Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

wpc33 · Sep 11, 2005, 09:38 PM

Hello everyone. I have done lots of research and would like to use a 34" 16:9 HDTV CRT tube TV as a monitor for my mac mini. A guy at the mac store here spoiled my naive plans on using my current SD CRT with the mac dvi-to-svideo connector.
He said with his HDTV, he gets crystal picture for text with a DVI-to-HDMI cable.

I am sold on an HDTV for this. No questions from me about res.
*however*...
I fear burn-in from the OSX toolbar etc.
BUT, in my whole life I have never seen a single CRT with any burn in. And many that should have some in theory. As a kid I left NES games on pause for ages without any problems, ya know?
I know "they all say" that CRT gets burn in if "abused"
But has anybody here ever personally used a CRT as a monitor? Or actually seen burn-in on a non-projection CRT?
Please share any thoughts and experiences with me, as I really need to know what to do. Thank you

bembol · Sep 11, 2005, 09:50 PM

Chances of Burn-In on a Direct View HDTV is slim to none...!!!

FYI this is my set up Mac Mini 2.0 > DVD-to-HDMI > Pansonic CT-30WX54 30" Direct View HDTV.

teknopimp · Sep 11, 2005, 09:52 PM

i haven't seen anyone use a tube tv as a computer monitor since the eighties

tooki · Sep 11, 2005, 11:27 PM

Pretty much everyone has said for years that color CRTs aren't very susceptible to burn in. Only applications where the same image is on, unchanged, for years at a time (e.g. departure displays at airports, ATMs, etc) really have a problem with burn in.

That said, even an HDTV is a far cry from a computer display. Most "HDTVs" don't even do the top HD resolutions. For showing presentations, videos and photos it should do well, and for small amounts of web browsing perhaps, but as a full-time display it'd probably annoy the hell out of you in the long run.

tooki

budster101 · Sep 12, 2005, 12:41 AM

I've seen a number of burn-ins on CRT monitors, especially the old terminals at schools where the login is constantly on... this was before screensavers. It was truely annoying.

I also saw some burn in on regular televisions where they were left on all night and that idiotic color bar would come on and burn into the tv.

Other than that, nope.

harrisjamieh · Sep 12, 2005, 12:46 AM

A CRT HDTV? They dont even make them in the UK as far as I know, they are just shoving them out of the way to make room for the HD LCD's & Plasmas. Odd.

Markovich · Sep 12, 2005, 07:26 AM

I have a 20" TV with burn in. It used to sit in the breakroom for the company I used to work for. In the lower right corner, it has the time burned into it. Not really noticeable unless its under certain lighting conditions.

I've seen it several times on CRT monitors that have had a static display for days.

Mark

Randman · Sep 12, 2005, 07:37 AM

Mark, fix your sig: too many lines.

ghporter · Sep 12, 2005, 07:54 AM

I've seen CRTs burned in many, many times, and not just with "static images" either. For example, at a food service spot I used to go to a lot, they had TVs all over the place (watch while you eat...) and most of them had something like CNN or The Weather Channel on them most of the time-and you could tell because when the channel was changed the banners were still there-all smudged, but there.

To ensure you won't get into trouble I'd go with a known quantity manufacturer for a HDTV monitor-one that has a good track record of quality manufacturing with quality parts. Low dollar is usually a bad idea with this sort of thing.

And Markovich, Randman is right-the rule is four lines of text MAX. You have NINE!

Markovich · Sep 12, 2005, 08:26 AM

Whoops, my bad. Sorry!

SirCastor · Sep 12, 2005, 09:23 AM

The only time I can really remember seeing burn in was on some really old ATM machines. Those were at the same screen for hours upon hours though. If you're worried about it, that's what the screen saver is for. Heaven forbid we use it for it's intended purpose

It's kinda funny. I haven't used a screen saver to 'save' my screen in YEARS.
The other option is to set the display to sleep every so often.

Markovich · Sep 12, 2005, 01:54 PM

Originally Posted by SirCastor

The only time I can really remember seeing burn in was on some really old ATM machines. Those were at the same screen for hours upon hours though. If you're worried about it, that's what the screen saver is for. Heaven forbid we use it for it's intended purpose

It's kinda funny. I haven't used a screen saver to 'save' my screen in YEARS.
The other option is to set the display to sleep every so often.

Hmmmm 7 lines

Just kidding and stirring the pot.

Apfhex · Sep 12, 2005, 02:23 PM

I've seen horrid burn-in on older arcade machines. I've no idea what kind of displays they had though.

I seem to recall expecting to see burn-in on the ooold Macs, especially the Mac Classics, at my Elementary school because they never seemed to use screensavers. But, I don't think any of them ever got it.

I've never seen CRT television burn-in.

Tesseract · Sep 12, 2005, 03:26 PM

I've seen burn-in on VERY old CRTs - mostly (as others have said) arcade game machines and ATMs, but I've also seen it on a few 10-year-old-plus computer monitors. Supposedly burn in is even less of a problem with modern computer monitors. Especially if you turn the monitor off at night or use the 'display sleep' feature (which provides some power savings as well) I wouldn't be too concerned about burn-in.