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Best CRT TV for old school systems...?
- Thread starter Fernando Rocker
- Start date
In general I find flat tubed TVs to be just fine. It's only a problem if you want to use a lightgun, since those games were programmed after how curved tubes behave. But other than that I think it looks great and all that. Just don't get a 100/120hz TV. That's the only thing I don't like about my Trinitron. It makes NES games a tad blurry when things are moving.
But there is indeed something to that look of a retro 2D game on a curved tube. That's what you want ideally, but it's fine on flat tubes as well.
But there is indeed something to that look of a retro 2D game on a curved tube. That's what you want ideally, but it's fine on flat tubes as well.
Please name one, because I am not aware of a single game designed around being displayed on a curved screen.
Light gun functionality has no relation to screen curvature.
Incorrect.
ExitPlanetDust
Member
Good luck, man.
Inno
Member
I can strongly recommend the Commodore series monitors for retro consoles. I was lucky enough to grow up with an Amiga 2000 and a Commodore 1081. The rgb picture quality on it was ridiculously good. I used all my consoles on it as well. Sadly it died in the late 90's.
I searched around for another but could not find one at the time. Now though it seems retro gaming is gaining popularity again and these types of monitors are actually easier to find. A couple of years ago I picked up a Commodore 1084-S. While the picture on it is good it's not as good as the 1081 so the search continued.
A couple of days ago I received this.
I haven't calibrated it yet but can already tell the picture quality is just as good as I remember from my old Commodore 1081.
Here are some shots in RGB.
If you are in Europe these monitors can be found with Scart connectors on the back. The ones without scart support RGB as well but the scart connection just makes things easier. Meaning you don't have to build custom cables. Scart rgb cables can easily be found for nearly every console.
I searched around for another but could not find one at the time. Now though it seems retro gaming is gaining popularity again and these types of monitors are actually easier to find. A couple of years ago I picked up a Commodore 1084-S. While the picture on it is good it's not as good as the 1081 so the search continued.
A couple of days ago I received this.
A Philips CM8833 MK-I
I haven't calibrated it yet but can already tell the picture quality is just as good as I remember from my old Commodore 1081.
Here are some shots in RGB.
If you are in Europe these monitors can be found with Scart connectors on the back. The ones without scart support RGB as well but the scart connection just makes things easier. Meaning you don't have to build custom cables. Scart rgb cables can easily be found for nearly every console.
Just picked up a Sony Trinitron 27" that was manufactured in 1994.
However I have some questions about the actual image from my S-Video connection on the Dreamcast.
It's hard to take a photo of the black line on the left, but it is skewed versus showing the full image (without a border) on the right.
And here is what it looks like on the right, but note it takes up the full screen with no black border:
The full TV, might be hard to tell the "wavyness" on the left:
There is also a black mark in the top left corner:
It shows up when playing games as well, and this is the brightness turned all the way up and the Luminance mode turned off.
So is this just normal with old CRT's in S-Video? I haven't tried my SNES/N64 yet because I'm still waiting for my S-Video cables to come in.
Otherwise its a great TV.
I picked up a 24" Wega the other day, made in 2005 (IIRC) and it doesn't have nearly the good picture quality this TV has.
However I have some questions about the actual image from my S-Video connection on the Dreamcast.
It's hard to take a photo of the black line on the left, but it is skewed versus showing the full image (without a border) on the right.
And here is what it looks like on the right, but note it takes up the full screen with no black border:
The full TV, might be hard to tell the "wavyness" on the left:
There is also a black mark in the top left corner:
It shows up when playing games as well, and this is the brightness turned all the way up and the Luminance mode turned off.
So is this just normal with old CRT's in S-Video? I haven't tried my SNES/N64 yet because I'm still waiting for my S-Video cables to come in.
Otherwise its a great TV.
I picked up a 24" Wega the other day, made in 2005 (IIRC) and it doesn't have nearly the good picture quality this TV has.
