What is the best size TV for retro gaming

[Greg2600]

In a full room setting, 27 inch is the smallest IMO. The smaller ones are for a desk.

[keepdreamin]

 

 

Yeah, that's baloney. There's arcade machines from the early to mid 90's with still functioning monitors. Especially some of the Japanese stuff with Nanao and Toei brand monitors. They can still look new, and they saw tremendous duty cycles every day. not just 20-30 hours per week.

[+wood_jl]

I'm working on eventually setting up the game/classic computer room with each system on its own TV. That means 13", of course. Fortunately, JVC makes an excellent one that takes NTSC and PAL and is 13" and has S-video! (Thanks, Bryan!!). So I don't mind a small screen; the old pixels look finer on a small screen, anyway. Not to mention, a 13" color TV strictly for Atari use in my childhood bedroom was like a new crown jewel, so I'll always have a sweet spot in my heart for a quality 13" color CRT. The JVC is amongst the best.

 

But up to about 20" is fine for me, unless: (1) You are sitting a long way from the set, OR (2) you are playing light gun games.

 

My 35" Trinitron (must be 200lb) finally died (suspect "flyback" doo-hickie upon Google "research" but don't know), and I am NOT going to get another. I'm getting too old to move this shit. I'd had it in the same spot for years, and I was a stronger man when I put it there. I nearly killed myself in the process of its disposal. I still have a 32" Sony Wega (it does not move often!) that I can use for light gun games, but I don't play those much anymore (who does?). From now on, I'm not even going to TRY to pick up any CRT TV greater than 27" set, as Duck Hunt and Hoagan's Alley (etc) play pretty well on a 27".. As an aside: WHY ARE SONY CRT SETS SO MUCH HEAVIER THAN ANY OTHER BRAND (of the same size)? You'll even notice this on the smaller sets!

 

But to each his own. I do like the smaller sets, for both light weight and the nostalgia.

[Gabriel]

Ideally, I'd want a 25" or 27" CRT for things up to the NES era. I played on a 25" during my childhood.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

 

 

I guess you've had better luck with the tubes in your CRTs than I've had with the ones in mine.

[Schizophretard]

 

Yeah, that's baloney. There's arcade machines from the early to mid 90's with still functioning monitors. Especially some of the Japanese stuff with Nanao and Toei brand monitors. They can still look new, and they saw tremendous duty cycles every day. not just 20-30 hours per week.

 

90's? I have functioning CRT's from the 70's.

[Video]

Well, 90-00 CRTs have really cheap parts. Likely the tubes are fine, but the tuner goes out.

 

I got TVs from the 70s and 80s that are fine, but most my stuff from the 90s crapped out in a few years.

 

Monitors are a different beast, as they typically don't have tuners anyways, especially arcade cabs.

 

Just to bad so few want to learn to fix the things, and fewer want to share the knowledge of how. I've asked, and the typical response is usually something to the extent of "you shouldn't" or "blah blah flyback capacitor, and you'll kill yourself" really? I'd assume someone smart enough to ask at least has some base knowledge and tools. Sounds a lot more like "I don't know, but want to sound like I do" to me.

[teh_lurv]

13-20" is the ideal IMO, that's what 8/16-bit developers were designing their games for. Text boxes in Final Fantasy don't take up half the screen because kids had bad eyesight in the 80s.

[keepdreamin]

13-20" is the ideal IMO, that's what 8/16-bit developers were designing their games for. Text boxes in Final Fantasy don't take up half the screen because kids had bad eyesight in the 80s.

 

 

That's too big. What you really need is an 8" PVM.

[AMenard]

I have one of the last CRT that were on sale in my neck of the wood, an Ascent 23" that I've bought at Zellers in 2005 as an upstair TV for watching the news or general TV while eating supper... It has Components/S-Video/Composite/75ohms/Antena input and still works great for classic console except, supposedly, for Lightguns since it's a flat screen tube. It's way to big to be use as a monitor for my classic computers though.

