24" Widescreen CRT (FW900) From Ebay arrived,Comments.

[3dfan]

Anyone in the Tampa Bay area looking for a NIB 22" in crt monitor? I have a brand new Viewsonic P220fb I'm letting go for free. What's the catch? It won't turn on. I pulled it from the box and it powered up fine. It worked normally for about 2 days after which I placed it back in the box where it sat in storage in my closet for almost six months. I decided to pull it back out and play some games one day and it would not display an image. The green led light is on and solid in the front. When powered on the degauss occurs like normal but I feel no static in front of the screen while powered on. If you think you can get the unit fixed it will be yours for ZERO dollars.

Post it in the listings thread on r/crtgaming on Reddit. I guarantee you'll find somebody that wants it.

sad, a new crt monitor dying so fast, also you seem to give up fast on trying to find a fix for it,
another site that may be good to give it would be at the facebook " The CRT Collective" group, i see a lot of crt fans there frecuenty selling, offering crts.

 

[Enhanced Interrogator]

I think he has plenty of tubes to keep him occupied. This will be a good fit for a tinkerer somewhere else in the state/country

 

[cesarioFL71]

sad, a new crt monitor dying so fast, also you seem to give up fast on trying to find a fix for it,
another site that may be good to give it would be at the facebook " The CRT Collective" group, i see a lot of crt fans there frecuenty selling, offering crts.

I've got at least 3 zero hour 22in Sun and Viewsonic crts in my home. I've also got my hands full with a cross country move that requires offloading stuff. A dead crt while painful to lose isn't a priority at this time. Update: she's being picked up in about 5 mikes.

 

[3dfan]

wow, brand new and professional series, when viewsonic was making good quality monitors compared to today flawfesteds

hope those dont fall the same fate your other brand new monitor, since it seems crt monitors are like cars, failing because of the "cold" of no use for long periods.

 

[Comixbooks]

I had a ViewSonic my eyes hurt so bad it maimed me basically couldn't get used to it no matter what I did. I used to own a Dell Trintron that was a good monitor at 19 inches.

 

[cesarioFL71]

wow, brand new and professional series, when viewsonic was making good quality monitors compared to today flawfesteds

hope those dont fall the same fate your other brand new monitor, since it seems crt monitors are like cars, failing because of the "cold" of no use for long periods.

Believe me when I tell you that it hurt to part with that unit.

 

[cesarioFL71]

I had a ViewSonic my eyes hurt so bad it maimed me basically couldn't get used to it no matter what I did. I used to own a Dell Trintron that was a good monitor at 19 inches.

Wow! I have to say that my P series Viewsonics are great performers but everything else down the product stack has been sub standard.

 

[3dfan]

Some cool looking CRT TVs in this video

personaly, being a CRT pc monitor enthusiast, i dont like CRT TV, those are rather low resolution, big notable and unavoidable scanlines, most with concave screen, 60hz max refresh rate.

its a common mistake i see from people that i doubt have seen a good condition working crt monitor in long time, that trend to think CRT TV and CRT pc monitor are the same thing, and think those like some of us still use them just because of nostalgic subjective feelings, or retro gaming only, i do play some emulated retro games, on crt monitors, but i personaly prefer to play them with emulator filters and no scanlines which for me, are ugly and rather a defect of the low resolution from the crt tvs.

pc CRT monitors are more like modern displays, they have plenty of lines, small an plenty dots and hence can display modern content as good as can be on a modern display and with no visible scanlines, good blacks close to oled quality, best posible latency and its motion quality still offer the quality and flexiblity that i have not seen on any modern display incuding oleds, also there is the fw900 (the main protagonist of this thread) that also come with physical modern flat widescreen area and can resolve modern widescreen resolutions up to 2560x1440 progressive at 80hz very good. other non pysical widescreen screen crt monitors also can resolve widescreen resolution via custom resolutions.

sure some will say: just 80hz when there are displays like oleds that can reach 240hz? (by the way the fw900 can go up to 160hz at reduced resolutoin) the CRTs can achieve 1ms persistence motion quality at any refresh ,speed you use on them with life like motion quality, for comparision, a 240hz oled with no bfi option like the mayority of the current and upcomming oleds are only able to achive someting arround 4ms peristence that still have reduced but notable motion bluring, and this when having a system capable to produce 240 constant fps, no matter if its with the help of reprojection technologies, framerate amplificatoin tehcnologies, no mater what, those will only achieve something arround 4ms persistence with still reduced but notable motion bluring, also some modern displays need higher refres rates thatn crt to compensate they higher than crt latency.

