TVs

[genesisguy]

My 1982 Montgomery Ward TV looks like utter crap lately. I can't afford a high def or flat screen TV. What size, type, etc do you use and find the best bang for buck for gaming 8 and 16 bits?

[Joe Redifer]

Maybe it is time to step up to a nice 1987 Sears TV.

[Zebbe]

I use a Philips fat TV. It looks great. The new TVs don't work very well with old video games.

[TmEE]

28"+ CRT with (half)flat screen and RGB SCART inputs is the way to go... Philips kicks ass, I have one too, actually 2 :)

[17daysolderthannes]

yeah, speaking of this, what is the ideal size (inches) for video games PSX and before? I've heard 20" and that sounds about right. What size are most arcade monitors (talking back in the day when arcades still had joysticks, not Phantom Menace Racer 5,000" megascreens)

[Iron Lizard]

I second the Philips suggestions. Mine looks awesome and it only cost me $60. My PlayStation games look awesome thought the component.

[mick_aka]

2002 32" Sony Trinitron 4:3 CRT

Literally the best picture I've seen out of a MegaDrive or Saturn, both through RGB SCART

[kool kitty89]

Flat screen CRT TV's are great, and they work with light guns! (unlike most LCD and Plasma TV's it seems)

Phillips is good, my family's had good experience with Sanyo and Sony too. Before that we had pretty nice Sony tv from the early '90s, it lasted up until about 4 years ago when the screen gave out. (the whole thing went rainbo colors like the whole mask had been deformed by a magnet)

If you get a new TV, make sure it has S-Video, oddly some just have stopped offering it despite having component video and composite.


2002 32" Sony Trinitron 4:3 CRT

Literally the best picture I've seen out of a MegaDrive or Saturn, both through RGB SCART

Gah, don't taunt us with your RGB! :p Us poor Americans are stuck with composite (unmodded), while all you guys have to do is go buy an SCAR cable... :(

[evildragon]

Maybe it is time to step up to a nice 1987 Sears TV.
OMG I have one of those! "LXI Series" 13". It was and still is, a rather nice TV.

[Rusty Venture]

I would rock games out on an early 90's Sony Trinitron...preferably a 27".

I played SOR2 on my parents 27" some years ago....the characters were like 4" tall...which was jawusum beyond jawusum.

[jerry coeurl]

Trinitron's fucking rule. I want one!

[Flygon]

I have a 21in TV made by TCL.

It looks beautiful, even with composite. The chinese seem to do everything right.

My mother owns a flat screen 32in widescreen CRT TV made by Hisense and stuff looks brilliant on that too, but in general, any CRT TV between 17in to 42in (There is such a monster) should do wonders as long as you arent using RF. ^.^

[kool kitty89]

I would rock games out on an early 90's Sony Trinitron...preferably a 27".

I played SOR2 on my parents 27" some years ago....the characters were like 4" tall...which was jawusum beyond jawusum.

That sounds about like what we had, I think it was a 27" (or close to it) '90 or '91 model. Did those have S-Video? We had ours a good 15 years before it gave out. (and it may have been fixable, but we felt it was time for an upgrade)
It had an interesting remote, like 2"x5" with a sliding panel on the front bottom half as the battery door. (with the batteries coming out the front rather than the back) I think there may also have been some extra buttons under the pannel.

Nice TV though.

I think it looked a lot like this one: http://www.thytraits.com/edit/tv1.jpg

The side handel in particular I remember.

[WarmSignal]

If I may ask... why does everyone prefer old CRTs again?

[Iron Lizard]

Because old games look the best on them.

[Rusty Venture]

If I may ask... why does everyone prefer old CRTs again?

Because CRT's are the only TV's 100% "Blast Processor" compatible.

[Devil N]

Old games are designed to be played on interlaced screens, simply because that's what was common at the time. Modern LCDs and plasmas are all progressive screens, and so require a deinterlacing step before they can display old games. Deinterlacing usually works fine on normal TV broadcasts and 3D games (though quality varies depending on the TV), but for 2D games it simply doesn't look good. Old CRT screens display incoming signals in their original interlaced form, without any filtering, and that always looks best.

