Our TV is basically just a movie machine in our case. We could watch movies on a laptop on the couch, but it's not as nice as having a TV. For what it's worth, our TV is actually a big old tube TV. We have a small collection of DVDs and VHS, and also a Raspberry Pi 3 which is very capable of playing movie files, and can even stream from Amazon in a pinch.
I’m not the OP, but you’d be surprised just how good the image quality on a decent CRT is. They lack the resolution to display the sort of fine detail you get in HD video, but the brightness, contrast, dynamic range, and colour reproduction still holds up (assuming it was a decent unit at the time).
Importantly, they’re far more forgiving to lower definition content than modern displays, and while retro games are more of a driving force for still using a CRT today, I could totally see a VHS collection being a good reason to keep one around.
The main drawbacks are the size/weight, limited screen size by modern standards, obscene power draw, and the fact that they need maintenance to keep the geometry good.
It's a fun novelty. You can find VHS for free at yard sales and other places. It often costs less to get a VHS than rent a movie on Amazon or something else.
CRTs in general are honestly superior in a number of a ways. They effectively have built-in anti-aliasing, they tend to have better color depth, and usually have better speakers than a flatscreen TV. They're also better for most retro video game systems. Where I am, you can also still get a decent number of CRT TVs for free.
I've also never understood the obsession with higher resolutions. Particularly in the case of old movies, films were not shot with the expectation that you could see every detail. Even when we still had a flatscreen we'd rent from Amazon at 480p just to save a dollar or two. Higher resolution doesn't really inherently look better in many cases. But, I'll definitely admit some newer movies will flash some text on screen sometimes that is hard to make out on an old CRT.
I guess my primary argument is not really that CRTs are so amazing (although they're better than people remember) -- but only that flatscreens are not really that great either. A great movie is a wonderful experience on either. Once you get into the film, the story, music, and characters really prevent you from fixating on pixels. We're not missing anything, and we haven't spent any money to support this hobby. In the case of VHS and DVD, old movies generally look better on a CRT. In the case of new movies, there is some compromise, but it usually doesn't matter.
None taken -- I've got 20/20, or relatively close to it. It's not as if I can't see the difference, I just don't feel that sharper inherently equals better. At least in the case of watching movies or TV.
My intuitive sense is that people don't actually care about increased resolution, but simply know that they're using the "inferior" option, and claim not to like it. I'm not suggesting this is actually the case -- it's just that caring about a sharper picture is foreign enough to me that it's not my most natural conclusion. Logically, I can certainly understand people probably do care about image sharpness. I'm just not one of those people.
The visuals have always been a huge part of cinema. You can hardly compare the experience of watching Lawrence of Arabia projected from film and Lawrence of Arabia in 480 even on equally sized screens.
While there’s a plenty of content I enjoy watching even if it’s only available in 480, 4K DV content on the big screen offers a completely different level of immersion.
I really like DS9, but it clearly suffers from its format. Even basic things like the ability to make out facial expressions of the cast become more difficult or even impossible at lower resolutions.
Not really. Content that looks awful on LCDs can look good on CRTs, to the point that there are image processors for old hardware to emulate CRT look on LCD panels.
I've a hard time to find the exact hardware but check out this video for what I have in mind: https://youtu.be/ZsNKu4umHq4?t=218 - 'too accurate' is a very nice way of describing what LCDs do.
