How Cathode Ray Tubes Work.

screen. So if the light is off, it can be very black. For a CRT, black is the default color. An LCD screen uses a backlight and therefore white is the default color and to make it darker the liquid crystal should try to block as much light as possible. But you can never achieve a true black. Take this dark scene from Star Wars, for example. Now I'm going to exaggerate this just for the purpose of illustration, but I hope you can understand what I mean by the CRT having a higher contrast ratio.  This is something I can't demonstrate in a YouTube video.

It's the same conundrum as trying to prove whether audio from a vinyl record sounds better than a compact disc, while being compressed via YouTube. I mean, you just can't do it. The only way to make the comparison is to be present in person. Another advantage is the ability to display   different resolutions. And what I mean by this is that the tube itself is completely resolution independent, much like what I mentioned with etch-a-sketch. Therefore, you can change resolutions on a CRT without sacrificing sharpness. While an LCD monitor has a certain number of pixels and must operate at a certain resolution, otherwise a scaling algorithm must be used, which doesn't always look so good.

Next, let's talk about input lag. The funny thing is that this term didn't even exist in the CRT era. There was no such thing. Modern HDMI displays require a certain amount of time to process the image frame and display it. Newer monitors will have a gaming mode, which helps minimize this lag, but does not eliminate it completely.  And this number leads us to the next item: light guns and pens. Just because the video chip in a computer or game console knows exactly which pixel is being drawn on the screen at any given time, it is possible to use things like pens and light guns, which can see if a specific area of ​​the Screen is illuminated or not with precise timing.  And the last one will be a bit controversial.

It's about longevity.  Now, at first glance, the LCD screen would seem to have the advantage, since it does not suffer from burn-in like a CRT does, when the same image is displayed day after day and year after year. As you can see, this tube from a PacMan arcade is extremely burned out from decades of displaying the same image every day. But early LCD screens that relied on a fluorescent tube as a backlight often became dimmer over the years and even changed color as they aged. Modern LCD screens use LED backlighting and at least they don't suffer from that problem.

So I think in terms of hours of operation, the LCD screen probably has better longevity.  But imagine you find an old CRT television from the 1940s in a warehouse that has never been used. Ok, it probably won't

work

when you plug it in, but you probably won't need that much repair to get it up and running. You may need to replace some capacitors, for example. But you would have an 80-year-old television that

work

s. Now imagine an LCD screen built today. Do you think it will still work in 80 years? Probably not. LCD screens develop a number of problems over time, one of them being vinegar syndrome.

Typically between the ages of 20 and 30, these screens will spontaneously begin to break down, delaminate, and self-destruct.  Well, most of my comparisons have been with LCD screens. Now, obviously, I realize that there are other display technologies out there, such as plasma screens, OLED, DLP, among others. But I largely compared it to LCD because I think 20 years ago, LCD was what primarily displaced CRTs once they reached price parity. And that's why most of my comparisons were with LCD screens. Now there's one more thing I want to talk about in this video and it's not specifically unique to CRT displays, but it is relevant and that is aspect ratio.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you whether 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio is best. I think it's largely subjective. What I do want to talk about, however, is the way screens are measured and how this can often lead to misrepresentations.  The way to measure a screen is, of course, diagonally. And in the days of CRTs, of course, there was the often contentious question of whether a tube should be measured in its visible area or in the overall tube size, which is slightly larger. For example, my favorite small Samsung TV is supposed to be 13 inches. However, when measuring it, it's closer to 14 inches, and without the plastic bezel in the way, it's even larger, probably more than 14 and a half inches.

In fact, the service manual refers to it as a 14-inch tube. So Samsung was being pretty honest here.  However, in the 1990s some manufacturers claimed that the screen size was the size of the tube, and not the viewable area, which gave them a slight competitive advantage when consumers looked at ads and prices. It's not much different from how some cheap digital camera manufacturers advertise interpolated resolutions instead of the actual resolution of the sensor. But let's talk about comparing the size of a 4:3 screen with that of a 16:9 one. If you take a standard size of the time, like a 17" computer monitor, and let's say you chose the widescreen because you felt like you were getting more screen for your money.

But if we overlap the area of ​​a traditional 17" monitor, something doesn't seems to be fine. So your fancy widescreen display was certainly wider, but what you gave up in height doesn't make a difference.  To make matters worse, if the 4:3 size was advertised at a price of, say, $349, but the widescreen was advertised at $329, most consumers would look at this and say, "Hey, they're both 17 monitors." , and widescreen is cheaper. "What a great deal." I can't help but think of the story of when A&W launched its 1/3-pound burger at the same price as McDonald's 1/4-pound burger, but found that most consumers believed in it. the 1/3 pound burger.

The burger was actually smaller. So my main complaint with the 16:9 screens is that I feel like a lot of people were tricked into buying one thinking they were getting a good deal, but that's it. It's ancient history. I made it to the end of the video. So, as always, thanks for watching!