Talk:Cathode-ray tube/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Whine isn't possible from the deflection yoke?

DieSwartzPunkt insists that while the flyback transformer can produce noise at the horizontal scanning frequency, this just can't happen from the deflection coil. I'd like to know why he thinks magnetostriction is possible in one set of coils but not in the other.

Also, a second edit to disputed text constitutes edit-warring.

Yes, I skimmed the patent I linked too quickly. But any TV tech will tell you that the deflection yoke can be the source of the whine. I personally have had at least six TVs and monitors across my bench that exhibited this problem, and pressure on the yoke housing would change it or even eliminate it. If anything, due to its construction, the deflection yoke is more likely than the flyback to have windings that can vibrate and so radiate sound. Jeh (talk) 16:34, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jeh: I have been involved with display systems most of my working career. The display systems that I deal with are not your run of the mill television type systems but aircraft cockpit display systems. These are, in general terms and by most standards, esoteric and differ considerably from aircraft to aircraft. One characteristic that they usually have in common is that they are based on vector scan technology rather than raster scan. This means that the display device does not have a line-output transformer (LOPT). When called upon to display regular 525-line or 625-line video information (such as from forward looking infra-red cameras), the S-shaped scan signals are generated directly as S-shaped voltage signals and are applied to the deflection yoke via the pair of very large linear current amplifiers that provide the vector scan. There is no audible noise from the deflection yokes (it it was there it would be audible as there is no LOPT noise to hide it).
Even in regular TV systems, if there was any magnetostriction noise from the deflection yokes, this would be totally masked by the noise from the (inaccurately named) line-output transformer (LOPT). This is entirely consistent because the LOPT is required to operate with magnetic fields in its core that are approaching saturation of the core (this is feature of how it works). The deflection yoke, on the other hand is required to operate on a very linear part of any ferrous components within its structure. Indeed, the operation of a deflection yoke is required to have minimal effect on the S-shaped current generated by the line-output stage and as such both its resistance and its inductance have to be kept to a minimum (ideally zero). This is achieved by using relatively few turns of wire on the yoke but energising it with relatively large currents (in some systems as much as 10-20 Amps for full delection of the beam). The field required to fully deflect the electron beam in the tube is designed to keep the field in the ferrous parts well away from saturation and hence well way from levels where magnetostriction would generate significant noise.
I am sure that I don't have to remind you that your belief that something is 'common knowledge' is not an acceptable reason to include a claim in an article. I probably also don't need to tell you, but your percieved experience with your monitors would count as original research and cannot be used to support any such claim in the article. In any case it is quite probable that pressing on the yoke also changed the mechanics around the LOPT and changed the percieved sound levels (at the frequencies encounterd, any small change can make a big difference). Prior to deleting the claim yesterday, I had a trawl through a good selection of my display technology text books, and though most mention magnetostriction in the LOPT, none mention it w.r.t. the deflection yoke.
Removal of uncited material even a second or third time is not edit warring, it's Wikipedia policy, and the subject has been discussed at length on various talk pages and indeed in an ANI raised against another editor who routinely deletes uncited material (in fact he does nothing else). It was decided that it is the editor who restores the material without providing a reference who is in the wrong (per WP:BURDEN). However, in this case, I accept that you acted in good faith because you believed that you were adding a reliable reference. If this claim is to be restored, it must be backed by the required reliable and verifiable reference. I am confident that such a reference is unlikely to be forthcoming. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 17:38, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
You find no contradiction at all in your mentions of your own personal experience? Hmm.
Note that it is not necessary for magnetostriction per se to happen in order to make sound. All you need are wires and/or pole pieces that are just slightly free to move, and considering the slap-dash nature with which consumer yokes are made, this is not at all uncommon. You don't need magnetostriction in a loudspeaker to make sound... Jeh (talk) 21:29, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
@Jeh: You are wandering off at a complete tangent. The claim we are discussing is specifically about sound generated by magnetostriction and that is precisely what I am discussing above. Nothing else. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 17:57, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
@DieSwartzPunkt: Well, I think your insistence on "it's about magnetostriction and nothing else" is the tangent. I am discussing the disputed text, which would have said

The sound is due to magnetostriction in the magnetic core and periodic movement of windings of the flyback transformer or the deflection yoke. [1][failed verification]

