Want a slick new flat-screen TV but don’t want to spend the big bucks? No worries. Samsung and LG have been selling flat CRT models they call "slim CRTs" — and they have some very compelling reasons beyond price to keep these sets in the running.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor
of Projection Monthly &
Microdisplay Report

First, CRTs are inherently analog, providing continuous variations of brightness and color in the video image. A "digital CRT" uses the proper electronics to convert the incoming digital signal to analog. By contrast, today’s popular LCD technology drives each pixel with a finite number of video levels, which can produce "posterization" artifacts in areas of the image (like sky) where color and brightness change slowly, or in very dark areas.

But it’s the CRT’s raster-scanning of an electron beam across fast-acting phosphors that has given the technology the moniker of "the gold standard" in image quality, particularly in the fast-motion tracking needed for viewing sports and action films. Early-day LCD manufacturers were notorious for introducing their next generation of large displays at trade shows by showing beautifully colored images that were very slow moving because the manufacturers feared revealing inherent motion artifacts. While the technology has come a long way — with vastly improved single-digit response times, blinking backlights and the rest — CRT technology is still the gold standard in motion tracking.

Still not convinced? OK, how about CRT black levels? Take the black level of a recent Toshiba 34-inch digital CRT model (34HF84) reviewed in Home Theater magazine last year. The black level was literally off the chart — so good it was too dark to measure with the reviewer’s LS-100 light meter. In comparison, LCD is a gating technology, with a backlight and pixels that either allow light to pass (in the "on" state) or not ("off" state). Blacks, by comparison to the deep black of a CRT are often characterized as grayish blacks. LCD manufacturers are working on and dramatically improving this specification — and let’s be fair, CRTs have been around a very long time while LCDs are just getting started.

LCD claims the advantage of image detail, as a key benefit of all those densely packed, digitally addressed pixels is an eye-poppingly detailed image that is unmatched by CRT — as long as the LCD’s image is stationary or moving slowly.

But the slim CRTs are holding their own. Samsung SDI shipped 500K units last quarter, up from 400K in the previous quarter, in 21- to 32-inch sizes. This represented a 25% sequential increase within a category that shrank 13% overall during the same period.

So even for CRTs slim is in, with the new slim technology boasting up to 1/3 less depth than traditional CRTs. For instance, a Samsung 21-inch "SlimFit" set measures just under 12 inches deep. While all models don’t seem to be readily available in the US, we did find on the Circuit City web site a 27-inch SlimFit with built-in HD tuner, HDMI input and SRS surround sound for $599.

We see the slim CRT as this technology’s swan song. Good as the blacks and motion rendering are, the Philo Farnsworth inspired tube that arguably did more than any other technology to shape the second half of the 20th century will finally cede its place in the living room to true digital displays. As the CRT market shrinks, there isn’t enough profit in CRTs to justify the kind of major R&D effort that would be required to produce another significant CRT advance like the slim-fit.

But don’t be surprised to see this technology hang on for a few more years. About 145M CRT-based TV sets will be sold worldwide this year — 75% of the total. And CRT-TVs will probably be a familiar sight to millions of viewers who have not yet been born. After all, old TVs never die; they just end up in the garage.