Any best HDTV for retro gaming?

Hallo

we all know that HDTV looks terrible for retro gaming. My question is...

Is any HDTV that has a proper setup to make the retro gaming to look decent like a CRT display or close to that? Surely there is got to be a very few HDTV out there that has a good upscaler right? Maybe unknown brand make?

I seriously considering to give up using my Sony PVM monitor and want to replace so to slimmer,flatter and wide screen HDTV to connect for retro console and modern console aswell.

Now I know that Framemeister/Xrgbmini box set will do the job but I'm hoping any HDTV will handle just as good outputting quality display just like CRT display, instead of using the Framemeister device.

I wonder any of you members may have any knowledgeable about this?

I have not done any google search just yet.

Thank you.

 

One person I follow on Youtube has started modding retro systems to output in pure HDMI, that would be the best, though you'll still obviously be able to see the pixels.

If you're in Europe a SCART connection (I assume you can get an HDTV with a SCART connector) would be decent, but I've still stuck by my CRT.

 

The only thing I could really think of is the older HDTVs like mid 2000s ones. Pretty much ones with S video because pretty much S video displays from my experience look better. Try and see if you can encounter Vizio, Samsung, Sony, or LG displays with an S video. Also try and get some official S video cables for specific consoles because the retrobit ones are okay, but they are very grainy, and not as eye popping as the OEM cables. You will notice a significance for specific consoles like the sega saturn, however, there are some consoles that need to be modified for those kind of connections such as; the PC engine/TurboGrafx16.

 

Would you want one that can still utilise the light phasers and all that jazz?

 

Posted this on the other thread..... Try to get a old 4:3 ratio LCD. Most of them doesn't have HDMI input but rather S-video and component .

My "new" retro gaming 20" 4:3 ratio TV~

PS: was deciding between the Sharp 20" ( Sharp LC-20B4U) or Sony (KLV-20G300A), have gone with latter~

 

There really aren't any consumer models, at least none that I know of that can be considered comparable to something like a PVM.
One of my LCD monitors has a TV tuner and YVU/RGB and I've hooked up several consoles to and it doesn't look nearly as good.

Perhaps there are some that are used for medical in hospitals, but they're not worth the cost, if there are any that can give you the results you want.

 

Well those just won't work with anything but a CRT, and I don't think there were ever any CRT HDTVs (though rear projection ones are relatively common).

 

There were some CRT HDTVs that were not rear projection (in the USA anyways) back in the early days of HDTV. Not too many were released and I think the max resolution on them was 1080i. i dont think light guns worked on them, but im not sure.

 

The best fidelity will be a PC emulator connected via HDMI. Pretty much any fixed-pixel display will do.

There really isn't a better way than the Framemeister to view analog video right now. The Framemeister's components themselves aren't really special, they're comparable to most HDTV, and maybe even lower-end than some high-end TVs. The Framemeister succeeds where TVs fail however because the firmware configures the chips correctly for videogames and gives you the freedom to adjust some settings manually.

Very unlikely to be "pure" considering that most retro consoles have integrated video DACs, meaning there isn't even a source of digital video to serialize into HDMI. The person would either have to reimplement the entire VDP/"GPU" and hack it in, or 10000x more likely they're just a mod-happy idiot putting an analog composite/S-video/RGB to HDMI adapter (basically a whole TV frontend) into the consoles when it's better served as an external device, and rarely will do a better job digitizing video than the TV's own analog inputs.

 

For me, there's no way if you're not dealing with 1:1 pixel ratio. (of course 2:1, 3:1, etc)

So, 640x480? It must have 480, 960, 1440 vertical lines...
800x600? It must have 600, 1200, 1600 vetical lines...
Don't need to bother if it's wide or not.
320x240? There's no such display, so it's the same of 640*480.

In resume, yeah, one all-around-display is "imperfect". Get room for more displays.
Also, it doesn't matter if a specialist is saying that upscale is fantastic!! It's not.

 

I remember a few models with 1080p support. For lightguns - most of those were eigher 100 or even 120-150Hz = no lightguns.

 

I know someone with a Toshiba HDTV that is a CRT. I do recall hooking up a Genesis to it once through the Composite input. It did not look very good. It looked better on a $80 CRT SDTV.

I think the truth is if you want to use an HDTV you need that Framemeister device or you need to emulate instead.

 

Cheap option - RGB output to your TV. If you don't have RGB, grab a RGB to Component video transcoder. Cheaper as transcoders are readily available.

