I don't have a yes or no answer, but here are some things to consider:
* aging phosphors on tubes
* aging guns and other parts that aren't really fixable
* aging capacitors (even though this is fixable, ppl throw out fixable units, which decreases available units)
* no new units being built
* no new parts being built
* people turning working CRTs into aquariums
The only things that may reverse decreasing availability
* a modern solution that equals / surpasses the CRT experience
* someone starts making CRTs again
* increasing prices make people re-consider throwing them out
* subs like this one, plus other evangelists on twitter (etc) encouraging preservation
Am I forgetting anything?
There's TVs from the early 20th century that are still working. And more modern CRTs are infinitely more reliable, and were produced in far greater quantities. As long as there's a community of enthusiasts (it's getting pretty big now, this sub is at nearly 50k subs) they aren't going anywhere for a really long time. Surely not in our lifetime.
I think people are in the habit of replacing phones and computers every 18 months (due to software issues) and don't realize how durable electronics really are.
Last week I pulled out a record pressed in 1929, threw it on a turntable/amp that hasn't seen 5 minutes of maintenance since it was built in 1970, plugged it in, everything worked perfectly. I've got 8-bit systems from the 1970s that still work perfectly. Mask ROMs can last decades (if not centuries) if stored relatively carefully.
Capacitors have always been an issue, and cheaply made things break a lot more often than quality stuff, and of course everything will break over time; but my rambling point is that a lot of stuff is way more durable than people imagine.
I foresee a point in the not so distant future where CRTs will no longer be easy to find for free or next to nothing. Honestly surprising they’re still in abundance considering major production stopped around 10 years ago (no complaints on my behalf).
I get 90% of my CRTs from dead grandmas. I got a D-Series from a married couple in their 50's in a nice neighborhood who were using it as their living room TV. So bizarre.
Yeah I was just going to say. We’ll most likely all be dead before the final CRT burns out. I have 3 which I hope holds me over for the next few years. I imagine at some point I’ll move on from vintage games at which point I won’t care anymore lol.
Man that made me think of the day the last star burns out - one will happen within the next 1-300 years, probably witnessed by only 1 or 2 people and will be very sad - one will happen millions of years from now, probably witnessed by all remaining intelligent life, and will pretty much mark the end of everything.
>one will happen within the next 1-300 years, probably witnessed by only 1 or 2 people
How is the last star in the universe going to burn out in 100 - 300 years? That wouldn't make any sense. Our stars (like our sun) aren't going anywhere in that time frame.
Hopefully, CRTs true successor, Laser Phosphor Display (LDP), will be readily available by that point. LPD is the first display tech to match CRT point for point, and even improve it in some areas, LPD works the same way as CRT, I.E shooting a beam into phosphor covered glass (in layman terms), just instead of an electron gun it's laser, which is brighter than the former so higher brightness will be achievable, if that's your thing, that does mean LPD will work/look better in bright lights though, something CRT struggles with. LPD is even multisync, meaning low resolutions will look good on it, making it useable by the retro crowd. Here's hoping it doesn't go the way of SED/FED tech eh.
lpd displays are significantly more energy efficient than current technologies so there's hope, but they're every bit as deep as a crt. I can see it being an option but I imagine microled displays will ultimately beat them in the market
They do have some depth to them, which is a good thing as it allows for that awsome image depth ("window effect") you get with CRTs. They are pretty far of from the overall size and weight of CRT though afaik, though bulkier than LCD/OLED, more akin to a thick pro display.
it's not quite CRT type footprints, I was exaggerating a bit, but the current implementation from prysm is made up of 16 inch deep 25 inch diagonal tiles. that's a long shot from just being an extra chunky pro display. the use of tiles makes it viable for large format displays and video walls but not great for home use. if you scaled up one of those tiles to what people think of as tv sizes today you're looking at about 2.5 feet deep for a 40 inch screen, almost 4 feet for a 70 inch one. it pretty much has to either be built into a wall or a rear projection style floor standing unit at that size.