 

I still use my old A1080 for those. I would like to use my new LCD 19" HP monitors but none of the cheap upconverter (rgb & hdmi) that I bought give me a usable picture on them. I also have a quite dirty 1702 that I got with an equally dirty and bad shape C64 that I'm bringing back to life.

 

The 1702 as a non-functional front composite input and its chroma/luma input are so oxidized that they barely take the signals in. The tube seems in good shape though so I may be able to bring it back to full fonctionnality after I finish with the C64 (I'm waiting for the cap for it from digikey).

[Omega-TI]

What do you think is the best size CRT TV for playing pre nes games ? if you didn't own one and wanted to purchase one what size would you buy ?

 

This is an question that can only be answered by the person using it. There are just too many factors to account for to choose "the best size".

 

1 - How far are you going to be from the monitor?

2 - How much room do you have to devote to a CRT based TV set?

 

But then I think of these things as well...

 

3 - How much money will the old tank cost?

4 - These things are getting older, will you be able to get it repaired if it stops working (affordably)?

5 - Is the cost to benefit ratio really worth the hassle? Time playing games divided by hassle & expense.

 

To me the answer is NO SIZE.

[keepdreamin]

 

This is an question that can only be answered by the person using it.

 

Jim doesn't do answers, only questions.

[0078265317]

BTW what was the largest crt ever made back then? How many inches?

[+wood_jl]

BTW what was the largest crt ever made back then? How many inches?

 

 

 

I don't know what the ABSOLUTE biggest was, but I had a friend about 10 years ago who had one of these big 40" Sony Trinitron badass bastards......

 

 

https://docs.sony.com/release/specs/KV40XBR800spec.pdf

 

It was absolutely, positively, the HOWITZER of the outgoing CRT era. It did 1080i (I remember playing PS2 Gran Turismo 4 in pseudo 1080i on it) and it had a built-in subwoofer that would shake the wall boards.

 

(1) It cost $3500+, 10 years ago.

(2) It weighs in at a svelte 300 lbs (!!!)

(3) I'm too old to struggle with stuff like this now

(4) The stuff is too old now and the caps are probably all ready to blow, even if you found a working one.

 

I used to think about looking on those Craiglist search engines (they used to be on there!) and hitching up the covered cargo trailer and taking a road trip to get one. NOT ANYMORE! But I really did want to do this, at one time.

 

In my opinion, it was the end-all-be-all large CRT television! Whew, it was nice, right before the other technologies took over. In a day when you can get a 55-inch 4K LED-backlit LCD for $299 on Walmart Black Friday, it is hard to think about the end of the CRT and the semi-shit that came in between.

 

Remember the rear-projection crap with the plastic screens? Remember the "DLP" (digital light processing or something) with the $250 bulb that would go out? And then there's the plasma, and I can't remember what happened to those, but they kind of slowly faded. I can't remember the disadvantage, because I never knew anybody that had one.

 

I But the KV40XBR800 is the biggest of the end of an era. Just make sure you have about 4 NFL Linebacker friends to help you load/unload and move it!

[homerhomer]

Good topic, recently I have been using a larger lcd and my games are not as fun as with my smaller 13in crt. I'm thinking 19 in might be the sweet spot.

[AMenard]

I don't know what the ABSOLUTE biggest was, but I had a friend about 10 years ago who had one of these big 40" Sony Trinitron badass bastards......

 

Trinintron XBR800.jpg

 

https://docs.sony.com/release/specs/KV40XBR800spec.pdf

 

It was absolutely, positively, the HOWITZER of the outgoing CRT era. It did 1080i (I remember playing PS2 Gran Turismo 4 in pseudo 1080i on it) and it had a built-in subwoofer that would shake the wall boards.

 

(1) It cost $3500+, 10 years ago.

(2) It weighs in at a svelte 300 lbs (!!!)

(3) I'm too old to struggle with stuff like this now

(4) The stuff is too old now and the caps are probably all ready to blow, even if you found a working one.

