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Millimeter"New life" for CRT displays?
Mar 8, 2005 11:45 AM
For many AV integrators, corporate buyers and other professional users, the coming year may bring an interesting new competitor to complicate the choice of plasma vs. LCD panel. Combining high image quality, greatly reduced depth and attractive pricing, the new choice comes in a familiar package: The good ol' CRT or "tube" TV.
Samsung, LG Electronics, and Toshiba led off the year with announcements of new "slim CRT" products that are 1/3 shallower than the bulky old CRT tubes of the past. The new TVs are also HD ready and boast the long useful lives buyers traditionally associate with tube televisions. Their prospects in the professional arena hinge mainly on attractive pricing and their ability to fit into a variety of designs.
While stressing that LG Electronics' (www.lge.com) main focus remains on flat panel displays, Vice President/Public Affairs and Communications John I. Taylor is optimistic that the new generation of CRTs will have some legs. "We believe the new products can breathe new life into this category," he says.
Taylor terms the development of the "short neck" CRT as "one of the most significant new developments in many years," comparable in importance to the introduction of flat CRT screens in the 1990s. "When you are able to reduce the neck of the tube by one-third, there are very interesting opportunities in industrial design."
Specifically, he notes the new CRTs will fit into cabinetry and other spaces where they couldn't fit before, and this may draw renewed interest from both corporate users and their AV integrators.
"It will be very interesting to watch," says analyst Riddhi Patel of isuppli (www.isuppli.com). "The new CRTs are going to be priced very competitively, and much lower than similar sized LCDs." Patel notes that the projected pricing for the new 32-inch slim CRT is around $800, compared to at least $1,500-$1,800 for an LCD panel the same size from a "value" manufacturer.
CRT displays, of course, start from a position of relative market dominance, although their market share isn't what it once was. In 2004, Patel says, about 75 percent of the 25 million TV units sold in North America were CRTs. That portion is likely to be only 60 percent in 2005 as flat panel products come on strong, but the slim new generation may help CRT technology stay in the mix.
"I wouldn't write off CRT," says Steve Sechrist of Insight Media (www.insightmedia.info). "The CRT image is still the gold standard."
Taylor insists that plasmas and other new display choices have made such dramatic advances in image quality recently that CRT's advantage is no longer such a given. But he notes that trimming the depth of the CRT tube presented some important quality challenges, especially in maintaining pixel shape and image clarity around the perimeter of the tube.
Manufacturers have also given the new CRTs design features -- like escutcheons around the edges of the tube -- that make them look very much like LCD or plasma panels. This "look" may lead some designers to specify them in settings that usually would call for a flat panel. "It could be a less expensive alternative that will still deliver terrific performance," Taylor says.
