lcd panel to replace 11 crt brands

When you need a replacement monitor for your 14 inch Matsushita TX-1404AB color CRT monitor, why not consider installing a modern, high-quality 14 inch LCD display instead?

We’ve made it easy for you by designing the rugged, open-frame chassis of the new QES1514-055 LCD display so it can drop into the mounting holes of the original A61L-0001-0074 Fanuc monitor and A61L-0001-0094 Fanuc monitor used in the Fanuc Controls 6, 10, 11, 12 and 15 systems, making it unnecessary to replace your original Fanuc CNC 14 inch CRT Monitor chassis. What’s more, the video input circuitry of the QES1514-055 accepts the TTL video signals from the original FANUC system with no need for signal adapters of any sort.

This makes the QES1514-055 14 inch Fanuc monitor retrofit LCD display an ideal Fanuc Replacement Monitor for all A61L-0001-0074 Fanuc monitor and A61L-0001-0094 Fanuc monitor models, including the DNC 74 Monitor series; the Matsushita TX1404, TX1404AB, TX1424, TX1424AB and TX1450AB monitors; and the Hitachi C14C-1472DF, C14C-1472D1F and TX-1424AD monitors; and Toshiba D14CM-06A.

Additionally, while this QES1514-055 14 inch LCD display has been optimized to operate at the 20.3KHz/55.25Hz FANUC control console timing, it also operates with a variety of other TTL legacy monitor timings, making it a drop-in replacement LCD monitor for other CRT monitor brands, such as Tatung, Matsushita, Hitachi, and Toshiba. Check out our vast selection of Matsushita CNC replacement monitors.

lcd panel to replace 11 crt brands

Use our 10.4” LCD Replacement Display to substitute the 12” CRT monitor used in your Mazak CNC Mazatrol, Mitsubishi Meldas or Yamazaki machine tools. This rugged industrial 10.4” LCD Display mounts right onto the CRT mounting studs of the existing 12” CRT monitorchassis and was designed to operate with legacy systems built by Philips, Bosch, Cybelec, Delem, GE, Heidenhain, Sinumerik, JUNG, E machine, Marposs, Mitsubishi, Okuma, Mazak, and Siemens. The QES1510 Series 10.4” LCD displays replace most 12” CRT monitor models and extend the life of CRT-based HMI interfaces.

Designed to operate from 15.75KHz through 100KHz, these rugged 10.4” LCD displays can be configured to operate with CGA, EGA, MDA video formats and many other legacy timings used in systems such as JUNG, E machine, Marposs, Mitsubishi, Okuma, Mazak, and Siemens Control Systems.

Optional TTL CGA, EGA, MDA video capability, contrast ratios of 500:1 and brightness levels of 250 cd/m2, and standard features such multi-language on-screen display, DDC1/2B Plug and Play, and wide viewing angle capability makes this versatile 10.4” LCD display an excellent choice for many legacy industrial display needs.

lcd panel to replace 11 crt brands

In the end, Sony agreed to pay half of the $1,400 repair to replace the panel. The service tech, a Sony gold standard place, says the set is defective.

But it"s out of the warranty. What"s worse? I bought it before Circuit City closed; I think I bought the 5-year extended warranty. But the outside source Circuit City is now using says nothing comes under the phone number I provided to look up the warranty.

Even more: A Sony rep said last week I could have more than a week to decide which offer (the discounted sets or half repair), then another person says that offer wasn"t in the notation. She went back to the one-week offer.

lcd panel to replace 11 crt brands

Monitors└ Monitors, Projectors & Accs└ Computers/Tablets & NetworkingAll CategoriesAntiquesArtBabyBooks & MagazinesBusiness & IndustrialCameras & PhotoCell Phones & AccessoriesClothing, Shoes & AccessoriesCoins & Paper MoneyCollectiblesComputers/Tablets & NetworkingConsumer ElectronicsCraftsDolls & BearsMovies & TVEntertainment MemorabiliaGift Cards & CouponsHealth & BeautyHome & GardenJewelry & WatchesMusicMusical Instruments & GearPet SuppliesPottery & GlassReal EstateSpecialty ServicesSporting GoodsSports Mem, Cards & Fan ShopStampsTickets & ExperiencesToys & HobbiesTravelVideo Games & ConsolesEverything Else

lcd panel to replace 11 crt brands

Camcorder Parts└ Replacement Parts & Tools└ Cameras & PhotoAll CategoriesAntiquesArtBabyBooks & MagazinesBusiness & IndustrialCameras & PhotoCell Phones & AccessoriesClothing, Shoes & AccessoriesCoins & Paper MoneyCollectiblesComputers/Tablets & NetworkingConsumer ElectronicsCraftsDolls & BearsMovies & TVEntertainment MemorabiliaGift Cards & CouponsHealth & BeautyHome & GardenJewelry & WatchesMusicMusical Instruments & GearPet SuppliesPottery & GlassReal EstateSpecialty ServicesSporting GoodsSports Mem, Cards & Fan ShopStampsTickets & ExperiencesToys & HobbiesTravelVideo Games & ConsolesEverything Else

lcd panel to replace 11 crt brands

Flat-panel displays are thin panels of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying text, images, or video. Liquid crystal displays (LCD), OLED (organic light emitting diode) and microLED displays are not quite the same; since LCD uses a liquid crystal that reacts to an electric current blocking light or allowing it to pass through the panel, whereas OLED/microLED displays consist of electroluminescent organic/inorganic materials that generate light when a current is passed through the material. LCD, OLED and microLED displays are driven using LTPS, IGZO, LTPO, and A-Si TFT transistor technologies as their backplane using ITO to supply current to the transistors and in turn to the liquid crystal or electroluminescent material. Segment and passive OLED and LCD displays do not use a backplane but use indium tin oxide (ITO), a transparent conductive material, to pass current to the electroluminescent material or liquid crystal. In LCDs, there is an even layer of liquid crystal throughout the panel whereas an OLED display has the electroluminescent material only where it is meant to light up. OLEDs, LCDs and microLEDs can be made flexible and transparent, but LCDs require a backlight because they cannot emit light on their own like OLEDs and microLEDs.

