Plasma, LCD, CRT... I need a new tv. What's good for games? There just aren't many widescreen games (as we discussed in a previous thread)/ tv programs/ etc.
I like the PC inputs of newer plasmas and LCDs. However, plasma seems pricey and projection might need bulb changes (also pricey).
What is everyone on the board using?
What TV do YOU have?
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saundby
- Vic 20 Enthusiast
- Posts: 166
- Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2006 11:55 pm
- Website: http://saundby.com/
- Location: Gold Country, CA
I'm using a CRT for my TV. This last week I decided to buy a new computer with a chunk of money I've had set aside for several months for that purpose, but among the things I considered was getting a cheaper computer and putting the difference toward a new TV. My current TV is a 36" CRT that's about eight years old (which replaced a 20 year old 19".) The 36" has a bad amp somewhere that results in the blue drive dropping to about zero at time, which is annoying to look at, but it doesn't do it frequently, so it's not a big problem, but I'd rather have a TV that doesn't do it at all. I bought a 36" last time because I had a living room that was 18 feet across and I wanted a TV that would be comfortable to watch from the far side of the room. We now live in a house with a smaller living room, but the result is that we can watch letterbox format comfortably from anywhere in the room on this display.
When I went shopping last week, I was mainly looking at projection and flat screen TVs, since I've not got much inclination to replace the current TV with another ten ton monster CRT like it--I'd rather leave well enough alone until I can get something non-CRT.
Unfortunately, I wasn't impressed with the picture quality of the flat/low profile displays versus the far less expensive CRTs. Also, the diagonal measurements were very deceptive. I'd have to get a 42" or larger to get a display area comparable to what I have on my current TV, and at that 4:3 programs will still be a lot smaller.
So if my TV went fzzt today I'd buy a CRT.
But I bought a more expensive computer since my current TV still looks good compared to what I saw.
-Mark G.
When I went shopping last week, I was mainly looking at projection and flat screen TVs, since I've not got much inclination to replace the current TV with another ten ton monster CRT like it--I'd rather leave well enough alone until I can get something non-CRT.
Unfortunately, I wasn't impressed with the picture quality of the flat/low profile displays versus the far less expensive CRTs. Also, the diagonal measurements were very deceptive. I'd have to get a 42" or larger to get a display area comparable to what I have on my current TV, and at that 4:3 programs will still be a lot smaller.
So if my TV went fzzt today I'd buy a CRT.
But I bought a more expensive computer since my current TV still looks good compared to what I saw.
-Mark G.
What does CRT mean?
PRG Starter - a VICE helper / Vic Software (Boray Gammon, SD2IEC music player, Vic Disk Menu, Tribbles, Mega Omega, How Many 8K etc.)
There are still some good deals to be had on CRT technology. The price versus performance ratio is very good on CRTs right now, whereas for the same picture quality/size you will pay much more for the newer Plasma/LCD/projection displays.
Plus, because CRTs are in their (50th?
) generation.....the technology is very reliable and works well....whereas the flat-screen TVs are in their infancy, so there still may be a lot of room for improvement (mostly in longevity, long term reliability, etc.).
Anyway, as far as standard 4:3 aspect CRTs go, the SONY WEGA TVs are great value! Good picture, plus the price has really dropped on them in the past two years (to nearly half of what I bought mine for in 2002). These use Trinitron picture tubes and so are very well regarded. Video games look great on them.
One great (largely unknown) feature about the Sony WEGA TVs (and some JVCs), is the "vertical squeeze" (or "16:9 mode") feature.
Let's say you are watching a widescreen anamporphic (16:9) DVD on your 4:3 aspect WEGA tv. You tell your DVD player that your TV is a 16:9 model. It doesn't know any better, so now it feeds the full anamorphic signal to the 4:3 WEGA. The picture now fills the regular 4:3 screen, but looks tall and thin. Then you choose 16:9 mode from the Sony WEGA's settings. When you do this, cathode gun's vertical range is "squeezed" or compressed vertically to the middle of the screen (a 16:9 aspect rectangle). The proportions of the picture now look normal and the picture looks really sharp. You are getting the DVD's full resolution in this 16:9 area.
