The Biggest Problem Plagued By The CRT
In the 1940s, when the CRT display was dominant, engineers new of its imperfections, given its greatest advantage of being the only technology at the time to visually display electronic signals that was also able to later display motion pictures transmitted over wireless airwaves for TV. The CRT was then, as it still is now with a huge power source to supply its high voltage video sweep circuits, which enabled the observer to "see" both radar and later, motion video pictures. In the beginning, the heat radiated from these video transponders could fry an egg and probably "well done" at that. Its screen also radiated a pretty good dose of penetrating gamma rays to the closely positioned observer, though the dosage was deemed extremely low when compared to that given off by your standard X-ray machine. Nevertheless, precautions were always advised when viewing TV or sitting at the computer for long periods of time.
Then, There Came The Beginning Of A New Technology...
In the very early 1970s, experimenters were tinkering with polarizing materials in a liquid, controlling the contrasting materials with electrical signals and later hoping to mass produce these little devices for the visual display market. They were able to display characters and numbers, but in the beginning, the characters were not visible in any high level light and certainly not in direct sunlight. Later, color was added to the polarising material and finally efficient back lighting was introduced, which greatly increased its marketability. LCD displays began to gain some ground in the 1990s, but did not really show noticeable competition with the CRT, which came a little later, especially in its use with the computer PC and laptop configurations. LCD displays began to show great promise in the television industry at the early turn of the century.
What About The Impact Of The LCD On Energy Conservation ?
LCD video displays do consume considerably less power than its two other display contenders, the CRT and the Plasma. An example just comparing the LCD and the CRT is that the LCD may use only 25 Watts when in normal running mode, whereas a CRT of similar size would consume over 75 Watts. In standby mode, the power ratio is not quite as great, but the recovery from standby is much faster for the LCD, which is not really a power issue. The CRTs do emit much more heat and thus require more temperature correction from your air conditioner, especially in the summer time to reach the same room comfort as with the LCD. It was estimated that when the amount of LCD displays reach 76% of CRT use, which should have occurred at the end of 2003, this would have saved an estimated 3 billion kilowatt hours of power consumption, which we are told is the equivalent of the total power consumption of 1,000,000 households, or the power production of about 3 nuclear power plants. Another good reason to go with the LCD display.
