I Made the Switch from CRT to LCD

[Bones Brigade]

I didnt address those comments because they simply are not facts, even though you claim them to be. There is not one single credible source that states anything about 16KHz as the de facto average hearing range you keep repeating. Not one single credible source to back that up.

 

You seem pretty quick to declare yourself the winner here. Given that you're outright lying and greatly exaggerating things to suit your argument, I feel the conversation is pointless. Enjoy your ill gotten "winnings".

 

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/ChrisDAmbrose.shtml

 

http://www.gsu.edu/images/AuxiliaryImages/Frequency_Range_of_Human_Hearing.pdf

Edited October 11, 2012 by Bones Brigade

[JD6502]

I made the switch to LCD a few years ago. There were several criteria that influenced the decision.

(For the record, I can't say that high pitched whining noises was one of them.) I have an old PC and an A8 on a very small desk, replacing two monitors with one was attractive. That meant a VGA input. S-video was a MUST. I didn't want to spend a lot of money. I kinda wanted something new. (Haven't had very good luck with used electronics.) What I got was a cheap Insignia TV at Best Buy. I'm not 100% satisfied, but I was never 100% satisfied with what I had before. In some ways the picture is better on the LCD. It has good contrast and blacks are really good, compared to the old CRT. The A8 produces a fair amount of interference. On the LCD this shows up as slight changes in contrast, on the CRT this sort of noise was less noticeable. All in all- for me- six of one, half dozen of the other. All other considerations aside, I think a high end CRT with all sorts of filters and signal processors would be best, but there were other considerations, and for me this compromise has worked well.

[MaximRecoil]

I didnt address those comments because they simply are not facts, even though you claim them to be.

 

You don't get to redefine the word "facts".

 

There is not one single credible source that states anything about 16KHz as the de facto average hearing range you keep repeating. Not one single credible source to back that up.

 

Good grief:

 

"Deterioration in hearing has been found to start very early, from about the age of 18 years. The ISO standard 7029 shows expected threshold changes due purely to age for carefully screened populations (i.e. excluding those with ear disease, noise exposure etc.), based on a meta-analysis of published data.[2][3] Age affects high frequencies more than low, and men more frequently than women. One early consequence is that even young adults may lose the ability to hear very high frequency tones above 15 or 16 kHz."

 

You seem pretty quick to declare yourself the winner here. Given that you're outright lying and greatly exaggerating things to suit your argument, I feel the conversation is pointless. Enjoy your ill gotten "winnings".

 

Unless you can point out any "outright lies" on my part, consider yourself established as a liar.

 

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/ChrisDAmbrose.shtml

 

http://www.gsu.edu/images/AuxiliaryImages/Frequency_Range_of_Human_Hearing.pdf

 

Good links. Here is an excerpt from them:

 

"The range of hearing for a healthy young person is 20 to 20,000 hertz. The hearing range of humans gets worse with age. People lose the ability to hear sounds of high frequency as they get older. The highest frequency that a normal middle-aged adult can hear is only 12-14 kilohertz."

Edited October 11, 2012 by MaximRecoil

[Keatah]

In truth it is best to use whatever you prefer and whatever gives the best picture in your opinion.

 

I like LCD's for their geometrical consistency. And the ciruitry/processing to maintain that across several different resolutions. Pincusion, convergence, keystone, centering.. It's all taken care of for me. This is in context of computer monitors. LCD monitors are *THE* shit for graphic editing. The color gamut, black blacks, it's all there. Even the reliability and stability over time. It's all there!

 

I'm "reliving" all my classing gaming and computing moments through LCD, but with nicely adjusted NTSC artifacting on the emulator side, and decent good bright & vivid settings on monitor. Done right, the wow effect is there. Yep, it takes some tweaking and adjustments. And some folks don't know how to set up an LCD for classic gaming, just as some don't know how to prepare a CRT (or what even constitutes a good CRT in the first place)..

 

We can argue specs and features and how one display's tech is better than the other till the cows come home. And we're not going to get beyond a pissing contest. A display and its interface is simply a personal choice. Question is do you know how to get the most out of it?

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Geez people like what you like and move on. Hey I PREFER CRT where possible that is the end of my viewpoint, don't care who agrees or doesn't, can't be bothered to justify it.