even on the oleds i have seen with bfi options to reduce motion bluirng wihout the need of such high refresh rates and constant framerates like the lg oled c1, can only achieve someting like still notable motion bluring 3.2 ms persistence at 120hz, and this requiering a system capable of 120 fps constant framerate, more flickery than a crt for 60hz, the lgcx oled one of the best for 60hz crt clarity according to what a have investigated, gets its brightness reduced a lot, about half the brightness of the crts and also more flickery

now, acording to this guy, the c1 can achieve down to arround 4-ms motion quality at 60hz with some tricks and reshade software, something that have to be seen to be believe, and even if its true, it would be only at still notable blured motion of arround 4ms persistence, also in other video that same guy claims the c1 can achieve crt like 1ms motion quallity persistance at 120hz but at very slow speeds, not realistic average speed movements in real world gaming.

there are also the modern viewsonics: the xg270 and the xg2431, both suffer form massive brightness loss (way lower than a crt mointor) when using their best bfi setting that matches the crt motion quality, both suffer from strobe crosstalk motion artifacts that dont exists on the crts like double images on the top center, botton of the screen, there are supposed tricks (QFT) that supposedly help with that issue but i have my doubs it this really cure that crosstalk motion artifact in the whole screen, no just in the center of the screen, and also olny seems to work on certain limited refres rates, also the xg2431 supports 60hz bfi single strobe giving a similar to crt motion, but produces a worse more aggresive flicker than a crt monitor. and reduces the brightness considerable, even when using custom bfi modes that matches the crt quality and the situation becomes even worse when connecting a console to that monitor, since you cannot use QFT on a console, you get unavoidable crosstalk all over the screen, bady reduced brigthness and a more intense flicker than conecting the console to a crt monitor, now ad those viewsonics "beautifull" ips "blacks" with light glow, light bleed flaws that dont exist on crts to make the situation even worse.

even on pc usage you will have to rely on high refresh rates to 120hz (and hence 120 constan fps) to minimize all that flawfest those modern viewsonic monitors suffer that the crt monitor dont suffer, hence, why i say those professional crt viewsonic monitor were better than today ones.
sure, there is no perfection in crt, there is the phosphor decay, but from what i have seen on all crt monitor i have seen, those are like trails you see behind on a moving object that are barely notable in scene situations like bright moving objects agains black backgournds like dark games, and even at that, this trial vanishes fast, and scenes with no dark backgrounds, daylight games i see no trails at all, the moving image really feel free of phosphor decay trails, its not like a permament dim screen, permament crosstalk you see on those modern monitors during strobing no matter what type of scene you are moving on. of course all this phosphor decay performance asuming the use of a good quality vga cable, digital to analog adapter and a crt that have short anough phosphor persistance, at least all the crts i have seen like the compaq 7550 and fw900 have short enough phosphor persistance so phosphor trails on them are really insiginificat to ruin the exprience as the flaws on the modern displays do.

another common misconception i have seen from some persons about crts is about their brightness, also those crt monitor have good enough brightrness that you can still persieve bright vivid color even on a moderated natural lighed enviroments or in a room in the night with a bulb light, comparing an lg oled c1 to those mentioned crt moitors, i dont notice dramatic higher brightness bewtwen them in sdr mode, both seem very similar, in fact the c1 gets less bright and more notable flickery at 60hz than the crts when i activate its best motion quality mode "oled motion pro high" and even at that, the motion still looks blury, a lot better on the crt., at 120hz oled motion pro the situation improved flicker wise but brightness still a bit lower than the crts and motoin still blury as i said, due to the arround 4ms the oled was able to achieve vs the crt 1ms.
sure in hdr mode is when i notice the oled brighter but it not sometihng critical for me to not to have it on the crts, since the crt have good enogh brightness and vivid colors, i dont see hdr a must, those extra brightness and benefiths the oled gets with hdr gets ruined when the image is in motion to my likes

so this is why i prefer to use a crt monitor in 2023 from an objetive, non nostalgic subjetive but rather eye candy and performance quality perpective even for modern gaming: only those crt monitors allow the mix and fexibility of everthing: good vivid color brightness, life like motion quality, soft enough flicker, latency, blacks, 0 crosstalk in the whole screen at any refersh i want to use these crts support, plus add the fw900 physical modern widescreen area, but even without the fw900 i would still prefer to game on a crt monitor , just use custom widescreen resolutions for modern games.

I had a ViewSonic my eyes hurt so bad it maimed me basically couldn't get used to it no matter what I did. I used to own a Dell Trintron that was a good monitor at 19 inches.

i have not had such eye issues with crt monitors for over 20 years and still of current use, even for pc desktop usage and i use my crt at 60hz, i dont pretend to say i am a kind of super man or something, i am aware there are some people that are sensitive to crt flicker no matter the crt brand, but honesty i dont remember many people were complainig about that issue, there are many that dont have issues with that with crts, its a mistake to generalize if you suffer from eye strain with crts that every single would have the same eye issues with crts

 

[SamirD]

I've got at least 3 zero hour 22in Sun and Viewsonic crts in my home. I've also got my hands full with a cross country move that requires offloading stuff. A dead crt while painful to lose isn't a priority at this time. Update: she's being picked up in about 5 mikes.