 

I used to think about looking on those Craiglist search engines (they used to be on there!) and hitching up the covered cargo trailer and taking a road trip to get one. NOT ANYMORE! But I really did want to do this, at one time.

 

In my opinion, it was the end-all-be-all large CRT television! Whew, it was nice, right before the other technologies took over. In a day when you can get a 55-inch 4K LED-backlit LCD for $299 on Walmart Black Friday, it is hard to think about the end of the CRT and the semi-shit that came in between.

 

Remember the rear-projection crap with the plastic screens? Remember the "DLP" (digital light processing or something) with the $250 bulb that would go out? And then there's the plasma, and I can't remember what happened to those, but they kind of slowly faded. I can't remember the disadvantage, because I never knew anybody that had one.

 

I But the KV40XBR800 is the biggest of the end of an era. Just make sure you have about 4 NFL Linebacker friends to help you load/unload and move it!

40" was about the max that could fit in a normal door frame, depth wise. Even my old Panasonic Gao 36" would leave me about 1/2" on each side when going through the door while moving. We even had to pass it througn a window once because the front door of my apartement was non standard...

[Oldschool80skid]

I have a 13", 19", 24" & 27" CRTs. I am fine with all of them. I would not personally go any larger than a 27" CRT due to the weight factor.

[Michael-John]

The perfect size for a crt tv is anything that is 25 inches or less. For one think of duck hunt on the NES it's a pain the shoot ducks when the tv is over 25 inches. That and all video game accessories work for screens 25 inches and less. Look at the overlays for the Magnavox odyssey the biggest screen overlays the make is for 25 inches so if you have a 27 inches it won't fit right. So the perfect size is about 18 inches to 25 inches since that's the sizes of the Magnavox odyssey overlays.

[Video]

They made 13" sets with svideo? Cool. I didn't think extra inputs (short of basic component) started till 19.

 

Anybody ever try splicing 8 bit computers to use s video? I may be wrong but I read s video is basically an integrated chroma/luma port.

 

Love my 1702. Despite the lack of help, I will try to fix this one when it breaks.

[Tempest]

I know some accessories like ROB for the NES have trouble working on larger TVs and light gun games can be a pain to play on larger TVs.

 

I'd say a 20" is perfect for anything up to (and through) the SNES/Genesis era.  After that you'll probably want a 25" or 27" (although a nice 20" would still work).   But like every says, it really depends on if you want to sit back a good distance and play or if you want to sit right up close to the screen.  I'm currently using a 27" CRT for all my gaming, but I'm thinking about hooking up my nice 20" PVM instead because that's more the size I played on back in the day (actually it was a 14" cheapo Emerson TV in my room, but 20" is good). 

 

From what I remember, 25" or smaller was the average size of a TV well up into the mid to late 90's.  Larger than that and they get REALLY heavy.

[Keatah]

For Apple II I started with a 5" color Sony. And moved up to a 13". So anything in that size range for vintage computing. For gaming consoles I started with a 12" BW set and ended with a 25" Zenith Chroma-Color II. So anything in that range.

 

Essentially the sizes I used as a kid tend to apply to retro stuff. For modern computing the minimum is a 20" 4:3 LCD. Between that and about a 26" - 30" display is my personal sweet spot.

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

I recently upgraded to a 27 inch CRT. I was using 14 and 20 inch ones before that.   This is the perfect size to sit right in front of as well as laying down across from. I have it on a trunk that I can slide around the room. 

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

Oh and this was around the corner from me from the same owner.  I wish I could have saved it, but it was way high on top an electrical box. People had some fun with it too.  Toshiba AF I think 27 inch. I have the 14 inch of this model and it's gorgeous.  This set looked to be in great condition too.

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

That Toshiba in the pic had component, svideo..  the little 14 incher I have also has that unfortunately the 27 inch trinitron doesn't but It has a video and can be modded for rgb but I can't do that stuff. Id totally let someone else if they wanna tinker !  There's a CRT hoarder literally around the block from me. I wish I knew who. He just puts one out every few months.