Liquid-crystal display (or LCD) is a thin, flat panel used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. They are usually made of glass but they can also be made out of plastic. Some manufacturers make transparent LCD panels and special sequential color segment LCDs that have higher than usual refresh rates and an RGB backlight. The backlight is synchronized with the display so that the colors will show up as needed. The list of LCD manufacturers:

Organic light emitting diode (or OLED displays) is a thin, flat panel made of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. OLED panels can also take the shape of a light panel, where red, green and blue light emitting materials are stacked to create a white light panel. OLED displays can also be made transparent and/or flexible and these transparent panels are available on the market and are widely used in smartphones with under-display optical fingerprint sensors. LCD and OLED displays are available in different shapes, the most prominent of which is a circular display, which is used in smartwatches. The list of OLED display manufacturers:

MicroLED displays is an emerging flat-panel display technology consisting of arrays of microscopic LEDs forming the individual pixel elements. Like OLED, microLED offers infinite contrast ratio, but unlike OLED, microLED is immune to screen burn-in, and consumes less power while having higher light output, as it uses LEDs instead of organic electroluminescent materials, The list of MicroLED display manufacturers:

LCDs are made in a glass substrate. For OLED, the substrate can also be plastic. The size of the substrates are specified in generations, with each generation using a larger substrate. For example, a 4th generation substrate is larger in size than a 3rd generation substrate. A larger substrate allows for more panels to be cut from a single substrate, or for larger panels to be made, akin to increasing wafer sizes in the semiconductor industry.

2015, sold to giantplus and tce photomasks, gen 3 still operated by giantplus, gen 4 line sold to giantplus, equipment sold and line demolished, remainder operated by tce

"Samsung Display has halted local Gen-8 LCD lines: sources". THE ELEC, Korea Electronics Industry Media. August 16, 2019. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020. Retrieved December 18, 2019.

"TCL to Build World"s Largest Gen 11 LCD Panel Factory". www.businesswire.com. May 19, 2016. Archived from the original on April 2, 2018. Retrieved April 1, 2018.

"Panel Manufacturers Start to Operate Their New 8th Generation LCD Lines". 대한민국 IT포털의 중심! 이티뉴스. June 19, 2017. Archived from the original on June 30, 2019. Retrieved June 30, 2019.

"TCL"s Panel Manufacturer CSOT Commences Production of High Generation Panel Modules". www.businesswire.com. June 14, 2018. Archived from the original on June 30, 2019. Retrieved June 30, 2019.

"Samsung Display Considering Halting Some LCD Production Lines". 비즈니스코리아 - BusinessKorea. August 16, 2019. Archived from the original on April 5, 2020. Retrieved December 19, 2019.

Herald, The Korea (July 6, 2016). "Samsung Display accelerates transition from LCD to OLED". www.koreaherald.com. Archived from the original on April 1, 2018. Retrieved April 1, 2018.

www.etnews.com (30 June 2017). "Samsung Display to Construct World"s Biggest OLED Plant". Archived from the original on 2019-06-09. Retrieved 2019-06-09.

Colantonio, Andrea; Burdett, Richard; Rode, Philipp (2013-08-15). Transforming Urban Economies: Policy Lessons from European and Asian Cities. Routledge. ISBN 9781134622160. Archived from the original on 2019-01-01. Retrieved 2019-06-09.

Shilov, Anton. "LG"s New 55+ inch OLED Plant in China Opens: Over 1m+ per Year". www.anandtech.com. Archived from the original on 2019-09-14. Retrieved 2019-12-18.

www.wisechip.com.tw. "WiseChip History – WiseChip Semiconductor Inc". www.wisechip.com.tw. Archived from the original on 2018-02-17. Retrieved 2018-02-17.

"China"s BOE to have world"s largest TFT-LCD+AMOLED capacity in 2019". ihsmarkit.com. 2017-03-22. Archived from the original on 2019-08-16. Retrieved 2019-08-17.

Shilov, Anton. "JOLED Starts Construction of New Printed OLED Facility". www.anandtech.com. Archived from the original on 2019-06-30. Retrieved 2019-06-30.

Pooler, Michael (29 September 2015). "Subscribe to read". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2019-10-25. Retrieved 2019-10-25. Cite uses generic title (help)

lcd panel to replace 11 crt brands

You can get replacement led lcd tv screens with an operation range that suits your specific application, choosing from a wide selection of suppliers. Source wholesale replacement led lcd tv screens on Alibaba.com for your business and enjoy a wide variety and great deals.

replacement led lcd tv screens (Liquid crystal display) are made of liquid crystals that form digital images made visible through ambient light or through LED backlight. LCDs are used in the place of other displays that are less efficient such as cathode ray tubes (CRTs) and have become the most popular display type on the market.

Explore the extensive selection of wholesale replacement led lcd tv screens LCD displays, TFT, and HMI that can be used across a range of industries, including domestic, medical, industrial, automotive, and many others. You can choose from a number of standard industry sizes and find the replacement Led lcd screens that are applicable to your required use. If you would like options that allow a smaller environmental footprint due to low power consumption, you can browse the Chip-on-Glass (COG) LCDs. COGs are designed without PCBs so have a slimmer profile.

lcd panel to replace 11 crt brands

TV repair costs between $60 and $350 with most spending $207 on average for LCD, LED, plasma, and 4K TVs; costs are higher if repairing older DLP, projection, and HD TVs. TV problems like display issues, powering-on problems, or sound issues can be fixed. Pickup and delivery fees may apply.

The cost to repair a TV will include the price of parts and labor costs, plus other associated costs. Additional charges include a trip fee for a technician to come to your home, a fee to transport your TV to and from a repair shop, and the diagnostic fee to determine what needs to be replaced.

The cost to repair a TV screen can be significantly more than the cost of purchasing a new TV. For this reason, replacing or repairing a broken TV screen is not considered feasible.

For example, the price of a new Samsung 40-inch LED TV is about $400, yet the cost of a replacement display panel for this model is about $380. This price is only for the replacement part and does not cover diagnostic costs, labor costs, or travel or shipping fees.

Unless you are trying to fix a TV from the ’80s or earlier, cracked TV screen repair is not feasible; the entire display panel must be replaced instead. The cost of a replacement TV display panel is more than the cost of buying a new TV, and that’s before labor and other service costs.

The cost of TV screen replacement is generally the same as or more than the cost of buying a new TV. Therefore, replacing a broken or malfunctioning TV screen is not considered a viable option. If the TV is under the manufacturer’s warranty, the manufacturer may replace the entire unit.

TV manufacturers do keep replacement TV screen panels on hand to support products under warranty in case the screen malfunctions, due to manufacturer defect.

If you still want to replace a damaged or malfunctioning TV screen, your best option is to find a used replacement panel or a broken TV of the same model on which the screen is still functional. You might find one on eBay, and you can hire a technician to change out the panel.

The cost of a used replacement TV panel ranges from $50 to $350 or more, excluding shipping, depending on the brand and size. Note that the chances of finding exactly the part you need in excellent condition are slim, and the cost excludes the cost of installation by a repair shop.