That beauty is a twin of my Lacie. Hope to see it in this thread again fully working.

 

[SamirD]

...its a mistake to generalize if you suffer from eye strain with crts that every single would have the same eye issues with crts

This is a very important point as we had several CRTs growing up and anything other than our Nanoa or Eizos would cause us eye strain after a few hours--and this was just at 1600x1200.

 

[cesarioFL71]

wow, brand new and professional series, when viewsonic was making good quality monitors compared to today flawfesteds

hope those dont fall the same fate your other brand new monitor, since it seems crt monitors are like cars, failing because of the "cold" of no use for long periods.

This is a very important point as we had several CRTs growing up and anything other than our Nanoa or Eizos would cause us eye strain after a few hours--and this was just at 1600x

One of my zero hour units that will stay with me always! I love the Diamondtron brand for the sheer quality and aesthetics. They weigh a ton also!

 

[SamirD]

One of my zero hour units that will stay with me always! I love the Diamondtron brand for the sheer quality and aesthetics. They weigh a ton also!

That's the one thing I don't miss about the 20"+ CRTs--their weight! I can't remember how many times I felt like I was going to lose it and drop one when I was younger (probably would still happen today too).

I still have several Eizo 17" and 20" monitors that developed a problem where they would not completely 'energize' (a word I would use to describe what's happening, but that probably has nothing technical to do with the issue) where they will power up, but the crt basically remains dead. Sometimes rapidly cycling the power button a few times will cause the crt to light up again and work fine until it is turned off again. I think this thread is where I will come to when I have time to fix them. They're wonderful monitors and I still have the original boxes and stuff too.

 

[cesarioFL71]

That's the one thing I don't miss about the 20"+ CRTs--their weight! I can't remember how many times I felt like I was going to lose it and drop one when I was younger (probably would still happen today too).

I still have several Eizo 17" and 20" monitors that developed a problem where they would not completely 'energize' (a word I would use to describe what's happening, but that probably has nothing technical to do with the issue) where they will power up, but the crt basically remains dead. Sometimes rapidly cycling the power button a few times will cause the crt to light up again and work fine until it is turned off again. I think this thread is where I will come to when I have time to fix them. They're wonderful monitors and I still have the original boxes and stuff too.

That is similar to the issue I have with the unit I just offloaded. It would start up randomly after so many tries but once turned off there was no guarantee it would turn on once more. I love these units but sadly I have to start letting this tech go............

 

[jbltecnicspro]

there are supposed tricks (QFT) that supposedly help with that issue but i have my doubs it this really cure that crosstalk motion artifact in the whole screen, no just in the center of the screen,

QFT at 85hz and under has no crosstalk, and this applies to the whole screen. I have said this several times now and you still seem to imply here that it's somehow not true.

and also olny seems to work on certain limited refres rates, also the xg2431 supports 60hz bfi single strobe giving a similar to crt motion, but produces a worse more aggresive flicker than a crt monitor. and reduces the brightness considerable, even when using custom bfi modes that matches the crt quality and the situation becomes even worse when connecting a console to that monitor, since you cannot use QFT on a console, you get unavoidable crosstalk all over the screen, bady reduced brigthness and a more intense flicker than conecting the console to a crt monitor, now ad those viewsonics "beautifull" ips "blacks" with light glow, light bleed flaws that dont exist on crts to make the situation even worse.

Yep, still an issue. Tech limitations at its finest.

Honestly at this point I would say you may be better off learning to repair electronics because the modern world doesn't seem to care about CRT's advantages at all. It's really disappointing but it is what it is. I think that for the most part people don't care about CRT or motion clarity or anything because they don't know what they're missing. And since there are no longer good examples to look at, they won't ever know!!!

But wait... even then it won't matter. Do you know how many people I've shown my perfect FW-900 to? Only to be met with a resounding "so what....?" Yep. I was one of only a few who cared then. And now. And such is life when you're a CRT enthusiast. That being said, learning to repair monitors is rewarding and fun.

 

[SamirD]

That is similar to the issue I have with the unit I just offloaded. It would start up randomly after so many tries but once turned off there was no guarantee it would turn on once more. I love these units but sadly I have to start letting this tech go............

I hope someone can fix that easily because it will give me hope. I'm hoping it's just old/inferior caps that Eizo used once they bought out Nanoa. My Nanoa T2-17 is just as flawless as it was when we bought it. I hope I don't jinx it by letting others know how much I love that monitor.

