• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Digital Foundry: PlayStation 5 and Series X tested on a CRT - a game-changer for image quality?

catvonpee

Member
I wonder why someone hasn't made a widescreen 4k CRT? Even if it was huge and heavy, expensive, I'm sure people would want it.

Clearly there's a market for this. I spent hours trying to find a decent CRT online and they are virtually nonexistent now. I wish I hadn't gotten rid of my Mitsubishi Diamond pro.
 

Whitecrow

Banned
I wonder why someone hasn't made a widescreen 4k CRT? Even if it was huge and heavy, expensive, I'm sure people would want it.

Clearly there's a market for this. I spent hours trying to find a decent CRT online and they are virtually nonexistent now. I wish I hadn't gotten rid of my Mitsubishi Diamond pro.
There's market for it? Besides DF followers??
 

Mr Rawnch

Neo Member
I wonder why someone hasn't made a widescreen 4k CRT? Even if it was huge and heavy, expensive, I'm sure people would want it.

Clearly there's a market for this. I spent hours trying to find a decent CRT online and they are virtually nonexistent now. I wish I hadn't gotten rid of my Mitsubishi Diamond pro.
I had a 22-inch and loved it. I hated moving it for LAN parties back when Quake III and Unreal Tournament were the rage.

I still have my Panasonic commercial plasma's because the color depth is so good.
 

Markio128

Member
back to the future GIF
 

Hoddi

Member
I wonder why someone hasn't made a widescreen 4k CRT? Even if it was huge and heavy, expensive, I'm sure people would want it.

Clearly there's a market for this. I spent hours trying to find a decent CRT online and they are virtually nonexistent now. I wish I hadn't gotten rid of my Mitsubishi Diamond pro.
This was asked in a Q&A with some monitor manufacturer on Reddit recently. One of the biggest hurdles (outside of manufacturing costs) is passing them through environmental regulations.

I think it's more realistic to hope for plasmas to return. Those weren't quite as good as CRTs but they were still vastly better than LCD/OLED. I'd buy a 4k120 plasma in a heartbeat if I could.
 

catvonpee

Member
Cost prohibitive.
Meh, people are scalping old monitors for $10k I'm sure there's room to make a profit there.

And the only reason I got rid of mine before is like I was a serial monogamouist and moved just about every year, each new lease, and moving the big ass monitor every year got old. Now that I love in the same old house year after year, I wouldn't ming having a big heavy ass monitor again.
 

lachesis

Member
Earlier this year, I bought a 17" CRT Gateway monitor, brand new - boxed - 1280x1024 max resolution.

Hooked it up to my PS3, using VGA/HDMI adapter + a pair of small powered PC speakers... and have been enjoying it quite a bit. MGS4 looked quite great on it too!
My output setup is 720p, so the pics were compressed. I manually adjusted the image to fit into 16x9 ratio with black bar top and bottom. (about one inch and half on top and bottom)

I was afraid that if I played anything 4x3 ratio on playing PS1/PS2 classic games on it - it would be a tiny box in the middle of the screen - but apparently the monitor showed whole thing full screen on 4x3 pictures to my surprise.
The motion, and anything on DVD looks quite great, especially after calibration too. Thinking about connecting my Wii U to it as well for some retro gaming bliss.

But... it's small yet heavier than my 65" LG C7 OLED. This small thing is like 30+ pound, and was reminded why this type of display died off. I remember having much bigger TV, and you really needed 2+ people to carry around, hoping you won't lose the grip.
I am sure there's a niche market for HD CRT with good exterior design - not even asking 4k but just 720p to 1080p, small enough around 17" around 300 bucks.. I would probably buy a few in a heartbeat, connecting every single "Mini" consoles on each one of them. :)
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
If you want CRT like motion on OLED you could enable BFI. You can get 1080+ lines of resolution in the max setting on the LG CX
Dunno about the different settings on the CX, but on the C9 there's only one setting and the flickering and loss of brightness are so distracting that it's really hard to notice any improvement in motion. I'd be curious to see the low and medium settings on the CX, but... it's not a feature I would sell my C9 to buy a new model over.
 

Marlenus

Member
If only SED-TV had taken off/not died...

Copied from my post in this thread: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/digital-foundry-crt-and-motion-resolution.1502728/

Was a while ago SED was up and about... Some links (not necessary the best links available) IF you/or anyone else want to read about it.


