "beam of light" gives your eyes no "point" to focus on. Try looking into a flashlight and trying "focus" on the "point" of light. Your eye can not focus on one "point" - therefore, eyestrain, from trying to.

CRT's DO have better video motion qualities, though.

So if you are sitting within "arm's length" of the monitor - get LCD.

If you are sitting across the room watching TV/Video - get a CRT.

While I agree with Paul on most of the pros and cons on LCD versus CRT screens, there are some points I would like to make. First, on longevity, Paul gives 10,000 to 20,000 hours for CRTs, against 50,000 hours for LCDs. I have a Taxan monitor wich I used with my Sinclair QL for 96,000 hours continuously apart from brief power outages, and there has been no obvious deterioration in quality. I also have a Mac, bought in 1984, which ran continuously for many years, and is still occasionally used for archive drawings etc. I know one swallow doth not a summer make, but I suggest any difference is down to the manufacturing quality of a CRT, and presumably hence the price, and is not inherent in the technology. I now have a 14 inch Sony Trinitron Multiscan which has run for about 16 hours daily since October 1st. 2001, equal to 33,600 hours, with no deterioration. Prior to this monitor, I had another Sony, which packed up after three years and two weeks, just after the three year warranty ran out! That had run for its entire life 24/7, amounting to 24,192 hours. Sony told me that they expected them to fail after three years, as this was when most people changed monitors anyway. I also have a Philips television set that has run about eight hours a day for 16 years, or nearly 140,000 hours, with excellent quality throughout, and it is still going strong. It will shortly be relegated to the bedroom to make way for a new 32 inch LG digital LCD set, with all the bells and whistles, which I hope will give equal service. So it does seem that CRTs can be made to last if the manufacturers choose to do so.

Paul talks about radiation from CRTs. I am not aware of any evidence that this is harmful in any way. It hasn't harmed me after steady use of monitors and televisions since 1947, when the British television service started. But then I don't believe global warming is man made either, if it exists at all, whatever the scare-mongers say.

Glare is another parameter which is does not seem to be a problem if the monitors are sensibly sited. I have a Fujitsu-Siemens LCD screen next to my current Sony CRT, and I am not aware of the slightest difference in glare. The Sony has a coating of some kind which is no doubt intended to minimise glare, as well as a flat screen, which makes it easier to put it in an optimum position.

Now flicker - Paul seems to think this is a problem with CRTs, but it is generally known that a refresh rate of anything over 70 cycles will eliminate flicker, and most CRTs are capable of this. My Sony will go up to 85 without protest, although I tend to run it at 75 to reduce the load on the circuitry.

Electromagnetic distortions? Never known it, unless I put a magnet in contact with the screen of my CRT. Perhaps it was once a problem years ago, but I doubt it, and even it it was, all you have to do is move the source of the magnetism further away.

Now for the biggest problem with LCDs. This is that they cannot resolve very small print on screen, because, I assume, the character strokes fall between the pixels and appear in random positions. If I put up the same picture on my LCD and CRT, the CRT is considerably better in this respect. I do a lot of photography, and I much prefer to use the CRT, because the colours are truer both to life and to the printer, and the detail is much clearer. I dare say there is some way of calibrating the LCD as I have the CRT, but I haven't come across it yet.

The best features of the LCD are its brightness and lack of geometrical distortion, something which becomes very apparent when run beside the CRT, which simply cannot be set to line up precisely with the edges of the screen frame. And for me, there is a really convincing reason for buying the LCD - I can turn it upside down, rotate the picture, and set the screen right down on the desk at an angle of about 45 degrees, which is infinitely more comfortable than being forced to put the CRT upright with its bottom edge 6 inches above the desk. You wouldn't put a laptop screen up in the air to read it, would you? Nor a book or a newspaper? So I get vastly less neck strain and benefit all round from a much more relaxed position. But still magazines etc. advise us to put our CRT screens at eye level and vertical, a sure recipe for a crick in the neck.

So you pays your money and you takes your choice. So long as I have one CRT for my photography, I am very happy to use an LCD for everything else, and at least it doesn't break my back moving it.

Another point that should really be considered especially when choosing LCD over CRT is that the LCD monitor uses approximately 20% less power and produces less heat. Deploy a number of them in an office environment and over a 3yr period they will almost pay for themselves.

Here is some additional information to back this up from Viewsonic.

Cheers,
Andrew Warby

http://www.viewsonic.com/monitoruniversity/lcd.htm

Power consumption
The power required to run an LCD is about one-third of that required for a CRT with the same screen area. In addition, the amount of heat generated by an LCD monitor is considerably less than a CRT monitor, resulting in a lower load on air conditioning. Building cooling needs may be decreased by up to 20%.

And, if an LCD monitor is used with an uninterruptible power supply, the lower power required provides precious extra minutes to store critical data and shut down gracefully in the event of a power failure.

These power-saving features of LCDs reduce the total cost of ownership.

Total cost of ownership
LCD prices have been decreasing in recent years. When the total cost of ownership is considered-including savings in power consumption and lifespan-LCDs are now less expensive than many CRTs.

