- The CRT saga (Part 1?) -

12/07/2025

Hey gamers, lemerks one here... I should prob think of a better opener

Well whatever, something that i dont think i've talked about here is that i really like crt's. I've wanted one of them big chunky diabetes filled boxes for a while, unfortunately the era of just going on facebook marketplace and finding 10 free crt tv's is over, meaning that they cost money (gasp!!1111!11!!). However, while searching around we found a tv that was in our budget, and of good size too, nothing seemed off from the picture on the ad, so, while i was sleeping, my parents came into my room with one of those diabetes boxes

There is one teensy tiny problem with it though, its colors are messed up in some places

One thing that kinda sucks from phone cameras (well, a lot of things suck) is how they arent good at taking photos of screens, i was sleeping as well so i couldnt say anything about the tv when they were buying it. My image doesnt show well the issue too, but you can see it in some places like sonics life icon, so what im saying is that issue is worse irl.

Which to be fair, CRT TV's are pretty old, this one doesnt even have stereo. So it makes sense for them to develop these issues, but the picture being super distorted really bummed me out. Though, while looking up online it seems like its an issue that can be fixed

Discolorization is a common issue with crt tv's, looking up the issue online will bring you thousans of results, most of them being caused by magnets. Which is my theory for why the tv is so distorted, a degausser sounds like a way to fix these (except the blotches, those seem like burn in issues). "Great" you'd think, but i dont have a degausser wand, telling my dad about the issue he told me to maybe grab a magnet and see what happens.

I personally dont recommend doing this (in some cases it can make the problem even worse!) but its not like i had more options, and waiting around until i can find a shop that sells degaussing tools sounded boring, so i started toying with a magnet putting it on places where the discolorization is very noticeable, until i noticed that if i put the magnet where the speakers are (below the screen), the discolorization issues would disappear... Until i took out the magnet which made the problem even worse.

I was like "oh crap!", because i just made the issue on my tv even worse than before, without the tools to fix it myself. Which is when i turned off the tv, to atleast move it to another place on my room, i was a bit sad but hey i could buy one of those degaussing tools right? Interestingly enough however, after i cleaned up my room and moved the tv from place, i turned it on and... The discolorization issue got less bad, infact, i'd say it was pretty hard to notice normally.

This is a part of sonic 3d blast that showed the issue really well, while the crt doesnt look that flattering here, in a lot of other scenarios it became harder to notice. But the issue is still persistent, so that means that the CRT Saga doesnt end here! I already talked about degaussing and how it can help with discolorization issues, so i'll look into that when i can. I doubt that i will be able to fix the issue in a possible part 2, but making the issue less pronounced to the point where the sides of the tv dont have it would make me happy. Alright im gone, mm released btw.

Thats it for today's blog post, a bit lenghty but hey i like this topic, maybe i'll even edit this post showing if i managed to fix more issues by messing around with magnets.