Better option, as Calpis said, is a Framemeister. Pair it with a low-latency modern HDTV (some of Sony's 2013 models are apparently amazingly swift when dealing with lag) and you're good to go, assuming you're grabbing RGB from the console in question.

I retro game on a CRT, but would invest in a Framemeister if I was retro gaming on a HDTV.

 

Mine did not with my old 27" HD CRT Zenith set.

 

I don't believe there were any consumer 1080p CRT HDTVs. Sure some of them may have allowed you to view 1080p by either converting it to 1080i first (which is often the native resolution--despite being a CRT they often had a native resolution where everything coming out of the video processor is 1080i or 540p to simplify the analog circuitry and improve picture consistency) or if it did send 1080p directly to the tube*, there's no way you actually got 1080 lines. On those sets you often didn't even get 720p quality because the tube's dot pitch would only give something around 540 discernible vertical lines or less before they're smudged together. I think only the best had a sufficient dot pitch for 720p vertically. Then there's the horizontal resolution given as the "TV lines" spec which AFAIK never surpassed 1000, so every pixel got smudged horizontally for resolutions >480p.

*Basically you could add 1080p support to any CRT by simply upgrading the deflection circuits, the picture will of course look blurry without the high bandwidth gun amplifiers, sufficient dot pitch or the right phosphor type.

 

I've had my heart set on a CRT HDTV for some time now. Considering I really can't see an improvement from 720p to 1080p I'd imagine running 720p on a tube will look just fine to me. Problem is I live up a set of cement stairs and it was enough trouble getting my 160lb 32" Trinitron up them in 115°F heat.

 

Just note that you most likely will not get 720 visible lines, which matters for the high-contrast picture content of video games. For example the very small text in modern games could be illegible at 720p on a CRT HDTV because the dot pitch simply isn't there (it might be on a Sony BVM). Despite their setbacks fixed-pixel displays are far superior when it comes to resolution--really you should do all your HD gaming on them, ideally over HDMI. CRTs are great for <= 480p.

 

I think as far as Commercial HDCRTs are concerned, you could do alot worse than the behemoth Sony KV40XBR800. I have one of these and it has a fantastic 4:3 flatscreen picture for Retro consoles, configurable upscaling and comb filtering, plus 60hz support for lightguns/3d glasses. Its only weakness is it isn't RGB (the Euro models might be via SCART, but then they are probably 100hz) and that they weigh a ton. You can't get a bigger CRT picture unless you go CRT Projector (Ive got a Sony one of those as well) Id say its the king of CRTs.

 

From what I've heard, and also from my experience, I believe that HD CRTs, unlike other kinds of CRTs, have a fixed resolution. So if the TV does 720p or 1080i, and if you give it a 240p or a 480i input, then it has to upscale it to 720p or 1080i. In other words, it doesn't display that kind of input at its native resolution. So there's really not much advantage to using a TV like that for older consoles over using a modern display.

However, I think professional HD CRTs, like the HD Sony PVMs or BVMs, actually are multisync monitors - so they'll display HD or SD formats in their native resolution. I think, I'm not positive about that. Also, most PVMs were 4:3, unlike most commercial HD CRTs, which were usually 16:9.

 

While Im fairly sure that the KV-40 upscales 720p to 1080i automatically (no native 720p support that I know of), it only uses its 16:9 hiscan resolution upscaling on those resolutions, and only if it detects they're being used in a widescreen format. It wont convert 4:3 sources to widescreen unless requested. the TV seems to have native 480i/p SD resolution and 1080i resolution, with other resolutions scaled into one of those categories. The filtering options like the 3d comb filter and Cinemotion can be removed and the DRC engine can be tweaked to give an extremely accurate picture (you can even tweak the palettes).

While the PVMs will give absolute native resolutions, Id prefer the KV-40 because the fact its a flatscreen native 4:3 ratio HDTV, its twice the size of any good PVM, and it uses arguably similar technology (Sony Trinitron tube). Im sure the Euro versions with RGB SCART could hold their own against the PVM. I lament the lack of RGB though thats a given in NA. SCART converted to component and S-video look great on it.

Of course if the KV-40 isnt big enough there's always the CRT projectors thatll output in any resolution in RGB at virtually any screen size. The early Sony ones are great and are quite cheap nowadays, but of course you're going to take a hit on black levels with em.