Page 1 of CRT telly recommendations

Ok, I give up! After almost a year of trying to find a replacement telly, I`ve drawn a blank - the choice is just too vast!

I`ve looked at plasmas, I`ve looked at LCD`s, I`ve looked at CRT`s. My final wish list is as follows:

CRT
32" screen
3 Scart Sockets
100Mhz
Integrated digital tuner
Price up to £500

Anyone got any recommendations or am I living in cloud-cuckoo land?

Thanks in advance for any and all advice offered. And yes, I would love a Panasonic Plasma Viera 37" HD TV - I just can`t afford one right now!

I`d go the LCD route. I have the £600-00 (last year) 32" Tevion. Samsung screen. The picture is as good as the expensive LCD TVs & used with a Freeview the quality is fantastic. I also watch a lot of Hi Def via my computer, the picture is as good as any of the HDTVs you see on Demo. There are upscaling DVD players that give a `false` Hi def, I havn`t watched one but most of the threads rate them highly. If you stand close to an LCD it does seem to look poor but sit 2/3 meters away & it looks as good or better than a CRT. Most manufacturers are putting there effort into LCD now & plasma is not so popular. I`m looking out for the 40" LCDs to either come down a bit or get one when Aldi do one, if it`s no good I`d take it back. I know Tevion had a 40" one on the continent a few months ago. I also bought the 27" Tevion & that has twin Samsung tuners in. I believe from reading other threads that the best crt`s only downscale a HD transmision to suit it`s limitation. As for crt`s if you go that route there are many bargains out there now from even the top makes, just don`t expect to sell it once you`ve finished with it.

I had an email from Tesco saying they had a Freeview Sony 32" crt for about £650-00 but I expect you could do better than that. They also had a Toshiba 32" crt without freeview for about £450-00 just add a freeview box.

Sensible choice to go for CRT unless you intend to get into Hi-Def anytime soon as CRT wins hands down on picture quality displaying the substandard pix that are Sky Digital and Freeview.
But avoid 100HZ sets as these introduce unwanted picture defects like blurring and smearing on fast movement,not a good idea if you watch sport or action movies.
This renders the pic as poor as Plasma/LCD.
As Paull says,if your viewing distance is going to be quite a way away then LCD/plasma may be acceptable,but I would say at least 4 metres or you will notice the deficiencies of LCD/plasma that don`t really go away until they get fed with Hi-Def pix

phellings, we sit 2 1/2 meters away & the picture is stunning. If you could see it you would agree. I wouldn`t swap it for any CRT.

Look here for someone`s opinion of an LCD over there crt.

http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=337245&page=2

Look towards the bottom at the poster ... Jonny.C

In the picture quality debate Ithe only test I use is my own eyes as other people`s definition of good quality is alarming to say the least.
I despair of those who like the smeary mess that is 100HZ,and I have seen many setups where people will be watching digital tv through composite instead of RGB,where their box is incorrectly set to 4:3 and they stretch the pix to fill a wide set and think its fine,and basically don`t have a clue whats what.
I find all the plasma/LCD sets I ever see to be lacking the clarity of CRT.
The only exception was the Hi-Def demo I saw a while back.

Thanks for all the comments.

I find the points about smearing on 100MHz very interesting. I`d always just assumed a 100MHz picture would be better than a 50MHz, but wondered why that didn`t appear to be the case when I compared them side by side in the shop on several occassions.

Still no further towrds making the final decision - I think I might just walk into a shop on Saturday and not walk out until I`ve bought something...

Don`t most 100MHz have the ability to turn off 100MHz so it`s 50? I`m sure a friends did, because he had to do it to play light gun games ( they don`t, or at least didn`t work on 100MHz sets.

My limited experince of watching TV at other ppl`s houses is that 100 is better than 50.

Saying that my experience of looking at tv`s in shops (such as Currys, Comet etc) is it`s next to impossible to compare them properly, as they rarely set them up very well :(

Al

www.admars.co.uk

The mere fact that you need to have the ability to switch it off shows how "good" 100HZ is.In fact,not all sets give you this option.
The smearing shows up mostly on fast movement.
Try watching a fast footie match on 100Hz.
The problems that 100Hz has with movement together with the rather poor quality of Sky Digital help to make 100Hz look awful especially with that type of programming.
You seem to have already noticed the problem so will be wise enough to avoid 100Hz.
But with Hi-Def around the corner,you will have to judge when you think you may be getting HD to see if its worth getting CRT instead of LCD/plasma,which do deliver good pix with HD