 

[SamirD]

Do you know how many people I've shown my perfect FW-900 to? Only to be met with a resounding "so what....?" Yep. I was one of only a few who cared then. And now. And such is life when you're a CRT enthusiast. That being said, learning to repair monitors is rewarding and fun.

This was what it was like back in early 1990s for the Model M keyboard. I literally bought 20 for 50 cents each at a local computer show. I could have kept digging them out of the box, but I thought 20 was enough, lol. Today, my Model Ms have appreciated more than my stocks from that era, lol.

Just this year, finally, 16:10 monitors are finally making a comeback as well as my favorite 2560x1600 resolution which I have been using since the CRT days. I don't think it will stick around, but those of us that care about a niche, once in a while that niche becomes mainstream (mechanical keyboards anyone?) and changes the landscape for the better for that niche.

I think CRTs will make a comeback at some point if there is a way to start the manufacturing again, which will be brutally expensive. But Sony was the king of the CRT imo even towards the end, and if anything, if it is profitable enough, Sony can bring the CRT back in a major way that will surpass even the best flat panel--there just needs to be critical application, like FAA or military displays, and then a new generation of CRTs will trickle down into the used market. Hopefully. Maybe. Okay, it's a hopeful dream, but I'll still dream it.

 

[XoR_]

pc CRT monitors are more like modern displays, they have plenty of lines, small an plenty dots and hence can display modern content as good as can be on a modern display and with no visible scanlines, good blacks close to oled quality, best posible latency and its motion quality still offer the quality and flexiblity that i have not seen on any modern display incuding oleds, also there is the fw900 (the main protagonist of this thread) that also come with physical modern flat widescreen area and can resolve modern widescreen resolutions up to 2560x1440 progressive at 80hz very good. other non pysical widescreen screen crt monitors also can resolve widescreen resolution via custom resolutions.

Modern content is HDR - CRT can not display HDR. Case closed.
You could perhaps remove AG from FW900, crank luminance to insane levels and use some kind of device to force HDR with Rec.2020 to Rec.601 gamut conversion but in best case scenario (for which HW would need to be made) you would get mediocre results at best

OLED have much better contrast ratio, no matter how you look at it.
I would even say CRT had worse contrast ratio than good IPS depending on what and in what lighting conditions you view on it.
OLED on the other hand no matter what you view in what lighting conditions show perfect black - it looks like monitor wasn't even on and screen surface is often blackest thing in your room

OLED has better gamut. Better sharpness on 4K OLED than anything CRT can produce. You say FW900 can do 1440p... it can even do 1600p or higher but that doesn't mean CRT tube actually resolves these resolution in to clearly visible pixels.


Motion clarity on CRT is where CRT shines the most. Its brilliant performance comes directly from how they work.
On OLED is has to be deliberately engineered by manufacturer and optimal implementation would require beefy power supply and sturdier power delivery lines in panel itself. Won't likely to happen anytime soon for OLEDs to get CRT-like results. Where it matters the most like 2D games I think CRT will always reign supreme.

What I would want is VRR + strobing with ability to control how much brightness I sacrifice for motion resolution improvement. If I had something like this I would probably still not sacrifice too much brightness just to get sharper image and its because at >100Hz for 3D games I think even LCD are good enough let alone OLEDs. CRT motion clarity would be nice but not if that meant much darker picture and without ability to use VRR. EDIT:// I would in this case reduce strobe time for 2D games.

[quote[so this is why i prefer to use a crt monitor in 2023 from an objetive, non nostalgic subjetive but rather eye candy and performance quality perpective even for modern gaming: only those crt monitors allow the mix and fexibility of everthing: good vivid color brightness, life like motion quality, soft enough flicker, latency, blacks, 0 crosstalk in the whole screen at any refersh i want to use these crts support, plus add the fw900 physical modern widescreen area, but even without the fw900 i would still prefer to game on a crt monitor , just use custom widescreen resolutions for modern games.[/quote]
Its quite understandable.
I myself switched from CRT to IPS for PC gaming and recently from plasma to OLED for console and even PC gaming. Its in both cases (CRT and plasma) a kind of sidegrade at most rather than full upgrade - telling how these older technologies have advantage in some aspects. I completely understand why someone would not want to do such 'upgrades' and stick with what worked for them so well for their whole lives.

To new users who didn't use CRT or did it so long time ago they only vaguely remember CRT I would give advice: go and grab one. Even cheap/free smaller unit just because they have fun image and for some use cases like all retro 2d stuff they are unbeatable. Do not expect to be amazed by them too much and do not overspend. Especially today its very unlikely that anyone would be more impressed by CRT than by OLED - in general sense. This is even with first gen OLED monitors which itself are far from perfect implementation of this tech.