The difference is that this vertical squeeze feature will force the cathode ray gun to use ALL the scan lines (i.e. 525 on NTSC) in the 16:9 picture area....thereby NO scan lines are wasted in the black areas of the screen (top and bottom). This results (on my 27" WEGA) in a MUCH smoother, sharper pictures. Almost
looks like Hi-Def.
If you didn't use this vertical squeeze feature, you'd only be getting about 350 lines of horizontal resolution in your actual picture area when watching a widescreen move on a 4:3 screen. The scanlines in the black areas above and below the picture would just be wasted.
Plus, because CRTs are in their (50th?
) generation.....the technology is very reliable and works well....whereas the flat-screen TVs are in their infancy, so there still may be a lot of room for improvement (mostly in longevity, long term reliability, etc.).Anyway, as far as standard 4:3 aspect CRTs go, the SONY WEGA TVs are great value! Good picture, plus the price has really dropped on them in the past two years (to nearly half of what I bought mine for in 2002). These use Trinitron picture tubes and so are very well regarded. Video games look great on them.
One great (largely unknown) feature about the Sony WEGA TVs (and some JVCs), is the "vertical squeeze" (or "16:9 mode") feature.
Let's say you are watching a widescreen anamporphic (16:9) DVD on your 4:3 aspect WEGA tv. You tell your DVD player that your TV is a 16:9 model. It doesn't know any better, so now it feeds the full anamorphic signal to the 4:3 WEGA. The picture now fills the regular 4:3 screen, but looks tall and thin. Then you choose 16:9 mode from the Sony WEGA's settings. When you do this, cathode gun's vertical range is "squeezed" or compressed vertically to the middle of the screen (a 16:9 aspect rectangle). The proportions of the picture now look normal and the picture looks really sharp. You are getting the DVD's full resolution in this 16:9 area.
The difference is that this vertical squeeze feature will force the cathode ray gun to use ALL the scan lines (i.e. 525 on NTSC) in the 16:9 picture area....thereby NO scan lines are wasted in the black areas of the screen (top and bottom). This results (on my 27" WEGA) in a MUCH smoother, sharper pictures. Almost
looks like Hi-Def.If you didn't use this vertical squeeze feature, you'd only be getting about 350 lines of horizontal resolution in your actual picture area when watching a widescreen move on a 4:3 screen. The scanlines in the black areas above and below the picture would just be wasted.
The newer tvs feature PC inputs (RGB). Without much effort, I could plug in my computer and surf the internet on my tv. Of course, I can do this now through the S-video output on my computer, but the resolution makes it look blurry and large. I can only get about 1/4 of the screen to show on my 27inch CRT. And the normal fonts are nearly impossible to read. Does anyone else connect the PC to the TV?
I have a Diboss 30" LCD-TV connected to a Scaleo C Windows Media Center Computer 
works great.
The computer have a digital-tv card for free channels but I have also a Digital set-up box connected to the TV. In Sweden the analog TV distribution is closed down.
And yes normal font is very hard to read from the couch. But if you enlarge everything it works fine.
works great.The computer have a digital-tv card for free channels but I have also a Digital set-up box connected to the TV. In Sweden the analog TV distribution is closed down.
And yes normal font is very hard to read from the couch. But if you enlarge everything it works fine.
A bit off-topic, but does all digital TV boxes generate teletext by themselves, or do some of the higher range just submit a signal for the TV's teletext decoder to parse? My parents got an el-cheapo digital box which generates a teletext picture on its own. Apart from the text is very blurry and doesn't cover the whole area, certain pages like SVT 199/299 (for subtitling TV programs) don't work well - the teletext generator doesn't understand the signal to blank the screen, so one gets a big black teletext page with blurry, somewhat broken text lines. In theory, digital TV can be broadcasted with special subtitling information like a DVD, but it seems at least the free channels don't do that yet.
Anders Carlsson
For games it's essential to switch resolutions. some games I can only run in 1024x768, some other games in 1600x1200. Unfortunately an LCD has fixed 'natural' resolution and all other resolutions are interpolated and look mostly quite ugly (=unsharp and blurry).
For this reason I got back to CRT monitor for my PC.
