Monitor/televison question

Monitor/televison question

Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by Le Chief on Fri Sep 28th 2007 at 10:38am
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Posted 2007-09-28 10:38am
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I was wondering, does lowering the brightness and/or contrast preserve/lengthen the life of a tv/monitor on a lcd/crt display?

Maybe it might help out the back light or something?
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Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by reaper47 on Fri Sep 28th 2007 at 12:05pm
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Posted 2007-09-28 12:05pm
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Do you need the theory (which I have no idea of but could imagine to suggest a 0.00001% increase in life expectancy) or a practical answer? I can only give you the latter.

The best way to treat a monitor is to turn it off when not needed, but otherwise it should be able to handle any normal or even intensive use. From my experience a mechanical issue (broken on/off button, cable etc) is much more likely than any long-term problems caused by screen-burns or the like.

Always turn contrast to 100% (on PC monitors, TV sometimes has weirder and more unpredictable settings) and adjust the brightness according to daylight. At night, 50% brightness should give you the cleanest black and gradient, at day switch to maximum/100% brightness to compete with the sunlight.

I don't know about LCD's but I heard that plasmas, at least older models, tend to "bleach out" a bit after a while. Maybe that's just a rumor and even if it's true, that phenomenon supposedly exists independently of brightness settings.

Don't destroy your picture quality for the sake of longer monitor life. I can't imagine it's worth it.
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Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by Crono on Fri Sep 28th 2007 at 12:09pm
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Posted 2007-09-28 12:09pm
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Considering how long both of those technologies normally last, it isn't something you should worry yourself with. If you were using a plasma screen then it'd be of great concern, otherwise, you should get anywhere from 8 to 20 years from a CRT and 5 to 10 years from an LCD, with heavy use.

The only thing that can happen with an LCD as far as "unfixable damage" due to use, is the pixels malfunctioning (stuck pixels or dead pixels), and that is related to the controller chip (as far as I know). But before that happens, there's probably a better chance of the back-light going out. Which will happen in the ballpark of 60,000 hours of use. Of course, if your back-light just stops working and you now have a technically useless LCD monitor/TV, you can always rig up another one with LEDS that will probably last longer and look just as nice. Or you could use the remaining screen to make a projector.

In any case, the actual brightness doesn't effect any of this.

CRT's life span is supposedly somewhere around three times as that of an LCD, so something like 180,000 hours of use. The only difference is, when a CRT is dead, it's dead.
Also, in this case, I don't think changing brightness or contrast will effect the tube in a more negative way.

What is detrimental to both technologies is simply using them, but both last such a ridiculously long time that it's just nonsense to try to make them last even longer by crippling the way you use them.

Edit:

Weird.

About Plasma Screens: Plasmas have the lifespan of the chemical they use. So, at half its life it will look half as good as when you bought it. Once it's crap (and it will be) you can't refill it, you have to buy a new one.

And that is the reason why I don't understand why people buy Plasma screen TVs ... especially considering the life span of the plasma is the same as the lifespan of the bulb for the old style DLP tvs. One case it'll cost you ~$200 to bring to brand new condition ... the other doesn't have an alternative.
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Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by Le Chief on Fri Sep 28th 2007 at 1:17pm
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Posted 2007-09-28 1:17pm
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Hmmm interesting. And one of my friends said that plasma is bad for your eyes, lcd is the better one for your eyes. Is that true?
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Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by reaper47 on Fri Sep 28th 2007 at 4:29pm
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Posted 2007-09-28 4:29pm
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Sounds like BS.

Until the late 90ies CRTs had an awful lot of radiation. But even those times have passed. Just sit as faraway from the screen as possible and try to look away from your screen every now end then so your eyes don't focus on the same distance for too long.

I'm waiting for Laser TVs, anyway. Perfect color and, apart from the intensity which should be under control, no unwanted side-effects.
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Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by CrazyIvanovich on Fri Sep 28th 2007 at 5:52pm
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Heh, I would imagine that it's worse for your eyes that you blink a lot less while focusing on the monitor than any radiation you're getting from it.

That's just a guess though.
Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by Crono on Fri Sep 28th 2007 at 7:31pm
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Posted 2007-09-28 7:31pm
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Hmmm interesting. And one of my friends said that plasma is bad for your eyes, lcd is the better one for your eyes. Is that true?
You really haven't learned by now to not listen to the bulls**t your friends tell you? And I'm talking specifically about you.

Laser technology sounds like it might have the same issues as DLP (Which by the way, uses LEDs and no color wheel now, which is awesome)

I think, the most bang for your buck HD TV right now is a flat tube. It looks as good (if not better) than Plasma and lasts a hell of a lot longer. Just weighs more and you can't get it in idiotically huge sizes (Which is just right for people looking for their first jump from SD TVs) They're pretty cheap too.

