Hey all, So I'm getting sick of my current TV - a ten year old (or so) HD-ready Toshiba. It does HD alright but has a few real flaws: 1), not region-free (it can't cope with 60Hz unless via RGB, and then through only one of the two SCART plugs), 2) not HDCP compliant (my 360 refuses to play DVDs through it when connected by HDMI), and it tends to suck playing 32-bit era games (I swear the framerate just nosedives when playing N64 games, far worse than they originally were). I know that many will argue "get a CRT, they are better for retro", and I could, but I don't have the space for a small tank to sit in my living room. It has to be a single, HD TV. I am not made of money so an older model would be ideal too, so any recommendations would be appreciated of what to look out for. I know some good, older HD TVs exist for retro gaming. As an example, earlier this year I brought my N64 to my mate's stag weekend and the place we stayed had a decent-sized Samsung HD TV. I swear, the N64's games just looked incredible on it: Mario Kart zipped by on a framerate as smooth as silk, it could handle NTSC games via composite no problem, and Goldeneye actually looked somewhat decent! It's a shame I never bothered to scope out the model of the TV, as that one would have been awesome. Thanks in advance
Current TVs have "game modes" my one doesn't and I notice the lack of framerate on N64. It's just horrible to look at.
I would try before you buy to be honest. I'm not much of a TV person, I love the look of Samsung panels, but they are not retro friendly in a way that you can just hook it up. It requires an attachment, which is plain stupid. My friend's Smart TV hates composite and just won't display the Wii, so anything below that won't work. Sad because the picture is beautiful on the display. I own a Australian exclusive brand TV called Soniq, it's a 42" and the N64 is the only system that gets effected and I don't really know why. I have no game mode, or settings with the TV so in that way I don't like it very much, along with connections fighting gravity.
I don't know a lot about TV's, But I know some people hate HDTV because they have input lag, This maybe the reason your current TV is crap. you can read about HDTV lag here http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/input-lag
I can recommend the Sony W4000 if you can find it. Virtually no input lag on that at all, as tested with Leo's lag tester.
It has SCART sockets if that's what you mean, but like every HDTV it is pretty sucky with retro consoles and of course has more input lag in that instance because of deinterlacing.
The type of TV you use shouldn't affect the "framerate" of the console it's connected to at all. Latency is an issue - which simply means that there's a delay between when the system sends a signal and when the TV displays it. But that doesn't affect the framerate; the framerate will be the same, just slightly delayed.
