I worry this about a lot of things. But what alternatives are there when crts are gone or all broken?
I’ve never had a flat-screen with as good color or 0 latency like a crt. And im sure they exist theyre probably just 2000 dollars.
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From what I hear an HDR OLED loaded up with Sony Megatron and CRT beam simulator can get very close.
Cry. And pilfer some E Waste drop offs one last time. Then cry some more, pour one out for the future generations of gamers who can never correctly experience a retro game designed to be played on a CRT (and they probably won’t even care honestly, they’ll be too absorbed in the new shiny thing to consume, its already happening now).
There are repair shops around that repair old CRTs: https://www.k-and-s.com/electronics/crt-repair
And apparently they are still making CRTs in China. I saw it about a year ago and you have to buy like 100 of them at a time. Never confirmed it myself so take it with a grain of salt.
Theres also converters that will add scan lines in, making hdmi look like old crt television.
So lots of options. But I think it will eventually die and thats ok.
Theres also converters that will add scan lines in, making hdmi look like old crt television.
Scan lines alone are not enough, but good shaders can come close:
This might be a stupid answer, but uh… make more CRTs? There’s a niche shop for everything. Just like how new components for retro computers are made today (stuff like bootable flash cards for older stuff, creating better ways to achieve things), if there is a demand, there will be a market.
I dunno how they’d be made but someone will figure it out. But I’m sure because it’s low-demand (comparatively), it will be high price.
I read this interesting article about a guitar that Fender made forever. They had to discontinue it because the auto industry changed the materials they used and they could no longer get the stuff they needed to make it. The supply chain completely vanished and they were too niche to stand a chance of keeping it going.
Yeah, it’s not quite that simple. One thing that really sucks is a lot of the tech, tuning and design that existed is not as simple as just making the thing again. Manufacturing equipment has to exist and experience making the thing has to exist. Take a look at the state of cassette.
There is only one company currently making cassette and there is no real way to get anything else besides the one model that they make. Even the highest end new cassette players use the same one because there is literally no other facility making them.
Compare any modern cassette to walkmans or really any handheld player from the 90s in terms of sound or even size and you will see everything from then is so much smaller and sounds way better.
The facility that makes the modern ones knows this and acknowledges it. It’s just the manufacturing does not exist anymore.
That is just tape.
CRTs are absolutely nuts in comparison. It will be a truly sad day that CRTs are no longer a thing you can find.
The Walkman was my go-to reaction as well. They literally don’t make ‘em like they used to.
Aren’t they illegal to make now?
You cant just make old things again. If they did, they’ll cost $3000 each, or more like 10,000.
Just like how a reel of 1/4" tape is upwards of $50 now. There’s 1 company left making them.
CRTs are very simple devices. The only complicated part is the tube and that can surely be automated by now.
automation is only profitable is you’re making absolute gads of exactly the same thing
I wonder if someone like the Czech guy who started a nixie tube factory a decade or two ago could pivot to artisanal CRTs for deep-pocketed retro-gaming enthusiasts.
I think early generation CRTs had mercury and lead in them, which made them not enviromentally friendly. Not too sure if there are any modern materials which can replace the hazardous ones.
Why would you be unsure of that when we were producing CRTs without mercury and lead for decades?
OLED’s tend to have better color gamut than CRT’s. I think you are probably noticing better color saturation on CRT’s. New double layer OLED’s without a white subpixel should largely fix this. There will always be a little latency on an OLED, but we are down to like 3ms which IMO is imperceptible. I do think good OLED’s can compete on most of CRT’s top points and vastly exceed it on many others (black levels, refresh rates, resolution, color gamut, etc.). CRT shaders are getting pretty good too. Yes one will never completely give you the experience of the other but we are pretty close now.
My flat screen definitely has a better picture and color thank any crt I’ve ever owned. I don’t know what you mean. Latency is not an issue on any tv made in the last ten years. Probably more.
Crts went the same place 8 tracks, cassettes, floppies, and a million other tech went.
Latency is not 0 like op suggests but he’s not entirely wrong about the latency comparison to modern displays (at a technical level for your average modern display). You are still correct that the numbers are so low typically that it’s not an issue for… 99.9% of people. Probably more, we might want to add a lot more 9s to the end.
If we’re talking to someone like a top competitive street fighter player though, I’m super interested in how they feel about CRTs vs modern displays. Note that this is also a different conversation if you’re on a TV that doesn’t have some sort of a Game Mode, those can be rough.
Great writeup on real world CRT input lag: https://www.resetera.com/threads/crts-have-8-3ms-of-input-lag-addressing-a-common-misconception-about-display-latency.40628/
Might be the case for OLED but for LCDs even in gaming mode I notice the difference in delay compared to my monitor.
Next you’ll complain about plasma screens lol
