CRT appreciation thread

Bamyasi · October 13, 2016 05:17 AM

ITT: Discuss the greatest video monitors of all time and the premiere technology of the 20th century.

I lurve playing retro games, especially around this time of year (as only 3 or so decent horror games have come out since RE4), and as everyone should know, anything 6th gen and before (including Wii) looks like absolute tosh on an HDTV.

My setup is currently the Sony KV-32XBR250, which I can't find a picture of but have had since '99 and fear is nearing the end of its life, and the KV-36HS500, which had hardly been watched when I got it off craigslist from another dumb hipster a few years ago:

My dream monitor is the GDM-FW900, which is the greatest computer monitor ever made, and can run 4k, even though they were manufactured over a decade ago:

Unfortunately they are extremely hard to find for under 1k and in an area you don't have to fly halfway across the country to pick up. Right now all I have is the lowly HMD-A200, which I pretty much exclusively use to play RPGmaker games:

I'd also like to build a CRT MAME cab someday but that's not currently in my budget.

So yeah, post your CRTs. And if you don't have one, you should seriously consider rescuing one off CL. In a few short decades the technology will be completely extinct (unless autistic videophillic hipsters bring them back like their audiophile analogues (pun intended) did with vinyl records about a decade ago), and only an absurdly few (like 1 or 2 last I checked) small vanity companies still replace tubes. Fair warning though, the better FD-Trinitron/WEGAs are extremely heavy (like 200lbs) so you'll wanna bring a dolly and lots of car space/furni pads and two strong friends to carry it for you. Many of them come with custom stands as well, which is another thing you don't see anymore, as everything nowadays is manufactured in China.

Fuck you.

rtil · October 13, 2016 06:41 AM

these beasts are obsolete for a reason, but i did rock one for a long time and i kinda miss the degauss button

Bamyasi · October 13, 2016 04:34 PM

They're obsolete for current-gen systems yes, but if you still played Dreamcast you'd definitely want one around. And the black levels are much better than flat panels which makes them essential for horror games.

Also a lot of people in the PC and arcade gaming circuit prefer them due to zero input lag on the higher-end models (like the GDM-FW900), but the difference may be negligible now that we have LED monitors with 240hz and beyond.

rtil · October 13, 2016 09:18 PM

i still have a dreamcast but i haven't used it in a while. people have successfully modified them for hdmi output, but the inputs are still on the back of plenty of lcd tv's

i wouldn't say anything about them is superior to modern day high-end lcd or led displays

Bamyasi · October 14, 2016 04:01 AM

Dreamcast also has VGA output, but you need the converter box. Pretty sure the max resolution for DC titles was 480i anyway, which I personally think looks better on a CRT screen with scanlines and the same max resolution. Upscaling to 1080p would just look weird with 128 bit textures and polygons imo.

Quote from: rtil on October 13, 2016 09:18 PM
i wouldn't say anything about them is superior to modern day high-end lcd or led displays

Fair enough. I think their charm is fairly hard to replicate though. If you booted up your DC on an LED, LCD, and CRT all at once you might agree. Oldschool games simply look better on the displays they were designed for. Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?

New school games of course are an entirely different story.

rtil · October 14, 2016 05:24 AM

it looks better than you'd think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IyZpJd1DV0

this guy is running a modded DC that does 60fps 1080p upscaling. but you can just do this with the nullDC emulator and save yourself hours of tinkering with hardware - and probably lots of money, too. however his modded board will have a 'scanline' option to make it look more authentic.

playing dreamcast on a CRT might make me feel nostalgic but i don't really miss the 'fuzziness' of them. and they were fucking heavy and took up too much space. i'd have to go to goodwill or something to find a display old enough to fit one.

i was actually quite attached to my last CRT monitor for my computer until i realized it didn't accurately display color at all, so some of my paintings that looked fine on the CRT had splotches of color only visible on LCD monitors that were properly calibrated (my CRT couldn't get bright enough to show the darker end of the spectrum)

Bamyasi · October 14, 2016 05:44 AM

Dang that does look pretty good.

Quote from: rtil on October 14, 2016 05:24 AM
playing dreamcast on a CRT might make me feel nostalgic

This coupled with sentimentality is probably the main reason I'm still attached to CRTs, but I still think games like REmake and Silent Hill look better on a Gamecube/PS2 and CRT than they ever will remastered in HD (and REmake's remaster was done in-house unlike SH's notoriously bad one).

Also yeah CRTs lose brightness, which is still ideal for horror games but not actual production. I wanna get ISF certified but haven't looked into it much. The seminar's prolly hella spensive.

Which paintings were they?

rtil · October 14, 2016 10:21 AM

old paintings that i've long since deleted. i got rid of this monitor in 2007

wish i could remember the brand. maybe if i saw a picture of it it'd jog my memory

rtil · October 14, 2016 11:59 AM

now i remember. it was a viewsonic. no clue what model, but it looked exactly almost like this, except it had a square base

i had it for probably a decade. idk where it is now. probably in a dumpster

Bamyasi · October 15, 2016 06:51 AM

Quote from: rtil on October 14, 2016 11:59 AM
idk where it is now. probably in a dumpster

That is so sad.

ExBerian · October 15, 2016 07:16 PM

There are those Sony ones that they used in store that are still circulating around. They supposedly were super expensive and only used in stores because they doubled the "pixel" amount but kept the screen size at like 25 inches so it looks super crisp. I think we have one at school but I am unsure if it is the right kind. I believe it was the Sony Trinitron and its quality was the equivalent of 1080i.

rtil · October 16, 2016 12:44 AM

C U T T I N G

E D G E

Bamyasi · October 26, 2016 09:11 AM

Forgot to mention that if you want to experience the full effect of analogue gaming and movies you really need to invest in the proper cables. Standard RCA composite cables won't cut it. You need VGA, SCART, YPbPr component or at the very least S-Video.

I might take pictures of how REmake looks on an analogue television with component video vs. how it looks on an HDTV with component video vs. how the HD rerelease looks on it's native display.

I think it's really hard to argue analogue doesn't look miles better. That said the GC YPbPr cables usually go for over $200 now so most people won't ever get to experience the system as it was meant to look (unless they live in PAL or NTSC-J regions where SCART inputs were once common).

You twit.