[Iron Lizard]

Better black levels, contrast,etc.

[Flygon]

Old games are designed to be played on interlaced screens, simply because that's what was common at the time. Modern LCDs and plasmas are all progressive screens, and so require a deinterlacing step before they can display old games. Deinterlacing usually works fine on normal TV broadcasts and 3D games (though quality varies depending on the TV), but for 2D games it simply doesn't look good. Old CRT screens display incoming signals in their original interlaced form, without any filtering, and that always looks best.
Mega Drive games arent actually interlaced, they are all 240p. The only game that actually used the interlace mode was Sonic 2.

[Devil N]

Mega Drive games arent actually interlaced, they are all 240p. The only game that actually used the interlace mode was Sonic 2.
True, but the actual signal that gets sent to the TV is always either 480i or 576i, and the TV doesn't know the difference. If you could tell a TV that the image was originally constructed in 240p resolution, then of course it could reconstruct that image faithfully from the interlaced signal. Sadly, no TV that I know of does this.

[Chilly Willy]

True, but the actual signal that gets sent to the TV is always either 480i or 576i, and the TV doesn't know the difference. If you could tell a TV that the image was originally constructed in 240p resolution, then of course it could reconstruct that image faithfully from the interlaced signal. Sadly, no TV that I know of does this.

Incorrect. The signal sent to the TV IS 240p, not 480i. The TV interlaces only when a half a horizontal line difference is introduced to the vertical sync signal. So an interlaced signal generates 262.5 H lines per field, while a console in non-interlaced mode generates 262 H lines per field. That extra .5 H is critical for interlacing as it actually laces the lines of the next field between the lines of the previous field. Without the half line, the next field is drawn directly over top the previous field. These are NTSC figures, of course. PAL has more lines at a slower field rate.

[WarmSignal]

Because CRT's are the only TV's 100% "Blast Processor" compatible.

Blast processing eh... is that anything like a blast beat?

[WarmSignal]

Old games are designed to be played on interlaced screens, simply because that's what was common at the time. Modern LCDs and plasmas are all progressive screens, and so require a deinterlacing step before they can display old games. Deinterlacing usually works fine on normal TV broadcasts and 3D games (though quality varies depending on the TV), but for 2D games it simply doesn't look good. Old CRT screens display incoming signals in their original interlaced form, without any filtering, and that always looks best.

Hmm. I use a 22" LCD and I have no complaints.

[Rusty Venture]

Blast processing eh... is that anything like a blast beat?

Holy Raul Julia. :eek:

Do you forget where you're posting?

[WarmSignal]

Holy Raul Julia. :eek:

Do you forget where you're posting?

Nope. :rock:

[Rusty Venture]

I like your style, WarmSignal. You remind me of a young me, not much younger mind you... perhaps even a couple years older.

[Christuserloeser]

If I may ask... why does everyone prefer old CRTs again?

CRTs are the only ones capable of displaying 240p as 240p. Most HDTVs somehow think they'd be getting a 480i signal and mess up the picture by applying de-interlacing filters and other such nonsens. They are good for anything 480p and up though.


If you live in Europe, it's no question what to buy for retro gaming: A 4:3 CRT with RGB-SCART socket.

If you're in the US it's kinda hard to say whether a CRT via S-Video or an LCD with RGB-SCART to HDMI converter would be the better option.

[gamegenie]

Even though I have all my consoles on my 30" HDTV, even it being a CRT it is still not fully compatible with my Sega accessories. My Sega Menacer doesn't work at all on it. My guess its that whole up converting it does to any 480i picture it receives and converts it to 480p out.

I do have a extra 27" SDTV on hand to test with.

[mick_aka]

I would guess gamegenie that your TV runs in 100Hz, also making it incompatible with the menacer or indeed any light guns....

[Christuserloeser]

I've tested three 4:3 CRT based HDTVs with Mega Drive via a custom made RGB-SCART cable (which doesn't output an additional composite signal, but RGB only). The Philips looked absolutely terrible and disabling all filters didn't help the slightest bit, the Grundig looked kinda okay I guess with colors that looked more like S-Video than RGB. The Samsung looked pretty good actually, but none of them came close to my 80s Nokia TV.