Whether your TV is LCD, LED, plasma screen, or 4K (Ultra HD), the cost to fix common problems ranges from $60 to $350, depending on the repair type and the brand of TV being repaired.

These repair problems could have more than one possible source, so a technician should take time to narrow down the exact problem. TVs are repaired by replacing faulty components.

TV motherboard replacement costs between $200 and $350, including parts and labor, or about $275 on average. Motherboard replacement parts range from $35 to $199and labor costs from $60 to $125.

A TV inverter repair costs $104 to $171, including parts and labor, with an average cost of $138 for a TV with one inverter board or $178 for two. Parts range from $7 to $74, and the average labor cost for TV inverter repair is $97 per hour.

The function of an inverter board in a TV is to power the backlight of the screen. The inverter board requires a few hundred volts of power. If the inverter board goes bad, this would cause the TV to power on and have sound but no picture.

When an inverter component goes bad, it is usually replaced rather than repaired. In some cases, the capacitors on a converter board fail, and a technician can fix it by replacing the capacitors rather than replacing the entire inverter component. However, if an entire inverter board replacement is not available for the model of TV being repaired, replacing the capacitors may be the only option for TV inverter repair.

A flat-screen TV bulb replacement costs between $60 to $115, with most homeowners spending $84 for parts and labor. The price for replacement bulbs ranges from $18.50 to $80.

If an older model LCD TV or projection TV powers on and has sound but no picture, this may be due to lamp burnout, which is both common and expected. In this case, replacing the bulb will fix the problem. An experienced technician should be able to replace the bulb quickly and easily.

TV backlight repair costs $100 to $122, including replacement parts and labor, at a repair shop. In-house repair costs are more due to trip fees. The price of backlight replacement parts averages around $2.50for each LED and between $20 and $25 for each CCFL strip.

If the CCFL strips for your TV are no longer available, a technician can convert the backlight from CCFL to LED using the same number of backlighting strips. Each strip of LEDs costs between $12 and $30.

A new inverter may be needed to power the LEDs, costing between $7 and $74before labor, or an average of $40. In some cases, a repair shop can convert a CCFL backlight to LED without installing a new inverter.

Backlight failure in a TV may also be due to failure of the power inverter that supplies power to the backlight. In rare cases, both the inverter and the lighting components fail.

Repairing a TV power supply board costs $23 to $234 for parts alone. Completely replacing the power supply board costs $250 for parts and labor. If one capacitor has failed, the cost for replacement capacitors is low. However, it’s more cost-effective for the technician to replace the entire board rather than spend time trying to diagnose and replace faulty capacitors one by one.

The cost to fix an HDMI port on a TV is $93 to $302. In some cases, the input circuit board that the HDMI port connects to may be damaged and need to be replaced. The cost for replacing this input circuit board, including labor, ranges from $200 to $350.

TV capacitor repair costs $60 to $129, including parts and labor. The cost for the replacement part ranges from $0.06 to $14, with the labor portion ranging from $60 to $125 per hour. TV capacitors protect the circuit from getting too much power, filter signals, and facilitate changing channels.

It is not possible to fix a TV capacitor when it fails; it needs replacing. If your TV stops working while you are using it and you notice a smell similar to ammonia or bleach, this is a sign that a capacitor has blown. However, some capacitors do not make any noticeable smell when they blow.

Flat screen replacement glass is not available. The only option for flat-screen TV glass repair is to try optical glass glue, which costs $1.70 for a 5-ml. tube. This may be an option for TV glass repair if the crack is only a few inches or less. TV panels are built as one unit at the factory, with the glass adhered to the display panel.

In-home CRT repair ranges from $199 to $249. The cost of repairing a CRT picture tube ranges from $199 for a TV that is 27 inches or smaller to $249 for a TV that is 28 inches or larger.

Picture tubes, or cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), were used in old TVs, which had much poorer image quality than modern TVs and were much bulkier and heavier.

A TV fuse repair costs between $61 and $136, with most spending $99 on average. The cost of the replacement fuse itself is $1.50 to $11, while labor ranges from $60 to $125 per hour. Additional fees may apply.

LCD flat-panel repair is not considered cost-effective. If the glass is cracked or the display is physically damaged, it is cheaper to replace the entire TV than to repair or replace the display panel.

Estimating TV repairs costs by brand is not something TV repair shops offer, however, there are general prices by type. When looking for specific repair costs for your TV, you’ll find them in the common repairs price list above. Pricing applies to brands such as Samsung, LG, Sanyo, TCL, Insignia, HiSense, Sony, Toshiba, Pioneer, and Vizio.

More popular TVs are usually less expensive to repair because repair shops order replacement parts for them in bulk, which allows them to buy those parts at a lower cost.

The cost of flat-screen TV repair ranges from $42 to $359. You cannot fix a broken screen, but the price of a new flat-panel TV starts from around $249 for a 1080-mp (non-4K) LED TV from LG to as much as $14,999 for an 85-inch 8K LED TV from Samsung. A TV referred to as a “flat TV” or “flat-screen” TV might be any of the following:

LCD TV repair typically costs $60 to $85 for diagnostics testing, and $200 to $300 to perform repairs. LCD TVs use backlighting, which may fail. Newer LCD TVs use LED strips for backlighting. Older ones might use CCFL. If CCFL backlighting fails, a technician can replace it with LED backlighting.

An LED TV is just an LCD TV that uses LED backlighting, which all newer models do (older models use CCFL backlighting). The cost to replace one LED backlighting strip ranges from $100 to $122, including parts and labor.

The cost to replace the motherboard, inverter, or LED"s in a 4K TV ranges from $100 to $275 or more depending on the brand and model. The cost for screen repair for a 4K TV is irrelevant because it cannot be fixed or replaced at a cost that is lower than the cost of a new 4K TV.

Digital light processing (DLP) TVs are also known as projection TVs. DLP big screens have not been made since 2012, and DLP TV repair is usually not worth the cost except for a lamp burnout, in which the bulb can be replaced. The cost to replace bulbs ranges from $60 to $115.

TV repair shops charge an average $60 to $125 per hour, or a flat rate of $50 to $250, which includes the diagnostic fee. Additional costs after that depend on the repairs needed and the brand and type of TV. However, most stores will have a minimum charge of about $90.

The brand and model of your TV will dictate the final repair cost, with more expensive brands and larger TVs costing more to repair. Consider the remaining lifespan of the TV before paying for repairs. You can now buy bigger TVs with more features and better displays for a TV that won’t need repairs for a while and probably comes with a warranty.