I need technology connections to make a video on this now I know it exists.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Meh, people are scalping old monitors for $10k I'm sure there's room to make a profit there.

And the only reason I got rid of mine before is like I was a serial monogamouist and moved just about every year, each new lease, and moving the big ass monitor every year got old. Now that I love in the same old house year after year, I wouldn't ming having a big heavy ass monitor again.
Just because some people do that doesn't mean it comes even close required to offset the costs required to rebuild manufacturing infrastructure that hardly exists anymore in a modern capacity, let alone make a profit.

Not to mention how huge and heavy it would be. The Sony Trinitron 30 inchers are pushing 200 pounds.

 
Dunno about the different settings on the CX, but on the C9 there's only one setting and the flickering and loss of brightness are so distracting that it's really hard to notice any improvement in motion. I'd be curious to see the low and medium settings on the CX, but... it's not a feature I would sell my C9 to buy a new model over.
C9 only does 60hz bfi (60 black frames a second in other words) which is too flickery.

2020 oleds have 120hz bfi. But even with bfi - minus phosphor trails on crt - 60 and 30 FPS still look far smoother on crt. Have not tried a 120fps game with bfi yet though.
 

Godfavor

Member
C9 only does 60hz bfi (60 black frames a second in other words) which is too flickery.

2020 oleds have 120hz bfi. But even with bfi - minus phosphor trails on crt - 60 and 30 FPS still look far smoother on crt. Have not tried a 120fps game with bfi yet though.
My LG GX 120hz Bfi handles motion blur like a plasma screen comparatively (my previous plasma Panasonic UT50 EU model). I agree that CRT is slightly smoother
 
This was asked in a Q&A with some monitor manufacturer on Reddit recently. One of the biggest hurdles (outside of manufacturing costs) is passing them through environmental regulations.

I think it's more realistic to hope for plasmas to return. Those weren't quite as good as CRTs but they were still vastly better than LCD/OLED. I'd buy a 4k120 plasma in a heartbeat if I could.
Plasma died due to 4k - iirc it was impossible to scale power consumption linearly with pixel size in it
 

Hoddi

Member
Plasma died due to 4k - iirc it was impossible to scale power consumption linearly with pixel size in it
Ya, I remember hearing many different reasons for it. The official line was due to lack of demand making it not cost effective. I think I also read that same thing about power consumption and environmental regulations being a concern.

I bought my own plasma in 2010 when LED TVs were taking off and I still remember how badly the differences were misrepresented. 'LED TV' was a ridiculously powerful marketing term back then and I think it did a lot of damage to plasmas.
 

Hoddi

Member
Yah CRT's are great but they don't have HDR.. in a dark room with HDR OLED annihilates everything.
I don't disagree because OLEDs look fantastic at native 4k with HDR. It's just that most console games cannot manage native 4k60 which means that they suffer from scaling artifacts at lower resolutions.

I currently have my PS5 hooked to a 27" 4k monitor and the scaling artifacts are still very much apparent even at this small screen size. I've been considering upgrading my 1080p plasma to a 4k OLED but I honestly find it a bit hard to justify. I already did that once but I ended up moving all my consoles back to the plasma.
 

svbarnard

Banned
CRTs are great, as long as the games are built around not needing much distant detail.

DF is just trying to be elitist with their PVMs.
So what is the major difference between CRTs and LCDS and OLEDs? Believe it or not old CRT TVs we used to all have had no motion blur, whereas modern LCDs and OLEDs have a lot of motion blur at low frame rates. It's going to take 1,000 frames per second to eliminate motion blur on LCDs/OLEDs. Here just start scrolling the text up and down and notice as soon as the text moves it will become smudged that's the inherent motion blur that LCDs/OLEDs have. Old CRT TVs had zero motion blur.

This article is a must read for anyone who truly wants to understand motion blur on modern day flat panel TVs. https://blurbusters.com/blur-buster...000hz-displays-with-blurfree-sample-and-hold/

As you can see the higher the frame rate the less motion blur you have on LCDs /OLEDs
bIESgmP.png
 

svbarnard

Banned
I don't disagree because OLEDs look fantastic at native 4k with HDR. It's just that most console games cannot manage native 4k60 which means that they suffer from scaling artifacts at lower resolutions.