My interpretation is that this does not state that magnetostriction is necessary to create "periodic movement of windings", only that there are two possible causes of the sound, magnetostriction and movement of windings. The wording could no doubt be improved to make this distinction more clear. The repairfaq.org site says[2][unreliable source?] that even ferrite cores placed on wires can radiate sound. (I've experienced this myself with the RS232 lines on an older computer; I kept hearing faint intermittent white noise from the cabinet when it was outputting to a terminal at 19200 bps; it wasn't a problem but we found that the cores were the source and a little RTV silicone damped them.) I'm sure you won't take the repairFAQ as an RS (even though it's been on the net longer than the web and is cited in many other WP articles), but that should at least tell you that this isn't something I'm making up out of whole cloth. I would also note that TV techs would laugh at you for insisting on a reference - in that world this is a "the sky is blue" level of claim.
More: Anyone with your experience on precision equipment should be familiar with the very wide range of components that can be microphonic; coils are most certainly in that category. And it should also not be news to you that most things that can be microphonic can act as sound generators as well. Your idea that sound can only be produced through magnetostriction is, frankly, laughable. Jeh (talk) 20:36, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
You have recycled that first reference again. Recycling it does not magically make it support a claim that it did not support the first time around. It did not and still does not address sound crerated by the deflection yoke itself, but addresses problems caused by sound external to the yoke and mechanically transmitted to it (the main example being room noise). Although the measures proposed would probably suppress any sound that were generated by the deflection yoke, the reference neither claims this nor claims that such sound exists.
You have already noted that the second reference is unacceptable. It is a self published source. It is also clearly an enthusiast's website and unacceptable per WP:ELNO. I regularly remove similar references from articles when I find them and if they keep getting reused, request the project global admins to blacklist them. I have not had such a blacklist request refused - yet. The claim that repairfaq.org is older than the web cuts no ice. I have been around far longer than the web, and yet you are questioning my knowledge.
Having spoken to some of my colleagues and discussed the high pitched whine, all remind me that it is the LOPT that generates the whine if one is present. One suggested that the deflection yoke might generate it, but stated that he had never experienced it (though did point out that it would be unlikely to be audible over the LOPT whine). My experience goes back as far as 405-line television systems where the lower frequency (10.125 kHz) makes the effect far more audible. (I have also worked with 819-line systems but the line frequency here falls outside of the normal range of human hearing (20.475 kHz) so in this context is completely moot.)
IMHO: this is an article about cathode ray tubes and any discussion of unintended effects when shonky external component parts are used is outside the scope of such an article. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 15:14, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Re "recycling the reference": Oh, please. I picked it up in a cut-and-paste. It was not meant to serve as an argument here.
Yes, I'm questioning your knowledge, and that of your colleagues. If they disbelieve that a deflection yoke can whine then they simply haven't had broad enough experience.
The argument that noise from the deflection yoke would be unlikely to be audible over that from the LOPT makes no sense. It assumes that every LOPT whines. But we know that with many sets, particularly when new, there is no audible whine at all. So if, as the set ages, the deflection yoke starts to whine first, there is nothing from the LOPT to mask it.
Yes, I already noted that the repairfaq reference would likely be unacceptable to you. As I already said, I merely mentioned it to show you that my position is not uncommon. (I also knew you would take the opportunity to lecture me about it, even though I'd already said it wouldn't be acceptable. Back away from the dead horse, please.) I don't have acceptable references handy for my claim, but I'll be looking. Meanwhile, you could busy yourself by removing all references to repairfaq.org from Wikipedia.
Regarding article scope, well, that's your opinion. If that means you'll be removing the mention of whine from the LOPT as well, I will contest that. Jeh (talk) 15:54, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jeh:I apologise if you felt that I was teaching grandma to suck eggs. I have never encountered an LOPT operating at around 15 kHz (or less) that does not emit a significant whine. Magnetostriction guarantees that this is so. However, that frequency puts the audibility on the borderline of audibility with many adults unable to hear a sound of that frequency (I, on the other hand, can hear it distinctly). I do not doubt that higher frequency systems emit a whine as well, albeit at inaudible frequencies - but I have never bothered to investigate).