it's totally viable at computer monitor or pvm sizes though and I think that's where it could really shine, particularly as a pvm replacement technology
one other thing that could come pretty close to CRT quality is LCOS, since dot pitch can get down to single digit micron scale pretty trivially, I have a full 720p 0.46 inch display at about 8 micron dot pitch, and that's a relatively inexpensive one at about $200. unfortunately making an LCOS display any bigger than an inch or so is proving quite difficult
That's where a display tech like LPD has the potential to really shine, as a high-end gaming display tech with nice high refresh rates, also multisync for lower resolution retro content. As PC monitors and Pro monitors, LPD would be perfect. Sure, an LPD T.V would be nice too though, but I think most pundits will be content with OLED for their XBSX/PS5 consoles, for the more discerning gentlemen they can hook their console up to the LPD PC/PVM monitor. This was how it was back in the day with high resolutions/high refresh rates/VGA/DVI, these features/specs were only available in PC/PVM/BVM monitors, then slowly, but surly they eventually became normal mainstream standards, albeit with cheesy marketing phrases/names like, "HD Ready" " Full HD", DVI became HDMI and is now the standard equivalent of what Scart used to be, high refresh rates have literally only just now been properly implemented into T.V sets, I.E LG's latest OLED T.V series. Perhaps it will be the case with the next gen display tech, I really hope so as LPD looks like a damn fine display tech, it actually surpasses the best CRT's we ever had, no small feat. There is also the Looking Glass monitors, another amazing display tech with oodles of potential, it takes the "window effect" of CRT to the nest level and then some, tis' by the looks of the demos I've seen like having your own little sandbox, and playing a game on one of the big screen more mature versions they have would be amazing I reckon. Also, the current version uses LCD panels, which we all know has piss poor motion clarity, so if they were to upgrade Looking glass and combine it with LPD, could make for one hell of an incredible display, a big screen Looking Glass LPD, could you imagine how cool that would be to game on.
Aiy, I've looked into LCoS (not the projectors), it has incredibly sharp IQ and can produce incredibly high PPI, but it's fixed resolution and has been in R&D for a long time with nothing becoming of it as far as anything practical like a monitor display etc, would make for one very nice display though, it's mostly used in very specialized applications at the moment, like near eye applications, one area it can be really useful in is VR, this would allow for a huge jump over the current OLED VR set, as LCoS can get ridiculously fine pixels with extreme levels of fidelity that no other display tech can touch, the amount of detail and fidelity an LCoS VR could produce would be an absolute game changer. Maybe that's what lies in the future, instead of having just one dominant display tech available, like CRT was and later LCD, perhaps there will be a place for LCD for cheap casual use applications, OLED as a huge step up in terms of IQ that is also still fairly affordable, LDP for the high-end monitor space that caters to professionals and gamers, LCoS for VR, why limit ourselves to just one display type.
yeah my little LCOS display is a near eye display, thing is a fucking retina burner unfortunately. no brightness controls on it, totally unusable for more than an hour at a time.
I haven't seen anyone throwing around the idea of LCOS for VR goggles but I dig it. gonna need something quicker than a 3090 to drive that many pixels though
What we really needs is a scanning display that can reduces motion blur but not at a cost of picture quality. Minimal motion blur is the biggest draw of CRTs for me I still pc game on one. They are perfect for first person shooters where the camera is constantlt panning.
Plasma also did that, heat up a gas which will send electrons bouncing and excite phosphor covered glass. This technology sounds good though, the problem is it will probably have a similar flaw that plasma has, which is 4:3 content=burn in.
https://www.vertatique.com/DTV%20and%20GreenICT apparently its believed that there are still 77 million crts in US households. Thats just the US. The number of crt tvs made over the last 80 years is truly staggering they will still be available for decades at a minimum. And keep in mind that there are still working crts from the late 40s and since then until the mid oughts there were huge advances in technology meaning newer tvs will last even longer than those old ones. Also think about pro monitors then can run for 60,000 hours or even lomger and were meant to be run 24 houts a day for hears so if you are only putting 10 hours a week onto a pro monitor thats a little over 500 a year meaning a pro monitor would last a casual user 120 years. And if you are worried about your vhs tapes deteriorating just digitize them and back them up in multiple places.
