Should I get a widescreen CRT?

[SamIAm]

I'm hoarding a couple good CRTs before they start becoming really rare. Where I live, 16:9 widescreen CRTs are actually relatively common.

I'm pondering buying a widescreen CRT because there are probably widescreen PS2/Gamecube games running in 480i that look better on them. But then again, I don't know these libraries so well, and I don't know if maybe my 4:3 CRTs are enough for the best games in those libraries, or if enough of the good widescreen games support 480p.

There's also NiGHTS and Panzer Dragoon Zwei on the Saturn. 

What do you guys think? Would it be worth it for those libraries in particular? Or should I just save my pennies for a framemeister?

[MrFulci]

A rear projection, 1080i crt. Lots of fun to be had with those. For low cost!

[SamIAm]

A rear projection, 1080i crt. Lots of fun to be had with those. For low cost!

I've got two 720p/1080i capable Sony TVs with RGB inputs, but they're 4:3. I could get a nice widescreen version of the same sets, but they ain't cheap to ship. I almost bought one that was 87 kilograms.

[EvilEvoIX]

I have a widescreen Sony Wega Widscreen and the same variant 4:3.  Great TV's.  Broadcast TV is only 1080i so these tv's are 1080i as well.  They handle any signal out there from 240p to 1080i.  I fyou are playing game cube games at 480i go get yourself a Wii and component cables for some 480P action.  Some PS2 games are 480P as well and I run my PS2 via Component as well and it looks great, so do PS1 games.

I run my Dreamcast VGA out to a Component converter and it also runs 480P, looks amazing.  Get one these Tv's rule for the classic gamer it does it all.

[DragonmasterDan]

I have a couple of 1080i CRTs they're worth buying just keep in mind that they generally don't do RGB without a framemaster or some other convertor. So you're left with HDMI or component and sometimes scaling issues with older stuff. They're great TVs to have but certainly not perfect for retro gaming. For something like the Ouya or the Retron5 that's the way to go.

[SamIAm]

Japanese Sony Wegas usually have a custom RGB input called AV Multi, and I have a SCART RGB to AV Multi adapter, so that's all fine.

The problem is 480i widescreen. I have a decent modern LCD, which is of course widescreen, and 480p games look fine on it. 480i, on the other hand, is a mess.

Looking around, it seems that nearly all Gamecube games have a 480p option, as do Xbox games. It's the PS2 that has a shitload of widescreen games that only run in 480i.

[Necromancer]

A rear projection, 1080i crt. Lots of fun to be had with those. For low cost!

I suspect you didn't really mean a rear projection tv, but good luck finding one of those if you did, as most all of the later models had dlp or lcd light boxes.

[pdiggitydogg]

I saw several rear projection sets at the salvation army yesterday. Huge things, over 65" wide screen. It was tempting...but I dont own a truck to move them (thankfully)
I wouldn't mind owning a last gen wide screen CRT... But my wife would kill me if I got another one. (Still haven't fixed that old RGB Mitsubishi)

[GohanX]

Hd crts kinda blow for older systems, a SD Wega's and a rgb to component converter looks awesome.

[SamIAm]

You know, I am really surprised to see that AV Multi is practically unwritten about in English. Nearly every middle/high-end Japanese Sony TV manufactured between 2000 and 2005 has one of these inputs, and it's real RGB. There's an option to switch to YUV for DVD playback, too. 21-pin Japanese SCART RGB was never that common in Japan in consumer-level TV sets, but everyone who bought a Sony TV of the non-cheapass variety in those years got an RGB input.

AV Multi is literally the same connector as the Playstation's AV out port, and I'm pretty sure it was designed specifically for hooking up a Playstation 2. There's actually a Playstation AV Multi cable manufactured by Sony that has the Playstation's male connector on both ends. They are quite rare, though. I had a guy hack a female SCART connector onto a 1st party component cable, and it's a perfect converter. All of my SCART cables work with it.

If I ever move back to America, I will probably look into getting a flat-rate giant shipping crate in part so I can have a large RGB-ready NTSC television.

Hd crts kinda blow for older systems, a SD Wega's and a rgb to component converter looks awesome.

My CRTs can do 720p and 1080i, but they look great doing 240p as well. I don't care about scanlines, though, so that helps.

I used to use an RGB to component converter, and it makes a beautiful picture that is much better than composite and significantly better than s-video. However, I do have to admit that true RGB is just slightly better.

[SamIAm]

I managed to pick up a Sony Wega CRT that's 100% SD. It was made in 2004, but it can't even do 480p. Two observations:

1. The dumb thing has an RGB input, but it forces certain video settings while in RGB that prevent me from turning up the color, and the picture looks extremely washed out and dim, by anyone's standards. It doesn't do that with its component input, which is why RGB converted to YUV actually looks much better. It really goes to show you how for all the fuss about one signal type versus another, the TV itself is the most important factor.

2. True SD TVs definitely look different. It had been a long time since the last time I had seen real scanlines. Which is better for 240p games? Well, it's a toss up.

On one hand, the true SD set offers a kind of softness in places where an HD CRT looks rather harsh. I was using the Kordamp's 240p test suite for a side by side comparison, and Sonic 1's clouds definitely look better on the SD set. Using component or RGB still allows for a very nice picture on the SD set, yet the pixels aren't as jagged and the color gradients look more smooth.