I will not be removing the reference to the whine from the LOPT article partly because it is relevant there, but mainly because LOPT actually links to Flyback transformer, a vaguely related but different device. Large tracts of that article are not relevant to line output transformers (despite using them as illustrations of a flyback transformer). The modus operandi is different for starters. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 16:51, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

In common usage (and in many manufacturers' parts lists) the transformer in question in a TV set is called the flyback transformer. I'm not sure how it would not be the "line output transformer" as well; certainly there is no other transformer that would be called that. Perhaps you could create Line output transformer and then edit the two articles accordingly, making sure to address the terminology confusion. Comments on talk pages really don't improve Wikipedia. Jeh (talk) 20:11, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
@Jeh: Yes, it is called a line-output transformer in common usage. However, that is only because the transformer part is a result of its secondary function of providing the EHT supply for the CRT. Before this became common practice, the part was not a transformer and was not named as such. For the purposes of producing the line deflection, the part is nothing more than an inductor. The deflection coils are connected in series with the inductor (or in series with the primary in the case of a transformer). In other words, despite its name it's not really an output transformer in that it doesn't match different impedance circuits.
I have long considered producing a separate article on the LOPT, but the ever present problem of finding suitable references gets in the way. Most television textbooks describe what the LOPT does but not how it does it. I still have my old training notes, but they are not verifiable because no one else has access to them. The MO is discussed at various websites, but they are mainly similar self published sources that were discussd above and so fail reliability even though they are technically correct. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 17:33, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Fourth electron gun for yellow pixels

I heard about 10 years ago that it turns out that if a CRT screen were to be given a fourth electron gun and a fourth set of pixels for yellow, then the image quality would become a lot better. As reported, TV manufacturers didn't bother to make that expensive change for an already obsolete technology.

If this legend is true, it belongs in the article. GMRE (talk) 19:53, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

If it's true, then it isn't a legend :D I imagine the color quality could have been better, esp for flesh tones, since our eyes have much better color differentiation in the red-to-green range than in the green-through-blue. But having spent 'way too much time trying to converge triad CRTs back in the day, I can only shudder at the thought of having to bring a fourth gun into line! Jeh (talk) 21:35, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
Here's a four gun tube from 1953: Rennick, John L.; Heuer, Charles H. (1953). "A Four-Gun Tube for Color Television Receivers". Transactions of the IRE Professional Group on Broadcast and Television Receivers. PGBTR-3 (1): 40–46. doi:10.1109/TPGBTR.1953.4505059. ISSN 2168-1619. and a patent from 1954 A US2821569 A, "Four parameter tv receivers" . --Kkmurray (talk) 20:58, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
Never made it to production as far as I can tell.ss Jeh (talk) 21:35, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

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CRT Resolution

I imagine a black-and-white CRT, which has no fixed pattern of pixels, would be able to adjust vertical resolution (number of lines) by changing the synchronization. As for the horizontal resolution, it depends mostly on the electronics and the focusing ability of the electron gun. Otherwise, there are no pixels in B&W CRTs.

This is however not true about color CRTs which, just like LCDs, have a fixed pattern of pixels--both because of the fixed pattern of color phosphor dots on the screen, and because of the fixed pattern of holes in the grille.

So, even though you might theoretically get better resoulution watching 480p DVD on a black and white CRT (provided your electronics supports this), you won't have the same advantage on color screens. I propose to remove this part from the article.

Bartosz (talk) 21:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The dots on the shadow mask aren't subpixels, because the brightness must not be constant over the whole dot (which you can sse i.E. on File:Aperture_grille_closeup_teletext.jpg). You can increasse the resolution indefinitely in theory, although the picture won't look very good, if the resolution is much bigger than the hadow mask resolution, because this will make some subpixels be absorbed by the aperture grille (I dind't notice this effect using 2048x1536 on my 22" CRT, which has 20" visible and an aperture grille (better known as trinitron, which is actually a brand name by sony) w/ 0.24mm, which would match a horizontal resolution of 1924 pixels in the visible part of the tube and because it's an aperture grille, there is only a horizontal arrengement, not a vertical, so the vertical resolution is really unlimited). You actually can't exactly match the shadow masks resolution, because CRTs don't have a fixed size of the image, normally you make the image somewhat smaller then the CRTs size, because the visible size of the tube is normally about 1"-2" smaller than the actual size. But i.E. if you have a 19" CRT w/ 0.23mm dotpitch, you will have about 1679x1259 dots (or about 1600x1200 in the visible part, if about 18" are visible), but the picture won't look better, if you use 1600x1200 than w/ i.E. 1024x768. If you use 1024x768 on a 1600x1200 LCD the picture will look much worse than w/ 1600x1200. --MrBurns (talk) 10:09, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the initial comment is worthwhile, as is this section on resolution. What it lacks is a distinction between mono-chrome and colour. As I understand it:

Horizontal resolution:The horizontal resolution of a mono-chrome (black and white, black and green, amber etc.) is continuous (analog) and hence theoretically infinite. The pracical limit is how fast one can alter the intensity of the electron beam. The horizontal resolution of a colour crt can be said to be fixed, in the sense that it must conform to the pattern of red,blue and green areas applied to the inside of the crt in the factory. It is possible to vary the intensity within each area, although the result is neither a simple increase in resolution, or easy to describe in text.