The cost of labor to fix a TV ranges from $60 to $125 per hour, or a flat rate of $90 to $299. If the work is performed in your home, the cost ranges from $25 to $125 per hour plus the trip fee. Most TV repairs take 1 to 3 hours if the repair specialist has the parts already.

Some shops will pick up and deliver a TV for free. Others charge a fee that ranges from $40 to $75 for pickup and drop-off, with an average cost of $58.

If you live in a remote area, you may need to ship your TV to a repair facility, costing $99 to $175. Be sure to choose a delivery service that allows you to track the shipment and confirm delivery. When sending your TV into a service center for repair, you will be contacted regarding the associated costs and asked to process payment before the repair is completed, which usually takes two weeks including the shipping time.

Many TV repair shops charge a diagnostic fee that ranges from $20 to $60, depending on whether it is done in your home or the repair shop. Some shops charge a flat fee that ranges from $50 to $250that covers both the diagnostic cost and labor cost. In many cases, the initial diagnostic fee will be applied to the repair cost if you have the shop do the repair.

The more expensive a TV is, the more sense it makes to purchase an additional warranty to defray the potential for costly repairs. Best Buy offers an $89 five-year extended warranty for entry-level TVs. On larger TVs such as the 85-inch Samsung QLED 8K TV, which costs $14,998, the five-year warranty from Geek Squad costs an additional $1,699—11.33% of the cost of the TV.

With modern TVs, repair entails component replacement or replacement of capacitors, for which high levels of certification are not necessary. Generally, TV repair shops will let you know if their employees have certification.

First, check that the connecting cable is securely in the socket on both ends. If that doesn’t work, try substituting another data cable if you have one, or test it with a replacement cable.

Satellite dish repair is either covered by your satellite service company or the cost for a technician to fix it ranges from $80 to $150. Repairs may also be billed at an hourly rate of $50 to $65.

The cost of mounting a TV ranges from $149 to $199, with most people paying around $174 for the labor. The mounting hardware costs between $20 and $500 depending on the brand of mounting hardware and the size of your TV.

There are various ways you might be able to save money on TV repair. These include transporting your TV to a repair shop, using a shop that charges in 15- or 30-minute increments, diagnosing the problem yourself, using salvaged parts, and doing the repair work on your own.

You can also consider the cost of TV repair when purchasing a new TV. More popular TV models are less expensive to repair because repair shops buy parts for the most common TVs in bulk and are therefore able to get them at lower prices.

Plug - If the TV is not powering on and no status LEDs are lighting up, start by plugging the TV into a different outlet. If the TV is too challenging to move, you can run an extension cord from another nearby outlet.

Circuit breaker - Check the circuit breaker for the power outlet that the TV plugs into. You can check the breakers by opening the door to your breaker panel and looking for circuit breakers that are in the OFF position.

Power cable - Check the power cable. If it is a removable cable, you can test it by substituting a power cable from another piece of equipment in your home, or you can buy a replacement cable for this test. The cost for a replacement TV power cable ranges from $2.50 to $10.

Remote control - If the TV is not powering on with the remote control, you should try replacing the batteries. For remote controls with a status LED light, there could be enough power to light the LED but not enough power to send a signal to your TV.

Inverter is bad -It is possible that the inverter, which powers the backlights, has gone bad and needs to be replaced. It’s also possible that one or more capacitors on the inverter have gone bad, in which case a technician may be able to replace capacitors more cheaply than replacing the entire inverter.

Lamp burnout -In a projection TV or older LCD TV, no picture may be caused by lamp burnout. In this case, a technician can replace the bulb quickly and easily.

Plug headphones into the headphone jack. If sound comes from the headphones plugged into the headphone jack, this indicates a problem with the TV speakers.

The primary way to save money on TV repair would be to perform the work yourself. This may require you to purchase and get familiar with various tools such as soldering tools, and methods for replacing a capacitor or some other component.

The right parts - It can be complicated to determine which component of a TV is failing and causing the TV not to work correctly. If you buy a replacement part and perform the repair yourself, the TV may still not work, either because you replaced the wrong part, the part was old and not working properly to begin with, or you did not perform the work correctly. Buying multiple replacement parts can become costly.

Lack of experience – you might cause more damage to the TV due to your lack of knowledge and experience, and you might also end up causing a fire with your soldering iron or being electrocuted.

The cost of repairing a TV could be as much as $500 if multiple repairs are needed. Consumer Reports recommends not to spend more than 50% of the cost of a new TV repairing the old one.

If you have a newer TV that cost thousands of dollars, having it repaired would most likely be cost-effective. If the TV only cost a few hundred dollars to begin with, replacing the TV is more likely to be the best option.

Not included in these prices from Best Buy are 1080P screens, which range from $249 to $279 for 43-inch TVs from brands like Samsung, Sony, and LG. On the upper end, Sony and Samsung both have 95-inch 8K LED TVs for $69,999.

In most cases, a flat-screen TV can be fixed. The exception is a physically damaged display panel or screen. Most other issues including failing speakers, backlights, or power supply. Burned out fuses and damaged input ports can also be repaired.

You cannot replace a broken flat-screen display. New TVs costs anywhere from $249 for a 1080P (non 4K) LED TV from LG to as much as $14,999 for an 85” 8K LED TV from Samsung.

Some shops will pick up and deliver a TV for free. Others charge a fee that ranges from $40 to $75 for pickup and drop-off, with an average cost of $58.

If you live in a remote area, you may need to ship your TV to a repair facility, costing $99 to $175. Be sure to choose a delivery service that allows you to track the shipment and confirm delivery.

lcd panel to replace 11 crt brands

Behind a nondescript Manhattan storefront, Chi-Tien Lui is stockpiling objects many people wouldn’t think twice about trashing: cathode ray tube televisions. The first floor of CTL Electronics — whose clientele includes the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, and other museums across the country — is lined with a rich mix of vintage TVs, from tiny boxes to big, looming screens. In his bedroom upstairs, Lui has a 1930s mechanical television, an early image transmission system that passed light through a spinning metal disc. In his workshop, there’s a grid of old screens that once sat inside the Palladium, an iconic New York nightclub that closed in 1997. “They used to have 16 of these, rotating in the club — everybody danced underneath,” Lui recalls. “When they went out of business I took all the equipment back. And right now, I’m restoring them.”

CRTs were once synonymous with television. By 1960, nearly 90 percent of American households had one. But at the turn of the millennium, their popularity rapidly decayed as LCD panels flooded the market. Even though CRTs comprised an estimated 85 percent of US television sales in 2003, analysts were already predicting the technology’s demise. In 2008, LCD panels outsold CRTs worldwide for the first time. Sony shut down its last manufacturing plants that same year, essentially abandoning its famous Trinitron CRT brand. By 2014, even stronghold markets like India were fading, with local manufacturers switching to flat-panel displays.

