Any recommendations on consumer grade CRTs?

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05-11-2018, 04:56 AM
TmEE

The problem is not the tube having a native resolution, it is the fact that the HV generation and deflection circuitry is not multisync in vast majority of the TVs I have had experience with and due to it there is an upscaler that does frame rate conversion or actual scaling+deinterlacing to produce output that matches the native line frequency of the electronics. All 100/120Hz sets have fixed 31KHz rate, they can technically take 240/288 lines at 120/100Hz or 480/576 lines at 60/50Hz.

What exactly is the model of the HD CRT in question ? I'm curious to see what its schematic will tell.
05-11-2018, 08:07 AM
Mega Drive Bowlsey

Quote:

Originally Posted by TmEE

The problem is not the tube having a native resolution, it is the fact that the HV generation and deflection circuitry is not multisync in vast majority of the TVs I have had experience with and due to it there is an upscaler that does frame rate conversion or actual scaling+deinterlacing to produce output that matches the native line frequency of the electronics. All 100/120Hz sets have fixed 31KHz rate, they can technically take 240/288 lines at 120/100Hz or 480/576 lines at 60/50Hz.

What exactly is the model of the HD CRT in question ? I'm curious to see what its schematic will tell.

(scratches head) Could I have that again in English, please? :D
05-11-2018, 11:43 AM
gamevet

Quote:

Originally Posted by TmEE

The problem is not the tube having a native resolution, it is the fact that the HV generation and deflection circuitry is not multisync in vast majority of the TVs I have had experience with and due to it there is an upscaler that does frame rate conversion or actual scaling+deinterlacing to produce output that matches the native line frequency of the electronics. All 100/120Hz sets have fixed 31KHz rate, they can technically take 240/288 lines at 120/100Hz or 480/576 lines at 60/50Hz.

What exactly is the model of the HD CRT in question ? I'm curious to see what its schematic will tell.

I don’t know what CRT Blades is talking about, but mine is a Sony KV-32HS420. I can hear the CRT gun’s sound pitch change in relation to when the image goes from 480i to 480p, and up to 720p along with 1080i.
05-11-2018, 12:30 PM
EyeDeeNo76

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mega Drive Bowlsey

(scratches head) Could I have that again in English, please? :D

:lol:

Edit:

Quote:

Originally Posted by avlon

I picked up a Daewoo DTQ-20U4SC in 2016 for $20 and it's been great. Not only is it a flat tube CRT, but it has inputs for component, s-video, composite, RF, and strangely enough, passthrough composite OUT which could be useful for streamers or speedrunners.

Never have I considered Daewoo for anything, but the feature set and picture was good for the price. I'd definitely recommend it if you come across one.

My Toshiba has a composite out too. They're more common than you'd think.
05-11-2018, 10:20 PM
Blades

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

-It does not have a native resolution like a flat panel.

-Upscaling causes lag.

-HD CRTs do not have lag like a flat panel display.

-Have you ever use a VGA monitor?

A quick search yielded this.

Quote:

HD CRT sets typically upscaled 480i to 480p to avoid having to support the 15 KHz scanrate in hardware. Another cost-cutting measure was to scale 720p to 1080i. Otherwise, besides doing 480p and 540p (which is what 1080i is), they'd have to support 720p AND 240p (which is what 480i is). Supporting extra scanrates means a more complicated (and more costly) HV and deflection circuit.

Do light guns work?

EDIT: And another quote.

Quote:

There's generally no point in using these things. They basically act like digital displays, with lots of internal processing, so they have lag on all resolutions (excepting maybe 1080i, their native resolution). They also upscale most resolutions: IIRC, 480i/480p get upscaled to 540p
05-11-2018, 11:01 PM
gamevet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blades

A quick search yielded this.

That's a pretty generic find you have there. My HD CRT does support 240p, which is proven by using Retrovision's Component cable.

Quote:

Do light guns work?

No, because the screen has a different pixel density and no scan lines. It won't work on VGA CRTs either. You can, however, get an HDTV lightgun for the original Xbox and PC, that will work with those displays.

TmEE sums it up well.

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post428368

Quote:

EDIT: And another quote.

I would much rather play my original Xbox, GameCube and PS2 @ 480p on this 4:3 HD CRT, than trying to play it on a flat panel display that will blur the image and have lots of lag.
05-11-2018, 11:23 PM
Blades

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

No, because the screen has a different pixel density and no scan lines. It won't work on VGA CRTs either. You can, however, get an HDTV lightgun for the original Xbox and PC, that will work with those displays.

TmEE sums it up well.

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post428368

You just proved my point. TmEE says right there that the TV deinterlaces the signal, so it's not displaying 480i.

Quote:

I would much rather play my original Xbox, GameCube and PS2 @ 480p on this 4:3 HD CRT, than trying to play it on a flat panel display that will blur the image and have lots of lag.

I never disagreed with this. In fact, I agree completely. Maybe not about the lag part, there are some LCD panels that have minuscule amounts of lag.
05-11-2018, 11:49 PM
gamevet

1 Attachment(s)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blades

You just proved my point. TmEE says right there that the TV deinterlaces the signal, so it's not displaying 480i.

He said generally, which means it does not apply to every HD CRT. They all do something different. My set will show an image in interlaced mode.

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/attachm...5&d=1526093301

Quote:

I never disagreed with this. In fact, I agree completely. Maybe not about the lag part, there are some LCD panels that have minuscule amounts of lag.

That only applies to images that are at the native resolution of the display. Lower resolution images have to use the display's processor to upscale the image. You also have to use Game Mode (that's what my Samsung 52" LCD has) to turn off all of the fancy filters that make the image look better.
05-12-2018, 12:09 AM
Blades

Quote:

That only applies to images that are at the native resolution of the display. Lower resolution images have to use the display's processor to upscale the image. You also have to use Game Mode (that's what my Samsung 52" LCD has) to turn off all of the fancy filters that make the image look better.

