Well the HD one was the lister forgetting to delete his ad, I jumped right on it. Even phoned the guy instead of emailing. Haha, I was wondering about that. It's not widescreen but.. well.. Maybe I would need to bring someone. 36" doesn't sound big nowadays, but I may be underestimating this TV. Maybe I should stick with a smaller one..especially if I have to move it again if I decide to upgrade.
It's due to the fact that they started coming around at the same time as HD. SOME of the flat CRTs that have a higher native Scan rates can have an issue due to the timing difference. But it's got nothing to do with the flatness of the tube. Also, those "Flat CRTs" weren't actually flat. While they were definitely flatter than their predecessors, the front was a flat piece of glass/plexiglass with the actual tube behind it. The plastic front of the monitor met the front glass where the tube started to curve more towards the edge and the width was set to have the overscan region beyond the plastic in order to hide the curve of the tube. If you get up close to these monitors and look in towards the side, like you are trying to look behind the plastic face, you can actually see this.
Not true. HD has nothing to do with it, because resolution is effectively irrelevant in CRTs. FST televisions don't have to be widescreen - there were 4:3 FSTs. It might work if the television can run in true 50/60 Hz, but it shouldn't work in 100/120 Hz, due to various timing issues. Well, the convergence compensation could possibly have an effect on the expected timing, so there's a possibility the flatness could technically be an (indirect) issue... but it's usually going to be the refresh rate. Originally, people saying "flat" televisions (i.e. FST or rear projection) actually meant 100/120 Hz... and people who say it since then mean LCD / plasma. Quite so... well, for the most part. There were some that were pretty much there. No, not true. FSTs were just a tube. Some of the later efforts realized that flat CRTs gave the illusion of a concave image, so they made a double-layer glass panel (and this is actually part of the tube) to counter this. This can decrease the brightness, which could be detrimental for a light gun... so again, the flatness may play a part.
The HD part had to do with the fact that some of them were still 4:3 and ran at scan rates other than 15.75KHz/60Hz which made the guns not work as you outlined in your 2nd response. As far as the not really flat part, it appears that what I described was common in cheaper "Flat CRTs" of the era. Upon further review, it turns out that my WEGA was legitimately flat whereas my off brand bedroom TV, which used an aperture grille mask a la sony and had a pretty good picture, had the method I described. Nothing I've owned had the one you mentioned where things looked concave, but I've heard of Sanyo sets that had that going on. Mine was more of a fake out to give it the WEGAesque look.
Then it's not a television. Yeah... because it has the rounded back glass to counteract it They didn't just dump poor CRTs on the general public, the whole reason why they had to be curved for so long was to prevent weird distortion and poor picture. Most (but not all) of the issues discovered as part of the FST came during R&D. To be honest, rounded tubes are the best - despite FST being the newer technology. It was a bit of a compromise in most cases, although there are some nice ones out there.
So in your opinion the Hi Scan 4:3 WEGAs are not TVs? Edit: I feel the need to clarify that I'm not looking to have a back and forth pissing match of an argument but am rather passionate on the subject of CRT monitors as the professionals in the field have all but gone away. I simply wish to in the end walk away with the correct knowledge whether that be what I currently hold true or a correction of my mistakes.
You said : If it wasn't 15.75kHz, it's not a television. Glad to hear you don't want to argue with an ex television / broadcast engineer, let alone an admin. Good choice! ;-) Well, you've already given much misinformation, which I corrected. And no we haven't! ;-)
So I ended up with this for now. Will keep my eyes out for a better one Component? Toshiba, who are you kidding, lol. No way this tube will do it justice.
FWIW, I'm pretty sure in Australia we generally inherited a lot of stuff from the UK, and every CRT I picked up from 1998 onwards did 60hz no troubles (across multiple manufacturers too - Sanyo, Panasonic, Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba and Philips at least in my experience). Earlier sets did an interesting job of interpreting NTSC colour (my 51cm Sanyo and Panasonic CRTs bought in 1998 and 1999 respectively suffered from this), but that righted itself a few years later - I still use my flatscreen Hitachi CRT I bought in 2002 and it handles NTSC colour fine and, like others have said, is happy to deal with lightguns. Thankfully I was able to mod many of my consoles to spit out PAL60, which meant PAL colour at 60hz, so everyone won out of that, especially games that weirded out due to timing issues (the Saturn 4MB RAM games were notorious for this). BTW, didn't realise there were 100hz-compatible lightguns, thanks for the tip!
There's a difference between accepting a 60 Hz signal and BEING a 60 Hz television. I never said UK televisions won't accept a 60 Hz signal - I said no UK television is 60 Hz. UK mains is 50 Hz. UK broadcasts were PAL I. Therefore, a UK television is 50 Hz. As for light guns, of course... if the television is able to sync at 60 Hz and the console is outputting 60 Hz, it should work fine. I can't remember offhand which was the most popular 100 Hz light gun. I probably have one somewhere!
Ah, gotcha - sorry for misinterpreting! I remember seeing on the back of the same sets that the power requirements listed 50/60hz compatible, but 220/240v. I didn't quite understand the nuts and bolts, but the magic "60hz" info always got me excited once I worked out what it meant for gaming! Yup, I was concerned my light guns on my Saturn weren't going to work when importing some light gun games I'd missed picking up locally and was pleasantly surprised that they worked when I pushed my PAL Saturn to 60hz. I think it's cool they existed - I remember reading through the manuals for light guns and light gun games that warned about the issues with 100hz sets, so I just assumed it was an ongoing issue.
