Just been reading the thread on RGB screens, and to be fair its baffled my little head a bit. Im in the process of making a games room for my new house so I want the best set ups for consoles.For next gen stuff I going to use a 4O+ inch Lcd that's capable of Full HD. Thats the easy bit. (Pos last gen as well - PS2 and Xbox Now for The older stuff such as Megadrive/Snes I know I need a CRT but what is the best way of going about it? I never really looked into RGB stuff was just going to use scart or Svideo where poss.
Just get a good CRT TV that has RGB SCART input. That should be good enough unless you require flexibility for odd syncing arcade game boards. But as long as the TV can handle 50hz and 60hz, and has RGB input, you should be in good shape. As you know from the other thread, in North America you pretty much have to buy a commercial/professional monitor to get RGB input which you in Europe has via SCART connection. All your systems should output either RGB or S-Video except for the NES.
For old skool get a 4:3 flatscreen CRT. I wouldn't go bigger than 30" though, due to resolution issues with older machines. They look worse the bigger they get.
I'm not sure you'd really want a flatscreen though. The tube that hides the edges can be nice for something like NES which has clipped edges where you see a fine cut of filled with color 0 or when you see on the edges of the screen color palette errors due to limitations. But other than NES well, I don't see why not go for a flat screen other than it will cost you more.
Well then definitely go for a flat screen, especially if you play alot of games where it is annoying to see the edges of the screen cut off like NeoGeo's Credit Counters or the HiScores at the very top 8 lines of the screen. It seems like everything is a double edged sword though. LCDs are nice and can bring you high definition but they suck with Composite Video and retro games. CRTs have their issues and so on. Really the way I see it you're doomed to end up with atleast 2 if not 3 setups for gaming. Right in this room I actually do. I have the PC infront of me, the Xbox 360 with LCD screen to the right, and a CRT behind me for TV watching and the NES&Genesis. The CRT may change into a RGB Monitor, or perhaps I'll add one to it. It would be cool to grab 2 old PS2's with a firewire link cable and play some Time Crisis 2 and 3 via link on 2 screens side by side.
I use a Mitsubishi Flat screen TV with Component, D Terminal (like component) and s-video inputs. I can tell you know that Flat Screens do look better than normal CRT TVs. Everything below the Wii runs via S-Video with stunning results. The picture quality looks far better than what it did on my older Sharp CRT which was only 2 years older than this current Mitsubishi. Also make sure that your CRT has sharpness control. You'll be really surprised at the change in quality. Oh and see if it also had picture enhancers for the shitty composite inputs. These will really clean up that crappy dot crawl. This is how I run my systems (all look fantastic) DVD - D Terminal Wii - Component Dreamcast - S-Video Saturn - S-Video Mega Drive - S-Video (Via a RGB box for MD) Master System - Composite PC Engine - Composite Yakumo
I am pretty quite pleased with 33 inch 16:9 CRT TV, since it works wonders. And yes I am more fond of CRT, than anything more modern. Like Plasma, and LCD screens. I feel the colour depth, of the LCD and Plasma screens are horrible (and I am right thanks to a research I saw some months ago in the news here). So give me a TV with a rump, aka. A TV with CRT. And well, that is how I am about it, and I pretty quite pleased with my Lumatron CRT tv. Oh well, enough babble from me.
Some time I have to get the VGA cable for my Dreamcast - my friend has a 21" monitor that can swivel to portrait (vertical) position, and guess what option Ikaruga has?
I have a flat screen CRT, b/c that's basically the only choice if you want RGB in Japan (Sony Wega -- the only option for large sizes). Technically, the games have the rounded screens in mind when they're made (or did) but I have zero complaints out of my Wega.