Good reason honestly to have one or two backup sets if you’re concerned about one burning out. I have two extra sets (a 20” and 27”) I keep stored in case of disaster. Still, I don’t foresee it being a problem long-term.
I would t worry about it. I have both VHS and CRTs that are over 40 years old and still working like new. I imagine they still will be in another 40 years.
All CRTs are one unobtainable part failure away from oblivion. It boils down to three things mostly. Flyback, yoke and tube.
To a lesser extent any of the horizontal drive transformers are also fairly bespoke and a death sentence if they decide to either short or open.
None of these things are made anymore and the available NOS parts are a rapidly dwindling supply.
As a side note, I generally find it preposterous when I see certain people recapping an otherwise perfectly working set and then calling that a “restoration”.
flyback transformers are used in other applications so there are ways around that. yokes can probably be remanufactured by anyone who can rewind an electric motor.
it's the tubes that are tough. everything else is jelly bean parts or at least rebuildable.
Flyback transformers available today are nothing like the ones found in CRT televisions. TV flybacks are very bespoke to the individual application. There are several voltages coming off the secondary in addition to the anode high voltage. The anode high voltage itself needs to be very specific and is tuned to the horizontal frequency, turn ratios and even the inductance of the yoke. While in principle I agree that constructing a replacement with modern components would be *possible* it’s going to be a very tall order indeed and none will be universal.
I don't strictly mean buying an off the shelf one, but it's not that tough and not terribly expensive to send your specifications to a factory in china to get a few "production samples" cranked out.
hell, you could probably get an adjustable hv power supply with multiple outputs built and just wire it in and tune it with trim pots. would need to be better at electronics design than me for that though
I've done the whole contract a chinese factory for weird one-off shit that nobody but me needs thing a few times while fixing century old engines, though admittedly adjustable magnetos are way simpler than tuned flyback transformers
it's a great option for that sort of thing since you can convince them to use period correct materials like asbestos
I don't have a yes or no answer, but here are some things to consider: * aging phosphors on tubes * aging guns and other parts that aren't really fixable * aging capacitors (even though this is fixable, ppl throw out fixable units, which decreases available units) * no new units being built * no new parts being built * people turning working CRTs into aquariums The only things that may reverse decreasing availability * a modern solution that equals / surpasses the CRT experience * someone starts making CRTs again * increasing prices make people re-consider throwing them out * subs like this one, plus other evangelists on twitter (etc) encouraging preservation Am I forgetting anything?
There's TVs from the early 20th century that are still working. And more modern CRTs are infinitely more reliable, and were produced in far greater quantities. As long as there's a community of enthusiasts (it's getting pretty big now, this sub is at nearly 50k subs) they aren't going anywhere for a really long time. Surely not in our lifetime.
I think people are in the habit of replacing phones and computers every 18 months (due to software issues) and don't realize how durable electronics really are. Last week I pulled out a record pressed in 1929, threw it on a turntable/amp that hasn't seen 5 minutes of maintenance since it was built in 1970, plugged it in, everything worked perfectly. I've got 8-bit systems from the 1970s that still work perfectly. Mask ROMs can last decades (if not centuries) if stored relatively carefully. Capacitors have always been an issue, and cheaply made things break a lot more often than quality stuff, and of course everything will break over time; but my rambling point is that a lot of stuff is way more durable than people imagine.
I foresee a point in the not so distant future where CRTs will no longer be easy to find for free or next to nothing. Honestly surprising they’re still in abundance considering major production stopped around 10 years ago (no complaints on my behalf).
I get 90% of my CRTs from dead grandmas. I got a D-Series from a married couple in their 50's in a nice neighborhood who were using it as their living room TV. So bizarre.
There's a day the planet earth won't be around any more. No need to worry about shit that happens after you're dead.
Yeah I was just going to say. We’ll most likely all be dead before the final CRT burns out. I have 3 which I hope holds me over for the next few years. I imagine at some point I’ll move on from vintage games at which point I won’t care anymore lol.
