Classic Gaming on a Big Screen

[Great Hierophant]

I believe your average CRT TV for consumer use maxed out at around 40 inches, and they were extremely heavy and deep. Most of us probably have never played on a tube of quite that size. Modern 16:9 widescreen displays have to be larger to get as much viewing area as a 4:3 display, this site can give the equivalents : http://www.cavecreations.com/tv2.cgi

 

But there were and are many options for classic gaming on larger displays. In the past we had those rear-projection TVs that could get quite large if you had the floorspace. Today there are 75 and 80" flat panel TVs which are not out of the range of the affluent consumer and can give off a very good picture with an RGB-enabled console and a X-RGB Mini Framemeister. Then there are projectors that can give as large as a display as your screen (100-120" is not uncommon) and the lack of ambient light allow.

 

So, what is the largest screen size you have gamed on? I have nothing particularly memorable to boast about, only my 47" flat panel.

[omegadot]

My friend's grandmother has a 54" 4:3 TV years ago after her eyes started to really go. We would hook up our PSX and SNES to it for fun. It was actually pretty impressive at the time. Compared to my daily driver of a 48" widescreen TV it's still impressive now that I think about it.

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

Largest tv that I ever did any gaming on was a 60" Mitsubishi large big screen CRT TV. Family got in 1996 and lasted until 2012. I prefer doing my gaming on nothing over 40" and less than 27". My tv though is 21" made by Insignia. And I had a 27" the reason I have that is because it has a built in DVD player while the 27" Sanyo doesn't have one and I used a Sony DVD player. Less clutter and more space so I gave it to someone in use of it.

[SiLic0ne t0aD]

I have a 32" Toshiba 4:3 CRT and a smaller Samsung widescreen 16:9 CRT. I picked up a Extron VSC 150 off ebay for about $20 to convert VGA to RGB component so I can play Dreamcast (and anything else VGA) on those instead my 19" lcd monitor. I kind of think the smaller monitor looks better though, just need one a little bigger.

[Osgeld]

parents had a 37 inch RCA tube when I was a teen, When they would go out of town the console magically appeared out of the basement and hooked up to that tv (I had a 21 inch kenmore down there)

[Reaperman]

My gameroom runs about 102" of front projection (16:9). My current projector really wants to run a little larger, but I'd have to pull furniture out of the room for that. I run through a framemeister to keep the lag somewhat down, and give me scart rgb compatibility.

 

I think this was from my old projector, but the screen is the same:

 

 

Edited November 14, 2015 by Reaperman

[Eltigro]

My best friend's grandparents had a rear projection TV that we hooked up my TurboGrafx to back in the mid-90s. Don't know how big it was, but I remember it was the first time we beat The Legendary Axe.

 

I was recently at Texas Motor Speedway and they have a big screen that is across the track from the main stands. They call it "Big Hoss" and claim it to be the world's biggest HD LED video board. No diagonal measurements, but the website says it is 20,633.64 square feet. When I first saw it, I thought, "I want to play a game on that."

 

[jfitzenr]

Best I had was in College... it was about 2003, and one of my roommates had inherited a... hell it had to be 50+" CRT from his parents. I can't recall the size but thing was gigantic. To the point that we actually talked to the next tenants at the house we rented so we could just leave it and the entertainment center is was on because it was just stupid to move. We had a weird piecemeal 5.1 setup on it too with two giant 80s floorstanding 3-way main speakers and stuff and even a turntable. If it had been 1987 we would've been the place to BE!

 

Fond memories of playing gigantic drunken RBI Baseball and Tecmo Super Bowl with buddies. Nothing like READY, DOWN, HUTHUTHUTHUTHUTHUTHUT shaking the walls.

 

I seem to remember a commercial from the NES, maaaybe SNES era where some kids were playing NES on a Drive-In movie screen... and that pretty much became my lifelong dream as a child.

Edited November 29, 2015 by jfitzenr

[MotoRacer]

Largest would by a friend of the family's rear project unit. Had to be at least 60 inches. I remember we played ATV 2 on his PS2 on it. It's funny, I remember it looking so realistic (didn't have a PS2 at the time), but even then I thought everything looked horribly washed out and muted compared to my CRT back at home.

 

To save space, I play my classic consoles on broadcast monitors now. Having a giant CRT TV isn't space savvy, and I wouldn't take in a rear project unit if you paid me. When I got married to my wife, she had one of those things. It was the first thing to go into the trash, haha.

[0078265317]

My best friend's grandparents had a rear projection TV that we hooked up my TurboGrafx to back in the mid-90s. Don't know how big it was, but I remember it was the first time we beat The Legendary Axe.

 

I was recently at Texas Motor Speedway and they have a big screen that is across the track from the main stands. They call it "Big Hoss" and claim it to be the world's biggest HD LED video board. No diagonal measurements, but the website says it is 20,633.64 square feet. When I first saw it, I thought, "I want to play a game on that."

 

 

That would be nice.