And yeah: any CRTs with 100Hz do indeed cause a similar mess as to what modern HDTVs do.


- The best CRTs are the simple ones without digital picture enhancements.

[Devil N]

Incorrect. The signal sent to the TV IS 240p, not 480i. The TV interlaces only when a half a horizontal line difference is introduced to the vertical sync signal. So an interlaced signal generates 262.5 H lines per field, while a console in non-interlaced mode generates 262 H lines per field. That extra .5 H is critical for interlacing as it actually laces the lines of the next field between the lines of the previous field. Without the half line, the next field is drawn directly over top the previous field. These are NTSC figures, of course. PAL has more lines at a slower field rate.


CRTs are the only ones capable of displaying 240p as 240p. Most HDTVs somehow think they'd be getting a 480i signal and mess up the picture by applying de-interlacing filters and other such nonsens.

^^^

That's pretty much what I meant. I'm not completely familiar with all the technical details of analog TV signals, so forgive me if my statements are not 100% correct all the time. My point remains the same though, which is that even the best HDTVs will try to deinterlace the signal coming from a Genesis/Mega Drive, even though it is completely unnecessary and undesirable.

My HDTV has one of the best deinterlacers available on the market (a Faroudja DCDi, I specifically chose it with that feature in mind), and it generally does a pretty good job with 2D graphics. Still images look pixelly as they should, while animating sprites get a sort of 2xSaI look, which is really not that bad.
It starts to fall apart though with flickering effects, such as often used for transparency or shadows. The deinterlacer will try to guess what goes in between the frames with and without the effect, and even the best algorithms can't avoid it becoming a horrible horizontally-striped mess.

For my classic consoles, I really don't want any of this. CRTs don't have any of these problems, and present the incoming images exactly as they are supposed to be.


I've tested three 4:3 CRT based HDTVs with Mega Drive via a custom made RGB-SCART cable (which doesn't output an additional composite signal, but RGB only). The Philips looked absolutely terrible and disabling all filters didn't help the slightest bit, the Grundig looked kinda okay I guess with colors that looked more like S-Video than RGB. The Samsung looked pretty good actually, but none of them came close to my 80s Nokia TV.

And yeah: any CRTs with 100Hz do indeed cause a similar mess as to what modern HDTVs do.


- The best CRTs are the simple ones without digital picture enhancements.
QFT.

The less digital filters applied to the image, the better. Philips TVs in particular are notorious for featuring all sorts of redundant filters that are supposedly meant to improve the image, but usually just make a blurry unnatural looking mess out of it. For any kind of computer generated imagery, you'll want as little tampering to the incoming images as possible before they are displayed on the screen. Classic CRT TVs fit this bill perfectly.

[TmEE]

Philips made awesome CRTs at least....

[Christuserloeser]

Philips made awesome CRTs at least....

I don't doubt that at all, but the one HD CRT I tested definitely wasn't a good TV for 240p content.

[TmEE]

me loves my 10 year old 28" Philips... and it was really hard to find, CRTs over 21" are rarities here....

[kool kitty89]

Our main TV in our entertainment center is a 28" flat screen CRT Sanyo, ~5 years old I think.

Resolution's not incredible, but it looks good, and it's got component video hook-ups. We only get broadcast television anyway, which is currently hooked up through composite from our digital switchbox. (still looks way better than analog) I think out DVD player and family PC are hooked up through component, and the Wii certainly is. (out gamecube previously was too, luckily we got an earlier model that supported it, oddly the late models removed the component port)

Anyway, it looks great from Atari through 6th-gen (and Wii, whcih isn't high def anyway), and as it's a CRT light guns work great! I think it only supports up to 480i though, we have almost everything set up in 16x9 that will though. (TV's digital box, Wii, PC/DVD -usually, and formerly for the GC for all games that supported a high detail 16x9 mode, like Star Fox adventures)

It also seems pretty energy efficient, inless it's winter it's hard to even tell if it's been on or not.
(for it's size I think it uses less power than out little LCD Phillips, which gets pretty warm)

[Chilly Willy]

My point remains the same though, which is that even the best HDTVs will try to deinterlace the signal coming from a Genesis/Mega Drive, even though it is completely unnecessary and undesirable.