On the other hand, the HD CRT passed all the tough tests much better. The color bleed check, the checkerboard pattern...even when flipping through full screen red/green/blue/white/black, the HD set made the transitions instantly, while the SD set always needed a split-second to adjust.

And frankly, I think a preference for scanlines must be purely a nostalgia thing. And I can feel some of that nostalgia, believe me. But at the end of the day, I'd usually rather not have them.

I do have to admit one more thing, though: 480i looks slightly better on the SD set. It's not quite as shaky, and the interlacing is harder to spot in horizontal scrolling.

Does this imply that I should get an SD widescreen CRT instead of an HD one? Maybe so. I better chose, though, because I'm about out of space in my gaming room, and my girlfriend is going to wring my neck if I keep bring home giant CRTs.

[ClodBuster]

1. The dumb thing has an RGB input, but it forces certain video settings while in RGB that prevent me from turning up the color

I had this with a Grundig CRT back then, where the color saturation couldn't be tuned when fed with RGB signals. Luckily, the factory setting was just right. Otherwise I would have been able to do further adjustments in the service menu. You could try this, too. Accessing the service menu is often done by a code-sequence on the remote, you can find instructions in the service manuals (if you can find them on the net).

Besides, service menus are a good way  for CRT geometry adjustments (eleminating overscan, minimizing PAL bars and PAL stretching), and it even helped me to get rid of the annoying yellow color tint on my LOEWE HD LCD-TV.

[DragonmasterDan]

1. The dumb thing has an RGB input, but it forces certain video settings while in RGB that prevent me from turning up the color, and the picture looks extremely washed out and dim, by anyone's standards. It doesn't do that with its component input, which is why RGB converted to YUV actually looks much better. It really goes to show you how for all the fuss about one signal type versus another, the TV itself is the most important factor.

I have four Sony PVMs that do RGB. All of them have hard coded settings that doesn't allow you to adjust the color while in RGB unless you disassemble the damn things and start adjusting potentiometers on the boards inside the monitor. I have an Ikegami professional monitor that DOES allow me to use knobs and switches accessible from outside the device to adjust RGB color. This seems to be something Sony likes to do.

2. True SD TVs definitely look different. It had been a long time since the last time I had seen real scanlines. Which is better for 240p games? Well, it's a toss up.

On one hand, the true SD set offers a kind of softness in places where an HD CRT looks rather harsh. I was using the Kordamp's 240p test suite for a side by side comparison, and Sonic 1's clouds definitely look better on the SD set. Using component or RGB still allows for a very nice picture on the SD set, yet the pixels aren't as jagged and the color gradients look more smooth.

Does this imply that I should get an SD widescreen CRT instead of an HD one? Maybe so. I better chose, though, because I'm about out of space in my gaming room, and my girlfriend is going to wring my neck if I keep bring home giant CRTs.

I think it's specific to the set you're using. I have an EDTV 4:3 Samsung CRT that does better component and svideo than some of my PVMs. The set, the system, all have varibles that effect picture quality.

[SamIAm]

Accessing the service menu is often done by a code-sequence on the remote, you can find instructions in the service manuals (if you can find them on the net).

Besides, service menus are a good way  for CRT geometry adjustments (eleminating overscan, minimizing PAL bars and PAL stretching), and it even helped me to get rid of the annoying yellow color tint on my LOEWE HD LCD-TV.

You know, I tried this, an while it did improve things substantially, the TV still shows a better picture in color-saturated YUV.

But what you said about the yellow color tint coincides with another situation I'm facing. If you or anyone else knows about the following, by all means please offer your advice.

I found a very nice 2003 Sony Wega 36" widescreen TV on yahoo auctions. That's the biggest consumer size ever made in Japan, and from what I know about the specific model line, it's exactly what I want. It's also very cheap, but that's because the seller says that the screen has a slight yellow tint to it when the screen is displaying a solid white picture. Nobody is bidding on his auction.

On one hand, I think I might be able to fix this by simply going into the service menu and turning up "blue" a little bit.

On the other hand, as I remember it anyway, a yellow tint was the mark of decrepitude and  impending death for computer monitors in the 90s.

It would cost close to $100 to buy it and ship it to me. Bidding on a different, problem-free TV would raise that to $150-$200, plus they only come up every few months, plus other sellers might not be so honest about the picture quality. Should I take the gamble?

I sent the seller a message asking for details about how yellow it gets and what he's done already to try and fix it. If it really is just a very light tint, and if he hasn't gone into the service menu himself, I'm leaning toward getting it.

[ClodBuster]

All my CRT TVs had/have issues with displaying a 100% white screen. I remember when playing either Mario Paint's gnat attack game or feeding white computer signals through S-Video, the screen would show a partial (more or less) slight color tint, especially near the sides were the speakers were. It appeared even when the speakers were turned off and could be looked like yellow tint on the one side and purple tint on the other side of the screen. Demagnetizing the screen could maybe have helped, but I lacked the tool and some CRT TVs will go through demagnetizing on cold starts anyway.

For the computer signals, I suspect the higher white and black thresholds being problematic for displaying on a TV CRT with regular signal thresholds, resulting in losing details in very dark or very bright areas as they are being cutoff due to the different offset.

I never had such colour tint issues on white screens with CRT computer monitors though.

All in all, I lack the experience in reliably saying if you could remove a problematic tint on a CRT. What I did on the LCD was rectifying some very obvious wrong factory colour offset settings to their supposedly correct ones.