CRT Television Screen Still

Midjourney

By Varun Sharma Tested with Midjourney v7 Aug 24, 2026

CRT Television Screen Still is a Midjourney v7 prompt for a 4:3 retro-tech scene. A curved cathode-ray screen glowing in a dark room, with scanlines, phosphor dots, barrel distortion and bloom spilling onto a dusty bezel, produces the analogue-television nostalgia running through Y2K wallpapers and video thumbnails.

Last tested: August 2026 with Midjourney v7

Part of the Midjourney prompt library · see more vintage prompts .

Remix in builder

Old curved CRT television glowing in a dark room, scanlines and phosphor dots visible over an abstract sunset image — CRT Television Screen Still — Midjourney v7, Aspect ratio 4:3

Commercial use included

Prompt

A close photograph of an old cathode-ray tube television glowing in a dark room, the curved glass front filling most of the frame, on screen a softly abstract sunset landscape rendered in broadcast-era colour, visible horizontal scanlines and a faint RGB phosphor dot pattern across the picture, gentle barrel distortion bending the image toward the corners, a soft bloom of light spilling off the glass onto the dusty plastic bezel, static fuzz creeping in at the outer edges, warm dust motes in the projected glow, the darkened room behind lit only by the screen, shallow depth of field on the bezel, no text, no letters, no channel numbers, no watermark --ar 4:3 --stylize 200

Settings

Model: Midjourney v7
Aspect ratio: 4:3
Stylize: 200

How to use this prompt

Barrel distortion is the detail that separates a real CRT from a flat panel with lines drawn on it. Cathode-ray glass is physically curved, so the picture must bend outward toward the corners — state it or you get a modern screen wearing a scanline filter. Pairing the phosphor dot pattern with scanlines matters as well; scanlines alone are the cliché, while the RGB dot mask is what the surface actually looked like up close. Keeping the on-screen content abstract is deliberate: a detailed scene inside the screen competes with the screen itself, which is the subject here.

Variations to try

Fill the screen with colour bars or pure static for a broadcast-signoff or glitch variant
Pull back to include a lived-in 1990s living room around the set for a wider nostalgia scene

vintage moody wallpaper youtube thumbnails

Explore collections

Moody Midjourney Prompts Vintage Midjourney Prompts Moody Wallpaper Prompts Vintage Wallpaper Prompts

What to do next

Adapt it →

Open this prompt in the Midjourney builder, pre-filled, and change one layer at a time.

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For developers — copy this prompt as JSON

{
  "title": "CRT Television Screen Still",
  "prompt": "A close photograph of an old cathode-ray tube television glowing in a dark room, the curved glass front filling most of the frame, on screen a softly abstract sunset landscape rendered in broadcast-era colour, visible horizontal scanlines and a faint RGB phosphor dot pattern across the picture, gentle barrel distortion bending the image toward the corners, a soft bloom of light spilling off the glass onto the dusty plastic bezel, static fuzz creeping in at the outer edges, warm dust motes in the projected glow, the darkened room behind lit only by the screen, shallow depth of field on the bezel, no text, no letters, no channel numbers, no watermark --ar 4:3 --stylize 200",
  "model": "Midjourney",
  "model_version": "v7",
  "settings": {
    "aspect_ratio": "4:3",
    "stylize": 200
  },
  "style_tags": [
    "vintage",
    "moody"
  ],
  "use_case_tags": [
    "wallpaper",
    "youtube-thumbnails"
  ],
  "source_url": "https://promptkoi.com/prompts/midjourney/crt-television-screen-still/"
}

The whole library is available as an open JSON dataset · developer docs.