The "wavy" border on the left is due to two things. One is the pincushion adjustment. Trinitrons have the ability to adjust upper and lower pincushion, together and independently. Adjusting the PAMP, UPIN, and LPIN settings in the service mode will help. The second factor is your contrast. There is nothing you can do to fix this short of making the screen far too dark. The power supply cannot handle even moderately bright portions of the image, and will distort. You may not see these problems in normal use because the image fills the screen and has overscan. Usually, video game consoles will have one border or the other exposed. I will vary from game to game, and also depending on the video mode used. This isn't possible to fix unless you accept major overscan on both sides.
The dark spot you see would be fixed by adjusting the "landing". This requires physical manipulation of the yoke and magnets. In other words, not fixable unless you know what you are doing and want to risk being electrocuted.
The dark spot you see would be fixed by adjusting the "landing". This requires physical manipulation of the yoke and magnets. In other words, not fixable unless you know what you are doing and want to risk being electrocuted.
Canadian Psycho
Banned
I have two 32 inch Wegas from 2005-2006. They're perfect for me. I love the sound, image quality and overall look of the TV. I'm no purist though: I know nothing about S-Video/composite, etc. etc. It's all techno babble for me... I'm literally stuck in the 80s-90s, lol.
Thanks for explaining this to me.
Ok so I just got the Monster S-Video connections for the SNES/N64/GC. I no longer have that problem with the black bar on the left, it fills up the entire screen (for the N64, not the SNES). Wish I had a service mode to adjust.
However I am seeing some tint problems (I think):
There is a red faint haze on the right of the number, I've seen this happen on my old JVC and turning down the tint I think helped. But I don't have that option. Is there a particular setting I should adjust. I will post what video settings I can adjust below:
I don't see a repair mode either:
Would the 240p calibration suite that was posted earlier help with configuring my video settings?
That tint is mis-convergence in the corner. It's almost guaranteed to exist in at least one corner. You have to physically adjust magnets inside to fix.
Sony service mode: http://myweb.accessus.net/~090/sonyadj.html
Sony service mode: http://myweb.accessus.net/~090/sonyadj.html
It honestly bothers me enough to the point where I just cranked up the HSIZ and HPOS because I find it so distracting. It skews the aspect ratio a bit but it drives me bonkers otherwise haha.
EDIT:
This link is awesome. I wish I knew this existed earlier. I never knew what half of those values actually represented. In order to fiddle with underscan I would literally just start pressing buttons until I got what I wanted.
ExitPlanetDust
Member
Man, thanks for the link! I had pretty much given up on finding a service mode for my late 90s Trinitron.
IMACOMPUTA
Member
I'm going to pick this up later : http://rockford.craigslist.org/ele/3620438896.html
What do you guys think?
What do you guys think?
Inno
Member
Search for Sony BVM or PVM monitors instead. They are professional broadcasting equipment which cost thousands of dollars back when they were sold. Now you can find them under $100. They accept just about every connection including s-video, component and RGB. And the picture quality is out of this world.
Same set I have, just be sure to actually see it on in person. I made a slight mistake in my purchase. There can be a bit of a bowing issue that isn't really adjustable from inside the service menu. Other than that it's been awesome, just make sure to turn the brightness down on them if necessary/switch and play around with the picture modes. When I got mine it was set to vivid and whites flared like crazy along with just about any color to the point where I couldn't even really see scanlines on 240p content.
Trinitrons can get crazy bright lol.
RoninChaos
Member
Time to hit up Craig's list I think.
Back when all I played was PSone, I did the same. Over time, I noticed that the games had varying levels of overscan and different alignment. It was impossible to get all games to have no border while keeping all important parts viewable. It got even worse when I added my NES and SNES. Now, is just adjusted the image to a standard crosshatch pattern with roughly 5% overscan on each edge and don't concern myself with the borders.
Since it was mentioned, yes, always check the image of the TV you are buying. Horizontal bow is NOT able to be adjusted. Almost all sets will have some bow along the top, but any severe or uneven bow should be avoided. It cannot be fixed. I always take a DVD player and my AVIA DVD, which has test patterns. All you need is a crosshatch pattern. THX DVD movies may have this as well. (Star wars, etc)
Preview from upcoming NES RGB blowout.
