CRT Enjoyer Thread - CRTs >>>>> Everything else.

[FamicomGorby]

I don't know if it was this thread or some other, when someone was mentioning only 30.000 hour life of crt.
The tube itself will most likely outlast the electronics.
There was a time long ago, where tv tubes were being reconditioned and even guns were replaced.
There are a lot of options if you want to recondition a tube and crts are in a way - easy to maintain since they are very analogue devices.
If you turn brightness down you will also extend the life of thing. I had a 19" philips for almost 10 years of daily use and it still works. It was 700USD worth new, one of the best purchases of the time. It itself heating the whole room in winter is not worth it tho and it is heavy enough it caved in the desk it sat on.
The closest part to an old crt is a modern plasma tv. Without any of the drawbacks. However, processing is digital and probably not fit for old analog consoles.

Tube rejuvenation is still a thing but that's sort of a temporary fix. Basically that just overdrives the guns to burn off crud but if a tube needs that then it's dying. Replacing the guns isn't really a thing anymore but I did see one shop online that was doing some work on old B&W tv tubes, so I guess theoretically that could work.

I think you're right that most tubes will last pretty long with the uses people have for em now em though. Coming from mostly arcade stuff, there are plenty of cases of tubes dying but that's mainly cause they were originally run constantly for years. For replacements people typically just pull tubes out of TV's, and either use the yoke attached to it (if it's the right specs) or swap in the original monitor yoke, though the latter is a bit harder since you have to reconverge the tube.

I've also pulled a tube to use in a vector monitor, there's someone that put out kits that are replica chassis of Amplifone monitors. For that I actually had to rewind the vertical yoke coil to get the right value since vector monitors need to be able to move the beam fast in all directions while raster monitors only need to move it fast horizontally.

I don't get the complaints about how heavy CRTs are, you don't have to buy a retarded 27 inch tube.

A simple 13 inch CRT can sit on top of a desk and is a surprisingly comfortable size, its not like a 13inch widescreen laptop at all. And they are not heavy at all, they don't take much space, they don't get hot really (I checked mine and it uses about 60W when on).

I think 19~20" is sorta the perfect size, easy for one person to move and has good size picture.

 

[Dawdler]

Tube rejuvenation is still a thing but that's sort of a temporary fix. Basically that just overdrives the guns to burn off crud but if a tube needs that then it's dying.

That depends on the quality of the whole thing, but it can extend life for a year of two. Then you can wind an additional coil around ht coil to increase the drive voltage to the heater and will last for a year or so too.
Not much can be done if the emission coating is ruined tho.
Sadly, it's like repairing any other stuff tho. If it's worn into dirt, it's over.
The most important thing for these crt's would be to blow dust out of them and when not in use, cover them with cloth to prevent dust ingress and store them in dry dry place where they can't gather moisture. 17" trinitron that was stored in basement sparks occasionally and it will ruin the insulation over time. It's impossible to find as it arcs over once in an hour or so, but it's probably somewhere on the ht lead.
Even tho it has probably 20k hours on the clock, the image is still sharp and brighter with better contrast than any other monitor.

 

[foam rolla]

I always have good memories of playing Final Fantasy 7 on our home Sony Trinitron. Thing was built like a tank and I'd imagine probably still works.

Other good thing was the remote. Thing was built so good. My family members bought a new, fancy tv and the remote was fucking dying within a couple of years. Nothing is built to last.

 

[Kalsarikännit]

The people making posts about TV tubes failing seem to be mostly talking out their ass or referring to conjecture from decades ago. If you don’t run the tube 24/7 at high brightness or have the same image on the screen constantly then it will last a very long time. As others have said, the point of failure is usually the analog board and/or the fly back transformer.

Old old TV tubes (think 1950s and earlier) did indeed not last as long, but most new CRTs are totally fine.

I had this exact television when I was a kid.

I highly doubt that, since it cost an absolutely insane amount of money and was intended for commercial use. You’re probably misremembering and had a different Sony.

I don't get the complaints about how heavy CRTs are, you don't have to buy a retarded 27 inch tube.

A simple 13 inch CRT can sit on top of a desk and is a surprisingly comfortable size, its not like a 13inch widescreen laptop at all. And they are not heavy at all, they don't take much space, they don't get hot really (I checked mine and it uses about 60W when on).

I agree, unless you want to have it in the living room, then 13” is too small.

 

[Baraka Obama]

The people making posts about TV tubes failing seem to be mostly talking out their ass or referring to conjecture from decades ago. If you don’t run the tube 24/7 at high brightness or have the same image on the screen constantly then it will last a very long time. As others have said, the point of failure is usually the analog board and/or the fly back transformer.