Face it though, the one that looks the best is CRT front projection. It costs a lot, weighs a lot, but looks oh so good.
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Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by reaper47 on Fri Sep 28th 2007 at 10:46pm
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I can't imagine there wouldn't be some development on this sector soon. So much money in it, so many potential ways of creating light. Laser sounds logical and promising. I don't expect any major break-troughs soon, though. Especially regarding the price...

All the currently available technologies are so dissatisfying.
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Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by Crono on Fri Sep 28th 2007 at 11:16pm
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Posted 2007-09-28 11:16pm
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How so? Each has positives and negatives.

LCD: Cheap, reliable, horrible contrast ratio, generally doesn't look very good.

Plasma: Expensive, looks phenomenal ... for a couple years.

DLP (old): Big, Has a limited view range, single light source and color wheel combine for bad response times (fine for movies, bad for games) and various visual artifacts, generally has better picture quality than LCD, however, and costs significantly less than Plasma. It will also last longer than either of the previously listed technologies as the lamp is the only thing that will realistically break and those are not insanely expensive to replace. Doesn't ever suffer from picture burn in (But some slower models can have ghosting)

DLP LED: Removes the response time problems and most artifacts by introducing Red, Green, and Blue LEDs and removing the single light source and the color wheel. Still has some issues from recombining the image and possible problems with viewing angles. These, currently, are brand new and cost less than Plasma screens ... but not by a whole lot (Samsung brought out the first one for $4K this year)

CRT: Big, cheap, can have burn in, but will, in general, last longer than any of these others. It also has picture quality that rivals a Plasma screen and will last much much longer for far less money. (A 36" CRT FlatTube by Samsung runs at about $500) They're even cheaper than LCDs in most cases.

Personally, I think CRT is the way to go right now, unless you really just have an enormous problem with the size ... but even then it's important to take into consideration that they're still smaller and lighter than old CRT tube TVs. I also think that while LCDs are cheap they don't offer enough quality. Take a walk through a Fry's or Best Buy showing these TVs off, you'll see how good or bad they look. To note, Ice Age looks horrible in HD, the animation studio took some shorcuts with the animal's fur and it's blatantly obvious.

Out of the future technologies, LCoS is making some ground (and generally has all the benefits of DLP with very little of weaknesses), Laser technology sounds cool, but I don't see how this will be any better than DLPs, considering DLPs already do what they do just not with lasers, IR is probably the most promising and looks to be the eventual cheapest option for quality. Unless some new ground is covered in CRT, which happens pretty often, actually.
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Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by reaper47 on Sat Sep 29th 2007 at 12:06am
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Interesting indeed. I use a trusty CRT for any task involving color calibration. I agree, it's still the best for image quality.
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Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by Le Chief on Mon Oct 1st 2007 at 11:01am
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Posted 2007-10-01 11:01am
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Yeah I think maybe crt for me. I always thought that lcd looks blurry to me aswell
reaper47 said:
Until the late 90ies CRTs had an awful lot of radiation.
Would that be the high pitch buzzing sound I hear when I walk next to a crt tv? Anyway things these days aren't made to last. The've worked out that they can make heaps of money if peoples stuff keep braking and they have to pay to get it fixed.
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Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by Tracer Bullet on Wed Oct 3rd 2007 at 7:06pm
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<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting reaper47</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>I can't imagine there wouldn't be some development on this sector soon. So much money in it, so many potential ways of creating light. Laser sounds logical and promising. I don't expect any major break-troughs soon, though. Especially regarding the price...

All the currently available technologies are so dissatisfying.</DIV></DIV>

The next big display technology is going to be organic light emitting diode (OLED), or quantum-dot LED displays. Think ultra thin, flexible, and/or huge. Still 10-15 years out though.

<DIV class=quotetitle>? posted by aaron_da_killa</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Yeah I think maybe crt for me. I always thought that lcd looks blurry to me aswell

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting reaper47</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Until the late 90ies CRTs had an awful lot of radiation.</DIV></DIV>

Would that be the high pitch buzzing sound I hear when I walk next to a crt tv? Anyway things these days aren't made to last. The've worked out that they can make heaps of money if peoples stuff keep braking and they have to pay to get it fixed.</DIV>
No. The "radiation" emmitted from CRTs is in the form of x-rays which are emmitted tangentialy to the picture tube surface. You can't hear x-rays. I'm not entierly sure what the buzz you hear is, but based on the high frequency I would suggest that it is generated by the electronics running the electron-gun. Incidentaly "radiation" has nothing to do with why a CRT can be bad for your eyes. That only has to do with refresh rate and image clairity.
Re: Monitor/televison question Posted by reaper47 on Thu Oct 4th 2007 at 11:07am
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Posted 2007-10-04 11:07am
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Incidentaly "radiation" has nothing to do with why a CRT can be bad for your eyes. That only has to do with refresh rate and image clairity.
Mostly with sitting in front of it all the time, forcing your eyes to stay focused on an extremely limited range. Same for LCDs etc. :rolleyes:
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