Gaming on CRT Televisions, PVMs and BVMs :: RGB104 / MY LIFE IN GAMING

We take a look at the benefits of gaming on old-fashioned CRT televisions. We also get into the nitty-gritty of gaming on PVMs and BVMs - the best kind of CRT TVs, which also support RGB!
-----
★ Featured Gear (Affiliate Links) ★
► If you'd like to purchase SCART cables in the USA
:: retro-access.co...
► If you'd like to purchase SCART cables or BNC breakout cables in the UK
:: www.retrogamin...
-----
♫ If you'd like to help support the channel, here are some ways to do so ♫
► Support our endeavors on Patreon
:: / mylifeingaming
► One time donation via PayPal
:: www.paypal.me/...
► MLiG T-Shirts and other Merch!
:: www.artisticpi...
-----
‼ We receive a small kickback from sales using the following links at no cost to you, with no influence on the content ‼
► Amazon
:: amzn.to/2sDGprP
► If you'd like to purchase a XRGB-Mini Framemeister from Solaris Japan
:: solarisjapan.co...
► Stone Age Gamer
:: stoneagegamer.c...
-----
♫ Theme Music♫
"Principle" by Matt McCheskey
matthewmcchesk...
nightvoice.ban...
-----
✔ Shipping ✔
Coury Carlson
My Life in Gaming
P.O. Box 72172
Newport, KY 41072
Marc "Try4ce" Duddleson
My Life in Gaming
P.O. Box 2684
Indian Trail, NC 28079
-----
❤ Social ❤
www.mylifeingam...
/ mylifeingaming
/ mylifeingames
-----
My Life in Gaming makes documentaries, deep dives into retro console hardware, and more.

[@LGR]

Stellar video, guys! Mmm, CRTs.

[@RetroHellspawn]

Lol, I read this in your voice Clint. :P Love your channel and content, you're just awesome! :D

[@psyvientx7407]

LGR I want a professional crt!

[@Soloist1983]

I collected these 15 years ago when nobody gave 2 shits about them, seriously. One of the best I ever used was the NEC XP29+, also, the NEC 3PG was unreal for pure 480i, the big phosphor surface area gave so much contrast and richness to the color

[@tarstarkusz]

Modern TVs, especially what big box stores carry are complete and total junk. There is no parts availability and they fail rather quickly. There are CRTs from the 60s that still run with no problem. If they break, outside of the tube, everything is easily repaired.

[@chrispuhara8934]

They're good, but after carrying a 24" my back practically broke.

[@LaskyLabs]

I bought a PVM in California for $100 at a thrift store. I had to take it home on the plane. TSA stopped me and were like "lol what's this." So I opened my bag and they were like "oh neat."

[@luiscortazar6291]

How big was it?

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

Good for you taking it as hand luggage, I wouldn’t trust anything precious in the hold. Once they shut my little sister’s brand new pram IN THE DOOR, the thing was torn clean in half after we landed. I don’t know for sure it was shut in the door but that’s the explanation we got from the airport.

[@antoneckhart4010]

@@justanotheryoutubechannel ugh you always get immigents workin in the luggage who dont give a crap about others peoples stuff..did you get a refund?

[@daddykarlmarx6183]

​@@antoneckhart4010i hope thats a joke

[@daddykarlmarx6183]

​@@luiscortazar6291pvms tend to be pretty small

[@jakfearon2945]

Just getting around to watching this now since I'm likely picking up a PVM or equivalent soon. As a game artist from back in the SNES and Genesis days I wanted to comment on the part about whether we took certain advantages of CRT displays. Yes. Absolutely. I worked for EA back then and we had a consumer level CRT in the office to test our work on. There were certain tricks we could do (especially on Genesis if my memory serves correctly) as far as blending pixels and using artifacting colors, in order to get the look we were after. Modern TVs just don't display things in the way artists intended. I can only speak for myself here but add my vote to the "artists from back then prefer CRT" column. Love your show btw. :)

[@BeerBaron23]

Thanks for this info! When creating sprites and such did you have to draw them a certain way (jagged on purpose) so the resulting image when displayed on a CRT would be more rounded when displayed with the scanlines? In other words you would draw them a different way (looking odd on a monitor without scanlines) on purpose so it would look better only when a displayed soley with scanlines?

[@jakfearon2945]

@@BeerBaron23 - sometimes, yeah, it depended on what we were working on, though. It was a long time ago so a lot of those memories are gone to dust (lol) but we would definitely do our best to get things to look good on CRT. If that meant it looked weird on a regular monitor that was fine, as long as it all worked in the end. :)

[@DKingd88]

@Jenna Fearon: Wow. Thanks for commenting. This is noticeable in emulators with Genesis titles. The Genesis also used a blurry RF signal. Even the composite video port was removed from the console after its initial production run. I have noticed frequent use of dithering (black and white checkerboard pixels to make gray) on Genesis titles to add more colors without using up a color space in the limited palette. The blurry RF signal made this technique useful for creating an illusion of more colors and semitransparencies.

[@l00tur]

Very cool. EA was amazing to the genesis back in the 90s.. Road Rash, Skitchin. Loved those games. Thanks for sharing your story

[@nashismox3]

I was watching this old Street Fighter japanese version anime on a CRT like a year ago. And I realized in a moment when Ryu was doing the Hadouken, I had to go to the bathroom. So, I paused the video, and there I was, looking at Ryu holding the light beam on his hands!! The sparkles of light seem to have life of their own on the CRT TV!! Probably the japanese animators conceived that scene exactly thinking abouth how the TV works, it looked glorious! CRT's are life :)

[@BoshMind]

This makes me so thankful for my 36 inch toshiba. Since I bought it, all the thrift stores around me stopped selling crts and only throws them away...

[@marcp.]

No modern TV or any workaround will ever beat the feeling of playing on a real CRT TV.

[@josecarlosxyz]

yes

[@crystianbarriga3801]

I agree I have the last HD CRT made by Sony and I have a plasma ! 🙂

[@Diamond_Tiara]

a PC monitor.

[@Diamond_Tiara]

​@@crystianbarriga3801 Depends of the plasma. Even if it is almot ten years old, my Panasonic beats every current LCD televisions I see on the shops. It looks all greyish on these! Hell, even when I take neat photos or finish drawing something, I put the SD card on this thing to review them on the living room. to me, Plasma remains the closest thing for contrasts that gets close to CRT. Or maybe OLED but they are rare as TVs/large monitors.

