Government

Is it Time to Go LCD?

Gary Mandle
Senior Product Manager, Display Systems Sony Electronics
(Portions of this article originally appeared in Video Systems Magazine)

With the need to upgrade the government communications infrastructure, video production professionals are continually evaluating the best ways to implement the next iteration of technology. In the professional display world, this means a transition from cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors to liquid crystal displays, commonly referred to as LCDs.

While CRTs still have several distinct advantages over LCD, especially for critical image evaluation purposes, significant strides are continually being made in the development of LCD monitors that promise to put them on equal or even higher footing than CRT.

In fact, there are already many advantages of LCD over CRT. Here's a personal checklist for you to determine if it's time to "go flat" in your facility:

Is your facility going digital?
An LCD display, such as Sony's LUMA™ LCD monitor, is a purely digital monitor from front to back. If a facility is inputting SDI or HD-SDI streams, then LCD offers the advantage of never having to convert images to analog.

Are you concerned about maintenance?
The only part of an LCD monitor that can wear is the backlight. As a result, your LCD may be a near maintenance-free display that could eliminate concerns over convergence alignments, white balance, and other errors. This, coupled with LCD's high level of reliability, can add up to a very impressive return on technology investment.

Are power and/or weight an issue?
Other advantages of LCD are reductions in power and weight without sacrificing performance, important considerations for facilities on a budget that need to closely watch power and air conditioning costs. Low power and weight take on even greater importance in mobile applications such as production trucks.

What about space?
LCD monitor walls can now be designed less than 10 inches deep allowing more room for staff or other equipment. Power consumption is lowered by a factor of 3, and heat by a factor of 7 times. This is all money put back in the pockets of the customer.

Are you integrating data with your video?
As facilities become more software-dependent, multi-monitor systems-combinations of video and computer monitors - are becoming commonplace. With video LCD monitors, it's possible to integrate these two sources into one display, saving the cost of a second screen while simplifying the overall system design. Current LCD video monitors on the market have computer, composite and SMPTE digital inputs; in other words everything connects into one box. The operational benefits of switching to LCD include lower total cost of ownership and more flexibility and higher performance, as well as cost savings with little or no sacrifice in performance. The bottom line is that today's LCD monitors provide more reliable operation at a much-reduced cost when compared to CRT. And, unless you are operating in an extremely critical environment where you must have the added black performance of CRT, there's really no better way to go other than LCD.

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