I currently have my PS5 hooked to a 27" 4k monitor and the scaling artifacts are still very much apparent even at this small screen size. I've been considering upgrading my 1080p plasma to a 4k OLED but I honestly find it a bit hard to justify. I already did that once but I ended up moving all my consoles back to the plasma.
If your plasma still works fine I would keep that thing.
 

svbarnard

Banned
My LG GX 120hz Bfi handles motion blur like a plasma screen comparatively (my previous plasma Panasonic UT50 EU model). I agree that CRT is slightly smoother
Guess what else uses black frame insertion to eliminate motion blur, VR headsets, so if you want to see what a screen looks like without motion blur just put on any VR headset. Apparently they had to use BFI to eliminate motion blur because motion blur becomes extremely noticeable in VR and it was threatening to ruin the experience.
 

Hoddi

Member
If your plasma still works fine I would keep that thing.
Preaching to the choir. It's just a bit hard when one of my local stores is having a sale with up to 40% off their LG OLEDs :messenger_grimmacing_

Your other post is right though. Just think about how much performance is wasted chasing 480fps when you could get the same experience at 240fps with a strobed display.
 

rolandss

Member
It's funny how we dumped CRT years ago but are still chasing it's image quality. I had the biggest CRT non projection tv they made a Sony 36 inch 4:3 HDTV, of course when you watched HD content it went to widescreen so the actual viewing area was smaller than 36 inches. The tv was around 2 feet deep and over 200lbs so it wasn't exactly a good fit for smaller rooms or to sit in an entertainment center. The HD picture on it was great though, yeah older content looked worse but HD was crystal clear, no ghosting during movement etc.
I think good plasma TVs could beat a good CRT. I’ve got a Panasonic VT60 that I had calibrated when I bought it, and virtually all content, but especially games and blu rays, look pretty damn great. Had it for 6 years and had no inkling to change TV. I’ll be holding out on changing for a long time yet. Yet another seemingly superior tech dumped in favour of cheap LCDs.
 
I think good plasma TVs could beat a good CRT. I’ve got a Panasonic VT60 that I had calibrated when I bought it, and virtually all content, but especially games and blu rays, look pretty damn great. Had it for 6 years and had no inkling to change TV. I’ll be holding out on changing for a long time yet. Yet another seemingly superior tech dumped in favour of cheap LCDs.
Older stuff would still look best on CRT due to lack of scaling. Wii and older. HD games, Plasma wins. Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U etc. Input lag on your set is 42-44 MS though.

But yeah you've got an amazing TV, would be nice if I had one. I'd keep it til it broke if I were you as well!
 

TLZ

Banned
I think good plasma TVs could beat a good CRT. I’ve got a Panasonic VT60 that I had calibrated when I bought it, and virtually all content, but especially games and blu rays, look pretty damn great. Had it for 6 years and had no inkling to change TV. I’ll be holding out on changing for a long time yet. Yet another seemingly superior tech dumped in favour of cheap LCDs.

Older stuff would still look best on CRT due to lack of scaling. Wii and older. HD games, Plasma wins. Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U etc. Input lag on your set is 42-44 MS though.

But yeah you've got an amazing TV, would be nice if I had one. I'd keep it til it broke if I were you as well!
Yea. I have a Panny Plasma as well for PS360/Wii/Wii U and under. They all look great on it. I googled the model and apparently mine has between 14-17ms, which is great.
 
Yea. I have a Panny Plasma as well for PS360/Wii/Wii U and under. They all look great on it. I googled the model and apparently mine has between 14-17ms, which is great.
His plasma has a bit high lag (but within toleration) due to excellent processing including scaling, hence why 720p consoles will probably still look better than a hd crt tv dispite some scaling happening. No geometry issues on Plasma.

Wii is low res so it's best on CRT by far. Ditto anything older. I'd love a VT60 or HD consoles older than ps4, but my x900e does a great job.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TLZ

Dream-Knife

Banned
So what is the major difference between CRTs and LCDS and OLEDs? Believe it or not old CRT TVs we used to all have had no motion blur, whereas modern LCDs and OLEDs have a lot of motion blur at low frame rates. It's going to take 1,000 frames per second to eliminate motion blur on LCDs/OLEDs. Here just start scrolling the text up and down and notice as soon as the text moves it will become smudged that's the inherent motion blur that LCDs/OLEDs have. Old CRT TVs had zero motion blur.