Ah, yes, that makes more sense. An HDTV trying to deinterlace a signal that's not interlaced WOULD cause a problem. Guess I'm lucky that mine doesn't have that problem.

[Flygon]

I'd say Hisense makes good TV's, the picture is great, the screen is flat and the TV is at a monstrous 32 inches (It is widescreen, but it is still big). Feeding it imagery from a Mega Drive via RF gaves pretty good results (May be skewed due to the fact that the RF box has no antennas connected), nothing blends too much (Though it is noticable at times). It also has VGA input, but I have not tested if it can do progressive scanning at whatever resolution, I should get myself a VGA cable and find out. The TV is not at my main house however, my Mum owns it, she only brought it because it was the biggest TV she could get in the price range two years ago.

My main TV for Mega Drive gaming is a 21in TCL TV, the Chinese just keep making awesome high quality products. It may be a dome of a TV, but it does a damn good job with Composite. Only got it because my perants wanted a new bedroom TV before the split and moved house, it replaced a 1980 14in TV (Which only has RF, and yes, I did used to play Mega Drive games on it, the quality is suffering horridly from the age of the TV though, I want it from my sister when the digital cutoff occours to see what true RF display is like), the brand of the TV is Sharp. Oh and yes, it has manual tuning only! Oh how I love that feature, the quality is easy to adjust.

Also, about the statements of the deinterlacing of a progressive signal and so on, I can confirm them all, I have a 50in Plasma at my fathers loungeroom and it thinks it is a good idea to try and deinterlace the signal, there is also some noticable blurring (Tested with Shining Force II, with its portraits) even with the 100hz mode turned off. I am pretty sure the brand is Phillips, but I am not sure, I'll confirm later on today if I remember. I have tested the 240p with a Mega Drive and the Wii (Using homebrew emulators ^.^).

I agree with Tiido though, Phillips makes AWESOME CRT displays, I have a 17in CRT monitor (Currently not being used, sitting next to the TCL TV at the moment) and it is the BEST CRT I have ever seen, with 'blending' effects only just starting to blend in at 1280*1024.

This had to be the most indepth post I have EVER made on the internet.

[war2thegrave]

I've got a 27" phillips made in either 2001 or 2002.
I bought it as a refurb unit from a sears repair center.

It took me about 2 years before I understood the difference between
composite, s-video, and component video which I didn't figure out
untill I bought my first dvd player.

It's starting screw up though.
Sometimes, when I turn it on, the picture becomes scrambled and it
will shut down, but corrects it's self once I turn it back on.

If it dies, I'll figure out how to fix it.
It's got a great picture, especially displaying 240p video from
the genesis.

It can even run in PAL mode.

[jetlag]

Glad I'm using a philips RGB monitor (cm8833).These are so handy.

[Sudo]

I play my PS3 (including PS2 BC) and 360 on a 24 inch 1080p monitor from Dell, the quality is excellent. Everything older than that is played on my 21 inch flat screen Toshiba CRT from 4 years or so ago.

[Smii]

I would guess gamegenie that your TV runs in 100Hz, also making it incompatible with the menacer or indeed any light guns....

Heh... the Menacer is incompatible with my sense of "decent light gun" :)

I have 2 tvs, an ancient CRT one, and a newer flat one. The only older games that look good on the new one are emulated older games. (I use it as a PC monitor as well). If ancient one should perish, seek out new old tv I must. 'hem. :/

[gamevet]

I have a 32" Sony Wega (HD) in my office. It works pretty well with the older consoles, but it doesn't support light gun games, since it has an HD screen. I do have a 27" Sony Wega that is perfect for everything else, but I've yet to move it into my office. I also have an older Sony 27" Trinitron (It needs the tuner chip repaired) that worked perfectly for Saturn light gun games, but the Dreamcast light gun games never worked that well with either of my 27" televisions.

[Rusty Venture]

Heh... the Menacer is incompatible with my sense of "decent light gun" :)

1000% Truth.

[kool kitty89]

Why didn't they just use the light phaser instead? (or could it be used on the genesis?)

[Rusty Venture]

Government legislation dictated that any light gun created after 1990 must suck ass.