Otoh in my office I have an LCD and I'm quite happy with this.
For this reason I got back to CRT monitor for my PC.
Otoh in my office I have an LCD and I'm quite happy with this.
With "gamers", I think we're referring to video games such as the Xbox 360, Wii and forthcoming PS3 (plus all the prev-gen ones). Those are supposed to be connected to your TV, not primarily your computer monitor. I don't know if those video games switch resolutions a lot, or if all games are designed in one resolution.
Anders Carlsson
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saundby
- Vic 20 Enthusiast
- Posts: 166
- Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2006 11:55 pm
- Website: http://saundby.com/
- Location: Gold Country, CA
Experiences Since Feb.
Since my last post, I've purchased a new plasma display TV and had it fry on me (waiting on a tech to contact us for warranty repair presently.) Here are some of my experiences of going from a 36" CRT to a 50" plasma and now back (temporarily) to a 25" CRT.
The only thing that was wrong with my 36" TV was that the drive amplifier for the blue gun first became intermittant, and then failed entirely. This made the screen colors go to "painful tooth green." It was hard to watch. However, before that happened, I was very happy with the screen size, image quality for all sorts of video from DVD to bit-banged video off of my own 8-bit homebrews. The Vic and 64 both looked great, and I could watch widescreen DVDs in letterbox format with an image big enough to enjoy.
Another plus of this TV (a Mitsubishi Diamond Scan tube--very good dark black levels) was the inputs it provided. It had oodles of inputs for composite and S-Video as well as a pair of RF inputs. I think it was eight inputs in all. It didn't have component video inputs, but to be honest the difference I've seen between S-Video and component, I don't think I was missing much there.
The sync was very forgiving on this set, meaning that older video chips like the PIXIE that have, um, "loose" video timing could display well on this set so long as they maintained a fairly consistent timing on each field or frame. Likewise, I could program each of my homebrews for several different "resolutions" that would sync both on this TV and on a couple of good stable composite monitors I also use with my "frankensteins."
But when the color went out, I couldn't take it any more. I had some money set aside from an engineering job that was going to go to some household repair work. The work turned out much cheaper than planned, so I decided to check out the clearance prices back in August on big screen TVs.
Now, I expected to be getting something in a 42" 16:9 format. This was disappointing, since it would take a 16:9 display of at least 48" to equal the 4:3 screen size of my 36" CRT (rule of thumb--add 1/3 to the diagonal measurement when going from 4:3 to 16:9 to get the same screen size on the widescreen as you had on the narrow screen.) When I looked around, though, I found a nice 50" LG TV demo unit that was barely within my price range, so I got more than I expected to be able to afford. A 50PX4DR model, if you want to look it up.
Things I evaluated when buying:
How close you can stand and still see a good, non-grainy image.
Brightness dropoff as you move off-center.
Image persistance.
Digital inputs available--I was looking to have HDMI, DVI, and VGA.
All this looked good, and the TV had a digital recorder, and displays images off of many formats of memory cards as well (and plays MP3s.) So I got it.
The first problem I ran into was that the proliferation of digital inputs meant far fewer analog inputs. Only two composite inputs, either can take S-Video as well. The analog audio monitor output has a delay from the input, so I can't use the TV to pass through the audio to my sound system (which only has analog inputs) as I did on the old TV. This was a nice feature since it meant when I muted the TV, everything muted at once. If I get an amp that accepts a digital audio input, that problem will be fixed.
As far as display, the image size adds a _lot_ to DVD movies. I also have a much sharper image when using the VGA input for my laptop than on my old CRT TV (I have a MacBook that I use from my armchair with a wireless keyboard and mouse.) However, for whatever reason I can't adjust the Mac's aspect ratio, so the video is a bit squashed. Fortunately I can adjust for the aspect ratio mismatch in my video player software, but with everything else the video is squashed unless I limit my display area by changing to a 4:3 display. I usually prefer to put up with the squashed image for most stuff.
Now, for the analog and RF inputs. All I can say is "WOW!"