Though I agree with some of the points in the response given, there are items that are definitely not accurate. Paul has an understanding of the technology as he demonstrates in his answer. However, the first thing that should absolutely be considered is what are you going to use it for? This was not defined in the question. Will the user be playing games, doing graphic art or photo editing or CAD, playing video, etc? No specific question can be answered about any choice of hardware or software unless this general question is answered first (and it usually is not).

As for the specifics:

"I will try not to sway you one way or the other; however, LCD monitors show obvious advantages, while CRT do not."
Both have there pro's and con's. It still goes back to the question, what are you going to use it for?!

"This was also the reason for many glare screens on CRT monitors. There is a counterpart to this - the flicker you get from the refresh rate on CRT which causes symptoms such as eye strain, headaches, motion sickness and is called computer vision syndrome."
This is NOT the reason for glare screens! They were used to reduce the glare of overhead lighting in offices. This would be correct if it was meant that using the glare screen did compromise the display and caused eyestrain. The best solution to this is to buy a quality monitor with a high refresh rate. The LCD does not do away with refresh rate, it is just performed differently. CRT's are an analog device and LCD's are a digital device. As Paul mentioned CRT's 'scan' the screen illuminating the phosphor, LCD's simply turn on and off extremely fast. It is true that an LCD is softer on the eyes, however a cheap LCD is no better. Also, radiation emissions do occur from CRT's, but it is VERY small. More of a problem several years ago. Chances are the lighting in your office/room radiates more! I have used a gauss meter to measure the radiation from a quality monitor and you would have to place your face right up against it to be hit with it.

"Another consideration is energy consumption." Though the actual power values could be higher or lower (depending on manufacturer/model) Paul is right.

Viewing angle issues true except for:
"Straight on viewing in LCD is geometrically better since it lacks the distortion of CRT" A quality CRT will not have any recognizable distortion. You get what you pay for.

"Refresh rates in LCD have surpassed or equaled CRT."
This is a hard one to measure since it is like comparing apples to oranges (analog to digital). A lot of ghosting can occur with LCD's. Many companies have NOT cured this! Especially the cheap ones. Part of the issue involves the type of graphics adapter card being used (not mentioned originally). Most cards are still designed based on driving a CRT. Though you can plug in to any card from an LCD, that doesn't mean it is the best fit. When the manufacturers of the graphics adapters and the LCD's create a more compatible 'connection' between the two, then we will see greater leaps in the LCD advancement. There are proprietary (though expensive) products that are doing it now but I won't go into that here. Give it a few years.

Paul is correct on the resolution topic, however,
"Some still say that LCD cannot surpass the color depth of the CRT, but that is changing also. In general, an LCD will be up to any lacking that a CRT can provide."
There will have to be some major changes to the LCD for it equal a CRT. It is the difference between analog and digital. Eventually the LCD will get at least comparable, but that will take a while.

"EMI (electro magnetic interference is still an issue with CRT. For example, speakers too close to the monitor will cause distortion, green or white patches, among others. LCD is not affected by EMI (in most) and has protected circuits, so it is covered from EMI."
It is true that anything magnetic will affect the screen and should be kept away; purchasing 'shielded' speakers there will solve the problem. LCD's can be affected by EMI, just not in low levels. If it has an electronic circuit it can be affected by EMI!

"CRTs were known for having a sharper, true color image, but with active
matrix display, the LCD refresh rate is higher than on most CRTs."
Once again this is comparing apples to oranges. The ratings for LCD's are good for comparing one LCD to another LCD or one CRT to another CRT. Technically, the refresh rate of an LCD HAS to be much higher than the refresh rate of a CRT to come close to a match.

"Space is a major factor also."
Space and weight are definitely an issue with CRT's.

"LCD has a backlight, which illuminates the desktop in almost any condition. Without the glass screen of a CRT, your glare and viewing improve."
Here again, a good quality CRT will reduce/eliminate glare. I have seen many LCD's have the same problem with glare depending on the lighting conditions of the environment they are in. That's not an absolute for either LCD or CRT.

"The backlight has a typical half brightness point of 50,000 hours and is typically the only component (made of fluorescent tubes) that ages. A CRT monitor, with the cathode ray tube, has typically 10 to 20,000. So, really what that says is (in theory) you will get 30 to 40,000 more half point brightness hours, before dimming occurs or display fails"
The measurement of the backlight life is accurate but this doesn't say much in the comparison of LCD vs. CRT. First, most measurements do not pertain to absolute failure. They measure usability over a predetermined time frame (such as hours of use). If the above measurements were true of a CRT, then using one for six hours a day would equal a span of 2 1/4 years for half brightness loss. Most failures are due to power supply problems, because of high voltage, and are rarely caused by picture tube failure. Also, brightness can also be compensated for by internal/external adjustments on CRT's (if actually needed).
LCD's however, do not have many problems with their backlights. Even if they do, they are the easiest things to fix. The main problem, which results in the replacement of the entire unit, is in pixel failure. When any pixel fails there is no way to repair it. There are new technologies on the horizon that may compensate for this issue in the future, but only if the pixels are spread apart. If two or more pixels right next to each other fail this new technology won't help. All of this is still to be seen. NOTE - LCD's are still replaced far more frequently than CRT's due to some sort of failure/damage. As for heat, LCD's definitely generate much less. As I mentioned above, high-voltage has more to do with the deterioration of a CRT not necessarily heat. Heat becomes more of a problem when a monitors ventilation is blocked.

