Posted by Bob Myers on 11/05/07 05:33

"Igor" <donotreply@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:ntepi3h1o9a9es3nqnkq6js0fdse78om38@4ax.com...
> What I meant by "dead" is that, as far as I can tell, high-end CRTs
> simply aren't being made anymore (and low- and mid- range ones won't
> be long in joining them, I'm sure). This is simply a statement of fact
> and has nothing to do with my preferences.

That's exactly the case. CRT manufacturers, faced with
diminishing volumes and market share, simply could not justify
keeping their products in production. Sony and Mitsubishi both
stopped manufacturing the aperture-grille ("Trinitron" and
"Diamondtron") high-end tubes for IT use several years back.

> Somewhere else in this thread I've posted some info about a newer
> technology called SED. SED seems to combine the best attributes of
> CRTs and LCDs. I'm starting to wonder if part of the reason
> manufacturers are phasing out CRT monitors from their product lines
> might not be because they know SED is on its way and they don't want
> to be stuck with a bunch of inventory they won't be able to sell once
> SED hits the market.

SED is a technology of the "field-emission display" (FED) class,
produced originally as a joint effort between Canon and
Toshiba. Toshiba has since bowed out of the partnership, and
while Canon has not made any official statements regarding the
possible halt to SED development, the technology is widely believed
to be suffering from manufacturability problems and was never
expected to be applicable to monitor-sized displays in the first
place. The last anyone heard, the first SED product was planned
to be a 55" HDTV display, intended to introduce by 2008 (but
that is in doubt now). The SED does produce a very "CRT-like"
image, but there has always been the question of whether or not
it could be sufficiently better than the PDP and LCD alternatives
(especially as those continue to develop) to be worth the cost.

Bob M.

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