This is actually a stock NES (running composite) fed into an XRGB Mini and output on a Pioneer plasma. A crop from a snapshot.
Look at those lovely scanlines. Unlike an emulator, the edges of the pixels have a bit of "analog softness" to them similar to what you'd see on a genuine CRT. It looks glorious.
Next to that is a crop from the Thunder Force IV (Lightening Force) config screen on Genesis using RGB.
The full image is quite lovely to behold.
This is actually a stock NES (running composite) fed into an XRGB Mini and output on a Pioneer plasma. A crop from a snapshot.
Look at those lovely scanlines. Unlike an emulator, the edges of the pixels have a bit of "analog softness" to them similar to what you'd see on a genuine CRT. It looks glorious.
Next to that is a crop from the Thunder Force IV (Lightening Force) config screen on Genesis using RGB.
The full image is quite lovely to behold.
Yep after hooking it up, everything looks great! Of course somehow my Genesis Model 1 AV cables ended up dying (video plug only)...but on the bright side beat TMNT IV in co-op lol. Was supposed to just be testing out the S-video, ended up going through the whole thing.
Preview from upcoming NES RGB blowout.
This is actually a stock NES (running composite) fed into an XRGB Mini and output on a Pioneer plasma. A crop from a snapshot.
Look at those lovely scanlines. Unlike an emulator, the edges of the pixels have a bit of "analog softness" to them similar to what you'd see on a genuine CRT. It looks glorious.
Next to that is a crop from the Thunder Force IV (Lightening Force) config screen on Genesis using RGB.
The full image is quite lovely to behold.
What's the benefit of one of those devices over a CRT TV? Space only?
And another question... how many inputs do they have? Will I have to unplug and plug every old school system I want to play?
Space is definitely a huge consideration here. I'm moving very shortly and will have to leave my CRTs behind so I was left to find an acceptable solution that I could use with a single display.
As you can guess, flat panel TVs simply don't handle low resolution material well at all (especially games). Poor image quality, smearing, and input lag are just some of what you'll experience without an external scaler such as this.
What something like the XRGB provides is minimal input lag and the ability to "emulate" the look of using a CRT. It's still limited by the display you're using, of course, but it looks infinitely better than what you'd see otherwise. Even HD CRTs do a poor job handling 240p and 480i content, believe it or not, making this valuable in those situations as well.
It does have some benefits as well. You can, of course, achieve a larger image and things such as geometry flaws and various other CRT issues are not present. The end result is a very clean image with minimal input latency.
As for inputs, well, it has many different types of inputs but not enough for a large collection. I'm using switchers to handle all of the connections and then piping the switchers into the XRGB.
It has more inputs than the actual CRT I was previous using, in fact, and I simply moved the switchers that were previously in my CRT setup and added the XRGB at the end of the chain. Simple!
Here's a shot from Blaster Master directly connected to my Pioneer Kuro. It looks decent enough in a still shot, but as you begin to move, the pixels completely lose their sharp edges resulting in a blurred image. This same phenomenon can be observed on one of my other CRTs (and HD ready Sony Trinitron). The same issue occurs there (temporal resolution loss when moving). The XRGB remains razor sharp in motion.
Pioneer left - XRGB on the right (both are just composite, by the way, as I don't have the actual RGB shots ready and the colors change more dramatically)
I see. Thanks.
I am considering getting one of these devices, specially because like you mentioned, space is a concern. There is not enough space in my gaming room for another TV, specially a CRT one. So, I guess I could buy one of those switches with a lot of Composite/S-Video/Component and plug it in into the XRGB Mini/XRGB3?
Also... what's the general consensus about the XRGB Mini and XRGB? Which one is the best one?
EDIT: By the way... those screenshots with the scanlines look glorious.
Well, the XRGB Mini is the most modern scaler and still receives updates. It's also the most compatible option out there. The XRGB3 is also good but it has a few more limitations and is more difficult to use. Ignore anything older than that, however.
Also, the Mini outputs proper HDMI to a variety of resolutions which work better with HDTVs, I've found. The XRGB3 outputs via VGA or DVI (which doesn't pass audio).
