Sony WEGA CRT - HD or SD preferable for classic gaming?

[ATARI800XLfan]

Just wondering but will light guns work on the TV I have. Do they work on Flatscreen tube tv's or only the older curved ones.

[Hobie-wan]

Has to be a tube TV for the old light guns, it doesn't matter the shape of the outward screen. They track based on the scanline. Non-tube screens don't have scanlines, so that's the reason they don't work. Not sure about HD mucking things up. I'm sure someone will pipe in with that information.

[Betelgeuse]

I use to play on a KV32XBR45. Loved that TV! picture tube went out....it's been sleeping in my garage ever since. Prob the last time I played any light gun games too. shame

[CRTGAMER]

FD just means flat display, AKA a truly flat CRT surface. XBR means Xtreme Black Retention and was later re-christened Xtra Black retention in the 00's and just means the TV can maintain deeper and darker black levels along with higher contrast than other sets and are typically the higher end Trinitrons. Yeah, the ad says it's about 240 Lbs. I'll have to get my brother to help load and unload it. Hope it has handle slots on the sides.

No handles on the sides and most of the weight is at the front. Which model number?

I use to play on a KV32XBR45. Loved that TV! picture tube went out....it's been sleeping in my garage ever since. Prob the last time I played any light gun games too. shame

Don't toss it, I'm finalizing my Sony WEGA Trinitron Twenty Dollar Repair Guide. I hope to post the guide next week, you can catch a glimpse of some of the pics here.

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=447555#p447555

[retrosportsgamer]

Back on the HDTV, I play the retro stuff in 4:3 mode, with all the video enhancements on the TV turned off. The 240P signal being up scaled still gets a small amount of pixel blending/smudging, but for the most part it is very sharp.

With all that considered, I still play my Genesis primarily on the Plasma TV along with the SNES. I wouldn't suggest using composite, and I wouldn't suggest it with anything other than a Panasonic or Samsung plasma (Or a Pioneer if you got one).

What kind of enhancements do you disable?

[AppleQueso]

Has to be a tube TV for the old light guns, it doesn't matter the shape of the outward screen. They track based on the scanline. Non-tube screens don't have scanlines, so that's the reason they don't work. Not sure about HD mucking things up. I'm sure someone will pipe in with that information.

is this true?

I wonder if anybody here has a scaler or something that can generate artificial scanlines? Maybe it's worth testing light guns on...

[Hobie-wan]

Has to be a tube TV for the old light guns, it doesn't matter the shape of the outward screen. They track based on the scanline. Non-tube screens don't have scanlines, so that's the reason they don't work. Not sure about HD mucking things up. I'm sure someone will pipe in with that information.

is this true?

I wonder if anybody here has a scaler or something that can generate artificial scanlines? Maybe it's worth testing light guns on...

Let me rephrase that. With a CRT, the guns start at the top left corner of the screen. They draw the first line left to right, then line 3, 5, etc. Once the gun reaches the bottom, it draws lines 2, 4, etc. This is what creates interlacing as the picture is drawn 60 times a second (thus 60 hertz), but only half each trip down the screen. Some older light guns rely on where the picture is being drawn on the TV screen to know where they are aimed. So it isn't a matter of their being dark areas inbetween the lines of pixels. If this was the case, then CRTs with differently shaped shadow masks would create a problem.

[dogman91]

On the subject of trinitrons (And Mod_Man_Extreme should be able to help me on this one) I recall there being a model of the HD FD series that was capable of changing its native resolution to that of the signal. As a result it made all SD content look perfect along with all HD content. Also i think it was the highest resolution consumer television released, if not now then at the time. Me and Mod_Man saw one on craigslist a while back when I was searching for a TV, but sadly we never jumped on it.

Are you saying this is a multi-sync TV that handles 240p natively (with or without scanlines)?

[Zing]

I'd be interested in knowing as well. As far as I know, all HD/HiScan Wegas will line-double everything at the minimum.

[Jamisonia]

I don't believe this is true. I believe the best TV for SD gaming is either the KV-32FV300 or KV-32FV310. The only difference is the 310 has two component inputs, and 300 only has one. This is the best SD they made. It has the 3D digital Comb Filter, the DynaBlack Screen. It should have the best geometry, although I recently got one that has some issues. Hopefully I can find a place to fix it. One place already turned me saying they don't deal with CRTs over the fear that people won't come back for them.