[@crystianbarriga3801]

@@Diamond_Tiara yeah I wish they were still made

[@HalSamuel]

You guys have achieved some outlandishly high production values with these videos.

[@ufoseverywhere]

i never thought i would be going out to buy a crt in 2017.

[@leoecuador89]

prentiss mcaster I did in dec2016 $20 and had to drive an hour to get it but boy was it worth it all of my retro consoles look gorgeous

[@felixgutierrez993]

prentiss mcaster Lol I need it man MELEE

[@thekrustaceox5181]

i wish i could even buy a CRT in 2017. There are NONE for sale anymore in my country

[@Maikeru722]

You can usually find them in the garbage. I've gotten 3 crts for free!

[@thekrustaceox5181]

i live in Brazil. No more crts here unless they're pretty damaged.

[@binba9]

Dang, that's a serious course on video engineering. And that's coming from a working Hollywood video engineer. :) They're pretty much spot on on all this stuff. There's a reason they're called "reference monitors" - something had to be the reference by which to judge all TV's - and this is what content creators (=TV studios) used for decades to gauge their own work. For professional users, the point wasn't how "awesome", "vivid" or even sharp they look. It was all about color accuracy and consistency. They actually need to be calibrated, like any monitor, but their starting point and drift are considerably better than any consumer display.

[@nathanhamman418]

I feel as though at some point, someone will start making crts again for the retro gaming community.

[@deafbyhiphop]

The tubes themselves are incredibly difficult and expensive to make

[@deafbyhiphop]

@ph0b0s dont forget the volatile chemicals used to make the tubes as well and how many safety regulation hurdles they would have to get over just to attempt to manufacture them. Its honestly not worth it

[@homestar92]

@ph0b0s The market isn't really as big as you think though. Retro gamers are a market, but are nothing compared to the original market for CRTs when they were still being made, which was literally everyone who needed a TV or monitor. Even smaller yet is the market of retro gamers who actually care enough about playing on a CRT to pay for one. The good news is that so many CRT televisions were manufactured that it will be many years before they are rare. Really good CRTs are kinda rare, but honestly, a PVM isn't a period-appropriate gaming experience anyway. Until about the 5th generation consoles, most gamers were using RF connections, so while it doesn't look great, that's the "genuine" experience. Heck, I used an RF connection via a VCR through the first couple years of the 7th generation because the TV I used only had RF.

[@Cyanice]

@@homestar92 It's true that RF or composite is the most authentic experience, and developers did keep the poor signal quality in mind when making the art. But I'm willing to bet that if you asked the developers back in the day if you should play on a old RF set or a fancy PVM with RGB, they wouldn't hesitate to to tell you to play on the PVM instead.

[@lullylew9083]

@@homestar92 I'm a strong advocate for CRTs. I believe anyone and I do mean anyone who tries a new pc game on a decent CRT monitor (not just retro gaming) will have their mind blown. The difference is that good it's like night and day to the point where a person will likely go home and just be disgusted by the gaming picture on their AORUS RGB CV27" gaming thing.

[@ghettosteeve]

Safe to say this video is almost single handedly responsible for the surge in popularity of professional monitors in the last couple of years. Love my BVM

[@thesaskatchewankid]

I'm a big believer in using CRT TV's along with the retro gaming consoles for which they were designed. I couldn't agree more with the ending sentiment about utilizing the technology while we still can, while we still have it with us. This has been my cornerstone when choosing to enjoy the older technology by using it regularly before it's gone for good. I'm glad to share this philosophy with you guys and thank you for bringing this all together for us.

[@omegarugal9283]

many technical aspects of retro consoles were actually build upon the CRTs they were supposed to run on, 60/50 Hhz refresh rate, CPUs running at multiples of NTSC color burst frecuency...

[@thesaskatchewankid]

Omega Rugal indeed. That's what boggles my mind when people flip a lid that they're playing their games on HD tvs and they look like crap. Way easier (and I think visually more appealing) to play on a CRT.

[@northwindkey]

Plus, you don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on scalers just to make retro games look good.

[@toniymeri]

I actually appreciate my CRT more than my HD TV haha. They are slowly disappearing and no-one truly appreciates them like we do. This makes me sad...

[@Tailslol]

well there is a "modern solution" now for low latency gameplay get a cheap hdmi pc monitor (they have generally way lower latency than a tv) and take a cheap scart to hdmi converter or a composite to hdmi converter. enjoy! (i know it is not as good as a crt but it does the job better than modern tv at low prices)

[@philscomputerlab]

Great video! Glad to see someone else caring about aspect ratios and frame rates and all of that :D

[@syedmagdomsyedmagdom4514]

PhilsComputerLab :D lokkk

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

PhilsComputerLab How could you care, that’s what I don’t get. But then again. I live with a bunch of idiots who don’t understand how fixed-pixel displays work and keep trying to get me to hook my retro consoles up to their crappy LCDs and scrap my beautiful old CRTs.

[@Strekks]

God damn I'd love one of those PVMs...

[@shmehfleh3115]

+Strekks Honestly, they're overselling PVMs a bit in this video, at least in my experience. Now, the super-high-end Sony BVM monitors probably do look every bit as good as they describe, but good God are they expensive! Even used, with 20,000+ hours on them, they go for bank on eBay. I ended up finding a 20" Sony PVM-20M2 on eBay for somewhere around $200 shipped. I hooked it up alongside my 27" Sony fv300, a fairly high-end consumer CRT in its day, so I could compare the two. The PVM did look better in terms of screen geometry, but color saturation and black levels were basically the same. And of course the TV has a bigger screen, remote control capability and a built-in tuner for the old pre-AV connection stuff. Ultimately, I ended up sticking with the TV and using the PVM as a bench test display.

[@blackstealth8168]

+Shmeh Fleh - That's cause of their weight. You won't find these monitors in the wild very often so you have to look online which means shipping costs and my 19" PVM is 70lbs. I paid $30 for the monitor from a used medical surplus warehouse from Wisconsin. Shipping was $60. Alot of these PVMs were used in hospitals so you have to look into liquidation warehouses. But you have to be careful cause they can sell you a broken monitor. I ran into this issue and was luckily fully refunded. You need to be smart and aware when shopping for PVMs online.