Those filters should be turned off anyway for best picture quality. My friend has a 4K TV and the filters make a huge difference in the amount of lag. Even turned off, it lags quite a bit with SD sources.

Quote:

He said generally, which means it does not apply to every HD CRT. They all do something different. My set will show an image in interlaced mode.

You keep proving me right. The DRC function mentioned in the manual is an upscaler.

Quote:

　"DRC" was developed in 1997 as a technology that can convert a standard television signal format to a high-definition signal format, based on the concept of establishing a higher resolution signal format from scratch. "DRC" is different from the conventional interpolation technology that generates pixels based on the linear interpolation function. It is Sony's unique technology that can create video with high resolution and close to reality by advanced original signal processing, optimizing the correlation characteristics of standard television signals and high definition signals.

Source.

My point from the very beginning was that HD CRTs aren't the best option for video games of the era talked about on this site because among other things they cannot display the signal as it was intended. Maybe the upscaler produces a better picture, who knows. But it's not how the developers saw it because HD CRTs cannot display an SD source like an SD CRT.

I will concede I don't know why your CRT guns change pitch when changing from 480i to 480p.
05-12-2018, 12:52 AM
gamevet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blades

TYou keep proving me right. The DRC function mentioned in the manual is an upscaler.

It is an upscaler, but you can also display the image in an interlaced mode @ 480i. It's not like SD televisions don't have to do some kind of upscaling either. Cheap SD CRTs would only display an image at 320 x 240, while higher end SD CRTs supported 640 x 480.

I'll put it like this. Using the setup where I have the game displaying on the SD CRT, next to the HD CRT, I can play the game looking at one display and then move over to the other. I would notice a drastic change in my game timing, if the HD CRT had a lot of lag.

Quote:

My point from the very beginning was that HD CRTs aren't the best option for video games of the era talked about on this site because among other things they cannot display the signal as it was intended. Maybe the upscaler produces a better picture, who knows. But it's not how the developers saw it because HD CRTs cannot display an SD source like an SD CRT.

Well, if you're expecting to see scan lines, that isn't going to happen. You won't see them on a VGA CRT either. The only retro game console that I think you'd be better off playing on an SD CRT is the N64. The image quality of the N64 is just horrible. When you play it on an HD CRT, you'll notice a really had screen door effect. The poor image quality of an SD CRT blurs out that crappy effect.

Quote:

I will concede I don't know why your CRT guns change pitch when changing from 480i to 480p.

480i draws half the screen in one sweep and then draws the other half in another sweep. It's basically 30Hz for one set of lines, and 30Hz for the next set of lines. 480p does it all in one sweep at 60Hz.

http://www.hdtv.biz/resolution.shtml
05-12-2018, 06:40 AM
TmEE

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

I don’t know what CRT Blades is talking about, but mine is a Sony KV-32HS420. I can hear the CRT gun’s sound pitch change in relation to when the image goes from 480i to 480p, and up to 720p along with 1080i.

* That particular TV is definitely multisync, with line deflection decoupled from HV generation like in higher end monitors.
* It does convert everything to digital YCbCr and does image processing fully in digital domain all the way until the final step. With the right test pattern one can probably see that pure colors have slight bit of smear compared to BW detail. OSD gets full uncompromised RGB though.
* I don't know what the video capture freqs are as the main chips involved seem to be only used in Sony's own things and lack any sort of information about them. It does convert 15KHz sources to 31KHz, there's no support for slower scan rates, which is the reason light guns don't work. It seems to be smart enough not to deinterlace 240p (only line double it) and only deinterlaces 480i. Not sure what it does with 1080i though.
* Another not so good part is that the CRT video amps are rated for 16MHz bandwidth only. 640x480p@60Hz needs 24MHz bandwidth for example, 1280x720p@60Hz is 75MHz and 1920x1080i/1920x540p@60Hz needs 84MHz. Something like a BW checkerboard or vertical stripes pattern will show pretty gradual pixel edges due to slew rate limiting from the small bandwidth of the video amps in high resolutions. For normal game stuff it is adequate.
* There is dynamic focus and convergence or it would have very ass image quality at the edges (your photos do show significant misconvergence in some parts at the edge). If one has a day to spend on tweaking the controls on the deflection coils you can probably correct it completely, there's a very complete set of adjustments there and exact procedures are mentioned in the service manual about it also.

Composhit output is a standard feature on most TVs so that you can hook up your VRC and record your favorite shows and whatnot.
05-12-2018, 07:34 AM
Blades

Quote:

It does convert 15KHz sources to 31KHz, there's no support for slower scan rates, which is the reason light guns don't work.

I knew it. No HD CRTs display 480i.
05-12-2018, 07:48 PM
sidewinderl

Quote:

Originally Posted by TmEE

Composhit output is a standard feature on most TVs so that you can hook up your VRC and record your favorite shows and whatnot.

Lol, man...it's been so long now that everybody has forgotten...

Something that I didn't notice since it's my first JVC, is that my TV has a little jack labeled AV compulink III. Apparently it was a JVC gimmick for syncing other JVC devices together. Now I feel like I absolutely have to use it. Time to shop for a JVC receiver...
05-13-2018, 12:25 AM
StuOhQ

I really wish there was a longer transitional period between CRTs and flat displays. We had some HD CRTs, which were nice (but not necessarily excellent for gaming), but we didn't have long in that period where 480p over YPbPr was a common practice in consumer CRTs. I really feel like that combination is kind of the sweet spot, so to say.

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