Yeah if you aren't into games I can definitely see not wanting to have a CRT. For gaming it's an absolute must imo. I had and still have most solutions for hooking them up to other gear. They all fall short but are usable in a pinch.

I had a rear projection tv for awhile, ended up giving it away but it saw good use first.

They are heavy, big, dangerous ( because if a tube goes boom then so will you ) and their picture quality does not come near the quality of what a proper upscaler and a modern lcd can deliver.

I don't know about that, unless its a soviet TV set, I've heard of those blowing up but don't know if its true
or a story.

Most tube tv's have a reinforced front (laminated or some other type of strengthening) so if they blow it will be another section that will be a weaker point (inside case and not facing viewer).
Really old tube tv's are not reinforced at all, but we're talking early B&W sets and probably the early colour types. Yes even American sets were like that.
A lot of the early consumer tube tv's probably also had higher radiation emissions. All emit radiation but it isn't really a problem unless you're less than a couple of feet away for decades of viewing.

Soviet bloc I have no idea. I guess it's possible they kept making sets that weren't reinforced but idk.

Yeah, I've never seen nor heard of a CRT going boom other than that video of a guy hitting a 40" WEGA with a sledgehammer. And I've been using CRTs up until 3 years ago.

Plus it's obvious when a CRT is starting to go and you can just get rid of it well before it actually quits working.

I knew your reasons would be lame but “dangerous” takes the cake. If you can’t stand watching a display because of how big and heavy it is (?) that’s one thing but saying someone is going to be killed by an exploding tube is just an outright fabrication, an untruth, a lie. You are lying or someone very convincing lied to you and you are repeating it out of ignorance, both are extremely offensive. You’ve gone past the fanboy tipping point when you won’t accept physical reality if it gets in the way of your cause.

And as for picture quality, a lot of that is obvious. There are no 4K HDR tubes, obviously. From a picture standpoint though, IMO, the worse TVs EVER in the history of television were the big box store LCDs that everyone ran out and bought in the early 2000s. The ones that have stupid resolutions that don’t scale easily from or to anything else. The ones that only have analog inputs and seem to have only maybe two shades of “red” and of course sub-laptop speakers. Those are for sure the worst...and those are the LCDs that killed off tubes forever. Not the good ones that eventually came to be.

The speakers...”Yeah, I’ve had ten TVs on that stand and watched them them all from this chair, but NOW can’t hear the thing from here?” That’s another one of those practical things nobody ever talks about anymore. If you have an AVR it doesn’t matter but the built in speakers with flat TVs are friggn horrible. Thin unlistenable whistling is about all that comes out of my 4K Sony but my “final days of CRT” Sony has an actual subwoofer inside of it. Night and day.

Actually the mid 2000s LCD’s are great. They have tons of inputs and are nice evenly backlit ( TL tubes ). I still have one next to my main ultra wide display for all my retro game consoles.

That was probably the worst for me, and I have micomsoft (not framemeister but still), OSSC, DVDO (many models) gear still (no point in selling, and most of them are in use for various things). The colors, the black level, black crushing, all too annoying for me with early LCD. What are you using for upscaling/line multiplication? I've never been happy with the result but especially in the case of PS2. I'm not looking to criticize your choice at all, just curious.

I was a bit happier when I tried some higher $ more recent monitors (limited connections but doesn't impact me because they were bought for other purposes, I just figured I would test old stuff on em). I never did much beyond testing though. I played through multiple long PS1/2 games this year and it always just ends up being on the late model Sony widescreen CRT that I have. I understand most people not wanting a TV like that though. It's 200 pounds for starters. The most important thing is just enjoying the games/movies. CRT, early LCD, 4K, OLED, QLED, projector, plasma etc... It's all just a means to watch or play something.

The problem with the PS2 is that I don’t know what “good” is. Sony seemed to genuinely love that hyper aliased to hell look on everything. I once played on that actual PS2 TV that Sony made and it still looked like that.

And when it comes to 2D stuff half the time the weird artifacts are built in (“fake low res”) and there is no fixing them. Sony systems just do not age well.

The PS2 definitely isn't great. The best solution is emulating it in all honesty you can fix a lot but I'm just not into that.

Despite the graphical issues that is one of my favorite eras of gaming. I recently played through Devil Summoner on PS2, what a fantastic game.

Maybe some day Analog will make a PS2 that fixes all these issues. Well, the 3D ones. The always blurry no matter what look of 2D games is probably unfixable though.