Caps will fail over time on consumer stuff but I really have a bone to pick with the idea that tube degradation wasn't a real phenomenon we all experienced in real time.

My parent's generation would watch TV pretty well constantly -- my mother was at home and my dad worked odd hours so the living room TV was on from 7:30am to 2am every single day. After a few years you really noticed how less bright it was.

If you trashpick a CRT odds are it had this kind of treatment.

 

[Jump]

Tube rejuvenation is still a thing but that's sort of a temporary fix. Basically that just overdrives the guns to burn off crud but if a tube needs that then it's dying. Replacing the guns isn't really a thing anymore but I did see one shop online that was doing some work on old B&W tv tubes, so I guess theoretically that could work.

Actually rejuving is more then a temp fix if done right. I have a higher end BK Precision crt analyzer that has two modes of rejuv. The full on SEND IT mode and a lighter Cleaner mode. If you go real easy on the clean mode and test after each hit you get burn off the crud with out burning away much of the cathode material. Do it right and the tube will wake right up and give you decades of more service for some acade collector who only uses it a few weeks a year.
The problem with rejuving that might make it temporary is when people stand on the button and burn off tons of cathode for no reason.

If the tube really is tired you can put a brightener on which is basically just a step up transformer that over drives the fliment. That is a temp fix but better then nothing.

Pertinent

I kinda understand where Hank was coming from. I kept my old Zenith Space Command console TV running lost past what most people would consider reasonable. It wasn't just a TV. It was a piece of furniture. It wasn't until HD and 16:9 became the norm did I finally give up on it.

I finally got an OLED thats both good and fairly cheap and honestly don't find myself very attracted to getting a CRT ever again. The only reason I may consider getting one would be to fuck around with it for filming shit.

Back when LCD was new and kinda shit you could make the case for hanging on to CRT's. Now with OLED that can do true black there really is no reason to use CRT's other then nostalgia. Which is fine. But to somehow claim they are better is retarded. I grew up using CRTs. As soon as you throw text on them you realize their shit. There is a reason your eyes started bugging out after a few hours working on them.
I had a nice pair of Viewsonics back in the day. I still have a commodore 1084 for random analog projects. I would never want to go back to actually having to use them daily again.

 

[Patrick Bait-man]

Now with OLED that can do true black there really is no reason to use CRT's other then nostalgia.

Retro gaming, nigga. The way they were meant to be played.

 

[Baraka Obama]

Back when LCD was new and kinda shit you could make the case for hanging on to CRT's. Now with OLED that can do true black there really is no reason to use CRT's other then nostalgia. Which is fine. But to somehow claim they are better is retarded. I grew up using CRTs. As soon as you throw text on them you realize their shit. There is a reason your eyes started bugging out after a few hours working on them.

CRTs are better in specific niches:

1. Playing DOS games at 320x200@70hz 4:3 on a PC CRT, there's really no comparison
2. 240p sources, it's not even just the look but they feel completely different on a CRT
3. The "text is bad" sperging is unironically great because it leads to a whole image softening like a full screen antialising -- the resolved image is lower than the input resolution. This is very much the intended look for a lot of 90s PC games.

 

[neger psykolog]

Back when LCD was new and kinda shit you could make the case for hanging on to CRT's. Now with OLED that can do true black there really is no reason to use CRT's other then nostalgia. Which is fine. But to somehow claim they are better is retarded. I grew up using CRTs. As soon as you throw text on them you realize their shit. There is a reason your eyes started bugging out after a few hours working on them.
I had a nice pair of Viewsonics back in the day. I still have a commodore 1084 for random analog projects. I would never want to go back to actually having to use them daily again.

The image on CRTs is like "back focused" from where the glass is. So supposedly if you use them for computer work your eyes get trained to back focus by some amount which fucks up your focus in the long-term.

Not sure how true that is but that is what people used to say about them.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

CRTs do interlacing in a way that I’ve never been able to perfectly replicate, and based on many dvd rips I’ve done, neither can the studios unless they have access to the original film source.

Doom at 320x200 on a 17” CRT hits way different than on a modern 17” LCD even if you have all the upscalers and filters.

Where modern TVs win is in paused content in 4K. But who watches the pause screen?

 

[Jump]

View attachment 6789067
Retro gaming, nigga. The way they were meant to be played.

So why can I tell the difference between the 2 images on my modern monitor?
Ya if you run your console to some chinky AV to VGA converter on to a shit LCD its going to look like shit.
If quality really matters to you then do it right with something like a RetroTINK and the CRT's W vanishes. Past that your getting in to cope mode trying to justify keeping a bunch of flakey old 200lb desk benders around.