Yeah, there's a difference between being 60 Hz and accepting a 60 Hz signal. Some (older) equipment (not televisions, more like motor-driven items) may have timing issues if run on the wrong mains. As for 100 Hz guns, I'm pretty sure we sold Blaze brand guns - I think one of their Scorpion range. There was also the Competition Pro / Hais High-Clear and the Joytech Sharp Shooter, the latter I don't remember being that good. I think Mad Catz did some terrible thing that looked bad, felt bad and just was dire. That applies to most of their range, mind you You'll probably only find them for PlayStation / PS2 and (a separate gun for) Xbox.
Well I've found a Sony Wega 34". Still big, but I measured it all out, it will work, just will be a pain to get out of the car =P http://www.amazon.com/Sony-KD-34XS955-34-Inch-Trinitron-Integrated/dp/B0002S9EB6 I hope this is a decent TV, it sounds like what I'm looking for.
A bit late to the punch here. It will not play light gun games, but you lucked out in many ways! The 34XS955 sports a Super Fine Pitch tube. That technology was one of Sony's very last innovations in CRT technology. I believe there were only 3 high-end Trinitron sets that employed the tech (the other two sets are the KD-XBR910 & KD-XBR960). The widescreen XBR models are still somewhat of a sought after collector's item for home theater enthusiasts. All of these sets came out near the very end of the Trinitron's life, somewhere between 2004 and 2006. The 4:3 set you got is the odd one out, but it's still a damn good one. The picture quality that these TVs were capable of producing is arguably among the the very best you can get out of a CRT set. Something great about HD CRTs is that they have no native resolution - they run every resolution natively. It makes them quite versatile. Since the set you are getting has at least one HDMI port (very uncommon for a CRT, mind you), it will do PS4 and N64 with an equal amount of justice. Since SFPTs are rather sensitive, a lot of sets may require a little calibration and geometry adjustment to really fire on all cylinders.
Well, as I have no light guns I can live without that for now. Maybe I should keep the little shitty TV I got for such things. Also, this one is 16:9. I'm very happy with this TV so far. I like how it upconverts SD signals to HD. The only downside to this upconversion is it doesn't play nicely with NES and SNES. Those two systems apparently run at a non standard frame rate (like 0.02 FPS off or something stupid), and it trips up the system, causing slight screen tearing. Honestly though, while the screen isn't tearing the systems look amazing on this TV, enough that I'll deal for now. Every other system I've tried looks amazing. Was playing some PS2 before bed the other night (using component cables) and was just in awe at how...natural everything looked. I want to plug my PS3 into the HDMI soon, play some games, watch a blueray. Really happy with the purchase. Can't believe the sound it puts out too, with a built in sub, I don't have to turn on the stereo very often. Also happened to get the matching stand, remote and manual, he had the box too but it was huge and I have no where to store it. Not bad for $75 cdn, especially since he threw in a Sony Discman (d-EJ1000) in box with all accessories.
You can set the TV to play both internal speakers and external for the times you want to kick on the stereo. The built in surround speaker really sounds great when augmented to your stereo rear speakers. That is curious that the Composite connections have issues. Maybe due to the widescreen stretch for the 4:3 games? I have an NES hooked up to my HD CRT WEGA 4:3 and have no issues. Also, try your SNES with an SVideo cable to get the Chroma Luma separation. True no retro lightgun support on HD CRTs. The Wii with its lightbar sensor placed above the TV can take care of a few Lightgun titles, notably House Of The Dead. Some of the PS2 games can boot to 480p mode by holding the Triangle and X buttons during a game load, Wiki has a list. God Of War really kicks up when maximizing the progressive scan. A couple PS2 games will even go to 1080i, a perfect match to your widescreen HD tube.
Oh reaally?? I have the stereo plugged into the out but honestly haven't turned it on yet since getting the TV. Gonna have to try that! It's nothing to do with the composite, I can play PS1, Genesis, Master system, literally anything but SNES and NES will be fine. All I use for my SNES and N64 is the official Nintendo S-video cable. Works awesome for the N64, but when plugged into the SNES it happens. I googled it, some dude had a pretty good answer. I'll have to find it. Really good to know about the PS2 button combo, thanks! Edit: This is what dude said: "The video output from the NES (SNES uses the same field timing) doesn't conform to the NTSC or PAL standards. The video refresh is a way out of spec 60.1Hz to the NTSC standard 59.94Hz. So the timing of the pulses are a bit off (Nintendo allowed this because it worked with all TVs at the time). This is outside of the tolerance of like 1/380 HDTVs and the horizontal sync won't work properly at the start of a frame, and only gets it act together by about halfway, due to the NES running at almost 60.1 frames/sec and the TV being locked to 59.9 frames/sec and the hardware periodically re-syncing to the NES signal. The HDTV should also skip two frames every several seconds to take up the difference between the NES framerate and its own framerate. Two frames because it is running at 30Hz interlacing pairs of frames (so it's skipping 1 displayed frame, 2 received frames)." (http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/916396-super-nintendo/71266558)
