# Eyestrain with different TVs



## HareBrain (Mar 19, 2020)

My main TV is still an old Sony Trinitron (flat-screen, but still CRT). I can watch that for hours without eyestrain, though when I used to play games on the PS2, I would get headaches the morning after playing for several hours if I didn't take breaks.

I've just recently been watching Netflix through a laptop linked up to a Samsung monitor/TV (it dates from 2008, but has connections for both TV aerial and PC input), and find I've been getting headaches after a few hours on this. I'm at about the same distance form the screen (3 metres), and I'm wondering if the difference between that and the CRT is refresh rates or something. Anybody know?


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## CupofJoe (Mar 19, 2020)

I agree. CRTs are much kinder on the eyes. It may be in the millisecond range but a CRT has to warm up a spot for it to show a colour and there is same sort of time to cool down and go dim. I think our eyes like it better. 
I have no proof of this but I'm sure its the same reason people say they like the sound of vinyl over digital. It may not be a better sound, but it sounds better to our mind.
No idea if it is related but CRTs [especially good tubes like those in the older Sony Trinitrons] can be pushed to 120-150Hz. and you can do silly thing like make it scan the wrong way or flip the image by resoldering the connections on the back of the tube.
*I do not recommend doing this* - but it is fun.
Sometimes I can watch things on-line [even on a big screen. The image may be crystal clear but it has a lot of compression and just doesn't look right to me.


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## HareBrain (Mar 19, 2020)

CupofJoe said:


> I agree. CRTs are much kinder on the eyes. It may be in the millisecond range but a CRT has to warm up a spot for it to show a colour and there is same sort of time to cool down and go dim. I think our eyes like it better.



That makes sense, except that as I said, I used to get eyestrain playing videogames on the same TV, and it must have had the same warm-up/cool-down time then? Or was it the intensity of focus that was different?


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## Finch (Mar 19, 2020)

I was an adult  when I discovered I had never seen the world in sharp focus. Reading glasses are now a must when reading ,but I can watch TV without them . I use old reading glases , weaker ones , when working with computers . I think  you can see the world with difrent levels of sharpness and light levels .I have no evidence , but I belive  your game playing is demanding a higher degree of sharpness  than your eyes can achieve .  You might need glasses ?


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## -K2- (Mar 19, 2020)

Whoops--edit--I misunderstood what I first read:


> This moment, I'm sitting perhaps 30"/76 cm from a 40"/102 cm HD monitor, wearing 1.5x readers--not because I'm old mind you, they're just stylish . I used to do the same with a very nice 21" CRT...and that was BAD. The image was great, but for the same reason you shouldn't sit too close to an older TV, I shouldn't have with the CRT, and I wonder if that's one reason I had to have cataract surgery--not because I'm old mind you, I did need that younger than most .
> 
> In any case, since keeping your distance from _older_ flatscreens was more about a better image than radiation--newer flatscreens you can sit closer--I wonder if perhaps, at 3 meters while playing games, if you're instead not too far away. If you need to strain to make out fine details like you might while gaming, that might be more the cause of your headaches instead of the quality of the image.



Regardless, though now watching movies, I wonder if you're still not too far away (straining to see). Another reason might be what Cup of Joe suggests, the screen refresh rate. In either case, however, consider having your eyes checked. Minor changes in vision as you age, might have made it so you're needing to strain to watch at that distance.

K2


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## HareBrain (Mar 19, 2020)

I have my eyes checked every year and my vision with glasses is about 20/20.

It's possible that I was straining to focus more definition out of the CRT while games-playing than was actually there.


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## Overread (Mar 19, 2020)

CRT screens were great, they still are. Sadly the flatscreen took over with really the only advantage being its space saving features. 

That said I've noticed that most default TV settings for flat screens are VERY bright and tuned to give you a very bright, very vibrant image. The result is most are very overly bright. You really notice this when you get a screen calibrator (photography) and calibrate the screen. A huge amount of bright glare vanishes. I really notice it on web pages if I turn the calibration off as the page goes from a softer black and white to an eye watering brilliant white. 

So it might be that its not the refresh rate, but casual eye strain because its really glaring light at you. 


Refresh rates are another aspect, I've even heard of some games causing strain/headaches when they've got a very odd refresh rate. I think some more modern screens you can fiddle with the refresh rate so you could have a go and see if that helps you out.


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## Danny McG (Mar 21, 2020)

HareBrain said:


> have my eyes checked every year and my vision with glasses is about 20/20


Not really relevant to your question, but I've always understood the UK equivalent is 6/6 vision.


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## HareBrain (Mar 21, 2020)

dannymcg said:


> Not really relevant to your question, but I've always understood the UK equivalent is 6/6 vision.



I was mostly replying to K2, and adjusting my terminology to the audience.

OR, I got the 20/20 term from reading a Peanuts comic at the age of ten and have always been completely ignorant that it was different here.


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## -K2- (Mar 21, 2020)

HareBrain said:


> I was mostly replying to K2, and adjusting my terminology to the audience.



That's bunk...if you had really done that, you would have stated, "mE C gud so naa!"

K2


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## Cydramech (Apr 1, 2020)

It's not quite a "just-you" thing. CRT can seem to be better than LCD & LED. Link 1 & Link 2 (but read them very carefully, they don't actually say that CRT is better _per-se_). I certainly remember that back in the 2000s, most people I know only traded in CRT for flat screens due to the bulky size and handling issues. Of course, the tech has gotten better in the years since, but that doesn't disregard why people started trading/foregoing the CRT for flat screens.

Yet the CRT is also highly-inefficient in power consumption and... it has a cathode ray tube, of course. With that on top of their overall thickness being many times over (I don't care about weight), I know, while I'd happily keep one in my closet so I can one day pull it out just to show people what a monster I have, I wouldn't want to deal with one ever again.

I myself have poor eyesight.

P.S. Was not the Sony Trinitron a high-end/flagship CRT? I do think that may be something to consider.


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