 

Now watch THIS if you don't agree!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgbOvqvblLM&feature=related

[+wood_jl]

I should have also mentioned - when watching movies on LCD, it's kind of nice that there's NO scanlines visible. When I'm playing retro-games at 160x192, I kind of expect them to be there - with no damn lag, and lightguns better work. They're both great display technologies, and I don't get this "battle for supremecy."

[MaximRecoil]

I should have also mentioned - when watching movies on LCD, it's kind of nice that there's NO scanlines visible. When I'm playing retro-games at 160x192, I kind of expect them to be there - with no damn lag, and lightguns better work. They're both great display technologies, and I don't get this "battle for supremecy."

 

You won't see any scanlines on a high resolution CRT either. If you look very closely (i.e. with your eyes less than a foot from the screen), you can faintly see the shadow mask or aperture grille.

 

In my opinion, there are currently no great options for watching movies at home. High resolution CRTs look amazing, but they are too small. I don't like the way any of the digital displays look. High end CRT projectors look amazing, and have more image size than most home users would ever need, but all projectors are a pain in general; especially CRT projectors.

 

Maybe something I like will come along (and become mainstream/affordable) in the future. OLED seems promising for example; but only for movies. I'll never play classic video games on anything other than standard resolution (15 kHz) CRTs.

[Keatah]

The technical problem with OLED/AMOLED is one of short life and inconsistency. OLED does well in small displays that are used intermittently, such as portable devices, cameras, mp3 players..

 

The labs still can't make huge sheets of them and have a smooth non-blotchy luminosity across the whole panel. And even if you null out the bright and dark spots and build a calilbration table, it doesn't matter. The individual pixels age differently in the field. And they've also tries wear leveling, like anti-burn in, to no avail.

 

At one time they thought of putting an intensity sensor next to each pixel, for built-in calibration, but the cost went up and the resolution down.

[MaximRecoil]

The technical problem with OLED/AMOLED is one of short life and inconsistency. OLED does well in small displays that are used intermittently, such as portable devices, cameras, mp3 players..

 

The labs still can't make huge sheets of them and have a smooth non-blotchy luminosity across the whole panel. And even if you null out the bright and dark spots and build a calilbration table, it doesn't matter. The individual pixels age differently in the field. And they've also tries wear leveling, like anti-burn in, to no avail.

 

At one time they thought of putting an intensity sensor next to each pixel, for built-in calibration, but the cost went up and the resolution down.

 

Those may or may not be current problems:

 

"DuPont stated in a press release in May 2010 that they can produce a 50-inch OLED TV in two minutes with a new printing technology. If this can be scaled up in terms of manufacturing, then the total cost of OLED TVs would be greatly reduced. Dupont also states that OLED TVs made with this less expensive technology can last up to 15 years if left on for a normal eight hour day.[81][82]"

 

Either way, LCD will always suck. It is backlit, which means it inherently sucks, no matter how much they try to polish the turd.

 

SED would have been perfect (for movies anyway; no good for old video games); too bad we'll never have it.

[Keatah]

Videogamers tend to prefer emissive displays over passive/backlit displays.

 

This can also be a case of where a better tech is passed up in favor of the establishment, think VHS vs. BETA. History is full of examples where a spiffy new tech comes into town but can never gain a foothold because the inherently inferior tech has been polished and refined to point that it exceeds the performance of the newcomer.

 

Will DuPont scale it up? And will it be power-efficient? And will the industry accept it? These are all questions to consider.

 

What I really like about OLED is the response time, I believe these displays have on/off cycles in the uS or nS range if I'm not mistaken.

[Schizophretard]

 

 

Probably not in any of our lifetimes. In order for it to look identical, the TV would have to be capable of matching human eye "resolution"; i.e., it would have to be capable of displaying video that is indistinguishable from reality to the human eye. So when e.g. watching a video of such and such shot through an open window, looks exactly the same as watching such and such live through said open window, then CRTs could be perfectly emulated.

 

It depends on how long we are alive. I have the potential to live until the next 80's. Some time between now and then the resolution might not be as good as the human eye but close enough. I may lose some of my eye sight too , so it just has to meet me half way. Anyway, I believe that I will always have the option to have an image that looks like CRT. I believe I will die before I lose access to CRT TV's. If I'm wrong then I believe the day my last CRT dies they will be emulated good enough.