Vertical resolution. The vertical resolution of a monochrome monitor is theoretically infinite, just as with the horizontal, but one must remember the electron beam and resulting "dot" have width. For colour there are two types of mask to consider. In the first type the coloured areas are not continuous verically, and the resolution is constrained in the same way as the horizontal colour is above. In the second type the coloured areas are continous vertically, and the resolution is not constrained, the the sense of vertical mono-chrome above. This type of crt was introduced and used exclusively by Sony under the name "Trinitron", until the patent expiried, after which many manufacturers used it. Antifesto (talk) 00:00, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

The assumptions expressed here about dot pitch constraining resolution are mistaken.... very common, but mistaken. It is simply not the case that the phosphor triads on the screen match 1:1 (or close to that) with pixels, or that the number of triads constrains the number of pixels that can be displayed.
If that were the case, then on the color CRT you would see very obvious aliasing effects (like moire patterns) when you attempted to use pixel counts that were much higher than about half of the triad count... particularly when you came close to the actual triad count (Nyquist!) To eliminate this you'd have to display exactly as many pixels as you have phosphor triads, and to make that work there would have to be precise synchronization between the electron beams' arrival at the triads and the pixel times in the input signal, and this is just not practical. There isn't even a "dot clock" in the VGA signal, and there is considerable tolerance in the "front porch" duration, so there is really no way to determine just from the sync pulses exactly where each pixel is within the horizontal scan interval. And small adjustments to your H and V size and position controls would throw off the alignment completely. (Those controls do not work in increments of one pixel, or one triad!)
It would also have to be the case that each beam lit up exactly one phosphor dot or stripe at a time, and that isn't true either; electron beams in CRTs cannot be focused that finely.
Instead each beam illuminates a considerable number - a dozen or so - of the dots or stripes of its color (the shadow mask or aperture grille ensures that each beam falls only on phosphors of its intended color, and of course there is some spillover, esp at high beam intensity), with falloff toward the outer edges of the beam. The beam of course sweeps from left to right, and it is varied in intensity according to the input signal. It doesn't matter in the slightest if the beam happens to be "right between two triads" when information arrives for a particular pixel, because what you see as "the pixel" is simply the average of the brightness of the triads in that area. It's all very stochastic. Jeh (talk) 02:48, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
This is fascinating information, but I'm having trouble understanding how the triad density does not constrain horizontal resolution in an aperture grill display. Your description suggests that multiple phosphor triads are energized for each "pixel", but how is it possible to have a horizontal resolution that exceeds the triad density? For example, suppose that there are 1000 triads across the display width. I can't envision how this display could successfully resolve an image that has 600 alternations of red and green lines (e.g. 1200 lines in total).Spacediver (talk) 03:54, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
The resolution cannot exceed the density of the colour phosphor triads. The point is: that for the normally encountered television resolutions, the triad density is larger than the resolution disctated by the bandwidth of the (analogue) signal. Tubes with much higher triad densities were produced for the computer monitor market. They were also developed for television sets designed to display high definition pictures (in both the 720p and 1080i variants), but these never made it to market as they were headed off by flat panel displays. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 16:42, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
You appear to have missed the point. There will be no moiré effect if you, "attempted to use pixel counts that were much higher than about half of the triad count". This is precisely because the picture in a cathode ray tube is not composed of pixels. All that the density of the colour triads does is to present an upper limit to the (analogue) horizontal resolution of the tube - the vertical resolution being fixed by the scanning lines. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 16:50, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
No, the density of the triads does not limit the horizontal resolution. And moire patterns don't require pixels.
Consider a monochrome CRT - it has one giant "phosphor dot". Yet it can display many, many details across the width of the screen, no?
If you do the calculations - I have - you'll find that the "dot pitches" on the higher res CRTs weren't really fine enough to support the resolutions they claimed to support. Yet, those resolutions worked, even though according to you they should have been impossible. The reason they work is that Color CRTs never, ever needed to illuminate just one dot triad at a time. The rate of the horizontal sweep and the rate at which the beam could be modulated are what limit horizontal resolution. Jeh (talk) 21:56, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
Conversely, this is why LCD displays with VGA inputs do have fine "sync" and "phase" adjustments. Assuming that the input signal pixel count matches the display resolution, then each pixel on the screen is controlled individually, from the input signal at a time that is assumed to represent the corresponding pixel. Most modern LCDs can do a pretty good job of finding the line rate and the first and last pixel on a line by themselves, but this is very dependent on the image being displayed. If the timing is off by more than a quarter of a pixel or so you will get very obvious moire patterns when displaying fine detail. You just don't see that on a CRT. And that's all the evidence you should need that color CRTs just don't work that way. Jeh (talk) 01:55, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Decline and Fall of the CRT

