CRT dinosaur- 34" Sony KDXBR970 $679 at Sears

[Lurknomore]

Sears has this beast for $899 starting Sunday, CC has it on sale for $699 same day.
PM 10% $200, possibly more if you can find a $40 off $199 CC coupon somewhere.
I doubt, however, you can PM the post-rebate price to Sears. YMMV

My 34" Sony XS955 with SFP has a much finer picture but the 970 has a glossier screen, and brighter, punchier colors. It's a last of a breed- the cretaceous period for tubes is sadly here.

 

[hansmuff]

Oh wow I am drooling over this. I'm a big fan of CRTs. DAMNIT why do I have to be in the process of buying a house right now!

 

[IGBT]

..how much does something that big weigh??

 

[ForeStorm]

A review on Nextag lists it at 190 lbs.

If they made a widescreen CRT that wouldn't take the expanse of my desktop... Well, it probably wouldn't be a CRT, would it? *shrugs* I read once that they (them) started to almost develop flat CRTs, but instead went to producing LCDs.

 

[Chunkee]

these are great tvs..i have the non xbr and love it....best picture still i think....and at this price....this is a pretty good deal...620 bux

 

[hytek369]

that is huge

anyone have a link? google comes back to this thread

 

[f4phantom2500]

Originally posted by: ForeStorm
A review on Nextag lists it at 190 lbs.

If they made a widescreen CRT that wouldn't take the expanse of my desktop... Well, it probably wouldn't be a CRT, would it? *shrugs* I read once that they (them) started to almost develop flat CRTs, but instead went to producing LCDs.

They make (made) these slim CRT's that are like 1/3 as deep as regular CRT's, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[pm]

So more on this deal. I checked out the TV in detail. Looked at it running 1080i content, looked at it running standard cable non-HDTV signals. I have to say that it seems like a really, really nice CRT. It seems to do a very nice job on both HDTV and non-HDTV content - I was really impressed with the clarity and color of the screen. It's one thing to hear that CRT's are still the best out there in terms of picture quality - but it's another thing entirely to hang out and look at a bunch of TV's running the same content and judge for yourself and see a clear difference - particularly in non-HDTV content, for whatever sense that makes. You can faintly see the wires that hold the aperature grille when you look really closely, and it's clear that the glass is really thick on the front (no surprise) but otherwise, the picture quality is excellent. It only has one HDMI port, which is a bit of a bummer for people with cable cards and DVD players and other HD sources, and it certainly is big, heavy and massive - particularly for it's 34" screen. But I personally thought that it was the best looking TV there.

Sears doesn't appear to be carrying this TV any more. It's not on the online store, and the local Sears didn't have it.

Best Buy had it on clearance for $849.99. They were willing to price match to Circuit City's $699 price with 10%.

So if your local Sears doesn't have it, you may still get a deal at Best Buy.

I'd have bought it at Best Buy but it doesn't fit our home entertainment system by 0.5". I've been scratching my head and trying to figure out what to do, but if it doesn't fit... it doesn't fit and there's not that much that can be done about it. If I want to rip apart the walls... bu my wife looked at me like I was out of my mind when I suggested this in all seriousness (the price and the picture quality have me REALLY wanting one of these). Oh well. Guess I'll get a 37" LCD when prices fall a bit more. The 37" LCD's are isn't as wide ironically... that glass on that CRT must be massive.

 

[TrixAreForKids]

I wonder how much power these use.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: TrixAreForKids
I wonder how much power these use.

lol, good question.

 

[neocor]

Cant still beat the CRT in picture quality.

neo

 

[mi1stormilst]

I almost bought one of these used for $500.00 just a few days ago.

 

[pm]

Originally posted by: TrixAreForKids
I wonder how much power these use.

I was wondering about that too. It's not quite as bad as I thought it would be.

Sony KDXBR970 34" CRT HDTV: 240W

Compared to two randomly chosen highly-rated LCD and plasma TV's just for reference:
Sony Bravia KDL-32S2400 32" LCD HDTV: 150W
Samsung HPS4273 42" Plasma HDTV: 380W

And yes, the plasma is 42" - but they don't make 34" plasma's. I figured it's worth mentioning since a lot of people don't know how high power plasma TV's are.