[jfitzenr]

https://youtu.be/glFVXpz_abQ

Edited November 29, 2015 by jfitzenr

[Eltigro]

Remember these "Ultimate Gaming Rig" contests in video game magazines? I used to stare at those pictures and dream about having that set up in my room. Did anyone ever win these things or were they just scams? (I think I remember a thread about them at one time...)

 

[iesposta]

I started retro gaming right after we went LCD.

 

I've never really had a proper TV.

I used tuners or VCRs with Component monitors from Atari 800XL on to real Macintosh computers with tuner cards. When home DLP projectors became affordable, my first one was 800x600 but still did 1080i quite nice. I'm on my 2nd projector. It has a 16:9 size chip, and does 720p to 1080i nice. For gaming it is not my first choice, especially with flicker causing sprites to display every other line, but 2600 Millipede on a white blank wall is fantastic.

 

I got my brother's 27" RCA for free when he went LCD.

My best friend had a 27" Sony WEGA made in the 2000's that he was given and never used, stored in his basement as a back up. Gave that to me for free. It is almost too crisp and sharp to use for 2600 / 7800. Even with all the processing off and no sharpness, it is still razor clear.

 

I made beautiful DVDs from standard definition content I used to record on ReplayTV. Networked right to my Mac and didn't need re-encoding for DVD MPEG2. Used those right up until the media companies offered their own HD DVRs.

It was kind of a letdown that they finally got delivery of clear standard definition analog TV right after 100 years of snowy interference, and then switched to compressed artifacted high definition "nowhere near what the format is capable of doing" content, and now want to push 4K and then probably 8K sets.

The 4K content you see in stores is what I remember seeing on the first high definition set (one of 2 in the world) in the 80's. It ran from a hand built laser disk player and was like looking out an open window. When was the last time you saw 1080p and thought it looked like peering out an open window?

[frank_c]

Remember these "Ultimate Gaming Rig" contests in video game magazines? I used to stare at those pictures and dream about having that set up in my room. Did anyone ever win these things or were they just scams? (I think I remember a thread about them at one time...)

 

 

 

Same promo company also did ultimate music gear rigs. I remember seeing guitar and bass rig ads. Never entered, I figured it was BS and didn't bother.

Edited November 29, 2015 by frank_c

[CatPix]

The 4K content you see in stores is what I remember seeing on the first high definition set (one of 2 in the world) in the 80's. It ran from a hand built laser disk player and was like looking out an open window. When was the last time you saw 1080p and thought it looked like peering out an open window?

Those were MUSE Japanese Hi-def standard.

 

And MUSE was a commercially successful standard in Japan - in Laserdisc format, satellite broadcast, and ultimately, in W-VHs format - yep, analog VHS High definition recording. The last MUSE satellite stopped transmission in 2007.

 

Europe experimented with HD2MAC in 1993 and 94, but it failed - a classic catch 22 situation; the market was too scattered for one major network to see profits in investing in HD hardware, and so customers saw no use in putting loads of money in a system they would see benefits only for so short period of times. Unlike MUSE, nothing was apparently devised for using home video formats in HD2MAC format, which probably didn't helped.

 

In the US, like so often, the issue was the restrictive FCC rules regarding bandwidth use (basically, television was restricted to the standard 6Mhtz space used by SD channels - Neither Japan nor Europe had those, which allowed for full-scale experiments. The US were stuck with the home entertainment side - in the 80's, it meant Laserdiscs only. And given the only average LD market share on the US market, no one was interested in risking money into it.

[DustyKramKram]

My best friend's grandparents had a rear projection TV that we hooked up my TurboGrafx to back in the mid-90s. Don't know how big it was, but I remember it was the first time we beat The Legendary Axe.

 

I was recently at Texas Motor Speedway and they have a big screen that is across the track from the main stands. They call it "Big Hoss" and claim it to be the world's biggest HD LED video board. No diagonal measurements, but the website says it is 20,633.64 square feet. When I first saw it, I thought, "I want to play a game on that."

 

 

Looks like a 16:9 display, which at 20,633.64 square feet would make it a 2,637" screen. Frank's TV has nothing on that sucker!

[+GoldenWheels]

Remember these "Ultimate Gaming Rig" contests in video game magazines? I used to stare at those pictures and dream about having that set up in my room. Did anyone ever win these things or were they just scams? (I think I remember a thread about them at one time...)

 

Holy crap dude talk about tickling the old memory banks. I entered this contest once back in the day. Needless to say, i did not win.

[SuperDork3000]

I game on a 52" with most consoles connected with Scart going through a Scart-HDMI converter box. The picture looks absolutely amazing with no complaints on the picture or input lag.

[DustyKramKram]

My family had a 36" JVC CRT with side-mounted speakers when I was growing up. I managed to take it with me to college and get a few good gaming years out of it before it finally died on me. I'm very happy with my current 27" Sharp flat panel CRT with component inputs, but I'll always remember that JVC fondly.

[7800fan]

So anyone got a really high powered projector? I got a 100-year old barn whose side is about the size of a drive in movie. How about playing 2600 game on a 100+ feet screen? Make those pixels 1 square feet each!!