Despite some of the CRT is not dead comments above, here in 2016 the only CRTs I have seen for years have been as ageing railway station displays (I once saw one displaying a BBC microcomputer boot screen well into the 21st century!) For almost all purposes the CRT is dead as a dodo thanks to cheaper and now much better (e.g. wider angle, brighter) LCD technologies. But the article stops charting the demise of the CRT in about 2006. As one of the most profound changes in technology the article really should cover the finalk death throws (and any legacy applications for CRTs) in better detail. Stub Mandrel (talk) 20:21, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

"Health hazards" section and article organization

Much of the health hazards section, like the parts about electric shock and audible whine, refer to apparatus containing CRTs rather than to the CRT itself. (A CRT sitting in a box on a shelf may contain some hazardous substances, and presents an implosion hazard, but it's not going to shock anyone or make annoying sounds.) There are similar issues scattered all through the article. Jeh (talk) 22:02, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

They could use clarification, but I wouldn't remove them, if those components are necessary to make a CRT work, or at least were customarily included with them. StuRat (talk) 20:37, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Advantages and Disadvantages Section

I removed the Advantages and Disadvantages section as it was clearly non-neutral (to such an extent which I doubt anything short of a complete rewrite would fix the problem) and had been flagged as non-neutral and not fixed since 2012. I have no special knowledge about this subject, but a appropriately balanced advantages and disadvantages section could be a good thing to include in this article. --Nogburt (talk) 05:21, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

While neutrality issues may have their importance, I find this article lacking information on real-life performance of CRTs when compared to flat panels (LCDs, etc). Anybody with reasonably healthy eyes and no bias, will instantly recognize the terrible color rendition, edge rendition and moving image rendition of most "modern" displays when the signal does not correspond to the native resolution of those modern displays, for example, when viewing a standard ("low definition") cable signal or DVD on an LCD with higher rated resolution: the CRT image will be slightly blurred perhaps, but EVERY OTHER aspect of the perceived quality of the image will still be much better in the old and relegated CRT. The fact that modern displays require a different from "standard def" signals is seldom recognized. That is the reason why I keep my old Toshiba 32" CRT TV bought in 1997: it simply looks much better than ANY modern display when looking standard definition cable-TV or DVDs, except perhaps that the Channel logotype is slightly less defined in the CRT (everything else in the image is MUCH better!). Amclaussen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.141.2.236 (talk) 17:10, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
The color palette on 2K LCD TV's is/was limited, in some cases as bad as the equivalent of 6 bits per color using computer monitor terminology. OLED TVs were introduced with a much better color palette, and 4K LCD TV's also increased color palette in order to stay reasonably competitive with the OLED TVs. Despite the shadow mask, since a bean can move across part of a "native" pixel, or change intensity "mid-pixel", the native resolution of a CRT is related to the size of the individual phosphors on a screen, so CRTs, especially computer monitors, are able to handle a wide variety of resolutions. In the case of rear projection CRT TV's that use 3 CRTs, (one red, one blue, one green) there is no shadow mask, but these require adjusting convergence about twice a year. As for standard definition display, the main issue is that "pixel" aspect ratio is 8/9, which is a problem for a digital display, but not an issue for a CRT since it can just change the beam effective thickness and sweep rate. CRT based rear projection HDTV's support both 480p and 1080i as "native" modes. Rcgldr (talk) 06:33, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

I have restrained myself from opening an account on Wikipedia for ages, but I couldn't control myself on his one. I have read that section before and read nothing that could be considered non-neutral. In fact, it was very neutral indeed, based on cold scientific facts. The user that flagged it as non-neutral, did he changed it? Did he tell why he flagged it? What about you, what did you consider as non-neutral and why didn't you fixed it in the first place? It's obvious that LCD displays make sense for most users and applications. But for professionals in several fields (like graphic design, cinema or photography), as for more demanding users, is there a match for the best CRT monitors and TV's? The user that replied to your post says it all. Or maybe not. There was more in the section you deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpmaf (talkcontribs) 12:50, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Last CRT computer monitors made?

