First it was vinyl that came back from the dead after seemingly disappearing for good, and now it’s television’s turn to have one of it’s former technologies find a whole new lease on life. Cathode ray tube television sets are making a roaring comeback as the preferred viewing device of millennials sick of high definition images with artistic color grading worthy of the most expensive Hollywood feature film. Though no sales figures are available yet, as production facilities are still being ramped up to accommodate the new demand for analog sets, industry experts estimate that the number is around 10% of all sets in use, and skyrocketing upwards.
Initial demand was met by scouring Pennysaver ads and estate sales, though Best Buy has since jumped on the new trend and is already stocking limited supplies of refurbished models sourced from Indonesia. They are currently limited to one set per customer or family unit. Enthusiasts see an analogy with many audiophiles’ argument that vinyl just sounds better and is more ‘real’ that digital formats.
“It’s the same with analog TV. You simply haven’t seen ‘Friends’ as it was meant to be enjoyed until you’ve seen it on a 13 inch Panasonic CRT TV/VCR combo.”
TV producers are somewhat frustrated by this turn of events but have to acknowledge the wishes of the market.
“It’s slightly annoying, given the huge effort and expense we’ve put into developing high definition television content, that people now want to view it at 480i on 20+ year old analog technology. But the customer is always right, I guess.”
Across the country, retired solid-state engineers are making a killing selling homemade digital to analog converters while the corporate players struggle to catch up. Technology expert Connie Kulp says we shouldn’t be so surprised. Whereas functional devices such as laptop computers evolve with predictable increasing technical specifications, the same is rarely true for devices that are more personal – like televisions.
“People are not robots – their tastes don’t proceed according to some algorithm.”
She advises anyone lucky enough to be in possession of a CRT set to take good care of it.
“These things are worth their weight in gold – well not really, because that would be a huge amount of gold, but they’re worth a lot.”
When asked what she thinks the next trend will be, Connie is unsure.
“Maybe flip phones.”
Worth a small fortune.
More Gen Z than millennials! I was pretty surprised to hear that there’s plenty other people my age who want to buy one…
Bardzo interesujące informacje! Idealnie to, czego szukałem przenośny ręczny pulsoksymetr przenośny ręczny pulsoksymetr.
Yes! Finally someone writes about 25 dumbbell.
Still totally in love with my 32″ Toshiba CRT TV, after spending $100. to have the power supply filter caps replaced. http://www.andrewandsontv.com/contact-andrew-and-son-in-home-tv-repair-long I just wish it had component video inputs. Maybe on my next one if the Toshiba’s picture tube dies.
I saw an vintage RCA round tube color tv playing “wizard of Oz and it blew my mind. The colors were breathtaking beautiful. The TV set was crafted from solid cherry wood and had a gorgeous deep glow. You could tell it was made with care, pride and made to last a long time. This TV was at least 60 years old. I’m not extremely wealthy but I would pay a ton of money if they built these again for people. A plastic flat screen looks like a piece of shit in comparison. No class whatsoever. Boring. What a seriously stupid satire this article is.
crts were made to last and have proven their durability by lasting longer than their technology
20″ BVMs are selling for +-2000 euro used.
There is a market for well designed CRT TVs (with composite, SVIDEO, component and, specially, SCART/RGB). The Chinese should just copy SONY PROFEEL PRO series design and, even if using average consumer TV tubes, these would sell very well.
Maybe the biggest problem is shipping there worldwide. Too bulky, too heavy. And you can still get CRTs for free (or almost).
Where can I find this market? And can they do the same with Analog TVs? The thing I want to adjust is the resolution but my analog tv doesn’t have that. I wonder if there is a way to be programmed or installed to be able to do that because when I play a game, I can’t see the corners or all the way to the edges what the dialogue is saying.
No, there is no residential use for gondola shelving.
This may be a satirical post, but it’s perhaps ironic that CRT TVs are in extremely high demand in the retro gaming community, particularly if they have component or RGB video inputs. The most highly prized of all are the Sony PVM and BVM professional and broadcast monitors.
Why? Primarily two reasons. One is latency: CRTs have no lag (pre-HD CRTs directly drive what’s displayed on the screen from the analog video input), while HDTVs typically have a few frames of lag, and in the worst cases this difference can be quite severe in faster-paced games. Second, retro consoles (that is, typically those from the mid 90s and earlier) used a non-standard video signaling trick that was designed for CRTs and doesn’t really work right on modern HDTVs. They output a messed up 480i video signal that a CRT television will interpret as 240p, but a modern HDTV will think it’s 480i and mess it up.
I watch a late 60’s Motorola Quasar 21 inch color TV. Cool looking set. It’s a floor model sits on 4 little legs. People are fascinated when they come to my house and see this TV working. Anyway the colors are amazing and the picture is so crisp and detailed I swear it’s got a better picture then my 60 inch flat screen. And the sound is so much better too.
ill say, crt displays are in my opinion better than anything. you can put things on top of them, and just bring the nostolga new flat screens dont offer. its all ill use, only had one die one me but thats it otherwise their virtually bulletproof. same with crt computer monitors.
My daily color set is a Zenith 21 inch round screen love the colors .
I’m still using a CRT TV and a slider cell phone; no irony involved.
CRTs have one common problem. They tend to have convergence problems. Fixing it is easy, since you adjust the focus rings. I think this is caused when the CRT is moved about a lot, especially in a motor vehicle, and the vibrations affect the focus rings. It could also be caused by other things, but this is what I think causes it. Not a huge deal, but only if convergence problems are severe.