[@Null_Experis]

They're not as great compared to a modern high-quality OLED via OSSC/Framemeister. I have both, and honestly, the color reproduction on a PVM is pretty sub-standard compared to OLED. This is due to the fact that even a CRT doesn't have a pure black surface, and poor brightness. It can only be as black as the screen is when off (a dark grey).

[@JayJayYUP]

Scanlines + Lag reduction. How are you not understanding this by now?

[@hbsupermage]

in blacks oled has the edge, in the rest of the colors gamut pallet, OLED tend to look artificial, with over saturated colors

[@The_Mimewar]

Unless you grew up with CRT televisions, you can’t miss it. When I think of my classic NES games, the memories are all on CRT TVs

[@pal-of-pals]

"Thanks, PAL" Hey, you're welcome! :D

[@quiet451]

I love the sound of that soft static explosion when I turn on my CRT. I love the way to glow seems to just engulf me and mesmerize me in a way my HDTV just can't. I love scan lines, light gun games and zero input lag. I have owned a BVM, and a PVM, and used the Framemeister at a friends house, but for me nothing can replace my 27" consumer SD CRT. As long as I have the room in my house, I will be gaming on a CRT.

[@0111pokemon]

quiet451 you find a bvm worse than a consumer crt? Not trying to be that guy, just wondering. What model was the PVM and BVM

[@bradleyhove4177]

I think what they're saying is that for nostalgia's sake nothing beats the consumer CRT they started with. I feel the same way, there are much better CRTs out there, but I will never get rid of my consumer Trinitron - my parents bought it in 1996 and it has been around my entire life

[@aretard7995]

those tiny ones i guess

[@monetize_this8330]

@fripp555 I agree with you, PVMs aren't the panacea they're made out to be. Although if money were no object I'd probably want to get hold of a BVM that is > 15 inch. The 9 inch ones are too small, coloured pixels blend together too much, even with HR (450 lines)

[@samuelbaugh4952]

Found a PVM at my local thrift store for 15 dollars 😬

[@asdfg9398]

Did it work????

[@samuelbaugh4952]

+ivan Skrr It worked, but right now I don't have any room to put one 😓 Maybe when I move?

[@asdfg9398]

Samuel Baugh thats awesome! hope you find somewhere to put it once you've moved :D

[@Grefintiuk]

Nice catch man, enjoy it.

[@BluesM18A1]

you sure got lucky there man

[@segaboy9894]

This video is so perfectly presented. I love this.

[@universumpi]

You know what NTSC stands for? It's Never The Same Color. Still remember this joke told to us by my video programming professor.

[@freewayfever1868]

Haha! My chemistry teacher told us the same joke.

[@drewwhitney7327]

Lol. My colorist professor made the same joke last summer.

[@lievenvv]

CRT's have another massive advantage over even the very best OLEDs: zero motion blur. I'm not talking about blur from slow pixel response, but from your eyes when they're tracking movement across the screen. Due to the scanning way of rendering (v.s. holding entire frames for their duration), your eyes won't blur the image as they move across the screen. Modern 4K displays will simply never look sharp in motion when displaying 24/30/60+hz. This is the main reason for upcoming 240/360hz gaming; not so much the slightly reduced latency. But for movies and video, CRT will always have the sharpest looking motion.

[@jpstyles85]

Can we get a kick starter for any company to make new crt's?

[@Aresftfun]

jpstyles85 China makes new crts but the only way I've found to get them is to buy in bulk (100-1000 crts bring the minimum).

[@JayJayYUP]

Dude doesn't know what he's saying. Theirs a ton of CRT's left to buy. He, like most people want a modern BVM. Totally unaware of the thousands of dollars each unit used to cost

[@Lightblue2222]

It'd be great to get new ones. They wouldn't have that high pitch wine that comes with age

[@Malamockq]

@@JayJayYUP But they will die eventually. That's the point. All TVs have a lifespan, and in a few decades, CRTs will go the way of the Dodo.

[@jamesmbs1]

I wish stores still had them. They are too heavy to ship. The only chance you have is at a thrift store, and the ones they have are not likely to work that great. I'm lucky I got one of the last of them in the mid 2000's. It plays like new and i will cherish it for years to come.

[@BluesM18A1]

I think I saw PVMs in a storage room in my high school, I should check it out and hopefully strike a bargain with the staff

[@Bitzell]

Any luck?

[@xxlxllaxtionllxlxx9072]

any Luck?

[@floydfan2026]

Lucky

[@BluesM18A1]

apparently this got a shitton of comments and youtube never notified me until now. I figured I should end this story by saying I never got those PVMs, and they're probably long gone by now.

[@sillkthashocker]

@@BluesM18A1 :(

[@cyrfung]

Just discovered this channel. I really like how you adopted the 22 minutes "half hour" TV show format for a internet video. Great work.

[@kamilpotato3764]

I recently got 20"PVM. Picture quality is amazing... almost too amazing. After a while using it I just came back to my consumer grade CRT TV. Looks to my eyes more faithful to times when I was playing those games back in the day. And I'm sure most of people played it that way.

[@CryptoRetroTech]

same even worse I bought RGB cables for all my consoles and now, as crazy as it sounds, I've gone back to composite/video uses.

[@kamilpotato3764]

@@CryptoRetroTech For my ps1 I went back to composite output. Blends dithering perfectly on my consumer grade crt tv.

[@jtu100]

Thanks. You guys make feel grateful to have grown up in the 90s, and remind me what a beautiful time of my life it was

[@TheSlaterReport]

For those looking for a good CRT for retro gaming I recommend getting a Sony Trinitron. They are big (up to 40" but I was only able to find a 36"), have amazing picture quality and have multiple rca, A-line, and component imputs! The only downside is they weigh 300+ pounds on the larger models!

[@Ballowax]

just get a 19inch Toshiba CRT or JVC CRT, both brands tend have s-video and Y-pb-br component video support

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

Ballowax 2002 or a Trinitron

[@Ballowax]

@@justanotheryoutubechannel Look man I like CRTs but I like ones that I can carrie easily, like those 13 and 19 inch sets

[@dewlivewireftw]

On the flat ones though is geometry issues.

