Re: Digital TV suppliers urged to save energy

Johnny B Good <jcs.computersbutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:2006030401471285168@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

For the home user, who (usually, if they have any sense) has the
luxury
of picking a properly sized desk for the job, it doesn't make too much
sense to invest in an overpriced fragile and totally immature display
technology which is almost certain to be overtaken by alternatives,
such as OLED based (or whatever turns out to be the right way to go
:-).

Ah! I sense another irrational peddling of folklore from the computing
dark ages ...

Whilst standalone flat panel displays have undoubtedly improved on
the
older notebook displays, they still have many shortcomings as a
display device compared to CRT displays.

Yep, thought so - rubbish!

1) The most important reason for buying an LCD monitor is your health.

All CRTs produce low intensity X-rays as an inevitable consequence of the
physics underlying their technology, and as X-radiation is carcinogenic,
and seems to cause eye-strain, all CRTs are something of a health hazard.

Colour CRTs produce more radiation than monochrome ones (3 electron guns,
or a bigger one split into three beams), and the higher the brightness
control, the greater the level of radiation given off. Concerns about the
long-term effects of CRT X-radiation led to successively more stringent
standards for monitors:
MRP-2, TOC-92, TOC-95.

People have actually been concerned about this from the advent of TV - if
I walk into a family home and see the children sitting on the floor too
close to a big CRT TV, I always advise them to sit further back - but it
only really became a big issue with the advent of computer monitors,
because:

a) People sit relatively closer to monitors than TVs, and distance from
the source is an important factor in the level of risk. The radiation
received by a point target, such as a human body cell, from a point source,
such as a phosphor dot, falls off by an inverse-square law (each doubling
of the distance between them quarters the radiation received); the maths
for an array of point sources such as a monitor being received by the whole
of your body would be somewhat more complex, but you get the idea.

One of the side effects of the bulk of CRTs is often that on a shallow
workspace their depth places the screen even closer to the user, and in the
past this has happened to me with bad results (see below).

b) While TVs are used at the standard frame rate of 50 or 60Hz, monitors
are usually used at higher refresh rates, and give off proportionately more
radiation.

c) People working at a computer spend much more time in front of a monitor
than an an average viewer spends in front of the TV.

Cancer aside, the radiation from CRT monitors almost certainly causes eye-
strain in the short term and risks damage to your eyes in the long term.

With a CRT I found I used to have to stop work to rest my eyes at least
every one or two hours, but since acquiring an LCD, I can basically work
indefinitely, the only things I have to stop for are the normal bodily
functions.

Further, for a year or two at work I lost control of my workspace, and was
forced to sit closer to my CRT monitor than I wanted to, and at the end of
this period I found I needed glasses. Since acquiring an LCD, my eyesight
has not noticeably deteriorated further.

While my experiences on their own are anecdotal, last time I searched the
web I found enough similar personal stories to be convinced that CRTs are
not good for your eyesight.

2) After a while, CRTs go out of adjustment and the picture gets slightly
out of focus and fuzzy. This would probably go unnoticed on many TVs but
is particularly disastrous for a computer monitor, because of the
requirement to be able to read text on them. Unfortunately, the natural
counter for this is lean forward to read the small print areas, and we're
back to distance again.

3) Even the flattest squarest tubes I've ever seen had some geometric
distortion, while LCDs have none.

4) CRTs often have poor hue (colour balance), just compare the colours in
a line of TVs in a shop, or monitors showing the same corporate screensaver
in a workplace, and you'll frequently see widely differing results. There
seems to be more uniformity in hue between LCDs.

5) While early LCDs had a rather poor viewing angle, modern ones are very
good. I have no complaints about either my monitor or my TVs in this
respect.

6) So the only thing that's left is that CRTs have a slightly better
contrast ratio, but it's so slight that I don't notice it in practice.

Hence I would unreservedly advise anyone to buy an LCD monitor.

While a TV is more about making your choice based on your budget, etc, I
still think that overall they are very good buy now that their prices are
dropping significantly.

Even assuming an average of 12 hours use every day, the home user is
only going to save a mere 20 quid a year on the electricity bill for a
45 watt reduction. I, for one, will not be rushing out to replace my
19 inch crt monitor just for 'change sake'. If the monitor expires out
of warranty, I might _then_ consider a flat panel if they've improved
enough by then _and_ dropped in price. :-)

And this reasoning is as true in wider environmental terms as you've hinted
at in financial terms, because just as the user has to maximise the
'return' in use on his/her financial 'investment' in the cost of an item,
so ideally (s)he should maximise the 'return' in use on the 'investment' of
environmental damage caused in making it.

This is highlighted by low-energy lightbulbs. Does one throw away a
perfectly good working lightbulb and replace it with a low energy one, thus
wasting the energy already expended in making the original? People seem to
be being advised to do this, but I'm not convinced it's best
environmentally. Personally, I use old bulbs until they pop, and then
replace them with low energy ones.
.

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