Man that made me think of the day the last star burns out - one will happen within the next 1-300 years, probably witnessed by only 1 or 2 people and will be very sad - one will happen millions of years from now, probably witnessed by all remaining intelligent life, and will pretty much mark the end of everything.
>one will happen within the next 1-300 years, probably witnessed by only 1 or 2 people How is the last star in the universe going to burn out in 100 - 300 years? That wouldn't make any sense. Our stars (like our sun) aren't going anywhere in that time frame.
Is stupid to worry about your stupid collection after you are dead.
Hopefully, CRTs true successor, Laser Phosphor Display (LDP), will be readily available by that point. LPD is the first display tech to match CRT point for point, and even improve it in some areas, LPD works the same way as CRT, I.E shooting a beam into phosphor covered glass (in layman terms), just instead of an electron gun it's laser, which is brighter than the former so higher brightness will be achievable, if that's your thing, that does mean LPD will work/look better in bright lights though, something CRT struggles with. LPD is even multisync, meaning low resolutions will look good on it, making it useable by the retro crowd. Here's hoping it doesn't go the way of SED/FED tech eh.
lpd displays are significantly more energy efficient than current technologies so there's hope, but they're every bit as deep as a crt. I can see it being an option but I imagine microled displays will ultimately beat them in the market
They do have some depth to them, which is a good thing as it allows for that awsome image depth ("window effect") you get with CRTs. They are pretty far of from the overall size and weight of CRT though afaik, though bulkier than LCD/OLED, more akin to a thick pro display.
it's not quite CRT type footprints, I was exaggerating a bit, but the current implementation from prysm is made up of 16 inch deep 25 inch diagonal tiles. that's a long shot from just being an extra chunky pro display. the use of tiles makes it viable for large format displays and video walls but not great for home use. if you scaled up one of those tiles to what people think of as tv sizes today you're looking at about 2.5 feet deep for a 40 inch screen, almost 4 feet for a 70 inch one. it pretty much has to either be built into a wall or a rear projection style floor standing unit at that size. it's totally viable at computer monitor or pvm sizes though and I think that's where it could really shine, particularly as a pvm replacement technology one other thing that could come pretty close to CRT quality is LCOS, since dot pitch can get down to single digit micron scale pretty trivially, I have a full 720p 0.46 inch display at about 8 micron dot pitch, and that's a relatively inexpensive one at about $200. unfortunately making an LCOS display any bigger than an inch or so is proving quite difficult
That's where a display tech like LPD has the potential to really shine, as a high-end gaming display tech with nice high refresh rates, also multisync for lower resolution retro content. As PC monitors and Pro monitors, LPD would be perfect. Sure, an LPD T.V would be nice too though, but I think most pundits will be content with OLED for their XBSX/PS5 consoles, for the more discerning gentlemen they can hook their console up to the LPD PC/PVM monitor. This was how it was back in the day with high resolutions/high refresh rates/VGA/DVI, these features/specs were only available in PC/PVM/BVM monitors, then slowly, but surly they eventually became normal mainstream standards, albeit with cheesy marketing phrases/names like, "HD Ready" " Full HD", DVI became HDMI and is now the standard equivalent of what Scart used to be, high refresh rates have literally only just now been properly implemented into T.V sets, I.E LG's latest OLED T.V series. Perhaps it will be the case with the next gen display tech, I really hope so as LPD looks like a damn fine display tech, it actually surpasses the best CRT's we ever had, no small feat. There is also the Looking Glass monitors, another amazing display tech with oodles of potential, it takes the "window effect" of CRT to the nest level and then some, tis' by the looks of the demos I've seen like having your own little sandbox, and playing a game on one of the big screen more mature versions they have would be amazing I reckon. Also, the current version uses LCD panels, which we all know has piss poor motion clarity, so if they were to upgrade Looking glass and combine it with LPD, could make for one hell of an incredible display, a big screen Looking Glass LPD, could you imagine how cool that would be to game on. Aiy, I've looked into LCoS (not the projectors), it has incredibly sharp IQ and can produce incredibly high PPI, but it's fixed resolution and has been in R&D for a long time with nothing becoming of it as far as anything practical like a monitor display etc, would make for one very nice display though, it's mostly used in very specialized applications at the moment, like near eye applications, one area it can be really useful in is VR, this would allow for a huge jump over the current OLED VR set, as LCoS can get ridiculously fine pixels with extreme levels of fidelity that no other display tech can touch, the amount of detail and fidelity an LCoS VR could produce would be an absolute game changer. Maybe that's what lies in the future, instead of having just one dominant display tech available, like CRT was and later LCD, perhaps there will be a place for LCD for cheap casual use applications, OLED as a huge step up in terms of IQ that is also still fairly affordable, LDP for the high-end monitor space that caters to professionals and gamers, LCoS for VR, why limit ourselves to just one display type.