Despite all this, picture tube televisions continue to linger. You’ll find them in museums, arcades, video game tournaments, and the homes of dedicated fans. But as the CRT slips further into obsolescence, devotees like Lui are navigating a difficult transition between simply maintaining an aging device and preserving a piece of technological history.

The concept of television predates the electronic CRT display by decades. Scholar Alexander Magoun’s book Television: The Life Story of a Technology describes it as a natural extension of the telegram, fax machine, and telephone. In 1879, a cartoonist envisioned families communicating across continents via a wall-mounted “telephonoscope.” In the 1880s, German inventor Paul Nipkow imagined capturing slices of an image through holes in a spinning disk, then projecting the light patterns through an identical disk on the other end. Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi reported on this new theory of “television by means of electricity” at the 1900 Paris world’s fair, coining the term that we still use today.

The first actual working television, demonstrated by Scottish inventor John Baird in the mid-1920s, used Nipkow’s mechanical disk idea to show dim, fuzzy images of a ventriloquist dummy named Stookie Bill. Several similar devices followed, some backed by major companies like GE and AT&T. By 1928, Americans could pay for a mechanical “radiovision” kit from inventor Charles Jenkins, and tune in for thrice-weekly “radiomovie” pantomimes on his broadcast network. But these TVs were inherently limited by the number of holes you could put on a disk, and the incredibly bright lights that were required to capture an image.

Electronic CRT TVs flourished in the years after World War II, and for the rest of its lifespan, manufacturers looked for ways to iterate on it. Perhaps the most obvious advance was color television, which took off in the 1960s after a bitter standards war between Columbia Broadcasting System and the ultimately victorious National Broadcasting Company. Once these standards were set, individual companies built loyalty with technological tweaks. Sony’s iconic Trinitron abandoned the perforated metal “shadow mask” that most color TVs used to keep their electron streams separate, for instance, using vertical wires that produced bright, clean colors and a flatter screen.

Toward the end of the CRT era, manufacturers began directly competing with the plasma and liquid-crystal displays that were threatening to overtake the market. The mid-2000s saw a brief enthusiasm for “ultra-slim” models, which touted tubes as miraculously thin as 15 inches. Some manufacturers adopted new high-definition HDMI connections. These machines maintained a tenuous advantage at first: new flat-panel TVs cost thousands of dollars, and consumers had to sort through a confusing assortment of unproven display technologies. But as these screens got cheaper, bigger, and had higher-resolutions, there was no way for the CRT to win. Its design relied on a fat glass tube, which became deeper and heavier with every added inch of screen space. Sony’s hulking 40-inch Trinitron from 2002, one of the biggest consumer CRTs ever produced, weighed over 300 pounds. A modern 40-inch Sony TV, the second-smallest option in its current lineup, weighs less than 20 pounds.

But flatscreens haven’t won everyone over. Ian Primus, an IT repair technician and CRT aficionado, has amassed a basement and storage unit full of old TVs. He has a reputation as one of the increasingly few people who will take CRTs off people’s hands. “If you let people know that you’re looking for old TVs, suddenly you’ve got three or four people calling you,” he says. He gives out his number to thrift stores that have decided the bulky sets are more trouble than they’re worth and want to direct donors elsewhere. Sometimes he simply drives around at night before garbage collection, looking for castoffs.

Primus says he doesn’t just hoard old TVs; he uses them constantly in his daily life. “I don’t have an LCD computer monitor, and I don’t have an LCD TV. Everything is CRTs,” he says. “I know I’m crazy.” Most new devices exclusively support current TVs, including one of Primus’ newer tech purchases — Nintendo’s NES Classic — which, ironically for such a retro-looking device, only features a modern HDMI adapter. But it’s still possible to use adapters with many of them. As long as that’s true, Primus says he’ll probably stick with CRTs.

“I’m not going to try to be one of those guys who says, ‘Yeah the picture on a CRT is better than the LCD,’” he says. But he likes the deep blacks and high color contrast and the sturdiness of old hardware. Primus, like Lui, is also helping keep CRTs available to the people who can’t do without them. In his case, that’s the retro gaming community.

A video game’s look and feel is often highly dependent on specific hardware setups, and for most of the medium’s history, those setups often involved a CRT. The iconic black scanlines we associate with old games, for instance, exist because consoles would tell a TV to only draw every other line — thus avoiding the flickering that interlaced video could produce, and smoothing out the overall image. (For more detail, retro gaming enthusiast Tobias Reich maintains an exhaustive guide about scanlines and other CRT rendering issues.) Old games may look torn or feel laggy on a new TV. That’s in part because LCD screens process an entire frame of an image and then display it, rather than receiving a signal and drawing it right away.

Some games are completely dependent on the display technology. One of the best-known examples is Duck Hunt, which uses Nintendo’s Zapper light gun. When players pull the trigger, the entire screen briefly flashes black, then a white square appears at the “duck’s” location. If the optical sensor detects a quick black-then-white pattern, it’s a hit. The entire Zapper system is coded for a CRT’s super fast refresh rate, and it doesn’t work on new LCD TVs without significant DIY modification.

A less extreme — but much more popular — case is Super Smash Bros. Melee, a 2001 Nintendo GameCube title that’s become one of the most beloved fighting games of all time. Originally designed for casual players at parties, Melee upends the conventions set by series like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat: instead of memorizing combos to chip down an opponent’s health bar, players try to knock each other off the screen using careful positioning and improvised, super fast moves. Despite its age, and the increasing difficulty of finding a copy, it’s a mainstay at fighting game tournaments.

Melee’s frantic pace has kept players coming back year after year, even after Nintendo released subsequent Super Smash Bros.games in 2008 and 2014. But it also makes the game exceptionally unforgiving of lag. On CRT monitors, which were dominant when the game launched, a character will react almost instantly when you push a button. On a newer TV, the animation may start just a little later, forcing players to adjust their timing, which can put them at a disadvantage.

As with many debates in the gaming world, there’s disagreement over whether new TVs are truly unusable. Not everyone believes the lag is bad enough to justify keeping an old CRT around, especially as flat-panel displays have gotten more responsive. But for now, visiting the Melee section of an e-sports tournament is a little like stepping back in time, as sleek LCD screens give way to bulky black boxes. Some of those boxes belong to Primus. He leases them out to gatherings around his hometown of Albany, as well as larger events across the region, like the Boston-based tournament Shine.

