Calling all CRT owners: photos please!

It’s really astonishing to see how just slightly blurry photos can be mistaken for a CRT shader, even in 1080p.

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Guys, please, see pictures 7 and 8, the ones with the orange text green and green,blue, white.

Maybe I’m late to the party, but It seems that there is the proof that bloom/halation happens before the eye there.

I say this because near the brightest areas of the picture you can see the metallic grid as subtle dark vertical lines that fade out as they get further away from the illuminated phosphors.

Is it possible that the first or second glass (between the tube and the eye) are reflecting back part of the light or what?

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Firstly thanks for sharing the photos of your amazing cab. Are they all of the same cabinet? The last one is super clear but what game is it youre playing?

As to your halation/bloom Im not sure Im seeing any on the last image (the others being a little too blurred to see). Halation in my understanding is the glow that you see around bright areas - not the bright areas themselves. Bloom is created by the camera lens and isnt a real world thing - usually its just a simple graphics technique to provide a stylistic effect cheaply rather than simulate some real world lighting effect.

Youd need to get a fairly decent camera and adjust all the settings to rule in out certain visible effects that are coming from the display rather than your camera which is pointed at a highly emissive surface (which its usually not designed to do as its primary focus at least). If using a phone turn off all the effects etc by using raw/pro modes. What camera and settings are you using?

As for the fat scanlines that maybe a combination of signal (rf/composite/rgb etc), beam focus, TVL and quality of phosphors used. We’d need info on all of those things i.e TV make/model and signal and cabling etc.

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Yeah, all from the same cab, the last picture is from “jim power / amiga” and there i manually set the shutter speedtime (sorry for being not technical!) to a lower value so you see clearer phosphors without lens bloom/glow/clip effect,

What i was talking about is this:

You can see vertical stripes on the black area which in this cropped picture appears evident, but if you see the bigger one, you see that they are not present when there is no “light” nearby.
I suxpect those likes to be the metallic grid that hosts the phosphors and my theory is that this blooming/halation effect is actually illuminating them via the reflected light that doesn’t pass completely through the glass.

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Yes ok I see what youre talking about - I was looking at the wrong photo. Ok so yes this is the halation we all know and love and yes I think everybody agrees its due to the reflected light. Do be careful though that this is what youre seeing with your naked eye and isnt being exaggerated by your camera.

We see this effect on all displays especially as they get brighter so its not a CRT specific thing - maybe you could argue because of the curved screen it appears in a slightly different way though.

The question Ive always posed is because this effect happens on all displays do you want to effectively double it up by adding it into a CRT shader. I suppose that’s personal choice but as youre not going to get rid of the light reflecting around your own screen why bother trying to add another layer of it in a faux manner by turning on lighting emitting sub pixels. I dont know I guess its not my thing. :rofl:

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Because my dull lcd screen has no glass, just a plastic layer which stands really near the screen, while real cabs have another glass layer at about 30cm from the tube that I think gives wider halos.

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If you dont see the effect on your lcd itll probably be because its dull or youve got it in a room/position that is brightly lit compared to your CRT. Your lcd will have another issue (much larger issue) if its backlit which will be light bleed from each element not being fully off and areas being lit up. This gets worse and worse as your brightness goes up and is probably worse than a crts at comparable brightness. Even my QD-OLED suffers from it when you have bright white on black in a dark room.

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I made this shots with my mobile camera the best I could. These are made with auto ISO, and ISO 100 to compare, it’s on pro mode.

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Not totally sure about your argument, i still think that the halo gets bigger as the glass moves away from the tube, but is not that critical after all :wink:

edit: I’ve to try to make a video while panning the camera to observe the halo position, if it stays relative to the tube, then you’re definitely right, if it moves relative to the outer glass and the camera position, then it is a matter of the light reflected by the outer glass :slight_smile:

edit2: halo seen in last shots made by @RetroGames4K suggests you’re right and it is a diffusion only effect rather than diffusion+reflection tho!

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Itll be a bit of both diffusion and reflection - there will be imperfections in glass/plastic etc and several layers on all screens (lcd/oled/crt) to prevent glare, environment reflections etc and some of that light will bounce off the back and some will go off at oblique angles etc and bounce off other imperfections. What is unique to a crt is curvature but Im not sure how much that plays a part in what we see and is rather down to more imperfections of materials vs more modern materials and whether simulating it just adds to the mess that is brought in by your lcd/oled. But maybe simulating isnt the point.

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Oh gosh, yes, the curvature could play another part in the mix, never thought of it ahah.

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Maybe curvature isnt unique to crts as of course there are lcds and oleds with curved screens - I wonder how they behave in this respect

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Great photos! Thanks for sharing. I think you might have your curtains open as I think you can see your windows reflected in some of the pictures above - itd be good to see what effects come from the crt rather than the lighting in your room.

Edit: also what tv are we looking at here and what signal?

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Thanks😀 Ok. Next time I’ll post them on night time, maybe some more tonight so it would be without reflections. This ia a 14" CRT Sanyo CE14AT08-C, it’s a Pal TV supports 60hz, photos are taken from a Pal Sega Saturn with scart RGB. Also you can check the model of my CRT here in my thread if you want :sweat_smile:

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Oh fantastic beautiful screen - gives a really nice image!

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Yes it really does. Photos can be good, but better if you watch it directly with bare eyes. I know is not a Trinitron, but this sanyo has really a clear image with slotmask.:grin:

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Another 1084S, perspective corrected in GIMP. Not so clear but gives an idea how scanlines are represented.

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This glow on top of the empty tube seen in the right corner, so you see that in person, or is that from the photo?

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