 

[dahunan]

The KD34XBR970 is an improved version of the KV34HS420 and was introduced at the same price that Sony was charging for the HS420 model at the time it was discontinued in the USA. Both sets have the same picture tube. The major differences are that the XBR970 has an ATSC digital tuner for OTA reception and carries the standard XBR 2-year warranty (vs 1-year for the HS420). The XBR970 is the better set of the two.

http://www.highdefforum.com/showthread.php?t=23993

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: f4phantom2500

Originally posted by: ForeStorm
A review on Nextag lists it at 190 lbs.

If they made a widescreen CRT that wouldn't take the expanse of my desktop... Well, it probably wouldn't be a CRT, would it? *shrugs* I read once that they (them) started to almost develop flat CRTs, but instead went to producing LCDs.

They make (made) these slim CRT's that are like 1/3 as deep as regular CRT's, if I'm not mistaken.

yup, shallow crt, but last i checked they were all low end ugly dotpitch models. makes sense since they can't really charge more and go into lcd/plasma territory.

as for this one

Originally posted by: neocor
Cant still beat the CRT in picture quality.

neo

well certain crts, higher quality ones. there are/were sony super fine pitch models that were definetly superior. but i'm not sure this one is one of those, probably not.

 

[xenofusion]

No more ?

 

[mi1stormilst]

I got one at CC last night I had been drooling over this tv for a year now. Very heavy, very large, and looks darn good IN my cabinet. I had a super fine pitch 27" Hitachi that I had been comparing to newer tubes for awhile now. The sony looks as good perhaps slightly worse at 34" but I have a crap TV signal and regular SVIDEO hook ups for my cheap DVD player. When I get an HD signal I will start a thread. At least now I am prepared for newer broadcasts and HDDVD and HD services if I want. I still say it looks far better then anything I have seen under $1200.00 in any other technology especially from a slight viewing angle.

 

[cheap]

Originally posted by: neocor
Cant still beat the CRT in picture quality.

neo

A Plasma TV has the best HD picture quality IMO. CRT is an analog technology, they blur a bit and do not provide as sharp picture as digital (fixed pixel) TVs at high resolution. Only get CRT if you still watch regular low res 4:3 broadcasts. That's where it will scale better and have better image. For watching HD content or DVDs, a 42" Plasma hooked up to a really good upconverting DVD player would provide a better image quality. Plasma is like a CRT, but instead of one big boob tube, every single pixel in a plasma is like a little mini CRT tube.

This is a great price for a good 34", I remember drooling over it couple years ago at CC. But personally if you don't watch 4:3 content, I would add another $300 and get myself a 42" Panasonic plasma. You can get those for about a grand from time to time when deals come up.

 

[bigboxes]

Originally posted by: cheap
CRT is an analog technology.

That's silly. The technology behind CRT is not analog. Now, the tuner can be an analog tuner or a digital tuner. The analog tuners receive analog signals while the digital tuners receive the digital signals. After that you have the picture as it was intended. Now, you may begin talking about the differences in the picture, but it is not a analog vs. digital as you profess. That is a difference between digital/analog broadcast signals, not the competing displays. If you read about plasma's display technology in the link I provided you will see that yes plasma has individual electrodes that stimulate the pixels, but CRT technology has individual atoms too though with one electron gun. The big difference is NOT better picture quality. Rather it is a slimmer screen (less depth). In fact, the image quality is not as high as the better CRTs. Yes, CRTs are on the way out, but it's not because of inferior image. Rather it's due to size factor and the television manufactors are in the business to make $$. I like plasma television technology, but they still have a way to go to better (or even match) CRTs in picture quality. Hopefully, they'll cross that threshold soon. Maybe OLED will be the technology to do it.

The plasma behind the plasma TV screen

 

[touchmyichi]

Like others here, I've been searching for a picture of this with no luck. Weird, especially since its a sony screen.

 

[cheap]

That's silly. The technology behind CRT is not analog. Now, the tuner can be an analog tuner or a digital tuner. The analog tuners receive analog signals while the digital tuners receive the digital signals. After that you have the picture as it was intended.

I'm not talking about tuners here, I'm talking about the actual display technology. The tube in the CRT is an ancient analog technology where the electron gun is driven by varying voltages and stuff like that. Whenever you have varying voltage controlling stuff, that's analog technology, and it's never as precise or accurate as digital. That's why CRT displays don't look as sharp as LCDs and Plasmas, they tend to blur a bit. Displays like plasmas and lcds, are digital displays. Each pixel has it's own set of wires and everything is tied into a processor that controls every one of those pixels. So the screen always perfectly lights up any pixel in the display that it wants.