Shi Deng, co-founder of Shine’s organizing body Big Blue Esports, estimates the tournament used about 100 CRTs last year. Some events let players bring their own displays, but Shine doesn’t; they’re a pain to set up, and there’s too much liability if someone drops a 50- or 100-pound television on the ground. (An abandoned CRT caused real panic at one Detroit tournament last year, when police shut down the surrounding block out of fear it might be a bomb.) Instead, they rent from a handful of providers, who might truck the screens in from hundreds of miles away, coordinating tournament dates so there are enough TVs to go around.

Deng has his own small CRT, a hand-me-down from his mother. But rounding up old TVs is one of the most inconvenient parts of running a tournament, he says, and he’d love to see Nintendo come out with a remake so the Melee community could move on. That may not happen anytime soon. Some Smash players have rallied around the 2014 Wii U sequel, but it’s still a sideshow. A Nintendo Switch remake was widely rumored last year, but so far, it’s proven elusive.

Even if it does come out, CRTs will have a place in gaming for years to come. Speedrunners, for instance, use them to get the absolute best reaction time on old games. And CRTs aren’t just a pragmatic consideration for experts, either. They’re also the only way to give people a sense of how a game’s original players would have experienced it.

The CRT’s slow extinction is also becoming a pressing problem for arcades, especially with the rise of arcade bars over the past decade. Establishments like San Francisco’s Brewcade, Portland’s Ground Kontrol, and Chicago’s Emporium Arcade Bar all line their walls with dozens of nostalgia-inspiring cabinets and by extension, dozens of CRT displays.

Barcade, one of the largest — and most strictly retro-focused — chains, has about 350 games spread across seven locations. It has almost an equal number in storage. The company carefully preserves original, untouched cabinets for games like Centipedeand Tetris. But it also buys a lot of sloppy “conversions” — machines that arcade operators hacked to install new games, with different paint jobs and controls. It strips these down for parts, operating out of what Barcade co-founder and CEO Paul Kermizian jokingly refers to as a “secret lair” on the outskirts of New York City. They give the cabinets to collectors for restoration, swap individual components into vintage machines, and hold onto the tubes until they can’t possibly be fixed.

These places may eventually have to start installing LCD monitors in cabinets, and the results might not be disastrous. Software filters can approximate a CRT’s trademark image distortions, like scanlines or the curve of a screen, and a tinted glass panel can enhance the illusion. Not all arcades are so dependent on CRTs, either. Classic arcade series like Street Fighter switched to LCD-based cabinets years ago. A wave of indie game developers have designed a host of cabinet-based games with modern displays, ranging from weird, arty experiments to traditional-looking two-player boxes.

Barcade, for one, will hold onto CRTs as long as possible — and Kermizian thinks that will be a while. “I think there’s plenty around for at least 10 years, before anyone even stresses about it,” he says. It’s still cheaper to buy old parts than to retrofit a cabinet for LCD, a process Kermizian says would cost about $350. And paradoxically, he says fear of an impending shortage could free up more tubes, as some competitors preemptively adopt LCD displays to get ahead of the curve.

“The day maybe will come when we have to do an emulation of a CRT. We’ll be pretty sad,” he says. “But there are a lot of tubes out there. It’s not dire at this point. Not for us, anyway.”

It’s one thing to round up screens for a video game tournament, or even swap out the tube in an arcade cabinet. But what if an artist has turned a mass-market television set into something truly one-of-a-kind and that television set is about to wear out? This is the question that Chi-Tien Lui has built his life around, and one that few people are so well equipped to answer.

When Lui started CTL Electronics in 1968, he and his customers were working in the vanguard of film and video. He had learned to fix TVs as a teenager in Taiwan, and he came to America working as an electrician in the merchant marines. He opened his shop just after Sony released its first Portapak system, a comparatively tiny video camera that attracted artists like Andy Warhol and Nam June Paik, the Korean-born father of video art. Paik and others came to CTL for help with their work, and as their installations aged, shaping the future of media became less important than preserving its past.

Today, Lui specializes in maintaining pieces like Paik’s Untitled (Piano), a player piano piled high with televisions displaying closed-circuit footage of its interior workings. He’s been fixing TVs for so long that he knows exactly which brands have compatible parts, across decades’ worth of hardware, including the now-rare Korean monitors that Paik favored. That’s particularly important for the museums that hire him to help replicate the precise original look of video art installations. It’s a task that’s much easier if you can just replace a broken tube with one of the right shape and size, rather than replacing the entire set. When he eventually retires, the prospect of losing that expertise makes the future of CTL Electronics — which employs Lui’s daughter and a handful of other employees — uncertain.

CRTs are tough pieces of hardware, but as they age, plenty of things can go wrong. The electron gun can weaken, giving screens a dim, yellowish tinge. An electrical transformer can blow out. The phosphor can burn away unevenly, leaving permanent, ghostly outlines of images behind.

Lui works with a German engineer who helps refurbish tubes — by installing a new electron gun to fix yellowing, for example. Much of his work involves sifting through the vast but shrinking pool of CRT detritus. He scours eBay for old TVs and parts, snapping them up in bulk, and hopes that most of them will work when they arrive. “It’s getting harder and harder, and the price goes up and up and up,” he says. He gestures toward a sizable Sony Trinitron, one of his prize finds. “Ten years ago, I could get them under $100. Now it’s $2,000. Certain TVs, everybody wanted to grab.”

Getting rid of the broken or unwanted CRTs, though, is a nightmare. “CRTs are essentially the bane of the electronic recycling industry,” says Andrew Orben, director of business development at Tekovery, one of the companies Barcade uses to dispose of irrevocably broken hardware. The tubes contain toxic metals that could leach into a dump site, and 18 states specifically ban sending them to landfills. They’re made of raw materials that are often impossible to sell at a profit, primarily glass that’s mixed with several pounds of lead. When CRTs were still being made, that was a useful resource, but recyclers have struggled to find other uses. Companies could once export the tubes abroad, but as LCDs become more commonplace, CRTs are becoming less and less attractive.

Tekovery doesn’t dismantle the CRTs it receives, and Orben says few e-waste companies in America will handle that part of the operation. Over the past few years, several supposed CRT “recyclers” have been caught secretly abandoning their old displays in vast television graveyards. Iowa’s attorney general sued the now-defunct company Recycletronics in January for storing 4.6 million pounds of leaded CRT glass, along with other e-waste, across eight facilities in two states. A lawsuit last year targeted a former partner of Recycletronics, which kept a staggering 113 million pounds of glass in two Ohio warehouses.