 

I don't believe they would have to match the resolution of the human eye. They would just have to display standard definition with emulated phosphorus pixels made out of other really small LCD pixels. When I look at my task bar I can tell it is made up of pixels so tiny that I can barely see them. It is thousands of little blocks. I can't see an individual pixel but I can see by the texture that it is a lot of pixels. If my task bar was made with emulated phosphorus pixels made out of other really small LCD pixels then I would be able to see each individual emulated phosphorus pixel. I wouldn't be able to see the texture of the really small LCD pixels anymore though. It would be blurred away in the sparkling crystal look of the emulated phosphorus pixels. The emulated phosphorus pixels would not be identical to the real thing but up close I would have more trouble than I do now trying to see the small LCD pixels that make them up. At normal viewing distance they would be even more invisible. If a CRT emulator was showing a CRT screen off then I might be able to see a slight difference comparing it to a real CRT that is off but turned on with video I believe what is lost would be invisible. At the very least it would look infinitely better than what retro video games look like on an LCD. That look is more annoying to my eyes than that humming whine sound others are talking about.

[Bones Brigade]

I don't know where this idea that CRTs display a resolution so good it's as clear as the human eye can see. That's just bananas.

 

You can take the same DVD or Blu-Ray media and display it side by side on a CRT at 480i which is maximum cRT standard and on a 1080p LCD or equivalent hd tv and there will be absolutely no contest which looks better or more natural to the human eye.

 

As for video games it's simply a matter of preference. Either you prefer soft, flickering, poorly defined images, or you prefer crisp, well defined pixels.

[MaximRecoil]

I don't know where this idea that CRTs display a resolution so good it's as clear as the human eye can see. That's just bananas.

 

I know where it came from; your own head. Certainly no one else on this thread has suggested something as absurd as "CRTs display a resolution so good it's as clear as the human eye can see". There's no such thing as a display device that can even come close to matching human eye "resolution", and I doubt there will be in any of our lifetimes.

 

You can take the same DVD or Blu-Ray media and display it side by side on a CRT at 480i which is maximum cRT standard and on a 1080p LCD or equivalent hd tv and there will be absolutely no contest which looks better or more natural to the human eye.

 

480i is the "maximum CRT standard"? Is that a joke? The 22" CRT that I'm using right now to type this message will go to 1920 x 1440 (progressive scan; like all modern PC resolutions are), which is perhaps a higher resolution than the LCD I assume you're using right now can do. And play that "DVD or Blu-Ray media" side by side on my CRT and a similar size LCD, and it will look far better on my CRT. Better yet, play it side by side on a Sony GDM-FW900 CRT and a similar size LCD, and it will look far, far better on the CRT.

 

As for video games it's simply a matter of preference. Either you prefer soft, flickering, poorly defined images, or you prefer crisp, well defined pixels.

 

Except the images are not "soft" or "poorly defined"; and 60 Hz "flicker" (which is only necessarily relevant to standard resolution CRTs) is imperceptible to a good many people, including myself.

 

One of the following images looks more natural; more analogous to being painted by hand on a canvas; while the other looks like it was "painted" with a mouse in MS Paint, or built out of Lego blocks (click image to enlarge to full resolution):

 

[Bones Brigade]

Yes, There are CRT computer monitors that can display those HD and higher resolutions - but that's NOT what we're talking about.

 

With a few rare, extremely expensive, no longer manufactured exceptions, NONE of those HD CRT monitors have native 480i composite or S-Video inputs which nearly every retro gaming system require.

 

Standard CRT Television resolution is 480i. If you're going to shift the discussion to be that retro gaming on a 22" CRT Computer monitor wiht some kind of input scaler to take your retro game system's native resolution and upscale it - that's an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT conversation tahn Retro Gaming on a standard def. television CRT vs. a modern LCD or DLP TV.

 

You're comparing a $1900+ used computer monitor that almost no one here owns (except you, apparently) to $499 Televisions as if they are of the same class.

 

Stop it. You sound ridiculous at this point.

Edited October 13, 2012 by Bones Brigade

[MaximRecoil]

Yes, There are CRT computer monitors that can display those HD and higher resolutions - but that's NOT what we're talking about.

 

It is what we're talking about when you mention watching Blu-rays.