[@ajsingh4545]

Fk those things, they weight a ton and can do some damage. I had an opportunity to pick up a 2002 32 inch model but passed up on it after I tried to lift it. Now I have a 20 inch Panasonic tau from early 2000s, and it offers a glorious image.

[@Aristowi]

What I need with upscalers and emulators in HD is that gaussian blur effect that CRTs had, I really can't stand ultra sharp pixels, it's so distracting, I know watching squares has a retro charm but that wasn't actually how it was supposed to look like back in the day. I actually don't remember Mario, Link, Sonic or Megaman looking that much pixelated, it was actually hard to distinguish the squares, lol.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

Man, these PVMs and BVMs must be godlike. I’ve just brought a beautiful KV-21X5U, and it’s honestly mindblowing; I don’t know how anything could possibly look any better than it.

[@FinalBaton]

That's a TOTL RGB capable consumer set if I'm not mistaken? These are amazing for old games, as good as PVMs and BVMs for old games in my book. You got a good one

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

@@FinalBaton I don’t know what TOTL means but it is an RGB consumer set, it’s a Sony Trinitron and looks great. It’s definitely not as sharp as a PVM but over time I’ve started to like that more and more, CRTs that don’t have the lovely bloom and softly blurred scanlines aren’t as nice in my opinion so this set is really good nice to me. I did a lot of research before I brought it and it was worth the price, but I wouldn’t pay the £300 people are trying to sell them for today.

[@FinalBaton]

@@justanotheryoutubechannel TOTL = Top Of The Line. it's sort of a ''prosumer'' model so it's right below the PVMs. I too have a prosumer model (Sony KV-25XBR) and love it for the same reasons you explained.

[@CRT-PHOENIX]

Thanks to this video my quest for a BVM began. Needless to say I'm beyond words how lucky I've been to encounter a BVM F24 a little over a year ago. It's capabilities are stunning with it's 1080p picture. Everything I throw at it looks absolutely amazing , I'm not going back to flat panels in a very long while. This is all thanks to you guys and your recommendation of Phonedork's channel. So thank you and keep up the good work.

[@alexandrezenn773]

I know that MLIG's focus is on original hardwares but I confess that I would love to see an episode showing and comparing real CRT with the best CRT shaders we have today... It would be amazing.

[@mylifeingaming]

Really cool idea! Hmmmm…

[@smasherjosh5000]

​@@mylifeingamingdo it! Also do a video on the Dreamcast, Xbox and Wii

[@DesMondesBlut]

There is one alternative you haven't been talking about: EDTV LCDs. Bought mine after my CRT TV broke two years ago (a Sharp model) and I was stunned how good retro consoles look on it. Didn't notice any considerable Input Lag.

[@kpag3030]

We didn't even have a. Coaxial port until I was around 13. We used the old uhf adapter with the two prongs that hooked up to those little screws. My brother and I could figure out a way to hook an NES or SNES to ANYTHING. remember those old Sony watchmans? Yeah... we hooked up systems to that thing. welcome to camping trips with a working nes. Lol.

[@scottschoppert9149]

Butter knife baby!

[@mourad80]

Haha I'm lucky I live in the third world where CRT TVs are everywhere

[@rodanhibiki5980]

9:43 The best clip you have ever produced. It actually brings a tear to my eye.

[@TheShibbybear]

Why can’t I like a video twice :-(

[@danaendelmanis4612]

Re-watching this today reminded me that there's a huge gap in information about audio for people looking to get into retro gaming, especially given how few PVM/BVMs come with built-in audio. Amps? Receivers? 2.1? 5.1? Plenty of people new to this scene don't even know where to start with that stuff. Would be interested in hearing what you guys use. Wouldn't be a bad idea for a video. 😘

[@Crlarl]

PAL and NTSC are ways of encoding colour, not about vertical sync frequencies. System M/J is 525 lines (480) at 59.94i while system B/G/D/K/I/L/N is 625 lines (576) at 50i.

[@SMGJohn]

The only guy who gets it, this is why Japanese DVD's were very often having 540p video content despite being NTSC-J standard

[@pablojalonso]

It is call PAL 60 check it

[@Crlarl]

@@pablojalonso Thank for agreeing with me.

[@FLYNN_TAGGART]

If you want a PVM but don't want to buy a real one, the CRT-Royale-Kurozumi shader in Retroarch is very easy to use and looks absolutely perfect. Tons of customization too just in case you need to tweak it.

[@kirbo-db6mw]

Just get a 32 inch Toshiba crts the ones they use in the video have Orion tubes and not in house Toshiba made tubes

[@yashe6780]

then you get not only lcd upscaler lag, but also added time for shader to process a frame.

[@FLYNN_TAGGART]

@@yashe6780 True, but the latency can be mitigated by enabling Run Ahead and having half-decent specs. You can get lower latency than original hardware in some cases. Plus the shaders can be off-loaded to the GPU. Nowadays, it's much better than just a few years ago. Obviously real CRTs are best, but they're expensive, clunky, and cause headaches when sitting too close or listening to them emit that high-pitched whine. I think modern shaders offer a convenient and accessible alternative, especially if one has a 4K+ resolution.

[@omegazero7174]

I have a television that supports 480i/p 1080i, I want to connect my laptop to play retro games on that TV, I also want to connect my PS1, PS2 and my Sega Dreamcast, what can I do to have the best resolution playing 8/16/32 bit video games?

[@omegazero7174]

It's a Sony Trinitron Wega.

[@JetScreamer_YT]

I settled with a 30inch HD CRT. I'm happy with it. No light gun, and a tiny lag aside, I love it's ability to connect to everything. I still haven't given up finding a professional video monitor. But I have to limit how much I'm willing to pay for my entertainment.

[@omegazero7174]

What can I do to get the best of my HD CRT for retro gaming?

[@smasherjosh5000]

​@@omegazero7174if your HD CRT has HDMI use either an XRGB Mini Framemeister, OSSC or Retrotink

[@writeronfire]

I have a Dreamcast with an S-Video VGA box that can connect to 2 TVs simultaneously. I always tell people you will not see the Dreamcast look any better than it does through my 36" concaved JVC CRT. The sound and natural scanlines are unbelievable and not some feature I have to fiddle with on an emulator. The way the TV produces contrasts and rich black hues completely kicks the crap out of modern LCDs for retro gaming 👍 I play my Wii with all the old-school emulators on a 32" Sony Trinitron.