The problem isn’t going away anytime soon, either. A 2011 EPA-commissioned report estimated that over 580 million CRT televisions (not counting computer monitors) had been sold in the US since 1980; the average CRT was used for 11 years and kept in storage long after that. Recyclers don’t want to deal with them, and even if TVs are dismantled correctly — and not dumped in a landfill — the dust from leaded glass can have long-term health effects on workers and their families, including birth defects in children.

“There are companies in the industry that are specifically looking for long-term solutions” to the CRT recycling question, says Orben. But they’ve faced their own difficulties. Nulife, a company that legitimately smelted down old tubes for commercial sale, was ordered to scrap its backlog of glass after failing regulatory checks. It pulled out of the US market last year.

The CRT television has had a vast impact on American culture, but it’s come at a cost — and the companies that created this crisis aren’t the ones paying it. “The manufacturers made their money on this type of stuff,” complains Orben, “and now, they’ve basically left all these private recyclers to clean up.”

The few people still using CRTs are trying to preserve the best experiences these machines made possible — to prolong the lives of objects that don’t die gracefully. “We as a society have developed this mentality where everything CRT-based is obsolete and needs to be trashed,” Primus says. “They’re a lot more robust than people think they are.”

Aging televisions will eventually stop feeling merely old and start feeling vintage. It’s unlikely that CRTs will enjoy a sudden resurgence in popularity like vinyl records have. They’re extraordinarily large and heavy, and depend on other obsolete technologies like VCRs and old gaming consoles. But people may start thinking more carefully about how to maintain or donate them, rather than just throwing them away — something that would be good for both preservationists and the environment. For now, Lui sees the bright side of our nearly century-long love affair with CRTs. “America’s a good place to collect antiques,” he says. “It’s much easier to get old equipment in this country than anywhere else.”

In the meantime, he has no intention of moving into the world of repairing flatscreens. “When the iPod, iPad came out, I quit learning new things,” he says. The new generation of electronics, he says, is fundamentally different from the old one. You could go to a factory training program and learn how to repair a CRT. “The new TVs, they don’t want you to repair.”

But when it comes to actually watching television, Lui is less nostalgic. Across from the grid of Palladium monitors, he shows off a Chinese TV station playing on a massive screen above his desk. “This is an LG, Korean TV, OLED monitor,” he says. “I think this is the best TV I’ve ever seen.”

lcd panel to replace 11 crt brands

Back in the day, when a TV broke, the immediate next thing to do was get it repaired. TVs were kept for what seemed like forever. Now we have more prevalent warranties to quickly replace defective TVs. We can also fit the bill of buying a new TV as well. Replacing a broken TV with a brand-new one is no longer a rarity as costs have come down.

You can repair your TV if it has a minor electrical issue and has readily available parts that cost less than a brand new TV. Replace the broken TV if you have been using it for years, it’s in its last phase and develops an issue, and/or you are just due for an upgrade.

If your TV sounds normal, but the screen is black, the backlighting system is probably at fault. A backlight issue is usually looked at by an expert. However, a black screen might also mean the LCD (liquid-crystal display) panel is at fault and may require a replacement.

An LCD replacement is usually required if the screen is entirely black. If some portions of the visuals are visible, it’s the backlight, which means you have hope or the LCD need not be replaced. The service professional will change the backlight inverter board instead.

If multiple vertical lines can be seen running across your TV screen, it might be a sign that the LCD panel is showing signs of aging, and it requires immediate replacement. Replacing the LCD is a major expense, and it’s usually recommended to buy a new TV instead of replacing the LCD.

Multiple lines radiating from a point on the display and seeming to spread each time you turn on the TV is an indication that something or someone has come in physical contact with your TV, causing the internal glass to break. This issue, too, cannot be repaired and will need a change of panel.

If you have a surround sound system or receiver connected to your television, check whether that’s on. If it isn’t on, turn it on because your TV will not produce any sound if it is turned off.

A flickering screen is a common issue, particularly with TVs that have lived fully. This issue usually surfaces without any sign or warning, and when it does show up, it brings down the TV with it. Turning the TV on again, however, could temporarily restore the picture.

This screen-flickering problem can be attributed to the TV’s main processor board. In other words, the board could be communicating with the backlight system through the control line to turn off the TV. You may try fixing this issue yourself at home if you know what a jumper wire is and how shorting two pins works. If all this sounds alien, contact a professional.

To fix the problem, your serviceman would have to replace the processor board or LED strip. In either case, you may have to shell out a considerable sum of money.

This could be an issue with the aspect ratio of your TV, which can be easily fixed by heading to the settings section in your TV’s interface and restoring the aspect ratio to the original ratio. This is perhaps the most straightforward issue and corresponding fix of all the TV problems listed here. If you cannot access the settings of your TV, perusing your TV’s manual or seeking help online would help.

Such weird outlining around objects and people on the screen could be due to the TV’s sharpness levels being too high. To set things right, head to the menu option on your TV and reduce picture sharpness.

Another possible cause for this could be your TV using some edge-enhancement processing, which may not be needed on high-definition screens. If this processing is the issue, consult your manual to find a fix by accessing the television’s service menu.

If the screen has partially greyed out, inspect the input devices first. Switch off the television and disconnect it from a media device(s), if connected to any. Now check whether the issue persists. If it does, check if tweaking the picture settings remedies the problem. If not, do a system reset.

The system reset functionality may not be the same for all TVs. On Samsung TVs, for instance, head to “Support,” “Self-Diagnosis,” and then “Reset.” If this doesn’t help too, it’s quite likely your TV’s T-con board is broken, soldered incorrectly, or some connection inside your TV is damaged. Professional assistance is mandatory in such cases.

If the image flickers like a strobe light, inspect all the input equipment attached to the TV. If the input devices are fine, inspect the power supply next. Surges could cause such flickering and flashing. If needed, switch off the TV, disconnect it, and long-press or keep pressing the power button for around 15 seconds to initiate power cycling. Turn on your TV after a couple of minutes.

If these steps do not fix the flickering, there could be an issue with the bulb, LED, or backlight within your television. When the light has reached its final phase, a flicker is a tell-tale sign. Not to mention, this issue needs professional care too.

If your TV is not too old and has current-gen specs, and it is from a reputable brand such as Samsung, LG, Sony, and the likes, it’s worth reviewing the issues of the TV or letting a technician look at it.

Besides the age of the TV, the size is a clear indicator of how relevant and modern your TV is. If your TV is less than 32 inches (81.3 cm), such as a 24-inch (61 cm) TV, it’s likely to be from the archives since 24-inch TVs are a bit too small as per current TV screen size standards. The now-ubiquitous 40 (101.6 cm) and 55-inch (139.7 cm) flat-screen TVs were not doing the rounds less than a decade ago.