I think the last CRT based computer monitors were made by Sun / Oracle, and these probably were continued to be made after CRT based TVs were no longer made. I haven't been able to find the last year that Sun / Oracle made CRT based monitors. These were popular for graphics workstations because the LCD monitors at the time didn't have good color depth, some of which were not much better than the equivalent of 6 bits per color. VGA computer monitor cards supported up to 10 bits per color (30 bit color mode), although it wasn't that popular other than graphics environments. Some computer games, such at Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness (2003) support 30 bit color mode. Rcgldr (talk) 06:47, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 04:36, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

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Williams tube

IBM 701 has a link to CRT, but that section is gone, and in fact the use of cathode-ray tubes as memory seems to be completely deleted from this article. If nobody else is interested, I'll try and pull that from the history.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:19, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

It was there, but buried under oscillscope lore. I moved it. Willams tube has a main article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:33, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Convergence contradiction

all three hit the same spot (and nominally pass through the same hole or slot) on the shadow mask

However, it was previously established that the purpose of the mask is to stop the three beams from hitting the same spot, passing through separate holes to their respective phosphors. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 15:56, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Controlling pixel brightness

There is no information in this article on the way the brightness of pixels is controlled. There is a great deal of public confusion about this matter. Is the power of the electron gun modulated, or is there a grid to control power as in the basic triode vacuum tube? I see that there are other patented methods for fixed-power electron guns in CRTs.

The question arises in the context of Blackle.com, where some sites claim measurements of decreased power for a nearly-all-black screen, and some claim increased measured power--on different CRTs, of course.

I have no idea when this was added, but I felt some sort of response was in order. The brightness of the displayed picture is controlled by varying the beam current using a control grid in the electron gun (as you note) in the same way as the vacuum tube.
On the face of it, displaying a predominantly black picture would require a lower average beam current than a predominantly white one. Unfortunately, there is an issue which makes the claim false. The EHT supply for a colour tube has to be stabilised. Since they exclusively use shunt stabilisation, any current (and hence power) not required by the CRT is absorbed by the stabiliser, so that the EHT current (being the tube beam current plus the stabiliser current) remains practically constant. Thus displaying a complete black picture requires the same power as a complete white picture and no energy saving results. I suspect Blackle calculated their claimed savings on the tube beam current alone.
An LCD display also will have no savings because the backlight operates at a constant output giving no energy saving when the black pixels simply block the light. 86.149.142.3 (talk) 17:07, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
That is not true for many newer LCDs, which have multiple backlight zones that can be dimmed individually to give better contrast Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in (talk) 18:20, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Can you help verify no CRTs are still made?

I’ve found one company, Thomas Electronics, that still appears to me making crts. This article says the last company stopped in 2016ish.

https://www.thomaselectronics.com/contact-us/ PetesGuide, K6WEB (talk) 18:29, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I heard of a company that still makes CRTs for aircraft cockpit displays. I don't know what they're called, though. 56KPK (talk) 04:01, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

LLC MELZ based in Zaprudnya, Russia continues producing and rebuilding radar, television, oscilloscope, projection and other CRTs as well as their parts: 1, 2, 3, 4.

I know the Early Television Museum based in the USA may use the parts manufactured by LLC MELZ for rebuilding vintage CRTs: 5. Ph3gal (talk) 12:33, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

This article is a hot mess

The article contains tons of information, which is good. Not so good is the fact this information is often duplicated (using different tenses), broken up through insensitive edits, presented in confusing order, and sometimes contradictory.

I think I know all there is to know about CRTs now, but reading and comprehending this article took hours, literally, with a lot of scrolling back and forth. 178.31.138.106 (talk) 01:15, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Too many foootnotes which are mostly just press releases, and way too much redundant detail. Needs to be trimmed to less than 10,000 word of readable text. I have started. --Wtshymanski (talk) 04:32, 20 November 2022 (UTC)