My Atari Super Pong has never looked so good. The colors are spot-on, and the sync-up is perfect. I believe the TV is doing some significant processing of the image since I have never before seen such a stable image. The timing on the video on the Atari sucks rocks, and yet the lines are nice and straight and the colors are sharp and solid. No phase shift artifacts, no tearing at the top of the display, etc. The Super Pong is pretty much my test of how low video can go, since even my bit-banged video has tighter specs and more consistent timing than this unit. The Super Pong puts out an RF modulated signal, so the video signal that the TV is getting has been folded, stapled, and mutilated. But this TV makes the Super Pong look _good_.
Likewise, the video from Commodore systems from the Vic to the Amiga series all looks equally good. There are several different aspect ratios selectable, so you can choose what suits what you're doing. The only complaint I have with the TV here is that the dead bands on each side of the image when you're not in 16:9 format are a neutral gray, which doesn't fade into the background as well as a dead black would (I think the newer LGs use black.)
The bit-banged units I've put on it since I got it work well, too, and, though I haven't tried all the odd timings that my old set would sync on, it has synced on everything I've tried that even comes close to a standard frame or field timing. If the Atari Super Pong is anything to judge by, this TV could sync on the signal off a dead raccoon.
Now, however, the set is black. On the 23rd my daughter was playing a Playstation game on it, and there was an arcing sound. A few minutes later, there were two more arcs, and the blue and green went out of the picture. I unplugged the set before the high voltage power supply decided to let any smoke leak out of its components. When we called the LG support number, it was out of service. And, needless to say, it was a terrible day for tracking anyone down elsewhere in the company. I found a toll-free corporate office number, and we got ahold of LG on the 26th. They don't have an established tech in our area, so we're waiting to hear from someone once they line someone up. They gave us no trouble about acknowledging the warranty, however. All I hope now is that they can find a tech who knows his backside from...well, you know. I'll be watching the tech like a hawk when they get here. I just hope the replacement part is good, and that there aren't problems with how they handle their high voltage components at the factory. We'll see.
Since the big screen died, and we couldn't have no TV for Christmas (here's your copy of Zelda Twilight Princess you've been waiting for for a year, kid. Tough luck about the TV, I guess you'll have to wait a couple weeks to play it) I brought an old 25" TV in from the garage. It's an old RCA TV/Monitor (from the days when it wasn't normal to have anything other than RF antenna inputs on a TV.)
I have to say that the step back was not as bad as I thought it would seem. The colors and image quality on this old set are still great. The Atari doesn't look nearly as good, but everything else still gives us a nice image. We're holding off on watching some of our more cinematic new DVDs until we have the widescreen back, but otherwise we're enjoying watching this screen just fine. As nice as the new TV is, life can still be good with less.
So, if I were to go back out to buy another TV I have to say the only thing that would put me off from taking advantage of the great prices and features on big CRTs is the overall weight of the unit. My 50" plasma weighs a little less than my 36" CRT, and is easier to move. Other than that, a 40"+ CRT would be a perfectly good TV for both 4:3 and 16:9. But I wouldn't buy a CRT, just because of the weight.
I haven't seen an LCD panel I'm happy with, because of the aliasing of the pixels which I consider a significant image degradation compared to CRTs and plasma. So what I'd get, if I hadn't had the money for my plasma, is a projection unit. I carefully considered getting one when I got my plasma display, but though I could have gotten another 10" or more in display size for less than I paid for the plasma, I felt the plasma's image had better colors and a deeper black level (which is an area where projection displays tend to suffer.) So I got the plasma, since I happened to be able to afford it. If I hadn't had the bit of money I'd set aside, I would have gone with a projection unit in 4:3, probably on the order of 40-50 inches (100-125cm, for those used to metric.)
So there, in all the gory detail, is where I've actually gone in the past several months on the point of this discussion.
-Mark G.
(And I'll get my TV fixed if I have to get LG to authorize me as a tech myself.
The only thing that was wrong with my 36" TV was that the drive amplifier for the blue gun first became intermittant, and then failed entirely. This made the screen colors go to "painful tooth green." It was hard to watch. However, before that happened, I was very happy with the screen size, image quality for all sorts of video from DVD to bit-banged video off of my own 8-bit homebrews. The Vic and 64 both looked great, and I could watch widescreen DVDs in letterbox format with an image big enough to enjoy.
