Configured as it, my family room has much of the seating positioned at unavoidably sharp angles to the cabinet where my tv must sit. As I’m about to buy a new tv, I’d like to know which, if any, of the newer technologies would be best for these circumstances. An ancient SDMB (from 2000) suggests (it wasn’t really the focus of the thread) that the old-fashioned CRT models might actually be best. Is that still true?
I have an LCD flat panel TV and its view angle is 170 degrees according to its specs.
And I would agree with that. However, its superiority lies in the fact that the picture is much less affected by glare. You can pretty much shine a flashlight on the screen and the picture isn’t affected much.
Does that mean you can watch it from the left or ride side at 10 degrees off of “flush” and you can still see the picture?
I just tried that, although I don’t have a protractor, I would say that the answer is yes. And the picture doesn’t distort from that angle either.
At least not noticeably.
I suppose it might mean the entire field of view is 170, in whcih case you could view it from as little as 5 degrees off of flush. Either way that’s pretty damn good (and certainly good enough for me). I assume this is vastly superior to CRT?
I bought a flat panel LCD which is actually smaller than my old CRT (25" to 20"), but I find the picture much sharper.
The hardest part is adjusting to the fact that the set is so much smaller. My particular model a Sharp Aquous is not HDTV-ready. But it was affordable.
An HDTV ready flat panel set can cost quite a bit.
My best advice is to go to the TV stores and look at the things in person.
Just because they say a plasma/LCD or projection set has a 170 degree horizontal viewing angle doesn’t mean the picture will be any good when seen from the side. Likewise vertical angle. Get out of the “sweet spot” and it goes quite dark and sometimes fuzzy.
A little over a year ago, I was shopping for a big TV and some of them may give a usable image outside of “directly in front of and level with” but it’s nothing you’d call a good picture.
CRTs are vastly better at maintaining image brightness and clarity from any angle where you can still see the TV. The picture may be skinny when seen from the side, but it’s still there. This applies to flat-faced tubes such as newer Trinitrons. Older curved tubes will have some loss of image past the tube’s “horizon” depending on the angle you look at it from.
FTR, I wound up buying a 40" Sony XBR Wega flat-faced CRT set as, to my eyes, it put any projection set at that price to shame.