[@NightSprinter]

Something regarding the thickness/thinness of the scanlines: it's a twofold thing. Part of it comes from the dot/grill pitch of the tube (an older tube would be more like a .56 pitch while your newer Toshiba was probably .36). On top of that, and I learned this from a video of PhoneDork's, is s CRT's TV Lines resolution. Lower numbers (probably 300 on the 14" Toshiba) isn't too pronounced. Your 27" tube most likely has about 500, hence the blank lines being more pronounced. Even higher grade presentation or professional CRTs, like my NEC XM2960, the Sony PVM line, or the BVM line, have even larger TV Line resolutions (going up to over 1100 for the BVM that suppports 1080i!). This gives those thick black lines some retrogamers desire so heavily. PD's videos might be a bit colorful on the language, but his NEC vs Sony video is amazingly-informative. Also, keep in mind the PS1 and Saturn was when games started mixing 240p and 480i while sometimes having a few pure 480i titles.

[@oasisbeyond]

that's my old crt toshiba's flatscreen everything looks great on that from 80's to 2000's consoles.

[@KeithShizuo]

cant wait for that geometry fix ep

[@emagid3599]

Still waitin in 2018..

[@RiverRiley69]

Ya, I tried playing Castlevania symphony of the night on my flat screen crt TV and it had rely bad geometry

[@jodielevi4735]

06:02 - Passing Trough the Forest from Threads of Fate, My favorite game !!

[@WyvernDotRed]

Theoretically it might be possible to drive a modern LCD or OLED similarly to an old CRT, by emulating the beam path and refreshing the matrix in a scanline pattern. This would require a specialized controller, and would be somewhat difficult to pull of properly, but the display panels themselves are capable of being driven like that. With clever software, this could even emulate the scanline look and scale on the fly for near 0ms latency. Though keeping in in sync would be difficult.

[@RipDoveStudio]

I work graphic design- the notion that artists would only reference their professional monitors is absurd. For example, I have a wide-gamut display, and an sRGB display, and I create my work using calibrated color profiles so the colors 99.98% accurate to between what's being made and what I'm seeing. I flip through the non-calibrated base profiles on the displays to double-check my work from the perspective of the common consumer. I'm more than confident most companies used both an average consumer TV, and a professional monitor to check their work. Professional monitors, especially Sony ones, have video output on them. You essentially daisy-chain your computer to the Prof Monitor, and then to the Consumer Monitor. One thing that should be especially noted is the color standards between NTSC, BT601, Rec709, sRGB, and DCI-P3. This greatly effects the image quality of different media between pre-2006 media, 2006-2015 media, and 2015+ media on the different display technologies. Apple's D65-P3 color space is pretty much the new standard for displays.

[@joneswarrington7242]

There are some documentaries about nintendo in the 80s/90s and they were using combination of pc monitors, pvms and consumer tvs. I think that is really interesting and makes me appreciate all kinds of crts

[@RipDoveStudio]

@@joneswarrington7242 I agree with the appreciation for the old tech. It's super interesting how we can look at the same image done-up through different display standards and get such wildly dramatic results in quality.

[@Enchurito]

Viewtiful joe and mega man x4 for background music? TOP choices.

[@johntrevy1]

I would hope that they could revive CRT with a modern take on it.

[@SuperballsSupervidsOnYT]

@Malice CRT-Royale on retroarch is one of the greatest crt emulating shades ever This is especially on a good 4k OLED screen, which affords the shader enough detail to work properly, with adjustable phosphor glow patterns and several different grilles. Using a good camera with good closeup capabilities (not as good as my macro lens on a dslr bit still good enough to capture pixels on my 65" Bravia oled and my 36" '06 model Trinitron) the effect is getting very close to being indiscernible.

[@houseofmeditation8945]

I must've seen this video 10 times and still can't get enough! Love when Try says "not that again", lol.

[@madson-web]

I already tell my friends about CRT vs LCD. You did it years ago. 2019/20 it looks like a trend among tech enthusiasts

[@segasdreamer]

I love CRT TV's. I got an old Trinitron for the classics that don't require progressive scan and a widescreen Samsung that works wonders with only slight distortion in the extreme left and right. So it's okay with my Wii games.

[@HH-fs5hl]

i care more about my'94 sony trinitron then my hdtv smh

[@Adamsnadler214]

For a second I thought it was 94 inch not 1994

[@LordSnoodles]

with you all the way on that

[@blazedyoda8608]

i care more about my 30inch sony trinitron than i do my lg 4k 50inch tv.

[@MechaGodzilla]

@@Adamsnadler214 Imagine a 94" CRT? That thing would be half the size of the average home!

[@spo0nofficial]

Same

[@houseofmeditation8945]

Please, God, stop me. It's like the 7th time I'm watching this video. Love you, guys. P.S.: You have the best intro out of all the content creators on KZbin.

[@eclectic_echoes]

The great Artemio Urbina brought me here great job guys greetings from Chihuahua, México

[@joshmartimez2235]

When I got back into retro video games I exclusively played them on CRT-TVs. Now with the advent of Analogues Super NT and Mega Sg I'll play retro games on HDTVs.

[@licentioushowler3400]

I happen to use CRT PC monitors to get my PVM/BVM-like fix. Way less nerds fighting over them, gouged prices, and tubes that have been punished with tens of thousands of hours of use. Wider pool of tubes to draw from as well, and the results are pretty damn similar to PVMs as far as quality goes. I love the fine geometry control as well. 480p is just standard too if you like 6th gen, and most humble tubes can support 720p if you don't mind a letterboxing. If you score a really nice one, 1080p is a possibility as well, but I find that's usually difficult to get scanning correctly. I happen to use an XRGB-3, but these days you'd probably be better off with an OSSC to get your stuff over to your monitor's VGA port unless you really need composite and S-video for some of your hardware. One little quirk is, some monitors won't show very visible raster scanlines, and the ones that do will actually have 2 scanlines per pixel on 240p content, and won't look quite as thick and black compared to PVMs, but I think that's a fair trade for how much easier they can be to come across.

