LCD monitor
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I have to agree. When it camne time for me to get a new monitor, the LCDs lost out for two main reasons: 1) Colour clarity and 2) Resolution - I can't live without 1600 x 1400 anymore. The key, as you say, is a good CRT. I went with a ViewSonic G90fb and haven't regretted not buying an LCD. Now, if they come out with one that will handle 1600 x 1400 at a refresh rate of 85mhz ... well, that may be different!
Its called that $5000 dollar Sony plasma screen I saw over at Circuit City. I was told that the refresh rate on a CRT has no meaning on the LCDs do to the technology change. Told to me at a hardware show, by one of the ViewSonic reps, unfortunatey I couldn't hang around for the whole conversation. And I was told that in a few years they don't plan on making CRTs, this way they can keep the price up and screw consumers. Lets hope that this isn't true.
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
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Its called that $5000 dollar Sony plasma screen I saw over at Circuit City. I was told that the refresh rate on a CRT has no meaning on the LCDs do to the technology change. Told to me at a hardware show, by one of the ViewSonic reps, unfortunatey I couldn't hang around for the whole conversation. And I was told that in a few years they don't plan on making CRTs, this way they can keep the price up and screw consumers. Lets hope that this isn't true.
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
zenboy wrote: I was told that the refresh rate on a CRT has no meaning on the LCDs Not true. The LCD still works by multiplexing the column and row signals - it's still refreshed pixel-by-pixel. If the refresh rate is slow - which it used to be - you could see trails of movement and stuttering movements. The two technologies which have improved it have been dual-scan (where two halves of the screen are scanned independently - kind of like interlaced-mode on a CRT) and Active Matrix (TFT - Thin Film Transistor), where each pixel has a transistor which amplifies the signal at that point. It still needs to be refreshed, but the duration of the refresh pulse can be lower. ISTR that high-end CRTs still feature faster refresh rates than most LCDs - up in the 100-200Hz range. I run this monitor (at work) at 85Hz because it's not that good and not very stable at 100Hz+. I tend to work in 1152x864 pixels because I don't like blurry pixels - this monitor doesn't have a low enough dot pitch (despite being a 19"!) to have 1 logical pixel correspond to enough physical pixels at higher resolutions. I also prefer the shape of "small fonts" to "large fonts" - much higher resolution and I can't read the text. Or click the icons. :-O
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zenboy wrote: I was told that the refresh rate on a CRT has no meaning on the LCDs Not true. The LCD still works by multiplexing the column and row signals - it's still refreshed pixel-by-pixel. If the refresh rate is slow - which it used to be - you could see trails of movement and stuttering movements. The two technologies which have improved it have been dual-scan (where two halves of the screen are scanned independently - kind of like interlaced-mode on a CRT) and Active Matrix (TFT - Thin Film Transistor), where each pixel has a transistor which amplifies the signal at that point. It still needs to be refreshed, but the duration of the refresh pulse can be lower. ISTR that high-end CRTs still feature faster refresh rates than most LCDs - up in the 100-200Hz range. I run this monitor (at work) at 85Hz because it's not that good and not very stable at 100Hz+. I tend to work in 1152x864 pixels because I don't like blurry pixels - this monitor doesn't have a low enough dot pitch (despite being a 19"!) to have 1 logical pixel correspond to enough physical pixels at higher resolutions. I also prefer the shape of "small fonts" to "large fonts" - much higher resolution and I can't read the text. Or click the icons. :-O
What I meant, is that I run my CRTs at 85 also, I was told that the 65Mhz refresh rate on an LCD is basically the same as the 85 on a CRT because of the way it refreshes. Which I believe is what you mean by saying that the refresh pulse can be lower. 1152x864 pixels because I don't like blurry pixels - this monitor doesn't have a low enough dot pitch (despite being a 19"!) that why you need two really good CRTs next to each other in a dual monitor setup. I run 1024x768 on each, so I actually get really good resolution and a 2048 x 768 screen. After this, I can't stand to get one monitor. Which means that I'm also not switching to LCDs until I'm offered a really big plasma for the same price as my PC (preferably lower)
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
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What I meant, is that I run my CRTs at 85 also, I was told that the 65Mhz refresh rate on an LCD is basically the same as the 85 on a CRT because of the way it refreshes. Which I believe is what you mean by saying that the refresh pulse can be lower. 1152x864 pixels because I don't like blurry pixels - this monitor doesn't have a low enough dot pitch (despite being a 19"!) that why you need two really good CRTs next to each other in a dual monitor setup. I run 1024x768 on each, so I actually get really good resolution and a 2048 x 768 screen. After this, I can't stand to get one monitor. Which means that I'm also not switching to LCDs until I'm offered a really big plasma for the same price as my PC (preferably lower)
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
It's a decay graph - on a CRT, the energy in a phosphor dot is charged up by the scanning electron beam, then decays over a period of time as it emits light. The flicker you see (sometimes!) is that your eye notices the light level dip before increasing again. On an LCD it's a different principle - LCDs work by twisting the polarisation of the light, where there's a filter of a particular polarisation at front and back. The LC takes some small time to twist in response to the current applied during the refresh pulse, then twists back to its rest state when the current is removed (when moving on to the next pixel). In Active Matrix LCD (I think), the transistor continues to apply current to the LC pixel, but does so at a level set by a capacitor. During the refresh cycle, the capacitor is charged to the appropriate level, and again decays as the charge is passed through the transistor and the LC pixel. 85Hz refresh is the vertical refresh interval (between beginning one screen and beginning the next). To my mind, that'll be exactly the same whether it's LCD or CRT.