CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[linuxfox00]

I've always wanted a crt projector, I recently came a cross a d50 for $350.

I wanted to know if it was a fair price I will have to drive about 200miles round for it. It has 2500hours on the clock, with no burn in and comes with a da lite retractable 120" diagonal screen, hd fury (don't know what version) ,25" hmdi cable, remote, and ceiling mount.
comes from a smoke free home and was mostly used as a home theater set up.

I was wondering if it would just be money better spent on a smaller lcd projector. I plan on watching laser discs on it and playing games as well. I just wanted some input before I shell out for it.

[ecrabb]

Let's see, so about $100 for the screen, $50 for the HD Fury, $25 for the cable (I assume you meant 25-foot not 25-inch), so about $175 for the projector and mount and $175 for the accessories. That's probably pretty fair all things considered. I'd probably try to dicker a bit - CRT's aren't exactly flying off the shelves. Go for $250, but be conciliatory. "Hey, I gotta drive 200 miles to come get all this stuff... Would you take $250?"

As for whether you want it, it just depends what you want. The pluses on the D50... Practically bulletproof. It'll last for years and won't cost a dollar other than electricity. Great blacks. Will display SD very nicely. Downsides are size, weight, and noise, which are all somewhat undesirable on CRT. Even the D50, which is smaller, lighter, and quieter compared to a lot of other CRTs, is big, heavy, and noisy compared to most LCDs. CRT isn't plug-and-play,either - setup takes some learning and effort. The D50 is also one of the least sharp CRTs, and it will get softer as you rack up more hours. If you put a lot of hours on it, it could look pretty soft in a couple of years. Oh, I don't know if the line-doubler built into the D50 is good or not, so you may want some kind of processor, but those can be had very inexpensively.

With the digital, the pluses are that it's small and light, quiet, and requires almost no setup. The downsides are crappy blacks, fixed resolution, probably won't display 480i from Laserdisc that nicely, and may not even be that good for playing games. If the lamp dies, that's at least another $100 or $150.

If your entire budget is <$350 for a display, and you don't mind the work, the CRT is a great way to go - especially if you liek to tinker. I'd stay away from digital unless you can expand your budget, or unless you don't care about picture quality that much and you just want a big screen.

Welcome to the forum.

SC

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Although not on that size screen, but on a smaller screen you can play light gun games with a CRT projector, but not with an LCD.

[linuxfox00]

[AnalogRocks]

[AnalogRocks]

[mx83toy]

where are you located ? ? ? Is CRT wroth the learning curve... well it depends who you ask and where they are at with their setup.... if you were to ask me last night i'd punch you in the face for even thinking about a crt... but when you get it dialed in nicely... well... WOW and it depends on what makes you wow its a good idea not to lay eyes on a digital once you've decided crt and vice versa as either way you'll got nuts trying to make it do what it cant lol I Love CRT and love to tinker but they can be SO testing!!!! you really need to stop and walk away from them some days as they are so big heavy and solid damage will be done if you freak out and start throwing sh*t CRT really is a hobby thing if you want to buy a machine point and shoot dont touch one!!! if your happy to dedicate time to perfection well goodluck as its hard but once again WOW

[CasetheCorvetteman]

I had issues with the guns not shooting around the edges with a larger screen with a 9PG, shrinking the screen cured that, mustve been just the lack of brightness cause it worked pretty fine on the XG at 125" using the Namco Guncons. I had to run the blue level a fair way up though, cause the guns only see the blue colour on almost all of them. Will need to be 240p on most games, the PS2 guns are abit more sofisticated.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

As far as worth the learning curve, without struggle, there is no triumph. Whether that's struggle to get a top notch 1080i image from a 7" ES machine or struggle to lift a Cine 9 to the ceiling, the triumph with eventually be worth the effort.

[Curt Palme]

Whether a D50 is worth $250 depends on the tube condition. Everything that everyone has said above is true. I sold an original 541 hour D50 last week for $600 to replace one that had 10K hours on it. Customer loves it, he set it up this weekend. At 2500 hours, I'd figure there's SOME tube wear, probably not a lot, but some. you'd have to pull the lenses to check properly, which is easy to do on the D50.

If the color image is accurate, then you're probably OK, but ideally you'd put up a stepped gray scale test pattern from an AVIA DVD to check. When D50s wear, usually the color balance between low and high brightness goes to hell in a handbasket.

Now, if you want a bright digital, especially for gaming, I do have those surplus Sanyo LCD projectors for $75. I have about 20 left. 1024 X 768 resolution, super bright. The downside is that dark scenes in movies will be gray as none of these do perfect blacks, but for gaming in a lit room, they'll smoke a CRT if it's brightness level that you want. Also, the Sanyo chassis are pretty reliable, I have one bad one so far out of the 35 or so that I've tested.

[Curt Palme]

Whether a D50 is worth $250 depends on the tube condition. Everything that everyone has said above is true. I sold an original 541 hour D50 last week for $600 to replace one that had 10K hours on it. Customer loves it, he set it up this weekend. At 2500 hours, I'd figure there's SOME tube wear, probably not a lot, but some. you'd have to pull the lenses to check properly, which is easy to do on the D50.

If the color image is accurate, then you're probably OK, but ideally you'd put up a stepped gray scale test pattern from an AVIA DVD to check. When D50s wear, usually the color balance between low and high brightness goes to hell in a handbasket.

Now, if you want a bright digital, especially for gaming, I do have those surplus Sanyo LCD projectors for $75. I have about 20 left. 1024 X 768 resolution, super bright. The downside is that dark scenes in movies will be gray as none of these do perfect blacks, but for gaming in a lit room, they'll smoke a CRT if it's brightness level that you want. Also, the Sanyo chassis are pretty reliable, I have one bad one so far out of the 35 or so that I've tested.

[CIR Engineering]

FYI a D50 properly setup will do a very nice job with 1080i 60Hz. If you do a really good job the projector will not look soft at all. It will however not be able to resolve the detail of better CRT projectors.

craigr

[mx83toy]

[CIR Engineering]

Also, the HDF version 1 will be the best of the HDF versions on the D50. It's a simple pass through for 1080i 60Hz and will provide a very solid 1:1 with no attenuation for 1080i. You'll miss out on YCbCr 4:2:2, but you won't notice that on a D50 much anyway.

craigr

[the big E]

[CasetheCorvetteman]

An ECP as sharp as a Marquee? Hmmmm....

[the big E]

[gjaky]

[the big E]

[CasetheCorvetteman]

[linuxfox00]

i ended up getting it for 300 im still setting it up. Thanks for all the great advice guys

[the big E]