 

[cesarioFL71]

This was what it was like back in early 1990s for the Model M keyboard. I literally bought 20 for 50 cents each at a local computer show. I could have kept digging them out of the box, but I thought 20 was enough, lol. Today, my Model Ms have appreciated more than my stocks from that era, lol.

Just this year, finally, 16:10 monitors are finally making a comeback as well as my favorite 2560x1600 resolution which I have been using since the CRT days. I don't think it will stick around, but those of us that care about a niche, once in a while that niche becomes mainstream (mechanical keyboards anyone?) and changes the landscape for the better for that niche.

I think CRTs will make a comeback at some point if there is a way to start the manufacturing again, which will be brutally expensive. But Sony was the king of the CRT imo even towards the end, and if anything, if it is profitable enough, Sony can bring the CRT back in a major way that will surpass even the best flat panel--there just needs to be critical application, like FAA or military displays, and then a new generation of CRTs will trickle down into the used market. Hopefully. Maybe. Okay, it's a hopeful dream, but I'll still dream it.

I know your heart is in the right place with this but crt is dead. DEAD! There is nothing that will bring it back. I'm right there with you but it's a fools hope......

 

[SamirD]

I know your heart is in the right place with this but crt is dead. DEAD! There is nothing that will bring it back. I'm right there with you but it's a fools hope......

No! I refuse to let them completely die!

I know what you mean but after seeing the Saturn EV crushed by GM thinking EVs will never be common and now seeing more Teslas zip around than Honda Accords, I've learned to never say never.

The only difference between a dream and a goal is a plan.

 

[XoR_]

I think CRTs will make a comeback at some point if there is a way to start the manufacturing again, which will be brutally expensive. But Sony was the king of the CRT imo even towards the end, and if anything, if it is profitable enough, Sony can bring the CRT back in a major way that will surpass even the best flat panel--there just needs to be critical application, like FAA or military displays, and then a new generation of CRTs will trickle down into the used market. Hopefully. Maybe. Okay, it's a hopeful dream, but I'll still dream it.

Not gonna happen.
What should have happened and I am really sad and mad about it didn't was SED and/or FED displays. Maybe they would not be as good as OLED due to having to have non-black surface - which was one of the biggest advantages LCD always had over CRT and even PDP (plasma) but otherwise they should be as good as OLED and perhaps have much less burn-in. No real reason why SED/FED would not be able to produce the same black level (other than doing so in brightly lit room due to non-black surface) or the same peak brightness. In fact blue OLED - what we have now in OLEDs were always extremely quick to loose brightness and SED/FED were supposed to be much better at this - so should also be as bright if not brighter for HDR.

I mention SED/FED because this tech is much more likely to result in material reality at this point than new CRT tube

I do not see comeback of bulky heavy CRT with todays transport/gas prices and when we have displays like these

Displays I might add have superior everything except motion clarity - which if Samsung really wanted they could also greatly improve.

The only way for CRT to be brought back from land of eternal traces is for some eccentric billionaire funding it - knowing all too well this will be a really bad investment, financially speaking.
For billionaires they already make giant micro-LEDs...

 

[SamirD]

The only way for CRT to be brought back from land of eternal traces is for some eccentric billionaire funding it - knowing all too well this will be a really bad investment, financially speaking.

I think the only way they will come back is because it is a good investment. And that means that for some application, the motion capability of CRTs is absolutely paramount and the application is life and death. Then there's enough money to make it happen.

 

[Comixbooks]

No! I refuse to let them completely die!

I know what you mean but after seeing the Saturn EV crushed by GM thinking EVs will never be common and now seeing more Teslas zip around than Honda Accords, I've learned to never say never.

The only difference between a dream and a goal is a plan.

Maybe if you email Elon Musk he will bring back CRTs that is probably the only way it's going to happen. I was holding out on SED monitors for months untill both Toshiba and and Kodak caved in then I knew there was no hope even for flat panel SED.

 

[cesarioFL71]

Maybe if you email Elon Musk he will bring back CRTs that is probably the only way it's going to happen. I was holding out on SED monitors for months untill both Toshiba and and Kodak caved in then I knew there was no hope even for flat panel SED.

You can't replace the knowledge that died with the original generation of fabricators. Glass crt tube making was an art that will be difficult to replicate without the original knowledge.

 

[Strat_84]

FW900 under medical treatment here. Looks like I saved it, to be continued.

Background:
Back in summer 2022, the screen started flashing red screens during warmup. Since it did persist, I stopped using it to find what was wrong. The electronic was checked, it was OK, so it appeared the problem came from the tube.
I finally made an adapter allowing to use a CRT tester I had bought some time ago and ... bingo, it detected an intermittent heater-cathode short during warmup. It took quite some patience, some short zapping via the tester, some tube tapping with the tube moved in different positions, the red heater-cathode short turned into a cathode-G1 short, another blue cathode-G1 short appeared in the process too, but now all seem to be gone, and for good. Apparently there was some garbage inside. In such situation, tapping the neck of the tube with the tip of the nails or the fingers to dislodge it seem more effective than any electric discharge BTW.