And if the TV is around 65-inch (165 cm) or even bigger, it’s not recommended to throw the TV out willy-nilly. If a TV is 45 inches (114 cm) or bigger and only a few years old, it warrants a professional inspection.

Not all old TVs with problems should head to the dumpster or the recycling center. If you’ve had a TV working without any issues for half a decade or more and it has only recently encountered problems, check if you could salvage it before giving up on it. Several older LED or LCD televisions have better build qualities than modern televisions and may last several years after repair.

If your LED or LCD TV makes clicking sounds repeatedly or won’t turn on, you can safely put the blame on your TV’s capacitor. Repairing your TV’s capacitor might sound complicated, especially if you’re a total noob, but it’s not that complex once you dig in and put in the effort to learn how it’s done.

Issues with your TV’s power supply are also something that can be repaired easily. Though a power supply problem is not as minor as the aforementioned capacitor issue, it still could be fixed by yourself if you’re willing to do some homework. Similarly, HDMI issues, audio problems, etc., can be fixed too.

If your TV is physically damaged, such as a crack in the panel, a warped or broken frame that’s hindering TV function, etc., it’s not worth trying to restore the TV to its original condition. You may not be able to fix a physically hampered TV in the first place completely.

Even if you manage to get the TV’s physical condition to be 90% of what it was before the damage happened, it may have some workability issues that won’t come to the fore right away.

A few months or a year down the line, a certain aspect(s) of the TV may start giving you trouble, and diagnosing the matter will help you get to the root of the problem, which would lie in the physical damage that happened a few months or a year ago.

Some shady TV repair shops may charge you a diagnostics fee or for a service call and then would never get back to you or only call back to let you know the components for your TV aren’t available anymore. For such futile service calls, you could be charged up to $100. For that price, you can buy a new TV instead, albeit modest.

One easy, effective way to ascertain if you’re dealing with a dependable technician is getting on the phone with them before doing business. Talk about the issues you’re facing with your TV and check what the technician has to say. Their response will give you a reasonably good idea about whether the technician knows his trade or not.

Ask the technician about what they have seen with your brand of TV, what to expect when diagnosing and fixing the problem, and other relevant questions to make you feel at ease.

If you want more basic information, ask about their credentials and experience. You can also visit their office or place of service in person. If TV technicians and similar tradespersons are accredited by the state or local governing bodies in your region, find out if the technician you’re considering for your job has any to their credit.

If you’ve set your eyes on the latest OLED or QLED TV that your favorite brand just released and you were looking for an excuse to upgrade to it from your existing TV, go ahead and buy the new TV. If the one you want is out of your price range, set a savings goal to figure out when you can buy one. Don’t do rent to own or make monthly payments to an intermediary. It’s sometimes good to make impulse buys, but never good to make stupid financial decisions.

Perhaps, you’ve recently renovated your house, and your decade-old TV is sticking out like a sore thumb in the grand scheme of things. Maybe the bezels are too thick; the screen is not big enough anymore; the tech built-in is outdated; it’s not “smart,”; etc. There could be multiple reasons why it just may not be worth it to repair your old TV.

In several scenarios, a TV not working properly may not be a fault inherent to the TV itself. For instance, it could be the power outlet or the TV’s power cable not plugged in properly. If the TV is acting up, switch it off, unplug it, and let it remain unplugged for a few minutes.

In most cases, this should fix any issues you may have been facing with your TV, and unplugging and plugging in your TV is not even technically “repairing” it. In other words, even some of the major TV issues could be due to a silly cause or an overlooked error. This happens more often than not. Working in the IT field, especially early on, I saw this type of thing more often than not.

In a few other instances, the remote or cable box/satellite receiver could be causing issues. The remote, for example, may not have been programmed well. If your TV turns on, but there is no sound or picture to boot, check your cable box. Try resetting your satellite receiver by unplugging it from its source and plugging it in again after a few minutes.

If your TV’s display goes bust and the television is out of warranty, it’s recommended you buy a new TV as display-changing expenses can be close to, on par, or even greater than the cost of a brand-new unit. Based on the display tech, the prices will vary.

A TV display panel is made of several thin screens. A film is applied to the outside of the panel to protect it from shattering. These panels are fragile and could get physically damaged easily. When damaged, these are almost impossible to put back together.

There are different types of TV panels, and based on the kind, what goes between the thin screens and protective film can vary. In LCD and LED TV panels, for instance, a liquid crystal is used. Plasma TVs use gas, and OLED TVs use organic molecules called emissive layers.

LCDs and LEDs are the two leading display technologies. Plasma TVs are almost obsolete, thanks to the popularity of LCDs. OLED panels are relatively new to the market and are gaining quite a bit of traction, thanks to their reputation for producing “pure blacks” and being power-efficient.

If you use your TVs for four to six hours a day, expect the screen to come good for at least a decade – irrespective of the display type. But there are multiple horror stories of TV displays going bad much earlier than the claimed timeframe.

Damaged TV screens cannot be repaired, as mentioned earlier. If your TV’s display has developed a hardware issue, it must be replaced. But replacing the TV display is a major repair job.

The multiple glass layers constituting a TV display consist of thin conductor layers, which transmit a signal to the actual pixels from the controller board. When a glass layer breaks, usually the front one, the signal cannot move to some of the pixels.

As a result, the damage could be just a portion of the screen, a single line or multiple lines, or the entire screen. Regardless of the kind of damage, the conductive traces cannot be restored even if the glass is fully repaired.

Also, to change the display or let the new display go in, all the TV components must be removed. Once the new display panel is installed, the rest of the elements, such as the boards, sensors, speakers, rear panel, etc. Not to mention, replacing the TV display is time-consuming and requires a skilled TV technician.

Because changing the TV display is expensive – at times more than the actual price of the TV – it’s not worth getting it replaced over buying a new unit altogether. A damaged screen is an issue even if your unit is on warranty. Generally, a damaged screen or any physical damage is not covered under warranty. Even the extended warranty you purchased won’t come to your rescue.

If you’ve bought accidental insurance, however, you might have some hope. For instance, Samsung Premium Care is a service plan that covers unexpected, unintentional, and/or sudden external damage to its TVs, which includes water damage.

Why is changing a display more expensive than a new TV, you may ask. That’s because putting back a brand-new display into an already used TV is not the same thing or process as fitting it in a factory or at the time of manufacturing.

Also, not every technician has the necessary skills to install a new screen into a used TV. And with the vast array of models and makes, most third-party service professionals are not too keen on upgrading their skills, especially with the standards changing regularly.

If