Do you still play old video game systems on a CRT TV?

[crtretrogamer]

I still play my Atari 2600 & NES on my 27" Sony Trinitron CRT TV. This TV is 13 years old. Picture Quality is great! Do you still play old video game systems on a CRT TV? In 20 years from now, Will I still be able to take my CRT TV to a repair shop to be repaired? Will there still be CRT rebuilders to rebuild old and antique picture tubes in the United States or other places in the world? Is there a chance that new Analog CRT TV's for classic gaming will come back to the production line in America or be imported to America in the future?

Thanks,

Chris

[Polygon]

I don't currently because I don't have the room, but I have my old Trinitron waiting for the time when I do and all my retro consoles will be on the CRT. As for a good quality CRT, or any CRT for that matter, going back into production... that's never going to happen. People like us make up such a small percentage of the public. There will never be enough of us for any company to have the incentive to produce CRTs again.

[sixwayshot]

CRTs aren't really able to be repaired anymore, at least not everywhere. Keep a good one around, because there isn't any chance you'll get a new one any time soon. Hell, most thrift stores and pawn shops don't accept CRTs anymore because nobody wants them. To the average person, they take up too much space and they provide a comically-low resolution picture.

The main reason that I have a CRT is because I know that the NES Zapper or Super Scope, or the Namco GunCon won't work with my HD TV. There's also the fact that older TVs do make the older games look better - the sometimes-blurry picture makes it so that the game looks like one continuous image, rather than a mess of pixels. CRT TVs also hide a lot of the tricks that developers used to get around color palette limitations and on-screen sprite/character limits.

Though, in the long run, it's not the end of the world to play these games on a newer TV. You'll have to do it eventually.

[Polygon]

Though, in the long run, it's not the end of the world to play these games on a newer TV. You'll have to do it eventually.

Tell that to people still using amplifiers with tubes. There are plenty of people still enjoying far obsolete technology. However, I suggest having spare CRTs around.

[theclaw]

Barely. My last CRT on hand is SD only with component input, accepts NES Zapper or Famicom RF usable enough.

[Jack_Burton_BYOAC]

Every day.

The CRT won't ever really die. They're fairly easy to repair, or even make. Might get a tad pricey.

[bb_hood]

Yeah I love my CRT. I got one of those 50$ RGB boxes off ebay about a year ago and it works really well with my CRT. Colors are nice and really vibrant. Whenever I play anything thats not PS3 I use my CRT.

[jperryss]

Yep, I have a 27" Trinitron specifically for the older stuff (NES, SNES, PCE, XBOX)

Tell that to people still using amplifiers with tubes. There are plenty of people still enjoying far obsolete technology. However, I suggest having spare CRTs around.

It's not really the same, since the vacuum tube is alive and well, even if only for a niche market. Audio products are still being designed which incorporate vacuum tubes. You can still easily find replacement parts for both modern and old tube components. And if you need a repair, you just need to find someone that you can ship the thing to. None of these things can be said about CRT TVs.

[johnvosh]

Yup! I use a JVC D-Series 27" CRT for all my older gen consoles, from the PS2 down

[Alpha2099]

The oldest monitor I've ever used for a game system was hooking my PlayStation to a Commodore 64 monitor. Not sure if that's CRT or not. It lasted about a year or so before its age caught up to it.

[treismac]

Yeah, man. CRTs, clunky and space consuming as they may be, are one of my favorite accoutrements of retro gaming. I kinda, sorta hoard them for when the retro video game apocalypse is upon us and we're all hunting and scavenging and killing each other for working vintage video game systems and games.

[wiggyx]

I keep em around just for light gun games. I prefer my DLP for playing pretty much everything.

[Tanooki]

Somewhat I do. I've got the NES sharp tv, so there's that, but I also use the N64 over rf on it too. N64 like other first gen 3d systems doesn't play nice with LCD tvs messing up lighting, shadow and other visuals wrecking some games completely.