I plugged the screen again for a short time, the display seem ok (quite dim but it's normal, I also got rid of the garbage "warmup transistor", G2 needs to be adjusted accordingly). Next step: WPB, and it should be good for service again.

 

[XoR_]

I think the only way they will come back is because it is a good investment.

Tell that to people who during 00's replaced their 100Hz CRTs for similarly sized 60Hz LCD's - which is pretty much almost everyone.

You could not have bigger motion clarity downgrade than that but apparently having CRT on your desk at some point in time became so unfashionable people didn't for a moment think they could have two monitor setup and save themselves for having to play games or watch videos on LCD and rather seemed to have internal need to get rid of CRT as quickly as possible.

This was back when LCDs meant TN with 60Hz refresh rate and nothing like VRR to provide any advantage over CRT.
For all the years I used CRT only on handful of occasions I experienced glorious CRT motion clarity. To get it meant sacrificing resolution along with refresh rate and also increasing input lag by enabling V-Sync and unless PC was really overpowered for a game it would still have occasional frame drops. Experience with good VRR IPS is much better and more consistent. Not to mention colors on modern IPS panels can be like really good - to the point they make CRT looks bad.

Making CRT, even if they were made to be better than best CRT we got would be appealing enough only to small minority of CRT fans. From this if you wanted to make business profitable it would have to be limited to millionaires as you and definitely me wouldn't be able to afford it. It would have to be sponsored entirely by investor and have low price.

And that means that for some application, the motion capability of CRTs is absolutely paramount and the application is life and death. Then there's enough money to make it happen.

Applications like what?

If you needed display with lower possible persistence you could easily achieve it on OLED.
Look up peak luminance levels - to get them full frame with strobing only means improving power delivery (and also maybe panel cooling) and then you can get all frame luminance similar to CRT. Say if panels can do 1600 nits 6500K white peak you could with 1ms persistence get 200 nits at 120Hz (1ms displaying image, 7ms displaying nothing). At higher refresh rates its even easier, at 240Hz you need half as much peak luminance for 1ms or can get 200 nits with 0.5ms persistence.

Unimpressive results we get today are because strobing is far from being the focus of panel manufacturers.
In fact even less effort in recent models where they only do 60Hz strobing and by actual BFI (and not cutting power to the panel) because its easy to achieve just by displaying every other frame black.

If you had serious life or death application you can be sure they would come up with something that while maybe expensive would be much cheaper than making CRT and factories and electronics for them.

 

[spacediver]

FW900 under medical treatment here. Looks like I saved it, to be continued.

Background:
Back in summer 2022, the screen started flashing red screens during warmup. Since it did persist, I stopped using it to find what was wrong. The electronic was checked, it was OK, so it appeared the problem came from the tube.
I finally made an adapter allowing to use a CRT tester I had bought some time ago and ... bingo, it detected an intermittent heater-cathode short during warmup. It took quite some patience, some short zapping via the tester, some tube tapping with the tube moved in different positions, the red heater-cathode short turned into a cathode-G1 short, another blue cathode-G1 short appeared in the process too, but now all seem to be gone, and for good. Apparently there was some garbage inside. In such situation, tapping the neck of the tube with the tip of the nails or the fingers to dislodge it seem more effective than any electric discharge BTW.

I plugged the screen again for a short time, the display seem ok (quite dim but it's normal, I also got rid of the garbage "warmup transistor", G2 needs to be adjusted accordingly). Next step: WPB, and it should be good for service again.

That's very encouraging!

 

[cesarioFL71]

My zero hour

Sun GDM 5410 22" FD Trinitron. I had three of these brand new in the box but sold two and kept one. I love this unit!​

 

[Derupter]

FW900 under medical treatment here. Looks like I saved it, to be continued.

Background:
Back in summer 2022, the screen started flashing red screens during warmup. Since it did persist, I stopped using it to find what was wrong. The electronic was checked, it was OK, so it appeared the problem came from the tube.
I finally made an adapter allowing to use a CRT tester I had bought some time ago and ... bingo, it detected an intermittent heater-cathode short during warmup. It took quite some patience, some short zapping via the tester, some tube tapping with the tube moved in different positions, the red heater-cathode short turned into a cathode-G1 short, another blue cathode-G1 short appeared in the process too, but now all seem to be gone, and for good. Apparently there was some garbage inside. In such situation, tapping the neck of the tube with the tip of the nails or the fingers to dislodge it seem more effective than any electric discharge BTW.