[@EmperorMAR]

I've been wondering if scanline nostalgia has been increased by rewritten history or the mandella effect. Only larger CRT's & PVMs would have pronounced scanlines, no kid or teen would have been playing games on a PVM or BVM. I had mid size CRTs (20-30 inch range) growing up but don't remember scanlines specifically. I knew CRTs looked different but I played retro games on a CRT until 2009 (close up of my CRT at the time kzbin.info/www/bejne/qpXWZKWLf8ZpisUm17s ) then again this past year on a small CRT tv from 1998. Thick black scanlines didn't exist on these. Do people actually have real nostalgia or memories of gaming with scanlines or is it something created by emulation filters & youtube convincing people that it was a retro thing (like the exaggerated red/blue color bleeding supposedly on VHS) despite them not seeing a CRT in person for years. Maybe it is a broader TV brand difference thing? Thick scanlines make things look much worse to me.

[@spikester]

@@EmperorMAR Retro gamer here, thousands of NES and SNES hours in the 86s-90's. I never cared about the scanlines. I think the biggest thing is the CRT's simply make the old games come to life, hiding their pixelation, bringing them back to their true form without any buffered input lag. The Sony 24" consumer wega trinitron 15khz tube I now have I can see the scanlines however they look more like 25% scanlines would on an emulator. The TV's I grew up with as a kid I didn't really notice the scanlines, they were smaller and often blurrier than a good trinitron set that nobody could afford. The only Trinitron I seen in my single digit childhood running an NES with SMB3 was a lone 13" and of course that didn't have scanlines, however it was noticeably brighter and sharper than any other tube I remembered at that point. I was 13 or so, a good 25 years ago. I was in awe. I prefer the CRT simply because its what these games were designed for, and with FPGA simulation with MiSTer it brings it to a whole new modern level. EDIT: of course when I say no scanlines I obviously mean visible scanlines. If you look close enough on a small set you might see them rolling down the screen due to the interlacing.

[@spikester]

The only different thing is with my tinnitus, it sounds like a 15khz flyback transformer, so I don't even notice that the TV is on or off, unlike in my early 20's.... I was never around extended periods of loud music in my life, only been to a few concerts, I swear being around whiney CRT's most of my early life gave me tinnitus.

[@spikester]

@@aretard7995 Nothing like a good arcade CRT of 27-29" size, can be wired directly into a MiSTer i/o board RGB output, run @ 32khz, and not cost an arm and a leg.

[@inceptional]

As I recall, I played all my games through RGB SCART back in the day, on a 25" Toshiba CRT TV with full dobly surround sound (2 built-in normal stereo speakers, 2 external rear stereo speakers, and a built-in subwoofer). My games both looked and sounded great on it. And every time I see footage of old games on KZbin, usually from America, I'm amazed at just how utterly sh*t they tend to look.

[@nismo1jz]

2019 and i'm looking at buying a CRT lol

[@Raylightsen]

Money wasted, but go on.

[@Raylightsen]

@@danieltortellinijr.6594 If is very expensive, a flat modern tv can be a better option.

[@terry-]

Good thinking. The artist DID HAD in mind crt tvs when doing pixel art, look at some text for example and you will see the extra pixels in a darker color around it. that was meant to convine with the RF or composite signal of tvs and give a more round or a specific color to the image. A regular crt tv is the better option better than pvm for this reason, even no rgb is need unless you are talking about dreamcast who did designed games with 480p in mind. I use PC crt wich is similar to pvm, but almost always add some color filters to make the image "crapier" similar to who old tv looks. scanlines are orgininal of course becose i use native 240p resolutions.

[@Foebane72]

I'm old enough (51) to have BEEN gaming the "old-fashioned way", and believe me, nowadays, I do NOT MISS IT.

[@SkyCharger001]

Most large-size CRTs add a high-frequency wobble to the vertical scanning in order to prevent 'scanlines' from occurring during 480i. most of these have ( or can be given) the ability to detect a lack of field-switching, consequently increase the wobble's strength/height and thus produce scanline-less 240p.

[@domymbd]

getting rid of my good old CRT was one of the bigest mistakes I made. Now i'm stuck to play my older consoles on HD screens and my eyes are hurting :(

[@dewlivewireftw]

Well good news, you can get them very very easily with a quick search on Craigslist or FB Marketplace.

[@chrislopez1391]

walk around the neighborhood on bulk trash pickup days, CRTs are still a lot of people's trash and are now old gamers/computer enthusiasts' treasure.

[@domymbd]

@@chrislopez1391 I actually found one last summer 2 streets next to mine while I was taking a walk. A small CRT just perfect for my SNES, Genesis and N64!

[@scpnoobers]

I’ve got a story my dad found a BVM CRT at work at he said to himself “ehh it’s too old I won’t take it” he told me about this recently I was like AHHH in my head. Edit: he told me this when I said that those crts are expensive

[@blazuma111]

The video that started my obsession on CRT's! I first saw this video in 2017!

[@PiroKUSS]

Loved Grandia's theme song/intro song.

[@mitchlovesgames7281]

I've been testing out different upscalers for months now, VGA, AV, S-Video. Out of frustration I dug up the old tube TV and hooked up S-Video to it and it looks absolutely fantastic. From now on I'm gonna play on CRT with a splitter going to the upscaler and Elgato.

[@smasherjosh5000]

Splitter connected to Retrotink 5X!

[@lubo0]

Please, do a "adjusting crt geometry" video

[@Dongled]

Unbelievable detail in this. Color me impressed. Your last question to your viewers is something I've often wondered. We see CRTs on the side of the road, in front of houses left out in the rain, and on thrift store shelves for dirt cheap. But in all honesty, when these things are long gone, how will we get these repaired? Will there be an emerging market of retro-graded CRTs? Only time will tell, but I'll be holding onto my CRT for as long as I can. I also often am paranoid that if it ever did die on me, getting a thrift store tv could be problematic as I'm OCD when it comes to remotes. I prefer to have the remote that came with the TV, not a universal one. Often times, those thrift store TVs don't come with one. Luckily, that's where ebay comes in handy.

[@gabrieleriva651]

Dongled the problem is scale economy: high end consumer CRTs costed up to 1000$ and they were made in hundreds of thousands. PVM costed TENS OF THOUSANDS of $. I can't see anybody paying 40000$ for a new pvm today just for retrogaming. Or 3000$ for a mid-end consumer CRT made in a couple of thousands units.