CRTs do interlacing in a at a that I’ve never been able to perfectly replicate,

Everyone hated on DLP rear projection tv's but those actually played DVD's and VHS right. And even old gear that used artifacting to get more colors like the CoCo and Apple2 worked perfectly on it. My old 56" Samsung TI DLP was great at spanning generations of media with its litterly every input style from RF to HDMI.

It was a cheap way to play old stuff on a modern sized screen. Its just sucks they wern't that reliable. Aftermarket bulbs where shit and its game over when they got a stuck mirror.

 

[Patrick Bait-man]

So why can I tell the difference between the 2 images on my modern monitor?
Ya if you run your console to some chinky AV to VGA converter on to a shit LCD its going to look like shit.
If quality really matters to you then do it right with something like a RetroTINK and the CRT's W vanishes. Past that your getting in to cope mode trying to justify keeping a bunch of flakey old 200lb desk benders around.

I'm not talking about the resolution, retard. A RetroTINK will not change the original raw pixel look you get from running a retro game through a modern TV.

These old games were designed with CRTs in mind, without them they look ugly.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

Yeah, it's really hard to emulate physical scanlines on a digital screen, the bleed and fade and interlacing worked in a way that you'd need insane resolution to imitate. 8K and really good filters might start to get close.

 

[jeff7989]

Anyone with fancy OLED using retroarch? Blurbusters released shader mimicking tube: link There's github link for just the shader in the article.

 

[Vecr]

Anyone with fancy OLED using retroarch? Blurbusters released shader mimicking tube: link There's github link for just the shader in the article.

I don't have anything fast enough. Maybe I'll have a go at tuning it for a 144hz VN panel, but the flicker probably won't be tolerable.

 

[Bucky]

Yeah, it's really hard to emulate physical scanlines on a digital screen, the bleed and fade and interlacing worked in a way that you'd need insane resolution to imitate. 8K and really good filters might start to get close.

I hear this all the time, and I feel the same with music, I built an analog synth with a friend because despite hundreds of VST's and plugins nothing beats a true hardware machine, it was ours and it was unique in the world. "Limitations breed creativity", and in a strange way the digital age has made everything so perfect it loses it's softness. I stand by the fact that humans are analog and physical beings, that's why we add back in the old pops and cracks of magnetic tape, the imperfections from the paper rolls inside tube amps making them soft and fuzzy, we even replicate the satisfying clicks of old physical buttons.

It is so bizarre that it takes the upper echelon of technology to replicate things we had 20 years ago, and it does make me wonder if we will always reach back to times when things weren't so perfect, without limitations does your creativity have as much value? If you have no limitations or challenges what will cause the happy accidents and mistakes that set the standard for everything that comes after?

 

[des Pudels Kern]

I have two CRT TV's and since I've purchased the Retrotink 4k I no longer really use the giant tube on my desk for anything anymore. I do have some pretty old analog video gear that I have to use to watch vhs tapes like a time base corrector, and video rate oscillators for TV art, so I will not be getting rid of my TV quite yet, but I'm wondering if I shouldn't just keep the 13 inch for art and just give away the 36" Trinitron that has taken over my life.

 

[FamicomGorby]

It is so bizarre that it takes the upper echelon of technology to replicate things we had 20 years ago

I think the thing with replicating the look of CRT's is mainly the afterglow of the phosphors. It's easier to see when the background is completely black, but everything on a CRT has a slight ghost when moving around. Like a cheap CRT filter would just add fake scanlines but to really get the look it would have to replicate the phosphor afterglow on everything which is much harder to do.

 

[Jump]

I'm not talking about the resolution, retard. A RetroTINK will not change the original raw pixel look you get from running a retro game through a modern TV.

These old games were designed with CRTs in mind, without them they look ugly.

Boxes like the RT arn't just dumb cheap chinkshit upscalers. They are made by people who actually care about making old media look correct.
This guy did a good job photographing the RT different modes.

If you can see the actual RGB pixels and scanlines on a CRT then your sitting way the fuck to close, likely because the TV is to small. I want to be able to sit back on my couch and use something that a reasonable size. Devices like the RT seem to let you dial it in to what looks the best.

 

[Baraka Obama]

If you can see the actual RGB pixels and scanlines on a CRT then your sitting way the fuck to close, likely because the TV is to small.

Do you own a CRT?

This (the color mask) is a thing you can see on large CRTs but not small ones.

I think the RT5X & 4K are really impressive but it's more than just a look, it's really hard to describe but it's more like a "feel." I've heard some say it comes down to motion clarity, maybe but the motion clarity of DLP projectors is similarly fast but still doesn't feel right.