I plugged the screen again for a short time, the display seem ok (quite dim but it's normal, I also got rid of the garbage "warmup transistor", G2 needs to be adjusted accordingly). Next step: WPB, and it should be good for service again.

Interesting, in the last year my FW900 started flashing blue screens during warmup, after some time the flashes turned red, now they are almost always red and very rarely blue.
It happens in the first 30-60 seconds after power on, usually one or two flashes, rarely 5 or 6, some days no flashes at all, more during the winter and less or none in the summer.
I've also noticed sometimes that the image zooms in during the flash, no weird noise is heard during these flashes.
I was thinking about a bad solder somewhere that autofix itself with warm, but now that i read your post i think it's the same issue?
Was the behavior of your flashes like mine?
Considering it only happens in the first minute, I didn't open the monitor to check, it is difficult for this reason.
What is the function of that warmup transistor, make the screen grey instead of black during the first 15-20 minutes?

 

[malik22]

Hello guys im about to get a IBM P260 locally for cheap is it a good crt? and what is the best adapter for a 3080 to crt?

 

[XoR_]

Hello guys im about to get a IBM P260 locally for cheap is it a good crt? and what is the best adapter for a 3080 to crt?

Should be pretty good. Its horizontal and vertical refresh rates are identical to GDM-FW900

 

[Strat_84]

Interesting, in the last year my FW900 started flashing blue screens during warmup, after some time the flashes turned red, now they are almost always red and very rarely blue.
It happens in the first 30-60 seconds after power on, usually one or two flashes, rarely 5 or 6, some days no flashes at all, more during the winter and less or none in the summer.
I've also noticed sometimes that the image zooms in during the flash, no weird noise is heard during these flashes.
I was thinking about a bad solder somewhere that autofix itself with warm, but now that i read your post i think it's the same issue?
Was the behavior of your flashes like mine?
Considering it only happens in the first minute, I didn't open the monitor to check, it is difficult for this reason.
What is the function of that warmup transistor, make the screen grey instead of black during the first 15-20 minutes?

Yes, it matches more or less your description. 1 or 2 flashes during warmup, it may have happened during the first minutes of use but that's all. Always red flashes in my case. I don't remember if there was a change in size screen.
The thing is, I also had a few color flashes on another screen (i don't remember the exact circumstances though), and in that case it very quickly ended with a display with only blue/green colors. One of the channels of the RGB amplifier died with some components in the vicinity. Replacing all that permanently fixed the problem. So although it looks like the root of the problem is indeed the tube in your case, keep in mind the electronics may be involved as well, and it's better to rule this out before touching the tube IMO.

Oh, and yes, the transistor I'm talking about is the one that keeps the display brighter during warmup. I checked some documentation and since the cut off amp is directly connected to the ground on newer generations (G520/F520), I decided it was worth a try to bypass that transistor by shorting the pins together ("removing" is a bad way to express what is done actually, and that should never be done ).

 

[XoR_]

I used opportunity given by having HDFury Vrroom and tested how CRT behaves with VRR
Test done on Iiyama LM704UT A and as expected as long as frame rate kept stable image would display and when frame rate changed the image would go out of sync. Also when VRR actually limited frame rate on top of the screen there was some moving distortion.
Even if monitor didn't have circuitry that blanked whole display when display mode change the height of monitor changed when changing maximum refresh rate by one fps between some values.

Not sure what is the reason for distortion but I expected CRT won't be able to sync to changing v-blank signals and it behaves just like in the past changing synchronization values in Power Strip. This like expected pretty much proves VRR doesn't work on CRT.

That said imho CRT could be designed to work with VRR with more advanced deflection controller - there would be brightness fluctuation and making corrections for that would be pretty hard but since sync issues I do not think anyone will ever have to resolve this particular brightness issue.

I also tested how forcing HDR look on CRT and... it looks pretty bad
Actually not different to just disabling HDR metadata on HDR monitor.
With custom made DAC it would be possible to get HDR working and look good on CRT... pointless as it would be it could at least be done

 

[Derupter]

Yes, it matches more or less your description. 1 or 2 flashes during warmup, it may have happened during the first minutes of use but that's all. Always red flashes in my case. I don't remember if there was a change in size screen.
The thing is, I also had a few color flashes on another screen (i don't remember the exact circumstances though), and in that case it very quickly ended with a display with only blue/green colors. One of the channels of the RGB amplifier died with some components in the vicinity. Replacing all that permanently fixed the problem. So although it looks like the root of the problem is indeed the tube in your case, keep in mind the electronics may be involved as well, and it's better to rule this out before touching the tube IMO.

Oh, and yes, the transistor I'm talking about is the one that keeps the display brighter during warmup. I checked some documentation and since the cut off amp is directly connected to the ground on newer generations (G520/F520), I decided it was worth a try to bypass that transistor by shorting the pins together ("removing" is a bad way to express what is done actually, and that should never be done ).

