More wonderful CRT news.

[Endymion]

Looks like nobody is manufacturing now. When the inventory that is out there is gone there may be no more.

At least the article links a great video that details how a CRT is made. (Were made.)

http://gizmodo.com/as-crt-supplies-vani ... 1792968855

[BazookaBen]

According to another recent article, a company or two in India is still making them, but not for arcade cabs.

[Taiyaki]

This was inevitable. Fortunately you can still easily grab consumer tubes off craigslist, but for how long will they still be readily available? We don't know.

[donluca]

According to another recent article, a company or two in India is still making them, but not for arcade cabs.

Can you kindly provide a link? I'm interested

Thanks

[kamiboy]

The real news is that CRTs were even being made for as long as they were. I'd think even in most third world countries one would be loony to buy anything but flat panel displays by the 2010's.

[Xer Xian]

@donluca: it was just a brief mention in the article the same OP linked here: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=59427

The real news is that CRTs were even being made for as long as they were. I'd think even in modt third world countries one would be loony to buy anything but flat panel displays by the 2010's.

Meanwhile, some first world countries' gamers shun flat panels and desperately look for old, second-hand CRTs

[kamiboy]

Everything old is new again. We live in the age of nostalgia.

[headlesshobbs]

I wish we could still have crt's in production or at least still widely available. I picked up a Belkin HDMI to VGA converter by chance and I think it's a great companion to the OSSC if you need to converter all the newer systems over while giving accessibility to all the retro consoles.

What do you think will look better? Sony PVM/BVM vs an OSSC linked PC crt?

[donluca]

@donluca: it was just a brief mention in the article the same OP linked here: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=59427

Thanks, I'm pretty sure I've read that article before, but somehow completely missed that part, go figure

[mvsfan]

Crts still are widely available. yes, people are still giving them away on craigslist. or worse, just putting them on the curb before a rainstorm and saying come get it.

[evil_ash_xero]

Crts still are widely available. yes, people are still giving them away on craigslist. or worse, just putting them on the curb before a rainstorm and saying come get it.

It matters where you live though. If you live in the sticks, you might as well just leave the CRTs out in the rain. They aren't good ones.

I've had to make a few long trips to get my Trinitrons.

[chuckster]

This was to be expected though, right? I don't think anyone here honestly expected CRT production to keep going for long. Also, these arcade screens were not cheap. I don't think many of us were going out to buy new arcade tubes for $400-700 anyway. This is sad news for preservation-oriented arcades, though. I do feel like there is grwing momentum to see a growth of DIY CRT repair out there.

On the consumer level, I balk at used TVs going for more than $40, or used broadcast monitors over $200 (though this market is inflating big time and skewing my numbers recently). This article gives a good insight to the Indian CRT market in 2013 when LG ended production. According to this, there are possibly just two major production centers for CRTs, one in Indonesia and an old Thomson plant in China. One or both of those could be shut down now, but Alibaba still has a few options for large scale CRT orders.

The prices seem to line up with with big box store CRTs in the early 2000s. About $110 for a 20" set. These aren't necessarily PVMs but I think many here would pay that for a brand new product if it was proven good. Of course regulations, cheaper LED prices, and other factors mean that CRTs will probably never see new production or sale in the states, and if they did somehow become available for purchase here, I believe the price would be much higher and many would just stick to used sets anyway.

This at least shows that modern CRT manufacturing isn't necessarily impossible.

[Fusion916]

Wow good insight on that video on why CRT product is very hard (nearly impossible) to have any kind of comeback. Obviously you need specialized factories to produce them but I had no idea there was that many manual steps to producing them. Really sucks for CRT enthusiast like us. If I had the money (billions) i'd buy that factory in china and make sure it never shuts down. However I'd wonder how you would even find any workers that know how to do all of those manual steps in a decade or two? Even if we preserved a billion dollar factory, who will be working there?

[mvsfan]

I used to live in the sticks about 6 years ago. back then i wasnt really hunting for crts.