I do have a lucky older 720P LCD with such low lag, I have no issues running pre3d in it and it fills most the screen with a crisp sharp image so I mostly use it.

[Black_Tiger]

I will never hook a 240p console to an HDTV if I can help it. I have a 27" crt in my game room that I bought new a couple years ago. Another 27" that I bought new when the Dreamcast was current and a couple 21" tvs I'm keeping in storage.

If I'm not playing in a crt, I might as well just play emulation.

I also try to get s-video out of every console.

[FFStudios]

I have a CRT in my closet in case I acquire any more game consoles that require RCA inputs. So basically, I keep a CRT around in case I buy any consoles that aren't newer than 2006. Which are going to be the only consoles I buy. My 29" HDTV, while wonderful, simply does not have enough Component inputs even with an AV switch to be a viable option for a video game enthusiast. I also keep a very small TV in the bathroom, connected to a spare coax output on my cable box just in-case I want to watch TV while getting ready in the mornings. That one would need some form of RCA-to-coax adaptor for any consoles to work on it.

[Neb6]

Yep!

Mainly because that's how I remember them. I like the slight fuzz factor and the amped colors on the CRT (that and the effect of the scanlines on the pixels).

Up until recently, the lead singer of the band I'm in would only play 8-bit games on a CRT.

[Gregger]

Nope, despite what everyone says I like the look of the HD TV better. I've fired them up side by side and it looks better to me. Then again My tvs for old consoles are smaller so that may be part of it. There's just too much advantage to an HD TV and the things I can plug into it for me to switch to CRT.

[Ed Oscuro]

Tell that to people still using amplifiers with tubes. There are plenty of people still enjoying far obsolete technology. However, I suggest having spare CRTs around.

Tube amps aren't obsolete, though...

I'd love to try a 4:3 plasma, that had a native 640 x 480 resolution, if such a thing existed. Then, I could use a XRGB2+ with this plasma, and it would output the 640 x 480, and it would look outstanding on the 4:3 plasma.


Unfortunately, no such thing exists. So yeah, gotta have the real CRT.



which reminds me... I need to start looking out for a contingency plan, just in case anything happens to my current PVM.

Any LCD with a VGA plug (31KHz signal, same as the XRGB2 output) should support that resolution, though.

Personally I'd love some new display tech that either had fast enough processing to do away with scaling lag, and high enough resolution that it could emulate scanlines, or which didn't have fixed pixels at all (same as CRT) and which had some kind of compatibility with raster scan-type signals.

[WCP]

Tube amps aren't obsolete, though...

Any LCD with a VGA plug (31KHz signal, same as the XRGB2 output) should support that resolution, though.

Personally I'd love some new display tech that either had fast enough processing to do away with scaling lag, and high enough resolution that it could emulate scanlines, or which didn't have fixed pixels at all (same as CRT) and which had some kind of compatibility with raster scan-type signals.

Yeah, true, but the only 4:3 LCD's out there, were made specifically with PC use in mind, for the most part. I've tried hooking a XRGB2+ to various LCD computer monitors, and it just didn't look right. I'm not saying it looked really bad, but it didn't look quite right. There are also early 4:3 lcd TV's that were standard definition, but again, the LCD quality just wasn't very good back then.


If only you could find a modern day lcd display, with the quality of modern lcd technology of 2013, that had a 4:3 aspect ratio. Unfortunately, I don't know of any. I'm sure there is something out there that could be had, but I'm guessing it would be made for the commercial industry (not consumer use), and would be unbelievably expensive.

[Mytho]

Yep, I'm still using my 24" Sony WEGA Trinitron I purchased brand new back in 2004. It's remarkable how crisp games look on that thing, even over composite. Playing SD consoles on an HD display absolutely destroys my enjoyment of older consoles, especially in any timing based game.

On a slightly different note, I actually don't own any sort of standalone flat panel display at this point. All my HD consoles are connected to an HD CRT, and my PC is connected to an old HP CRT that still produces a vibrant picture. I don't see any reason to throw out perfectly fine displays simply because they don't look trendy.