 

With a few rare, extremely expensive, no longer manufactured exceptions, NONE of those HD CRT monitors have native 480i composite or S-Video inputs which nearly every retro gaming system require.

 

The PC monitors don't (but neither do LCD PC monitors), but the HD CRT TVs all did, and those were not rare (places like Wal-Mart and Best Buy sold them for example).

 

Standard CRT Television resolution is 480i.

 

Roughly; or ~240p; but what of it?

 

If you're going to shift the discussion to be that retro gaming on a 22" CRT Computer monitor wiht some kind of input scaler to take your retro game system's native resolution and upscale it - that's an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT conversation tahn Retro Gaming on a standard def. television CRT vs. a modern LCD or DLP TV.

 

I didn't say anything about "retro gaming on a 22" CRT Computer monitor", nor did I "shift the discussion". You are the one that mentioned watching Blu-rays, as a followup to your confused belief that someone had claimed that "CRTs display a resolution so good it's as clear as the human eye can see".

 

You're comparing a $1900+ used computer monitor that almost no one here owns (except you, apparently) to $499 Televisions as if they are of the same class.

 

I also compared my used 22" Mitsubishi Diamondtron monitor, which cost me $80 (shipped) in 2005; and that comparison is for watching Blu-rays (which you mentioned); not for "retrogaming". I'd much prefer "retrogaming" on my PC CRT monitor than on an LCD monitor or TV, but those all suck for that application (the PC CRT monitor simply sucks a little less for that).

 

Stop it. You sound ridiculous at this point.

 

Comical irony coming from the guy that was contradicted by his own link in the 16 kHz discussion, and displayed his reading difficulties by suggesting that someone here had claimed "that CRTs display a resolution so good it's as clear as the human eye can see."

[+wood_jl]

stuff......

 

I like what you wrote, but let's cut to business. How much for the Mega STe?

[+wood_jl]

Thanks guys, for making this particular thread fun-to-read.

 

People make great points on both sides, here. Once again, liking both (for particular applications) is like - in politics (and I do NOT mean to turn this political, just making a poor analogy) being conservative on some issues and liberal on others; you'll find few who agree, but obtain good information from either.

 

I'm still having trouble "choosing a side" (as is the case with the analogy), and don't understand why each side (in this case, CRT vs LCD/whatever) can't be given its due.

 

The only thing I can tell you is that I AM SO GLAD I DO NOT HAVE TO CHOOSE! BOTH, DUDE!

[Keatah]

None of us really has to choose. You choose both, I choose LCD, somebody else chooses CRT. No big deal. One user trying to force an opinion is just someone compensating for a small dick.

[jmetal88]

To the guys talking about whether you can hear a CRT: I have always been able to hear them. I'm 24 years old now, and still hear them quite well. I have noticed CRTs with a longer flyback distance (larger screens) make a louder sound. I can hear the whine of my 32" Sony Trinitron WEGA actually over the audio coming from the set. I have a friend who can hear them even better than I can. I had the back off my TV once when he was in the room, and he claimed that the high-pitched whine was actually hurting his ears.

[Schizophretard]

I don't know where this idea that CRTs display a resolution so good it's as clear as the human eye can see. That's just bananas.

 

You can take the same DVD or Blu-Ray media and display it side by side on a CRT at 480i which is maximum cRT standard and on a 1080p LCD or equivalent hd tv and there will be absolutely no contest which looks better or more natural to the human eye.

 

As for video games it's simply a matter of preference. Either you prefer soft, flickering, poorly defined images, or you prefer crisp, well defined pixels.

 

The human eye resolution thing was about an LCD would have to have that resolution to make a CRT emulator look 100% identical to a real CRT. I agree that would be the only resolution for it to be identical but I think with even a much lower resolution it would look close enough.