The implosion risk of a non-molested CRT made in the last 50 or so years is near zero. They use a metal band around the tube to control the implosion should the worst happen - if you do stupid stuff like remove said band and then mess with the tube bad things might happen. Flat tubes like WEGA have absurdly thick glass on the face to compensate for not having the strength inherent in the curved geometry of conventional tubes.

I think the gaming community has been a force for good in preserving CRTs for the future - the inflated prices on pro monitors have even bled over into TVs where smaller tube sets are now worth something on ebay. The dollars signs have thus saved many CRTs from oblivion. CRT is the definitive way to play old games for a number of reasons that are hard to simulate.

CRT projectors, while not TV sets per se, remain pretty strong contenders even this far into the HD era. Certain models are capable of 1080p and HDMI input (with a Moome card).

Absolutely. I started servicing and RGB modding them to help fund my laserdisc habit. I had to buy a small air compressor just to dust them (very satisfying by the way).

Dangerous to work on though- especially when you have to make adjustments on the tube or board while its powered on.

That was the reason that after fiddling about with those crappy lcd's at the day, i ended up buying the Philips 28PW9551 HDMI capable CRT as late as in 2006, but it had all the inputs from antenna to HDMI and delivered a beautiful image on analog as well as on dgital sources. It is very pleasant to watch laserdiscs as well as watch HD content on it (albeit not really HD, it is still sharp, but foremost the colours very nice).

Ah, I've been toying with the idea of doing this myself, but it's probably beyond my capabilities.

Where are you located? I'd probably want to get another CRT for use in the US when I visit my relatives (assuming things mostly go back to normal).

It's not too bad- definitely easier than LD servicing.

I'm on vacation at the moment and I'm in the process of building a 19" rack into a "super duper super gun" of sorts which will be eventually able to play any arcade PCB I may want to own on it. The whole thing will be on wheels with its own monitor and only one place to plug it in. I've been collecting parts for this project for longer than I'm prepared to admit. It takes "standard" DB15 sticks via ports in the front.

At this point the video is done and as good as its likely to ever get. RGB is available via SCART. A NeoBitz (no longer made) encoder makes that into component, s-video, and composite. A RetroTink https://www.retrotink.com/product-page/retrotink-2x-scart outputs 480p over HDMI with fake scanlines optional. I'm good for any TV made in my life through all the ones likely to be made in the rest of my life. DONE.

The video looks amazing from every output. This being an arcade PCB running on a OG transformer based PSU the RGB is flawless and a perfect base for all the conversion. The cart has a CRT on top and that's what I plan to use for as long as I can find CRTs to put on top. The HDMI stuff is for the future or for when I want to also sent out to a larger display.

The larger display I tested it with is my 2017 4K Bravia, a very good TV which I have mentioned before being great for LD. With the fake scanlines on it arcade games look INCREDIBLE. However...it still looks better on the 19" Toshiba sitting on the cart over s-video or component (they look the same, really). The CRT has better motion, that is, when the guys in Metal Slug 3 move they are easier to see despite LCD's supposedly having the advantage in screen response. When they move on the Bravia they distort a little more. Also the colors are deeper on the tube and, in a rare change, the CRT is way brighter because with fake scanlines you basically have half the pixels turned off. The real killer though is latency which is horrendous. I haven't devised a way to measure it but with both displays running its easily a frame or maybe three, which is a total deal breaker for fighting games and shooters...which is most of what I plan to play. Hopefully I'll find a lower lag LCD before all my SD CRTs die.

VERDICT: CRT - The most valuable part of the arcade cart is the HDMI doodad that gives you worse video than a free TV.

The real thing that kills CRTs is heat, boards and parts will have more damage due to drying out.
Caps are the main thing I remember in arcade CRTs to go bad, but if its too old then the solder traces will come off the board with heat
when trying to replace caps.

Other than that as long as you get parts know what positive and negative are and don't shock the s**t out of yourself they are pretty easy.

Luckily I never shocked myself but was always extra careful when working on the monitors.

I was out of town for a few days last month and came back and began working on a Trinitron I was halfway done with. I forgot I had plugged it into my main power strip before I left (very dumb of me) since I always plug them into my isolation transformer. I turned that strip on and thinking the TV had been off for several days, I grabbed the power supply and took a nice dosage of voltage. I have since put the isolation transformer and main strip on opposite ends of my bench.

In regards to hardiness of Trinitrons, I was given one that had been left in a ditch for probably years. Severe rust, boards caked in mud probably 1/2in thick. Took it apart, sprayed the boards with a high pressure water hose nozzle and let it dry for a few days. Turned right on and the picture looked good other than the composite video connector had partially detached from the board so I had to hold the cord in.