The big difference is NOT better picture quality. Rather it is a slimmer screen (less depth). In fact, the image quality is not as high as the better CRTs. Yes, CRTs are on the way out, but it's not because of inferior image. Rather it's due to size factor and the television manufactors are in the business to make $$. I like plasma television technology, but they still have a way to go to better (or even match) CRTs in picture quality. Hopefully, they'll cross that threshold soon. Maybe OLED will be the technology to do it.

I've read about Plasmas and I own a pretty high end one personally. Before that I had a Sony 20" 4:3 TV. Sounds to me like you've just never compared these technologies side by side. You're probably still using your CRT monitor too thinking you're getting the best picture. Let me tell you something, I still have CRT monitor too, but even the cheap ass TN panel in my laptop blows away my CRT in text clarity side by side. (Unfortunately TN panels suck at anything else). There's no comparison it's like night and day. The text looks really sharp and clear. I thought my CRT had good image quality until I got a laptop. Side by side you can clearly see CRT's text is fuzzy while LCD is sharp. Plasma would be the same way plus you get the benefit of billions of colors while CRT and LCDs only do millions.

Anyway, I guess we will just agree to disagree. My opinion is if you watch low res 4:3 footage, CRT TV is the best way to go. But if you watch HD content you'll get sharper picture with plasma.

 

[TekDemon]

Originally posted by: neocor
Cant still beat the CRT in picture quality.

neo

I dunno about that...maybe CRTs have nicer contrast and such, but I always disliked the fact that you'd have distortion. Corner distortion, and sometimes just random weird areas where the image would be squished or stretched (I own a Sony WEGA CRT myself).

LCDs and plasmas have perfect pixel placing when run at native, so there's no distortion issues.

Plus, CRTs sometimes have that weird thing where if you have a really bright object next to a very dark area it'll sometimes "leak", or if there's a very bright object next to normally lit stuff it'll make the rest of the line appear darker.

Anyways, point is, I think I actually prefer the PQ offered by perfectly non-distorted pixels with perfect focus (another weak point of CRT), much like I prefer my LCD monitor over my CRT monitors. Sure I might sacrifice some contrast and color, but it's well woth it.

CRT is dead.

 

[pm]

As I said, I spent a while in the store looking at this particular CRT, and various generally lower-end plasma and LCD displays. For HDTV-style content, and they were broadcasting 720p apparently, I honestly couldn't tell much difference between any of them. Some of the LCD's looked better than some of the other LCD's and there were variations in the color clarity of some of the LCD's - but the plasma TV's and this Sony CRT looked the same to me - which was really, really good. But when I was talking to the salesperson and told him that we don't have a lot of high def stations that we will watch and was wondering what the signals looked like in standard cable quality, he swapped over the inputs (it was a little slow when I was in there). Then there were differences and I thought that this Sony model was the clearest and sharpest - with some of the plasmas looking almost as good and the LCDs generally looking not as clear - some looked fuzzy and and some looked soft and a few looked like they were out of focus a bit.

I didn't mean to start a debate on this particular TV with my post. The point of the thread is to point out that you can get a 34" 1080i CRT that looks really nice for something in the $680 range if you are lucky to have a Sears or Best Buy that has them in stock. For the money, I was pretty impressed with what I saw. But I wasn't looking all all of the TV's - actually the area that I was in was the 42" plasmas and the smaller LCD's - so I wasn't looking at top-of-the-line TV's - but rather the ones that you can get for less than $1500. For ~$700, this thing was hands down the best thing in sight - aside from the absolutely massive size of it.

But I've given up on it because it doesn't fit. I'm looking at 37" LCD's now... a bit more money, but a bit more real-estate too.

 

[dahunan]

Originally posted by: touchmyichi
Like others here, I've been searching for a picture of this with no luck. Weird, especially since its a sony screen.

eBay

 

[steelio]

I would have to agree. Save the money and buy a decent 42" Plasma when you get a deal. I bought a 50" Pani. for X-mas and love it. I watch a lot of HD now and more to come. I had an HDTV CRT and it had a good picture.
The picture on this plasma is night and day. The CRT was good, but the plasma once I got my 100 hours in and could really crank the settings down is night and day difference.
I do notice more static with the Plasma on SD brodcasts.

I am not saying that this deal is bad I would have to vote on waiting and getting a newer tech TV later. Either LCD or Plasma. There is a reason why these beast are dieing and it is not because they weight more than a VW.