 

My preference for CRTs for retro video games isn't because I prefer soft, flickering, poorly defined images. It is because I like them to look as best as they can. I prefer my retro video games to look as good as I remember them or better. The only time I have seen better is AV modified systems hooked up to CRTs. To be fair I have only experienced retro video games on my LCD. Maybe they look better on others but I haven't once seen a screen shot of a retro video game on an LCD that looks better than they do on CRTs. I have seen a lot of screen shots and they all look like emulators without CRT effects. If that is the look someone prefers then I don't understand why they would even want to hook up retro consoles up to LCDs when they can get the same results with emulators. If I want the games to look like they did then I would use the original hardware on CRTs. If I want the games to look how they do on LCDs then I would just download emulators. Why spend the money and go through the hassle of AV modifying consoles just to get a look that you can download for free? I have a Prosystem modified for s-video mainly for playing VCS games. When it was in the mail I was excited. I thought,"Wow! This is going to look as good as this system can! I can't wait!" I didn't think,"Wow! This is going to look as good as Stella! I can't wait!"

[Keatah]

I generally like the glow and persistence of the CRT. Especially with vector graphics or high contrast stuff. I dislike the geometrical distortion and constant adjustments and fiddling. And in light of the constant fiddling (no pun intended), I decided it extends to real hardware too. Too much maintenance and fussing with connectors and controllers and carts and just the bulk in general.

 

So I've come to settle on a happy medium and it leans toward the LCD & emulation as my rig of choice. These pics were taken before I got into really adjusting monitor masks and shaders and NTSC effects. It is also on my shit-old 204b. I'll need to make a new set to show the massive improvement on a 2012 model year display. But this looks

 

 

https://picasaweb.google.com/114688480094930960522/August202011

[Bones Brigade]

The CRT effects in emulators ate mainly for nostalgia purposes. They look nice if you want your brand new LCD tv to look like old and dated technology, but not because they look "better".

 

When you take the raw data of a VCS game and run it through M emulator, you don't get rounded softer images. You get EXACTLY what the programmers came up with. That is what they intended users to see, and any rounding or smoothing that happened as a consequence of running it through a cRT was completely unintentional.

[Atariboy]

It's well known that game programmers have used CRT display technology to their benefit over the years.

[MaximRecoil]

The CRT effects in emulators ate mainly for nostalgia purposes. They look nice if you want your brand new LCD tv to look like old and dated technology, but not because they look "better".

 

The emulator effects look like crap. Only a 15 kHz CRT looks like a 15 kHz CRT, and we are a long way from being able to convincingly simulate that look on a different type of display. And "old and dated" is irrelevant. How "old and dated" is the art of painting on a canvas, for example? How "old and dated" are the '70s and '80s video games themselves?

 

When you take the raw data of a VCS game and run it through M emulator, you don't get rounded softer images. You get EXACTLY what the programmers came up with. That is what they intended users to see, and any rounding or smoothing that happened as a consequence of running it through a cRT was completely unintentional.

 

That is blatantly false. The programmers couldn't have possibly intended users to see it the way we can now see it on high-resolution monitors, because users didn't have high-resolution monitors, nor did the hardware that ran the video game software output a signal that would natively fill a high-resolution screen. Programmers knew exactly what type of displays users would be seeing their game on.

 

Additionally, the simplicity of the graphics was not a stylistic choice, it was a hardware-limitation choice. Toru Iwatani's Pac-Man character was inspired by a pizza that was missing a slice. Pizzas are round, not stairstepped around the edge. You don't think he would have drawn the sprite round if he could have? Do you think he disliked the fact that the CRTs which displayed his game made the Pac-Man character look practically round? Do you think he wished that his Pac-Man sprite would show up on the screen with a blockier, more jagged appearance?

 

Ironically, high-resolution monitors make simplistic graphics look more primitive and less artistic / aesthetically pleasing. Look at this image again:

 

 

Like I said before, the CRT image is similar to a painting on a canvas. The CRT's coarse shadow mask even gives the screen a "texture" that is similar to a canvas. The other image could be perfectly replicated in MS Paint of all things; and MS Paint is not known for its ability to create particularly artistic / aesthetic images, due to its complete lack of any effects; i.e., it is like drawing on a coarse grid with your pen absolutely confined to the lines of the grid, or an "Etch A Sketch" where you can only turn one dial at a time. Nothing in nature looks like that, nor do traditional human drawings/paintings.

 

It's well known that game programmers have used CRT display technology to their benefit over the years.

 

Exactly.

Edited October 14, 2012 by MaximRecoil

[Bones Brigade]

Arcade games as early as the late 70's had higher than standard 480i resolution monitors and so did the computers that programmers used, so to try and claim VCS game programmers were limited to 320 240 monitors is a straight up lie.