You don't seriously really have an 85inch CRT TV? That must be a typing error.
If that IS true, it must be massive and stick out a VERY long way at the back!
I didn't think CRTs any larger than 32inch were made because of size, weight and high voltage/power issues.

that I have a proper 85" tube in widescreen format that is only a couple years old.

By the time it needs replacing, all these pointless discussions will be over and some tech with proper contrast, colors and refresh rate will dominate the market.

The only question will be if my next TV is wall-sized or smaller ;-).

Is that all ?? 

i was hoping for 5,000,000,000,000:1

This is heading in the direction of totally meaningless figures

eg generates so many billions of triangles her second etc etc...

Can't they start using a logarithmic numbering scheme for the ridiculous contrast number instead?

Thus, 10000:1 is 4, 100000:1 is 6 and 2E+6:1 = 6.3?

I am tired of watching enormous and pointless numbers stretch over my screen.

why the rush to buy an hdtv? I can see it if your current tv dies or something, but, really.. it just doesn't seem like all the hype is warranted. especially since new features are added constantly; when I finally do buy one of these, I'm going to be decently satisfied: Mine will cost less and offer more than those on the market currently; unfortunately we'll all still have to put up with those annoying ads with their eardrum-exploding audio levels, but now with higher pixel count!

Nice gimmick advertising millions to 1 contrast ratios. Digital cinema, based on the human eye model, has a 4000:1 contrast ratio max. not to save bits, but because that's all you can see. They did their homework, they're pros with billions at stake. If someone tells you my TV's better because 2000000:1 is more than 50000:1, they're dumb or crooks.
5000:1 contrast ratio with a nice dark black (adv plasma) and 48 cd/m2 white is all you ever need, that's DC standard. extra bright white gives massive contrast ratios, and big headaches.
Trust me, that's my job.

Very few people seem to be aware that Plasmas have problems with black levels similar to those woth LCD's. With LCD's its the backlight bleeding through, with Plasmas its the fact that the cells have to be precharged even when they are completely black, and so black pixels still give off a low level of light. At the moment only CRT's have a good black level.
I think this new LED technology sounds like an almighty bodge up, a band aid fix to solve a problem best solved another way. Actually I thought the currently available LCD's were already more or less on a par with Plasma.

Yes, All the companies improvement on LCD but there two media will come and kill LCD and Plasma are OLED and Laser TV which bring very rich color and use less power. We will see about this.

"So far LCDs have been doing well only in the budget and smaller screen markets because the picture quality has not been as good as plasma." 

What? LOL. Look at the prices of LCD compared to Plasma TV's. LCD has always been more expensive. 

Plasma is pretty much dead. Go into any high street store, and your'll see the place filled with LCD's, and a couple of Plasma's, if any, it's been like this for atleast a couple of years now. Nobody wants Plasma because it's not as good and took ages to even get 1080p res. 

But this site is filled with moany old farts, so i'm not surprised you're all behind. You can all keep your 1950 TV's.

LED backlight technology may bring brightness, colour and contrast up to plasma levels but will it fix the the jerky motion that LCD technology has.

LCD technology can be amazing for still or slow moving images but displays jerky motion when fast moving images are displayed compared to plasma.

Also, some of the new plasmas have a contrast ratio in excess of 2,000,000 : 1 already.


... and it's sitting in my bedroom. It's the Samsung LNT4081F. It is definitely an awesome TV. The contrast ratios like 2 million to 1 are really misleading, though the overall picture quality and real contrast ratio (with something bright and something dark on the screen) are quite good. Not as good as a high-end plasma but better than any other LCD set out there.

It's only one of the many problems that LCDs have. Non-native resolution scaling (aka the blur) is keeping customers clear of the new slim wonders.
Price would be another factor.
Color depth would be yet another nail the coffin. However extremely high end LCD do have some decent colors at the cost of the next plague:
Refresh speed. The better the colors the worse the refresh rate. So you'd better choose which one you want: Smooth movement or pretty colors. Can't have both.

You can have my CRT when you pry it from my cold dead fingers...

One Question for theINQ, how come standard cathode ray tube is only 35:1 contrast ratio? Must be small story there, yet Not much info on web.

How do I measure 2 million to1, if you had 1/2 Lumin for black that'll be 1 million lumin for Bright white, surely enough to burn blast anything. 
Cuts Steel 3/4" Thick?

Although I believe story, there was time when cheap shrill amplifiers where given rating of hundreds of watts or more, when in fact just few watts where produced. Is Samie & Sonie going bit out on Ad Sales hype to wrench people in tuning standards change?

How about abaui Super Massive screen in inqie few days back, hows it work in blazzing desert sun, Camel Sores on My butt, Sun Blast straight into my eyes & You expect Me to See anything on Screen?
Any TV, As Long As its TV, is Good TV.
drashek

LCDs catching up with Plasma? Uhm, to me, Plasma is about 100x worse looking than LCD, so when is Plasma going to catch up with LCD? Plasmas have a very dull, washed out image. LCDs have a brightness and contrast range that are much closer to my Sony tube HDTV (which I'm not letting go of until it dies).

that they're finally better than my 32" 16:9 CRT Panasonic I bought 10 years ago?

Thought not...


Roll on OLED TVs...


LED backlit TV's are already available in the UK

eg LE40A856

They are not perfect yet though according to reviewers.

LCD technology will never be able to really catch up to PDP technology because images are generated in a fundamentally different way. With LCD there will always be the issue of *blocking* light from an "always-on" lamp (even if control is getting better). This will result in some form of backlight bleeding and generally worse black levels.

PDP, on the other hand, creates the necessary illumination when it's needed and only where it's needed.

I'm pretty sure that it'll take OLED or a similar new technology to create images on par with or surpassing PDP.

Just to be fair: also LG, Sharp and Philips introduce LED backlight LCD TVs, easy to recognize by the 1.000.000 or more (not realistic) dyn. contrast ratio.

But it are only Sharp and Sony that use RGB LEDs instead of white LEDs making those two very expensive but with even better colors.