This article is a must read for anyone who truly wants to understand motion blur on modern day flat panel TVs. https://blurbusters.com/blur-buster...000hz-displays-with-blurfree-sample-and-hold/

As you can see the higher the frame rate the less motion blur you have on LCDs /OLEDs
bIESgmP.png
I was talking more about visual acuity. Hard to see distant details at 480p. Old games were built with these limitations in mind.

But yes, more fps is better.
 

rolandss

Member
Older stuff would still look best on CRT due to lack of scaling. Wii and older. HD games, Plasma wins. Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U etc. Input lag on your set is 42-44 MS though.

But yeah you've got an amazing TV, would be nice if I had one. I'd keep it til it broke if I were you as well!
It’s the only TV I have and have a my PS5 running on it and it’s great. I don’t feel the need to go 4K. Also read that motion blur on modern TVs is way worse compared to plasma.

As for input can’t say I notice it but I dont have a point of comparison so ignorance is bliss in that regard I guess.
 
It’s the only TV I have and have a my PS5 running on it and it’s great. I don’t feel the need to go 4K. Also read that motion blur on modern TVs is way worse compared to plasma.

As for input can’t say I notice it but I dont have a point of comparison so ignorance is bliss in that regard I guess.
42 ms of input lag is pretty acceptable when you get used to it ; it's the same amount of lag that quite a few Sony x1 extreme chipset tvs (2016-2019) have had.

But yeah, plasma motion is better than oled for games (minus phosphor trails on plasma.) For movies, on oled you can use motion interpolation and black frame insertion on Sony to actually beat plasma in terms of smoothness but it requires processing to compete (which you might see bit of artifacting even on Sony), which plasma is just inherently good at.

I would use that plasma until it just won’t work lol. Or gets burn in.
 

Lucky8BB

Banned
42 ms of input lag is pretty acceptable when you get used to it ; it's the same amount of lag that quite a few Sony x1 extreme chipset tvs (2016-2019) have had.

But yeah, plasma motion is better than oled for games (minus phosphor trails on plasma.) For movies, on oled you can use motion interpolation and black frame insertion on Sony to actually beat plasma in terms of smoothness but it requires processing to compete (which you might see bit of artifacting even on Sony), which plasma is just inherently good

My 42GT60 plasma had around 40ms input lag and it was really noticeable for me no matter how many hours I have played on this tv. Now I have 16ms on my sony LCD and I'm finally happy, although I can still feel slight lag compared to my CRT.
 

Ivan

Member
By the same leo bodnar input lag tester standard, 60Hz CRTs have 8.3 ms of input lag in the middle of the screen. So that's the value we must achieve to have CRT-like input lag. But we had higher refresh rate CRT monitors with even lower lag, of course.

LG C1 has 5.2ms in 120Hz mode, we could call that CRT-like in a way.
 
Last edited:
My 42GT60 plasma had around 40ms input lag and it was really noticeable for me no matter how many hours I have played on this tv. Now I have 16ms on my sony LCD and I'm finally happy, although I can still feel slight lag compared to my CRT.
It's laggy for sure, just nothing I would consider unusable. But 42 ms is pushing it. Currently at 26 ms on my oled (18ms without black frame insertion) and 32ms on my lcd which feels a bit laggy but I get used to it.
 
By the same leo bodnar input lag tester standard, 60Hz CRTs have 8.3 ms of input lag in the middle of the screen. So that's the value we must achieve to have CRT-like input lag. But we had higher refresh rate CRT monitors with even lower lag, of course.

LG C1 has 5.2ms in 120Hz mode, we could call that CRT-like in a way.
9.5ms on c1 at 60hz boost mode is pretty much there, but you can't use Bfi of course. Or 21ms with bfi at 60hz. Basically under 10ms with bfi would be holy grail in terms of sample and hold displays.
 

Ivan

Member
I wonder why Sony isn't doing more in the area as a console AND tv maker... I expected more from them at this stage.
 
I wonder why Sony isn't doing more in the area as a console AND tv maker... I expected more from them at this stage.
You mean in terms of input lag? They are a bit higher than LG because their processing does more work for the picture.

Although this year their AI processing goes a bit overboard in some scenes due to “AI processing” gimmick. But before this year it was all around superior.
 
Top Bottom