I really think CRT TVs have the best contrast, brightness and color saturation. LCD displays have come a long way, but blacks still look somewhat gray. OLED displays give just as good black levels, but they tend to burn in easier than plasma, my second favorite display. Even though CRTs cannot be wall mounted as easy as a flat panel and they use more power, picture quality is better.
Im still using “Cathode” Ray TV ” !!!!!!!! Way Better PICTURE SOUNDS WAY WAY BETTER!!!!!! its a very nice looking set iv’e got a Samsung Nic-Cam Stereo fanatic sound and im looking tto buy another one .. The L C D Tv Are Such Crap Crap Fake Picture The Is so Weak Just a load of rubbish.
Im still using “Cathode” Ray TV ” !!!!!!!! Way Better PICTURE SOUNDS WAY WAY BETTER!!!!!! its a very nice looking set iv’e got a Samsung Nic-Cam Stereo fanatic sound and im looking tto buy another one .. The L C D Tv Are Such Crap Crap Fake Picture The Is so Weak Just a load of rubbish.
This article is ironically accurate.
Annoying and insulting, therefore not effective satire. CRT actually is better. You are so smug thinking that LCD is better when it is not. High definition CRT televisions exist and the image is nice. So much of the text implies a CRT TV is 480i, when I have three that display 1080i. No sarcasm: you actually should take good care of your CRT because they are not making more. CRT is not inherently “analog”, this is an abuse of the terms “analog” and “digital”. There are CRT televisions with DVI and HDMI inputs and CRT monitors with DVI inputs. Color on a CRT is generally better than LCD. Most PC monitors made between 1995-2005 are capable of greater than high-def resolution (the one I am using now has 2048×1536 resolution, while 1080p is only 1920×1080). Also CRT projectors are capable of greater than high-def resolution (for example Barco).
I’m submitting this thread to my dot matrix printer to read later 🙂
Dot matrix printers are actually still used for some industries and applications. There are USB dot matrix printers. They are used, for example, for multi-part forms. Besides, it is not an apt comparison, since a display technology producing a better image than CRT has not yet been developed.
I am very happy that Cathode Ray Tubes are making a comeback. I have a 27″ Sony Trinitron curved CRT TV from the year 1998. I watch VHS, DVD movies and play older video games. In the future, I would like to see new CRT TV’s to come back to the production line mainly for classic gaming use. I will always use a CRT for retrogaming and I’ll never go to flat panel LCD LED or any other technology other than CRT for watching VHS, DVD and retrogaming.
As much as the article was clearly intended as satire, there actually *is* a market for surviving examples of ^very early* television technology. We’re *not* talking about boring 80’s era black plastic box models imported from Japan or Korea, but the CRT TV counterparts to what the Ford Model T, ’57 Chevy Bel Air, and classic late 60’s & early 70’s Muscle Car models mean to Vintage Automobile enthusiasts. More than just the CRT that displays the picture itself, the ones worthy of museum exhibit or family heirloom efforts toward Restoration are the ones with a dozen (or more) smaller glowing glass vacuum tubes plugged into an array of sockets on one or more metal chassis assemblies inside their wooden cabinets. They aren’t *all* as valuable as the RCA TRK-12 of 1939 World’s Fair fame, but that $500 figure from the article is actually at the *low* end of the Vintage Television value scale. That ’39 RCA and the 9″ and 5″ models below the 12″ top-of-the-line model routinely sell at Antiques auctions for three or four times the advertised price of those new car-motorcycle hybrid vehicles that have gone viral as blog topics on social media on those rare occasions when another surviving example is found in the attic of the great-grandparents of some millenial. My late wife had a deep appreciation of the antique radios I had collected as a hobby since childhood, and combining that with my familiarity with the inner workings of these technological milestones when we decided it was time for a career change toward small business ownership was how Amptech Systems was conceived. Vintage Electronics and Vintage Automobile collections and museums many parallels. For example, a variation on the same “Year / Make / Body / Engine” nomenclature is used for describing Historical television models. For TV, it usually consists of the year and make along with cabinet and chassis variations available for models of each make for each year, since many of the sets had names assigned to their various cabinet styles. Just a few examples are the 1951 Dumont Aldridge and Brookville cabinets containing type RA-113 chassis and 17BP4 rectangular CRT’s. Anniversary rebroadcasts of “I Love Lucy” and the debut of The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show are great to see via set top digital-to-analog converter boxes on authentic working sets. Anyone who has ever tuned into MeTV or TV Land to revisit childhood memories understands. Thank you for the publicity. In closing, I’ll recommend a (real or virtual) visit to the Early Television Foundation Museum. The Museum’s Hilliard, Ohio location isn’t too far from Pittsburgh, in fact, and it’s open to the public mainly on weekends. The web site is http://www.earlytelevision.org for a virtual tour.
@Amptech Systems It’s a satirical blog, asshat.
Uncalled for. Is he not allowed to give a serious, non-joking, reply to something that is supposed to be satire? It is bad satire. The original author displays his ignorance, lack or refinement, lack of taste, and lack of perspective on technology. Basically the original author is a philistine and he thinks people better than him are such a joke. No, rather you are just dull and have a closed mind, lack appreciation for technology, and are ignorant of the possibilities and variety of available technology.
Umm, “asshat’s” very first sentence is, “As much as the article was clearly intended as satire…”
I’m glad the hat fits you so well! ?
I know Amptech. Take it from me, his asshat is a fucking royal crown!