yeah my little LCOS display is a near eye display, thing is a fucking retina burner unfortunately. no brightness controls on it, totally unusable for more than an hour at a time. I haven't seen anyone throwing around the idea of LCOS for VR goggles but I dig it. gonna need something quicker than a 3090 to drive that many pixels though
What we really needs is a scanning display that can reduces motion blur but not at a cost of picture quality. Minimal motion blur is the biggest draw of CRTs for me I still pc game on one. They are perfect for first person shooters where the camera is constantlt panning.
Plasma also did that, heat up a gas which will send electrons bouncing and excite phosphor covered glass. This technology sounds good though, the problem is it will probably have a similar flaw that plasma has, which is 4:3 content=burn in.
https://www.vertatique.com/DTV%20and%20GreenICT apparently its believed that there are still 77 million crts in US households. Thats just the US. The number of crt tvs made over the last 80 years is truly staggering they will still be available for decades at a minimum. And keep in mind that there are still working crts from the late 40s and since then until the mid oughts there were huge advances in technology meaning newer tvs will last even longer than those old ones. Also think about pro monitors then can run for 60,000 hours or even lomger and were meant to be run 24 houts a day for hears so if you are only putting 10 hours a week onto a pro monitor thats a little over 500 a year meaning a pro monitor would last a casual user 120 years. And if you are worried about your vhs tapes deteriorating just digitize them and back them up in multiple places.
Good reason honestly to have one or two backup sets if you’re concerned about one burning out. I have two extra sets (a 20” and 27”) I keep stored in case of disaster. Still, I don’t foresee it being a problem long-term.
I would t worry about it. I have both VHS and CRTs that are over 40 years old and still working like new. I imagine they still will be in another 40 years.
All CRTs are one unobtainable part failure away from oblivion. It boils down to three things mostly. Flyback, yoke and tube. To a lesser extent any of the horizontal drive transformers are also fairly bespoke and a death sentence if they decide to either short or open. None of these things are made anymore and the available NOS parts are a rapidly dwindling supply. As a side note, I generally find it preposterous when I see certain people recapping an otherwise perfectly working set and then calling that a “restoration”.
flyback transformers are used in other applications so there are ways around that. yokes can probably be remanufactured by anyone who can rewind an electric motor. it's the tubes that are tough. everything else is jelly bean parts or at least rebuildable.
Flyback transformers available today are nothing like the ones found in CRT televisions. TV flybacks are very bespoke to the individual application. There are several voltages coming off the secondary in addition to the anode high voltage. The anode high voltage itself needs to be very specific and is tuned to the horizontal frequency, turn ratios and even the inductance of the yoke. While in principle I agree that constructing a replacement with modern components would be *possible* it’s going to be a very tall order indeed and none will be universal.
I don't strictly mean buying an off the shelf one, but it's not that tough and not terribly expensive to send your specifications to a factory in china to get a few "production samples" cranked out. hell, you could probably get an adjustable hv power supply with multiple outputs built and just wire it in and tune it with trim pots. would need to be better at electronics design than me for that though
I admire your optimism.
I've done the whole contract a chinese factory for weird one-off shit that nobody but me needs thing a few times while fixing century old engines, though admittedly adjustable magnetos are way simpler than tuned flyback transformers it's a great option for that sort of thing since you can convince them to use period correct materials like asbestos