This was repealed right before the Guncon was released.

[johnnyb]

Government legislation dictated that any light gun created after 1990 must suck ass.

This was repealed right before the Guncon was released.

You are so full of ..... knowledge Rusty!:D What would we do without you?

[war2thegrave]

Government legislation dictated that any light gun created after 1990 must suck ass.

This was repealed right before the Guncon was released.

Certianly, you must be forgetting the awesomeness of the Justifier.

[Rusty Venture]

You are so full of ..... knowledge Rusty!:D What would we do without you?

Wander aimlessly through life.

[iluvclassicgaming]

Go on craigslist.com for your area and check for Sony or Panasonic 27" crt's. If one is cheap enough for you, take the chance.
They're the best for classic gaming and people are dumping them cheap for the latest and greatest.

Personally, I hate playing games on widescreen tv's.

[Christuserloeser]

^ what he wrote.

[Devil N]

Incorrect. The signal sent to the TV IS 240p, not 480i. The TV interlaces only when a half a horizontal line difference is introduced to the vertical sync signal. So an interlaced signal generates 262.5 H lines per field, while a console in non-interlaced mode generates 262 H lines per field. That extra .5 H is critical for interlacing as it actually laces the lines of the next field between the lines of the previous field. Without the half line, the next field is drawn directly over top the previous field. These are NTSC figures, of course. PAL has more lines at a slower field rate.
I've done some more digging, and I hadn't fully realized before that 240p/288p exist as non-standard variants of NTSC/PAL, nor what that exactly meant in practice, nor that it was common for classic consoles to use this.

Of course I now have to test how my TV actually handles these non-standard progressive signals. I don't have my Mega Drive at hand at the moment, so I used Rayman on my PS2 to get a 288p signal. If this Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-definition_television) is to be believed, older PS1 games on a PS2 should still result in a 240p/288p signal. So a first-generation PS1 game such as Rayman should do the trick, and its 2D graphics make it easy to see if my TV is deinterlacing or not. Result: the following movie.

gcWVlyU9Dpw

As you can see, while the 288p signal should not require any deinterlacing, my TV apparently treats it as a normal 576i signal and deinterlaces it nonetheless. Thanks to the Toshiba's awesome Faroudja DCDi deinterlacer however, the image quality remains very good. Note how the jagged edge of the mountain in the background becomes smoother in motion, without becoming blurry.

Still, I can't be 100% sure that this was 288p, so I'll have to hook up my Mega Drive at some point to guarantee that my TV is getting a progressive signal.

Either way, no matter how good my TV manages to make PAL/NTSC signals look, playing classic games on it just doesn't look right. I'll stick with a CRT for my Mega Drive until there's not a single CRT TV left on this planet.

[Chilly Willy]

One of my HDTVs mentions 240p in the list of modes supported, but the other doesn't. Nice video clip - you can definitely see the artifacts, but it's not really bad. I suppose some games look worse than others with that issue.

[Devil N]

Right. My TV's manual doesn't make any mention of 240p/288p support, only 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p and 1080i. Of course I didn't choose my TV with 240p in mind. The Faroudja DCDi chip was a conscious choice, on the other hand.

Also, while playing Rayman to make that movie, I had to look really hard to verify that it did any deinterlacing. When the image is still, it looks just as pixellated as it should, without artifacts of any kind. But when the image is in motion, your brain already tends to smoothen out what you see, making it difficult to see if any deinterlacing is taking place. It wasn't until I saw that mountain edge that I was absolutely sure the deinterlacer was active.

Also, as mentioned before, the only time I can actually see any deinterlacing artifacts (as in: the deinterlacer really fucks up) is on flickering effects used for transparency and shadows. I've seen other LCD TVs that do much worse in that respect than mine.

[Chilly Willy]

Right. My TV's manual doesn't make any mention of 240p/288p support, only 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p and 1080i. Of course I didn't choose my TV with 240p in mind. The Faroudja DCDi chip was a conscious choice, on the other hand.

I don't think most people think of that when buying an HDTV. I mean, you're thinking of HD, not old consoles. I know I didn't think about myself... I was more worried about it working with the PS3. :D