[@thikeyan7636]

I am a proud owner of a LG Flatron 21inch CRT TV which was made exclusively for the Indian market. I stepped into an electronics store and asked for used crt tvs. They showed me a bunch of tvs and I chose the LG tv because it had the best picture quality of them all. After bringing it back home on an auto rickshaw, I have it hooked up to my PS3. You see, I watch all my content by streaming videos from my PC to the PS3. I am watching standard definition content(mostly anime/sitcoms/cartoons) on the flatron tv and I can tell you that the picture looks beautiful. Since the crt tv has natural anti aliasing, the picture quality is phenomenal. You have to see it to believe it.

[@CT-nb5lm]

Good luck finding any CRTV that doesn't have thousands of hours on it. WE ALL DREAM of that old Granma wh neve rused hers & it's been in storage since 2006. I kinda gave up & decided on upscalers.

[@totih144]

I used to work as AV technician in a local TV station in 2004, how much I loved the 12 Monitors PVM wall and the video mixer/splitter! Go Analog!

[@thesaskatchewankid]

Toti-H I have an extron matrix switcher, living the dream as we speak! #analog4lyfe

[@totih144]

"I HAVE THE POWER TO SEND EVERY OUTPUT TO EVERY INPUT I WANT!!!" great sensation!

[@totih144]

Are you trolling, Ed? Being excited from old tech is kinda my thing, and nevertheless the caps were intentionally inside quot. marks quoting He Man. Stay cool man, enjoy life and old tech!

[@totih144]

Oh shit, actually I'm more a fan of Filmation's Ghostbusters, what am I? A freaky mad "ghost changing room" sexual offender? Probaly. About She-ra, repeat this 10 times "She-ra doesn't exist, is only a bad dream"

[@LaskyLabs]

I've been looking for PVMs for awhile now but my CRT itself is pretty good coming with S-video and component. Hd Retrovision on the genesis looks great on it and the pixels are super sharp.

[@kingvoxel6516]

Cant they just make a super TV that displays everything perfectly with no lag? It's 2016 after all.

[@omegarugal9283]

cost...

[@alptigin5438]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-conduction_electron-emitter_display

[@Nukle0n]

You can't make a flatscreen TV as versatile as a CRT is, with a CRT you can have pixels of any width, and a bunch of different resolutions, but on an LCD/OLED everything is completely static. The best thing would be if someone made new CRTs for retro folks but that's pretty much completely impossible for make sense of financially so that won't happen.

[@aurisama]

www.amazon.com/SONY-Super-Pitch-Television-KD-34XBR960/dp/B0002NDFKM/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 this tv is almost perfect its a crt its hd its widescreen it has hdmi it even has a built in subwoofer

[@aurisama]

www.amazon.com/SONY-Super-Pitch-Television-KD-34XBR960/dp/B0002NDFKM/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 this tv is almost perfect its a crt its hd its widescreen it has hdmi it even has a built in subwoofer

[@l30S3UX]

The selection of games you use as examples on the video are so varied and mesmerizing. This makes me want to watch your videos even without listening

[@Megalocade]

Crts will last years an example of this is the 25" arcade monitor in my oldest cab the dynamo hs1 1988 its been on all day playing Street fighter 2 down in the warehouse for well over 30 years, other than having to fix the chassis from time to time the tube is still healthy and registering way up in the green as good on my crt rejuvenation tester, that's what comes with regular maintenance and keeping picture settings at sensible levels and keeping an eye on B+ levels as this has a direct influence on how hot the heaters are. As someone who builds classic arcade monitors and still fixes the old crt tvs its a technology that was built to last and certainly outlasts the new flat panels, its important with crts to make sure they are serviced correctly and keeping them clean inside as well, keep your picture brightness and contrast to optimum (sensible) levels to preserve tube life and it will most likely outlive you, care for it like you would care for a new car.

[@josermzte]

i hate when the ending song starts :cccc

[@Sebastian-xy3xk]

ikr

[@futurematt5]

brilliant video. so informative.

[@oldowl4290]

Finding a CRT color TV or PVM has not only become rare if not impossible in 2022, anyone who has them often know they are valued for their rarity and want to charge you twice the price of any equally sized LCD display. You really really really have to really really really want this nostalgia gaming feels.

[@ShamanNoodles]

When i was a kid, i used to LOVE going to my grandfathers house because his TV(not sure which kind) just looked PERFECT. My games looked like high def back in the 90s

[@ShadowArtist]

Surprised you didn't mention "Digital Comb Filter" on CRTs like Toshiba and Sony. I have a flat display Toshiba ColorStream (model 20AF43) and I've noticed no "wavy" distortion on it at all. It has S-video and Component video inputs, and possibly due to it's three-line Digital Comb Filter S-Video and component video from my classic consoles and even from the Wii looks sharp and crisp, there's no Gaussian blur and virtually no color bleed. (only noticable on text graphics that's bright orange or bright red). I have a Victor Wondermega hooked up via S-Video to my Toshiba Colorstream, and OMG my Megadrive games look AMAZING with crisp, sharp, non-blurriness, no color mixed pixels at all. Even on composite, my Wii games look amazing! my jaw hit the floor when I saw Metroid Prime 2 (on the Metroid Prime Trilogy disc) all thanks to whatever electronic sorcery my Toshiba Colorstream is doing. IMO CRTs like the model of Toshiba I mentioned, with a 3-line digital comb filter that have Component and S-video inputs are far superior for retro gaming than CRTs that don't have that feature. Using component or s-video cables on that kind of CRT SD TV, is a great option for people like me that can't really afford to get a PVM or BVM or get all those special cables and adapters, etc to get RGB IMO

[@nickwallette6201]

Comb filters are only relevant for composite signals. They separate luminance and chroma frequencies, which tend to overlap with higher resolution sources such as graphics. If you're using S-video or component, the comb filter shouldn't even be in circuit. Since color and luminance are being transmitted via their own cables with SV/component, there's no need for a band filter to isolate them from each other.

[@WhiteJarrah]

4:17 I think you mean "Fields per Second" not "Frames per Second". Two fields make up one frame. So to get the frame rate, you simply divide the field rate by 2. In PAL regions we use 25frames per second interlaced, and NTSC countries use 30 frames per second interlaced. Although now in the digital age we have variants that display them progressively.

[@De5ertFi5h]

With progressive scan, field and frame is the same thing. Meaning, we did get 50 or 60 frames per second with old consoles and CRT TVs.