I'm using a mix of SCART to mini-din for RGB input (best video quality) as well as s-video and component (for those systems where I have no other option). The XRGB is a Japanese device, however, so if you go for RGB you'll either want Japanese 21-pin cables or, if you have Euro SCART cables, you'll need a converter cable.
Anything with at least a vertically flat tube (standard trinitron) should be usable. Another indicator of a useable TV would be the presence of component input. This would mean the TV was at least made in the past 10 years and not worn out.
Brands such as JVC, Mitsubishi, and Sony are ideal.
Brands such as JVC, Mitsubishi, and Sony are ideal.
Search in Google how to access the Service Menu of your TV. You can adjust most of those problems from there. Just be careful with some of the weird settings.
I got similar lines when fiddling with my Wega´s Service Menu, haven´t been able to hide them since. Looks better than before, though I think I need to open it and adjust some settings manually.
Bit more searching and it seems it's not something the service menu could fix. I might have to fiddle around the back of the monitor and might even have to change some capacitors. Which I'm not exactly comfortable with doing. Guess I'll just exchange this for another one. Sucks too since this monitor is about 15 years old but has near perfect geometry compared to my 10 year old KV-27FS100.
Edit:
Spoke too soon. Someone from another forum pm'd about another possible fix via the service menu. By adjusting "V Blanking" I was able to push it up and hide it. But this more of a band aid solution, might last me a few more years or so. Permanent fix is to actually change the capacitors but I'll just enjoy this awesome monitor for the time being.
Edit:
Spoke too soon. Someone from another forum pm'd about another possible fix via the service menu. By adjusting "V Blanking" I was able to push it up and hide it. But this more of a band aid solution, might last me a few more years or so. Permanent fix is to actually change the capacitors but I'll just enjoy this awesome monitor for the time being.
I think its a different model. This has composite on front and back, as well as s-video, component and RF on back.
I Think I'm going to go with it, here is a video of the same model: http://youtu.be/4fmW2lxhkSk
Hayama Akito
Member
I have a Sony Triniton, nothing to complain.
The KV-27FS13 does not have component, so it must be a different model number. The manual is here.
http://www.docs.sony.com/release/KV27FS13.PDF
http://www.docs.sony.com/release/KV27FS13.PDF
OreoKraickerz
Neo Member
I managed to snag a Trinitron KV-32FV27 for free off Craigslist a few weeks back. The thing is a monstrosity. Weighs about 165 lbs but good lord does it give a nice picture. Great sound too.
I picked up an RGB -> YUV converter and an RGB SCART cable for my SNES too so those games are now looking better than I've ever seen them. I really want to run that 240p calibration tool but I'll need to pick up or borrow a Dreamcast to do so. It looks good as it is but I bet I can get it looking better.
I picked up an RGB -> YUV converter and an RGB SCART cable for my SNES too so those games are now looking better than I've ever seen them. I really want to run that 240p calibration tool but I'll need to pick up or borrow a Dreamcast to do so. It looks good as it is but I bet I can get it looking better.
In the manual it shows all the same connections as in the video...
I just picked this guy up at a Goodwill for 10 bucks. I have the same TV only much smaller (This one is 27", old one is 19") and love it so I picked this up since I've been wanting a bigger set. It's nice too since it has so many inputs I can hook up everything I own to the best of its ability (A/V, S-video, and component).
It's been a long time since I've gamed on a CRT this size. Is that amount of "wavyness" normal or am I just looking for problems where there aren't any?
ExitPlanetDust
Member
That Phillips is a solid set. I have owned two of them. They really take a beating and have a good picture.
What do you mean by wavyness?
What do you mean by wavyness?
In the image I posted, particularly in the Yoshi's dialogue box there, there's a wavy distortion to the picture. It's a bit noticeable, to me at least, when I'm actually playing. I'm not sure if that's just par for the course with a CRT or I'm just being sensitive.
ExitPlanetDust
Member
Could be the signal. What kind of input are you using?
Shadow Hog
Member
If that "waviness" fluctuates a bit (kinda like it's perpetually going up or down), it could be dot-crawl, intrinsic in SNES composite input. S-Video or higher tends to eliminate it.