Help buying CRT HDTV

[ChuChu Flamingo]

Well thats good, makes the choice easier. I looked on that site and found a couple trinitrons. Not sure if they are HD or widescreen, you will have to ask.

Heck I carried a 27'' RCA tv and that must have weighed 100 pounds+ by myself but that has two things to hold it on the top. But these Sony Trinitrons only have a place to grab them near the bottom, and when you do, it wants to tilt forward. So awkward.

Best of luck, those HD CRTS are heavy but just plain awkward to pick up.

[CRTGAMER]

Thrift stores a good source.

Maybe for testing, bring an upscaling DVD player and especially your favorite Retro console. The DVD player for the higher resolutions of HDMI/Component and the older console for SVideo and Composite. Keep in mind the HD CRT won't work with Retro Lightguns. There are non HDMI/DVI EDTVs but you won't get the higher 720p or 1080p out of them.

Wow, I have never thought about this. Do you think NES games would look good via upscaling DVD player? Wouldn't be better to buy an ordinary upscaler instead?

I was meaning a simple way to test the different video modes on a HD before the purchase. DVD player for the higher resolutions and the Retro console direct connected to the HD for the lower resolutions.

But maybe an interesting point. As in VCRs converting an older console's RF signal such as an Atari 2600 to SVideo, maybe a DVR upscaler may do the same. The pic probably won't improve over the HDs built in scaler though but the DVR does give an option of say SVideo to a non SVideo input HD.

[fuctfuct]

been doing a bit or googling and it seems a lot of these types of TVs have over scan problems with 360/PS3s

[ChuChu Flamingo]

Should be able to adjust via service menu.

[Anapan]

been doing a bit or googling and it seems a lot of these types of TVs have over scan problems with 360/PS3s

I've never been able to get any sort of decent over-scan to show up on any of the flat screen CRTs I've gone into the service menu on. 2 Toshiba HD flat-screen CRTS, a big screen Sony Wega SD, and a Sony CRT rear projection all have similar results. The geometry settings in the service menu can only do so much. When I tried to make the over-scan display by tweaking h-size, v-size, and zoom settings I could never get the picture look any good and it was much harder to keep the picture square outside of the normal scan-levels - pincusion and bowing were very difficult to tweak at the extremities. On the 4x3 displays the corners were a muddy, blurry mess, and I could not fix the convergence. On the wide screen ones (Toshibas), it was even worse. The over-scan on the 2 sides actually was not displayable even at the extremes of the geometry and position settings, and whenever an over-scan image was displayed it was smeared over the rest of the display messing up the dark colors. That was my main reason for getting the 4x3 big screens. In the end I just scrolled the over-scan off the displays and made the cutoff point a balance that showed the most consoles with the least amount of black bars. It seems as though CRTs are simply not built to show any over-scan. On smaller flat screen CRTs I couldn't do anything in their service menu. It was just the simplest settings that many TVs have in their regular menus.

[ChuChu Flamingo]

Just my advice, if you use VGA on 360 it should fix the overscan. Heck, there is overscan on Xbox 360 component when I hooked it up to my plasma. VGA/HDMI fixed this.

As for me, I have underscan with my upscaler on some sources (genesis/neo geo), but good thing I can zoom in or out to fix overscan/underscan.