Fellow Captains, after several inflight videos, youtube carried to the extreme, pictures and descriptions, I ask myself why manufactures or airlines chose their primary flight displays to be done in "glare" style.I usually get tired, annoyed and overloaded on constantly being forced to focus on the "second picture" if I have to use those shiny glare displays which at some time where the only option on laptops and even desktop screens at normal prices.I mean, the matt finished ones really offer a lot of stress-free usabilty to your eyes. Look at some infight videos and see the camera being mirrored in the displays while the captain explains the symbols there. You can see his white shirt, the cockpit surroundings, sun reflections and such things. This does happen at all angles and of course if you move the aircraft in relationship to the sun. A matt finished screen would suppress these additional optical by a big amount.So why don't they chose the matt finish and get a clear view on their screens while maybe (really maybe) loosing some color clearance/vibrancy or whatever marketing chose as the word for advertising those nasty glare screens to us PC workers.No question, if you like the shiny ones at your desk because they look somehow better and those reflections don't annoy you, use them. I'm just asking why airlines with a focus on stress-free operation and always good readability chose this option and don't go for matte displays in the cockpit.

It's not really a case of airline manufacturers choosing, more a case of what technology was available to be used when the airliner itself was designed, specced-up and constructed, which is why such equipment was originally referred to as a 'glass cockpit', because glass was indeed the stuff they had to use.Anti-glare tinted coatings for glass CRTs were only really developed for practical use after about 1990, when things such as Sony's Trinitron TVs were the trendy thing to have, because to etch the glass on a CRT was a risky and expensive process owing to the fact that a CRT contains a vacuum, making it a potential implosion risk if the image receptor surface is weakened, and CRTs are in fact often reinforced with epoxy resins to strengthen them for that very reason. Needless to say, in an environment where the temperature changes and the pressure can alter, any process which makes a monitor less inclined to be reflective, but which also reduces its strength, is likely to be frowned upon.An LCD monitor has no huge vacuum needing to be contained in it, so it was practical to etch the glass surface of these (prior to them being made from materials other than glass), however there were other technical limitations with LCD matrix monitors when they were first developed which precluded them from being a wise choice for avionics displays.Glass cockpits first showed up around 1980 on things such as the MD-80, Classic 737 and later on the A320, and although LCD panels were around before 1990, and originally had an etched glass surface which reduced glare, as noted, the early LCD panels were not fast enough, as far as image response times are concerned, to display the required up-to-the second flight instrument data, and they were particularly poor at displaying the image from oblique angles, which is important for centrally mounted displays that both pilots have to read, such as the engine gauges in a typical airliner, so CRTs were used instead.As with all technology, when it becomes more reliable and is adopted en-masse, the production costs and end-user prices drop, so these days it is practical to have TFT LCD panels in a cockpit and know that they will be reliable enough to be of use, as well as being cheap enough to be an economic solution. Of course they weigh less and generate less heat too, which are also advantages for airborne equipment fitted in an enclosed area, since it means less cooling equipment is required which also saves weight and reduces equipment noise, but until it was certain that LCDs could do the job being asked of them, CRTs were used.One more point to note. Whilst it is certainly true that on some cockpit videos there is a lot of glare apparent, you have to remember that this is when they are viewed by someone who is typically stood behind the pedestal and not in the seat where the thing is more likely to be viewed by a pilot, so it's not normally as bad as it might appear when seen on one of those cockpit videos, because it is problematic to film people in those circumstances when there is a big row of windows behind them from that angle, which means getting the camera's exposure level at a good average is often tricky. Cockpit fascias are a lot more dark and shadowy than most flight sims and cockpit videos would have you believe, there's a quite a big overhang from the glareshield.Al

You're probably more likely to see that sort of tech in something like a Cirrus that's marketed more to early-adopter types.scott s..

Alan, I agree on the CRT related items of your answer while I say thank you for the complete post of course.The matte finish of real glass made surfaces always and still is a big task in technical terms and therefor even the (real) glass cockpits suffer from mirror-like devices. Even the best surface treatment of your mentioned TV screens did not offer a perfect solution there. Sure, the viewing angles will help the front seat people in planes a bit while the relatively moving sun together with light sources in the cockpit and their white shirts will cause a second picture on every screen they have.As they are constantly looking to the outside, back on the instruments and outside again, their eyes get an additional task when looking at the instruments: focus on the symbols and not on the mirrored items.As LCD times came on the modernized or retrofitted planes or even the fabric new ones, the "glare" solution gets to look really strange. The surface of TFTs or similar devices is much easier to "un-glare" than their predecessors and that's the main point that puzzles me. Why does a somehow current 777 use shiny screens instead of matte ones? I had

there which showed some very shiny screens. Might depend of course, but why don't go matte and get rid of all reflections?There must a reason to abandon the eye-(and focus-)friendly ways of matte surfaces and use those shiny mirror-like stuff. I think this question is still open after your answer.Does the matte coating cause other problems which would be more severe? Do non-shiny LCDs have a big disadvantage over the glare ones? I wouldn't say that this is bound to a special category of planes but scott967 is right, even the GA flyers with their "glass" go very shiny, Garmin and Avidyne too.

I finally found a video showing matte displays in a 777-200. So it seems that some airlines chose this option (after reading this thread).

Good choice!