Another plus of this TV (a Mitsubishi Diamond Scan tube--very good dark black levels) was the inputs it provided. It had oodles of inputs for composite and S-Video as well as a pair of RF inputs. I think it was eight inputs in all. It didn't have component video inputs, but to be honest the difference I've seen between S-Video and component, I don't think I was missing much there.
The sync was very forgiving on this set, meaning that older video chips like the PIXIE that have, um, "loose" video timing could display well on this set so long as they maintained a fairly consistent timing on each field or frame. Likewise, I could program each of my homebrews for several different "resolutions" that would sync both on this TV and on a couple of good stable composite monitors I also use with my "frankensteins."
But when the color went out, I couldn't take it any more. I had some money set aside from an engineering job that was going to go to some household repair work. The work turned out much cheaper than planned, so I decided to check out the clearance prices back in August on big screen TVs.
Now, I expected to be getting something in a 42" 16:9 format. This was disappointing, since it would take a 16:9 display of at least 48" to equal the 4:3 screen size of my 36" CRT (rule of thumb--add 1/3 to the diagonal measurement when going from 4:3 to 16:9 to get the same screen size on the widescreen as you had on the narrow screen.) When I looked around, though, I found a nice 50" LG TV demo unit that was barely within my price range, so I got more than I expected to be able to afford. A 50PX4DR model, if you want to look it up.
Things I evaluated when buying:
How close you can stand and still see a good, non-grainy image.
Brightness dropoff as you move off-center.
Image persistance.
Digital inputs available--I was looking to have HDMI, DVI, and VGA.
All this looked good, and the TV had a digital recorder, and displays images off of many formats of memory cards as well (and plays MP3s.) So I got it.
The first problem I ran into was that the proliferation of digital inputs meant far fewer analog inputs. Only two composite inputs, either can take S-Video as well. The analog audio monitor output has a delay from the input, so I can't use the TV to pass through the audio to my sound system (which only has analog inputs) as I did on the old TV. This was a nice feature since it meant when I muted the TV, everything muted at once. If I get an amp that accepts a digital audio input, that problem will be fixed.
As far as display, the image size adds a _lot_ to DVD movies. I also have a much sharper image when using the VGA input for my laptop than on my old CRT TV (I have a MacBook that I use from my armchair with a wireless keyboard and mouse.) However, for whatever reason I can't adjust the Mac's aspect ratio, so the video is a bit squashed. Fortunately I can adjust for the aspect ratio mismatch in my video player software, but with everything else the video is squashed unless I limit my display area by changing to a 4:3 display. I usually prefer to put up with the squashed image for most stuff.
Now, for the analog and RF inputs. All I can say is "WOW!"
My Atari Super Pong has never looked so good. The colors are spot-on, and the sync-up is perfect. I believe the TV is doing some significant processing of the image since I have never before seen such a stable image. The timing on the video on the Atari sucks rocks, and yet the lines are nice and straight and the colors are sharp and solid. No phase shift artifacts, no tearing at the top of the display, etc. The Super Pong is pretty much my test of how low video can go, since even my bit-banged video has tighter specs and more consistent timing than this unit. The Super Pong puts out an RF modulated signal, so the video signal that the TV is getting has been folded, stapled, and mutilated. But this TV makes the Super Pong look _good_.
Likewise, the video from Commodore systems from the Vic to the Amiga series all looks equally good. There are several different aspect ratios selectable, so you can choose what suits what you're doing. The only complaint I have with the TV here is that the dead bands on each side of the image when you're not in 16:9 format are a neutral gray, which doesn't fade into the background as well as a dead black would (I think the newer LGs use black.)
The bit-banged units I've put on it since I got it work well, too, and, though I haven't tried all the odd timings that my old set would sync on, it has synced on everything I've tried that even comes close to a standard frame or field timing. If the Atari Super Pong is anything to judge by, this TV could sync on the signal off a dead raccoon.