The pricing difference between an LCD and a CRT is true. More so if you consider the turnaround rate on LCD's. Hopefully the high turnaround rate for LCD's will reduce in the near future.

"In closing, what I would like to try and sum up is, CRT's advantages are becoming null and void as LCD is rapidly filling any gaps that CRT may have put between them."
As I pointed out above this is not true of most things. In some ways the LCD has an advantage. Especially in power usage and space-saving. However, the technology for the LCD needs a good boost before it can surpass some of the high points of a CRT.

(As a note, there are two different types of CRT's. Shadow mask and aperture mask which is a whole discussion topic in itself and is not necessary here)

My background:
I have spent 18 years in the technology field. I've seen thousands of computers, monitors, etc. in many different environments. I have actually performed a lot of service work on monitors of all types.

Some other key points are also noted in the other postings. Such as:
1. LCD's are easily damaged. They can't take much physical punishment at all.
2. Graphic artists, especially those who work with print material, prefer CRT's to LCD's because of color rendition. Very helpful for matching image format to print format.
3. CAD users need very sharp vertical lines, which are not produced very well on some LCD's.

A lot of the points may not apply to the user asking the question. They will have to compare the points that apply to their usage.

I know I sound like I'm against LCD's, but I'm not. This again goes back to the question of what do you want to use it for. If my work didn't require the use of a CRT (CAD, graphic editing) I would purchase an LCD. Even given the above outlined risks. Only time will tell.

My apologies if it sounds like I'm beating up on Paul and his answer. I certainly don't mean it that way. I have spent much time as a technician and researched a lot of the engineering (performing some of my own engineering as well). The information can be much different than what retail might push for sales.
In comparison, it's like making the decision to buy a computer based solely on its processor speed and not including other items like memory, storage, peripherals, etc.

It all comes back full circle to that one important point. Always ask the question, what are you going to use it for?

Todd

Yes, trouble starting up sounds like the backlight. In all likelyhood, you have 1 or 2 cold-cathode flourescent tubes (CCFTs) to backlight your LCD. Like a hot-cathode flourescent tube, when they get old they have trouble starting. Generally, replacing the tube fixes that. Sometimes, the tube is OK and the associated circuitry (what in the old days was "the ballast" and today has an electronic equivelent). But start with the tube, it is not that expensive.

Keep everything clean, and be careful of the sheet of plastic between the tubes and the LCD panel itself. It is actually a sophisticated optical device that evenly distributes the output from the CCFT across the entire LCD. Do not get it dirty and do not crease it.

Leo.

I do agree with you about the price. By the way do you still listen to your music on your tape deck? I bet you have changed to cd's. Maybe even an MP3 player. Face it people the crt will soon become a thing of the past. If you can't afford to change to a lcd monitor their is no shame. When they become as cheap as a crt then I believe this disscusiion will come to an end. I loved my crt just as much as i love my lcd. I have ld's now in sted of crt's. My 8 year old son still uses his 17 inch crt and he has yet to complain. He also play games on my pc with the 32 inch lcd monitor. So he goes back and forth from crt to lcd & to date he has not mentioned a thing. I believe that getting a new lcd is part of sociaties problem with keeping up with the jones. Your crt does a great job,right? So why replace it except to be part of the group that can say na na na na na na I have a lcd. I changed because I do not use a pc desk in my bedroom, but I did have a 32 inch tv in my room. So when the oppertunity came to get an lcd that could take care of both jobs I jumped at the chance. Would I go back? No. I love the size and the clairity of my new lcd. Plus I can hang it on my wall & get rid of the tv stand that it currently sits on. Is the picture better than my ctr. I say yes. The contrast ratio of 1600:1 seems to make the picture so sharp i swear I could reach into the screen and eat the food I see on it. o i have problems with reading type? No. My wife has been correcting my spelling and grammer while I was typing & she is 10 + feet away from the screen. So if you can afford to buy a new lcd without going broke or going into ridiculas debt then by all means go for it.

While I agree that CRT may take abuse, although drop it or bang it good and you may damage it fairly easy or get a bad display, small children shouldn't be near or be able to get at it. Not saying you let them or anything, I am just stating that even with LCD or any electronic component, care needs to be taken. I don't know of an environment that needs to put physical abuse on a monitor for any reason, but likely LCD would get damaged easier. And I do agree that LCD isn't impressive enough for me to junk my CRT which works well currently. It is getting there and many improvments have been made. The improvments for 2006 to 7 promise a lot but as good as most of it sounds, I wouldn't bet the farm on it yet. As in my answer from a technical view, LCD SHOULD have quite the upper hand over CRT, but it is still not enough obviously.
Paul

After a recent comparison between the two types, I judge the CRT to be much sharper on text and general use. The resolution on an LCD cannot be set to match a good CRT monitor for Graphics work. An LCD should be fine for casual use.