Be aware if you ever consider switching from CRT to Flatscreen for retro gaming
Man, been dealing with this issue for more than a month and a half. I had no idea the hell I was about to go through when I decided to finally upgrade from my 32inch CRT to a 42 inch flat screen, the entire experience was new to me.
So about a month ago, I decide to stop by a Cash of American (basically a pawnshop but offers more) and during the time, they had a sale on all their TVs for the next 3 days, pretty good deals to be honest. I see this very nice 42 inch marked from $250 to $180. It was at that point that I decided to replace my old SONY CRT TV.
I buy it, take it home, set it up, notice it has 2 HDMI inputs, 1 Component input, 1 VGA output, weak sounding speakers, and no stand alone R&L stereo input, ok...
I decide to buy a $38 AV to HDMI converter and set that up with my s-video/av switch box, getting a little clogged back there now but whatever.
FUCK THIS TV
The image looked god awful, possibly worst than RF and believe it or not, s-video looked worst.
Start getting worried with what I'm dealing with. I mean I only play SNES and SEGA G/MD
A few days later, someone on eBay list the SEGA HD retrovision cable and I just simply had to jump on it because I had no idea when the next batch would be available from their site. I also prefer playing Genesis anyway.
I get the cable, it arrives a few days later, I set it up on my tv annnnnnnnnddddd no image. Apparently this tv doesn't support the 240p resolution for being too modern.
At this point I decide in considering getting a framemeister but decide against that shit and just return the tv. Sadly my 30 day refund time was up since all this happen so I could only sell them back the tv for $100 and now trying to sell this stupid av to hdmi box that I paid for too.
Now that I was going to go back to hunt for another tv, this time I actually took my model 1 Genesis with the component cable and tested it out on all the tvs I was interested in. I was surprise just how many didn't support it.
I then came across this very nice, Sony V KDL-40V4100 40-Inch tv, that had multiple inputs in the back for hdmi and component, let alone s-video. Test my Genesis with the component cable, crossing my fingers it works and sweet jesus it did. Happy to have gotten it for a good deal too, offered them $160 for it from their asking price of $190.
My model 1 Genesis hooked up to this tv with the HD component cable displayed a GORGEOUS image. My snes games also looked good on the s-video and with both directly connected to the tv, I discarded the switch box. I still plan on getting the HD cables for my snes though.
So much investment, but at least I finally got an awesome tv that displays my games beautifully, considering it also has 'game mode', I haven't felt any half second delay lag on the controls at all.
TL DR; If your looking to upgrade from a CRT to a flatscreen, make sure it's compitable with your old shit or at least it has s-video in the back.
So about a month ago, I decide to stop by a Cash of American (basically a pawnshop but offers more) and during the time, they had a sale on all their TVs for the next 3 days, pretty good deals to be honest. I see this very nice 42 inch marked from $250 to $180. It was at that point that I decided to replace my old SONY CRT TV.
I buy it, take it home, set it up, notice it has 2 HDMI inputs, 1 Component input, 1 VGA output, weak sounding speakers, and no stand alone R&L stereo input, ok...
I decide to buy a $38 AV to HDMI converter and set that up with my s-video/av switch box, getting a little clogged back there now but whatever.
FUCK THIS TV
The image looked god awful, possibly worst than RF and believe it or not, s-video looked worst.
Start getting worried with what I'm dealing with. I mean I only play SNES and SEGA G/MD
A few days later, someone on eBay list the SEGA HD retrovision cable and I just simply had to jump on it because I had no idea when the next batch would be available from their site. I also prefer playing Genesis anyway.
I get the cable, it arrives a few days later, I set it up on my tv annnnnnnnnddddd no image. Apparently this tv doesn't support the 240p resolution for being too modern.
At this point I decide in considering getting a framemeister but decide against that shit and just return the tv. Sadly my 30 day refund time was up since all this happen so I could only sell them back the tv for $100 and now trying to sell this stupid av to hdmi box that I paid for too.
Now that I was going to go back to hunt for another tv, this time I actually took my model 1 Genesis with the component cable and tested it out on all the tvs I was interested in. I was surprise just how many didn't support it.
I then came across this very nice, Sony V KDL-40V4100 40-Inch tv, that had multiple inputs in the back for hdmi and component, let alone s-video. Test my Genesis with the component cable, crossing my fingers it works and sweet jesus it did. Happy to have gotten it for a good deal too, offered them $160 for it from their asking price of $190.
My model 1 Genesis hooked up to this tv with the HD component cable displayed a GORGEOUS image. My snes games also looked good on the s-video and with both directly connected to the tv, I discarded the switch box. I still plan on getting the HD cables for my snes though.
So much investment, but at least I finally got an awesome tv that displays my games beautifully, considering it also has 'game mode', I haven't felt any half second delay lag on the controls at all.
TL DR; If your looking to upgrade from a CRT to a flatscreen, make sure it's compitable with your old shit or at least it has s-video in the back.
Comments
and congrats w/ the outcome ...
one small quibble, tho. TVs generally don't have 'outputs'. everything you mentioned on the tv set itself is an 'input'
One issue I've run into, though, is that the AVR intoduces additional lag when it upconverts and scales analog signals over HDMI. Not a problem for most games, but for those that require frame-perfect precision have to be played in Game Mode... and the projector doesn't care for that unscaled 240p over HDMI either.
Games in 480p and up play fine. My only recourse on those titles is to split the HDMI before the projector and pipe it to a small monitor that has no problem withthe 240p in Game Mode over HDMI. Luckily, my projector has surprisingly low latency and most Genesis/NES games play just fine with around a frame of input lag. Generally, I just upscale to 1080p and roll with it.
On another note: How are you loving the Retrovision cables now? I'm going to pimp out this video a little more, as I'm excited to let people see what these cables are capable of. Take a look!
https://youtu.be/zohr6XOk1ZE
Originally posted by: twiztor
glad it all worked out in the end.
one small quibble, tho. TVs generally don't have 'outputs'. everything you mentioned on the tv set itself is an 'input'
Quality TVs have audio output, for stereo systems and the like.
Glad everything worked out for you!
It's not authentic unless you're playing on a UHF TV from the 80s, anyway.
A lot of people are using the HD Retrovision cables to get a sharper image out of their CRTs as well. Your tube doesn't even have to be progressive to take full advantage of the cleaner signal component provides.