Now, however, the set is black. On the 23rd my daughter was playing a Playstation game on it, and there was an arcing sound. A few minutes later, there were two more arcs, and the blue and green went out of the picture. I unplugged the set before the high voltage power supply decided to let any smoke leak out of its components. When we called the LG support number, it was out of service. And, needless to say, it was a terrible day for tracking anyone down elsewhere in the company. I found a toll-free corporate office number, and we got ahold of LG on the 26th. They don't have an established tech in our area, so we're waiting to hear from someone once they line someone up. They gave us no trouble about acknowledging the warranty, however. All I hope now is that they can find a tech who knows his backside from...well, you know. I'll be watching the tech like a hawk when they get here. I just hope the replacement part is good, and that there aren't problems with how they handle their high voltage components at the factory. We'll see.
Since the big screen died, and we couldn't have no TV for Christmas (here's your copy of Zelda Twilight Princess you've been waiting for for a year, kid. Tough luck about the TV, I guess you'll have to wait a couple weeks to play it) I brought an old 25" TV in from the garage. It's an old RCA TV/Monitor (from the days when it wasn't normal to have anything other than RF antenna inputs on a TV.)
I have to say that the step back was not as bad as I thought it would seem. The colors and image quality on this old set are still great. The Atari doesn't look nearly as good, but everything else still gives us a nice image. We're holding off on watching some of our more cinematic new DVDs until we have the widescreen back, but otherwise we're enjoying watching this screen just fine. As nice as the new TV is, life can still be good with less.
So, if I were to go back out to buy another TV I have to say the only thing that would put me off from taking advantage of the great prices and features on big CRTs is the overall weight of the unit. My 50" plasma weighs a little less than my 36" CRT, and is easier to move. Other than that, a 40"+ CRT would be a perfectly good TV for both 4:3 and 16:9. But I wouldn't buy a CRT, just because of the weight.
I haven't seen an LCD panel I'm happy with, because of the aliasing of the pixels which I consider a significant image degradation compared to CRTs and plasma. So what I'd get, if I hadn't had the money for my plasma, is a projection unit. I carefully considered getting one when I got my plasma display, but though I could have gotten another 10" or more in display size for less than I paid for the plasma, I felt the plasma's image had better colors and a deeper black level (which is an area where projection displays tend to suffer.) So I got the plasma, since I happened to be able to afford it. If I hadn't had the bit of money I'd set aside, I would have gone with a projection unit in 4:3, probably on the order of 40-50 inches (100-125cm, for those used to metric.)
So there, in all the gory detail, is where I've actually gone in the past several months on the point of this discussion.
-Mark G.
(And I'll get my TV fixed if I have to get LG to authorize me as a tech myself.
Very informative.
I'm still considering the purchase of a new tv. Now I have a 27inch CRT in my bedroom with one composite input and one RF input (yawn).
I would like either a 36 inch CRT with a wider range of inputs, a variable audio out, and hopefully, dual tuner picture-in-picture. I've found all of these things in used tvs because the stores in my area no longer sell large screen CRTs (perhaps the weight is difficult for inventory).
All of my games are on composite AV. I am thinking of buying a bunch of SVIDEO cables. Is the picture quality really worth it?
Weight and size is also a concern. The table for my tv seems sturdy enough although it is only about 20 inches deep. I've been looking at a maxent plasma. It's about five times the price, but it'll have a smaller footprint and a VGA input!
The only problem is the plasma (as any of the cheaper plasmas) is a monitor. I would have to keep my VCR connected and ON to watch tv.
I'm still considering the purchase of a new tv. Now I have a 27inch CRT in my bedroom with one composite input and one RF input (yawn).
I would like either a 36 inch CRT with a wider range of inputs, a variable audio out, and hopefully, dual tuner picture-in-picture. I've found all of these things in used tvs because the stores in my area no longer sell large screen CRTs (perhaps the weight is difficult for inventory).
All of my games are on composite AV. I am thinking of buying a bunch of SVIDEO cables. Is the picture quality really worth it?
Weight and size is also a concern. The table for my tv seems sturdy enough although it is only about 20 inches deep. I've been looking at a maxent plasma. It's about five times the price, but it'll have a smaller footprint and a VGA input!
The only problem is the plasma (as any of the cheaper plasmas) is a monitor. I would have to keep my VCR connected and ON to watch tv.