[@mattgrant4342]

This is the geekiest video I’ve ever watched. I love it

[@nickb5091]

1:15 just picked up that Toshiba 14AF44 with a remote… for free 😁 Love it!

[@ps-lover8380]

I love CRT for playing 3rd Generation to 6th generation of games

[@JunkolaDeluxe]

I got lucky and got my Sony PVM from a pawn shop that upgraded their old security system. $50

[@hdrgb]

Where's the Canadian Flag @ 03:52 ?

[@Bearcade]

I have 6 crts , love em

[@oliver424]

I am not ashamed to admit that I have watched this video at least 7 times.

[@GeoNeilUK]

There's an entire generation of gamers growing up now who I'm sure will have no memory of CRTs, this would have been true even in 2015. Also, RGB is better than Composite which makes Europe (who had SCART with native RGB) better than America (who didn't) The problem with the fandom for scanlines is that certain games emulate scanlines, I *HATE* emulated scanlines. I'm sire someone somewhere thinks they're awesome on an HDTV but some of us run RetroPie on a Raspberry Pi... the Raspberry Pi has a composite output, emulating scanlines on a display that already has scanlines results in terrible terrible flickering. I can see CRT TVs going from scrap you couldn't give away to hipster kit that'll cost an absolute fortune (much like a lot of retro consoles)

[@Captain_Neckbeard]

Absolutely. Most CRTs are thrown away by non-gamers. The ones that are left are going to skyrocket in the coming years.

[@GeoNeilUK]

@@Captain_Neckbeard "Absolutely. Most CRTs are thrown away by non-gamers. The ones that are left are going to skyrocket in the coming years." Maybe not so much on consumer TVs (unless we're talking about Yanks paying for European TVs that have native SCART and native RGB) but certainly on PVM/BVMs. Multiscan or Mulitsync monitors that I remember from the days of the Amiga will cost even more. I've even heard of PVM/BVMs that actually use a black and white tube and have an LCD filter that switches between red, green and blue in a field sequential format. Also, 240p was a spook, it was a fornat used by old consoles that were regularly connected to a CRT that was natively interlaced, often by RF. The reason why original hardware connected to an LCD TV looks different to an emulator running on the same LCD TV is because the CRT was natively interlaced while an LCD is natively progressive. 240p simply beroadcast the same frame on both fields and movement between those fields would show up on a progressibve display such as an LCD but would be less noticable on an interlaced CRT.

[@KasparOnTube]

lol I still have CRT tv.. and im not even gamer. just for watching tv :D

[@spo0nofficial]

When I plugged in my PS1 through Composite on my CRT I was blown away of how look good it looks

[@mattsmedley.onehandedgamin9029]

I love my big old CRT TV for retro gaming. CRT rule 👍

[@RedArremer]

The only way I could enjoy CRT gaming is if I had one of those expensive BVMs. I spent so much of my life trying to get away from crappy composite CRT gaming, that I just couldn't stand going back to it. There was a brief time in the '90s when I had an old arcade monitor that I figured out how to hook my SNES and Genesis up to via frankensteined RGB cables I made myself. The picture quality was superb, but I eventually had to sell the arcade machine in order to unload bulk during a move. Too be honest though, when you showed a side-by-side of an integer-scaled Framemeister image versus a CRT image, my eyes were still attracted to the Framemeister image. I love my blocky pixels, but only if they are uniformly scaled. ;-)

[@DDRaHolic]

It was interesting to hear your experience with the Sony HD CRT. I have one myself and found similar results. N64 games look absolutely horrible on it, but I was hoping to hear your thoughts on how to tune it to get the best possible image.

[@omegazero7174]

I have one of those, do you have any solution to be able to play retro games with good quality?

[@mopspear]

1 CRT, 1 Like

[@jeff97ish]

I love my HD hookup with the Analogue and Retro USB fpga consoles, but I still use the Sony CRT with component cables for SNES and Genesis. I love all the different options we have these days to play retro games. What a time to be alive!

[@joelalain]

11:25 that guy must have delivered a LOT of CRTs

[@urdnal]

5:07 I just modded that very TV (Toshiba 20AF41C?) for RGB input. It''s nice. Composite alone looks good.

[@BluesM18A1]

that... actually sounds like a brilliant idea to mod consumer grade TVs, if I have to mod my NES for RGB might as well fuck with my TV while I'm at it

[@nunyabaznus7851]

Dumb. SNES only pumps out 240p and PS2 can only pump out 480p regardless of what type of connection its going through. changing the cable plug does not magically upscale the image.

[@urdnal]

Who said anything about resolution dipshit?

[@nunyabaznus7851]

urdnal ... resolution is the only factor that will make the game look better. old games were specifically designed around the limitations of 240p. trying to push that same 240p signal through HDMI, SCART, or a bunch of up-scaling converters is not going to achieve anything more than what you can get out of the basic 240p signal.

[@urdnal]

You seem to be confused about what's going on. We're talking about using RGB on CRT TVs. No HDMI or upscaling involved. Do you even know what video this is? No one's talking about improving anything coming out of the console, it's to display the image without _losing_ any quality by modulating the console's RGB signal over RF, composite or s-video, which was all north american CRT TVs had back then.

[@djblahblah]

6:27 THREADS OF FATE SOUNDTRACK!! :)

[@mochico88]

Thank you! I knew I knew the track but couldn't remember what it was from.

[@markusdauer6676]

Big bulky things everyone who says that becomes a 20 minute speech from me. these things are not bulky they are tanks they are unbreakible, you can have a 20 years old crt and it still works without a problem but new tvs are making problems after 3-4 years, there is a reason why there were in use for over 40 years !!

[@autogolazzojr7950]

I'm gonna have to call bs on this one. A crt does NOT last longer than a good quality LCD. Yes, CRTs are great, but not for this reason. Just look at forum posts about problems. Geometry and convergence wears down over time, phosphors wear out, electron guns fail, and flyback transformers wear out. Capacitors need to be replaced as well. Not to mention the fact that they often run at upwards of 20kv... Just take a look at the LCD displays being rated for far more flight hours than CRTs -www.aviationtoday.com/2003/01/01/product-focus-cockpit-displays-lcds-vs-crts/.

[@aretard7995]

@@autogolazzojr7950 only on paper.

[@markus8282]

This shoud be marked for future watchers. Top notch!