Thinking of getting a CRT tv

[Da_Shocker]

Saturn games jsut don't look right on my LCD. I have yet to play my Genesis on it and I don't think my SNES looked bad on it. And folks I live in the USA and we didn't have to many TV sets that supported scrrt RGB outside of some big ass projection screen tv's.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Saturn games jsut don't look right on my LCD. I have yet to play my Genesis on it and I don't think my SNES looked bad on it. And folks I live in the USA and we didn't have to many TV sets that supported scrrt RGB outside of some big ass projection screen tv's.

There are products like the X-RGB and CSY-2100. The X-RGB takes RGB SCART and actually upscales it if I remember correctly and reduces lag, while the CSY-2100 will take RGB SCART and turn it into YUV Component to allow you to essentially hook RGB into an American TV. I don't know if it has any effect on lag though.

[Xeniczone]

If I remember correctly the problem stems from if your TV can handle a 480i signal or if it has to upscale it. If it has to be upscaled then it will lag, if it can handle it and display it without needing to upscale it wont lag. It also depends on how good your TV can upscale things. If I remember correctly a lot of Samsung LCDs have good upscalers in them that can upscale very quickly so there isn't really a lag.

This is probably true for some of the lower quality (shitty) TV's like Vizio's, Emerson's, and most off-brand companies that make LCD TVs for poor people.

Some of the higher end TVs, namely Sony (Not L-Series) and Samsung, use much high quality scaling chips, faster and better. Which should present this problem. We have a pretty good Philips that we use for games, and I don't see any delay for PSone games. I've never hooked up a Saturn to it though.

Saturn games jsut don't look right on my LCD. I have yet to play my Genesis on it and I don't think my SNES looked bad on it. And folks I live in the USA and we didn't have to many TV sets that supported scrrt RGB outside of some big ass projection screen tv's.

If you have the room for a big-ass projection TV, I say go for it. I have one and it just make games that much better, bigger the better right? :P If not, no big deal, but I feel 24 inches is a little small. If your looking at using lightguns, I would stay away from the flat screens to. They seem to mess with the light guns, I think it has something to do with the weird shape of the glass that makes the TV flat.

Which cables are you using to hook up your Saturn? Have you tried S-Video, or a RGB to VGA/HDMI converter? I believe some TVs can read the 15Hz RGB signal (compared to 30Hz VGA), so your TV may have support for RGB Scart through the VGA port. I can't remember correctly, and I wouldn't take my word for it, but I believe you hook everything up like normal R to R, B to B, G to G, but then the Composite Sync signal will go into the HSync. Their are also some capacitors and stuff that you should add in between it. If that doesn't work then either your TV is incompatible with 15Hz, or it can't split the CSync on its own and require additional circuitry.

[the.importer]

@mick_aka

I don't consider myself a professional fighting game player, but people who are will tell you to stay away from non-CRTs for retro fighters unless they've been remade to be progressive.

[mick_aka]

How are the colors on the Plasma anyway? I read varying reports of it fading out extremely quickly or of them being dull in the first place. My LCD has the same colors it had when I bought it (or very similar).

2 years old and as vivid as the day I got it, I think old plasmas gave plasma TVs a bad rep, I originally got mine for our bedroom but it was so much better image wise than the Samsung LCD that we swapped them.

@mick_aka

I don't consider myself a professional fighting game player, but people who are will tell you to stay away from non-CRTs for retro fighters unless they've been remade to be progressive.

I've had no issues whatsoever, I'm I'm very much into my fighters, regardless of console and 2D/3D I've yet to have any issues.
Certainly no lag of any kind, however it is essential that you have ALL software filters on the TV turned off.

[Christuserloeser]

Since my LCD TV makes my Saturn games look awful.

I'd MUCH rather invest that money into a RGB-SCART to HDMI converter: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/230436573460
It'll make ALL your retro consoles look awesome.

Other than that it already helps a lot to set Sharpness to 0 and deactivate all video filters via your TV's user menu.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

I'd MUCH rather invest that money into a RGB-SCART to HDMI converter: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/230436573460
It'll make ALL your retro consoles look awesome.

Other than that it already helps a lot to set Sharpness to 0 and deactivate all video filters via your TV's user menu.

If I remember correctly Scart to HDMI converters upscale and end up not looking as good as a Scart to YUV Component converter due to the nature of upscaling.

[Christuserloeser]

So you have both ?

(I've seen screenshots that looked great of both adapters, but I don't think any of us ever had access to both.)

PS: Also remember that there are two different HDMI adapters out there. One forces widescreen and didn't look too hot. The one I linked to is the good one.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

So you have both ?

(I've seen screenshots that looked great of both adapters, but I don't think any of us ever had access to both.)

PS: Also remember that there are two different HDMI adapters out there. One forces widescreen and didn't look too hot. The one I linked to is the good one.

I have neither, I'm going off of comparisons I've seen on youtube. So I could be wrong here.

[Christuserloeser]

Yeah, there's that guy whose name escapes me right now (EDIT: phonedork ?) but he has this YT video claiming that component is better than HDMI when trying to hook up retro consoles via RGB. But he obviously bases his claims on a comparison of his setup with that seen on another guy's YT video...

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Yeah, there's that guy whose name escapes me right now (EDIT: phonedork ?) but he has this YT video claiming that component is better than HDMI when trying to hook up retro consoles via RGB. But he obviously bases his claims on a comparison of his setup with that seen on another guy's YT video...

It wouldn't surprise me if it really does look worse though, when you upscale you create data that isn't there which almost always looks worse.

[Christuserloeser]

The component video converter does require the TV to do the upscaling/deinterlacing which may introduce all kinds of issues, while the HDMI converter does the upscaling before feeding the signal digitally to the TV.

[kool kitty89]

If I'm not wrong, I think HD plasmas still upscale 480i; losing information in the process. The loss is so minimal though, I guess it balances out.

All HDTVs have to support SDTV resolutions, and by convention that's ALL that will be put through composite or s-video.

The question is: how well does it handle those resolutions, how flexible is it, how user-programmable are the settings related to it (ie filter NOT forced), is there good 240p support, is the composite video decoding good, or s-video chroma decoding, etc, etc?
There's some features's we'll probably never get, but the better SD support in HD sets is at least on par with the better LCD SDTVs you say 4-5 years ago.

Of course, you also have a rather broad quality range for some CRT SDTVs as well in regards to RF decoding/fine tuning, composite video decoding, S-video support, component support, anamorphic display support, sharpness control, contrast/brightness/picture/black level, hue, color intensity, filtering, etc. Then general quality of the CRT in terms of size, dot pitch, beam precision, calibration, etc.

How are the colors on the Plasma anyway? I read varying reports of it fading out extremely quickly or of them being dull in the first place. My LCD has the same colors it had when I bought it (or very similar).

That's rather odd: the main advantage to plasma (and CRT) HD sets are the excellent color/contrast of the display as well as the viewing angle. Older/cheaper LCDs were bad with that, though they've come a long way. (not quite there, but very close in the high-end stuff -especially with dynamic LED backlighting)

The problem on some Plasmas (especially early ones) is burn-in if the screen is left on a static screen for a long period of time. (older CRTs did that too)


No light gun support, of course. (other than the Zapper maybe -need to check that again)

[KnightWarrior]

Just get a CRT

Leave the LCD for PS3/X360

[Christuserloeser]

A CRT with component in or S-Video definitely is a good option if you got the space for two TVs.