Ok, for now i leave it as it is, i only hope that it doesn't get worse.
If that were to happen, now I have a starting point thanks to your tips.

I used opportunity given by having HDFury Vrroom and tested how CRT behaves with VRR
Test done on Iiyama LM704UT A and as expected as long as frame rate kept stable image would display and when frame rate changed the image would go out of sync. Also when VRR actually limited frame rate on top of the screen there was some moving distortion.
Even if monitor didn't have circuitry that blanked whole display when display mode change the height of monitor changed when changing maximum refresh rate by one fps between some values.

Not sure what is the reason for distortion but I expected CRT won't be able to sync to changing v-blank signals and it behaves just like in the past changing synchronization values in Power Strip. This like expected pretty much proves VRR doesn't work on CRT.

That said imho CRT could be designed to work with VRR with more advanced deflection controller - there would be brightness fluctuation and making corrections for that would be pretty hard but since sync issues I do not think anyone will ever have to resolve this particular brightness issue.

I also tested how forcing HDR look on CRT and... it looks pretty bad
Actually not different to just disabling HDR metadata on HDR monitor.
With custom made DAC it would be possible to get HDR working and look good on CRT... pointless as it would be it could at least be done

I suspected something like this, thanks for testing it.

 

[Enhanced Interrogator]

I also tested how forcing HDR look on CRT and... it looks pretty bad

Does you DAC support 10-bit color though?

Because I imagine HDR wouldn't look bad on a CRT, when set up correctly. Just basically identical SDR.

 

[malik22]

Should be pretty good. Its horizontal and vertical refresh rates are identical to GDM-FW900
View attachment 565064

Thank you what about adapter for 3080 whats the best?

 

[XoR_]

Does you DAC support 10-bit color though?

Because I imagine HDR wouldn't look bad on a CRT, when set up correctly. Just basically identical SDR.

HDR is a bit more complicated than just 10-bit

HDR uses BT2020 gamut - which is much wider than sRGB or Rec.601 that CRT monitors typically used. Much larger in fact than any display can currently actually display. So this is one reason why image would be terrible - colors look very undersaturated.
Second thing is completely different gamma response function.

10-bit vs 8-bit is irrelevant as long as dithering is employed by GPU. Not sure Nvidia but on Radeon dithering works. I didn't specifically test gradients but gradation should not be an issue.

Thank you what about adapter for 3080 whats the best?

I have two adapters which can do higher clocks >300MHz and the better one is Delock 62967. It does about 340-350MHz (do not remember what exactly)
Second one is Startech DP2VGAHD20 and it does ~380MHz from what I can remember. It unfortunately had worse image quality in both giving dimmer and more muted colors, is more blurry and exhibit some artefacting above 300MHz. Some colors exhibit what looks like propagation delays.

Delock is known to exhibit some issues with its built-in DP cable on some cards.
I never had issues on Nvidia. On AMD I some times need to unplug it and plug it again otherwise GPU doesn't read EDID correctly. Not sure if that is the same issue with DP cable.

From these two Delock is much better converter. Lower clock means very highest resolutions will not be available but its even less of an issue on 4:3 monitor.

 

[SamirD]

Maybe if you email Elon Musk he will bring back CRTs that is probably the only way it's going to happen. I was holding out on SED monitors for months untill both Toshiba and and Kodak caved in then I knew there was no hope even for flat panel SED.

If there's money in it, there will be a way even without someone putting up the money as traditional financing will lend.

 

[SamirD]

You can't replace the knowledge that died with the original generation of fabricators. Glass crt tube making was an art that will be difficult to replicate without the original knowledge.

And you better believe that Sony has that locked away somewhere.

 

[SamirD]

Making CRT, even if they were made to be better than best CRT we got would be appealing enough only to small minority of CRT fans. From this if you wanted to make business profitable it would have to be limited to millionaires as you and definitely me wouldn't be able to afford it. It would have to be sponsored entirely by investor and have low price.


Applications like what?

That's why I said it would have to be some killer application. I'm not sure what, but Porsche's first car in 1898 was an EV and GM had the EV1 in the 1990s and both companies though those were trash technology until Tesla came along. Now everyone is falling all over themselves to make an EV again. This is the type of scenario I see under which CRTs would be around, and I do think it would have to be for a very specific application where money is no object (like being able to see into a working nuclear reactor with your bare eyes or some craziness like that where people would pay ridiculously because the industry has trillions in it so $20k for a monitor would be a normal expense).

 

[SamirD]

My zero hour

Sun GDM 5410 22" FD Trinitron. I had three of these brand new in the box but sold two and kept one. I love this unit!​

Absolutely beautiful!