The joy of CRT

Started by davyk, April 13, 2019, 14:36:42 PM

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davyk

I've always kept a CRT for my retro consoles.

Recently my lovely 25" 4:3 Panasonic packed in - the horror!

I found a local CRT repair guy ane left it with him - unfortunately he identified the part required which couldn't be located any more :(

But he did sell me a 21" Panasonic for £40 so I took that. It was bittersweet dropping my old one off at the recycling centre.

The 21" is gorgeous though. The screen is smaller but it seems more vibrant. It's still the classic 4:3 shape too.

SO I had that set up and then noticed another one for free on Facebook market.

Picked it up Thursday and wow - it's a 28" 4:3 Samsung. A monster of a thing and it's GREAT!

SO I have rotated my 21" to play shooting games with a TATE mode and use the Samsung for all the other retro games.

The old 2600 hooked up via RF - looks great! The Samsung's tuner may be superior to my old Panasonic. The 2600 looked good on it but not as good as this - of course it might just be the bigger, brighter screen that is causing this.

I'm in heaven!

At some point I will admit defeat and get an OSSC to connect them up using HDMI - but not as long as these two beauties keep working.  :)


ArcadeAction

CRT televisions are overall very reliable (you may eventually need to just replace the capacitors). I often get more TVs from discarded sites/recycling centers and more than 90% the ones that have been sitting outside for some time in rain and weather, power on just fine. These are typically from 1980 sets and newer. Hopefully yours will last a very long time.

The sprite trail/phosphor glow on CRTs is my favorite part and gives them their magic for older games.

TrekMD

I've hardly ever seen a CRT TV fail.  Playing retro games on a CRT really is the way to go.  They were designed to work on those TV's and they do look well on them.

Going to the final frontier, gaming...


ArcadeAction

Quote from: TrekMD on April 13, 2019, 23:22:27 PM
I've hardly ever seen a CRT TV fail.  Playing retro games on a CRT really is the way to go.  They were designed to work on those TV's and they do look well on them.

Yes, when box art would often show motion trail to depict the sprites, it's clear they were intended for CRT. Playing Pong on a non CRT definitely takes away from the enjoyment (and specifically games with primarily black backgrounds).

zapiy

I got rid of so many CRT's over the years, feel so guilty now though.

Own: Jaguar, Lynx, Dreamcast, Saturn, MegaDrive, MegaCD, 32X, GameGear, PS3, PS, PSP, Wii, GameCube, N64, DS, GBA, GBC, GBP, GB,  Xbox, 3DO, CDi,  WonderSwan, WonderSwan Colour NGPC