Connect to a modern HDTV

[Trent555]

Quick question(s): What is the "definitive" answer (Im sure this has been discussed ample amounts of time).......is it 'safe' to connect an old Atari 2600 to a modern HDTV (LCD/Plasma) without burn in?

 

Realizing of course, the image will be heavily pixelated.

 

In doing so, do most use a cable box swtich in conjunction with a Coaxial (F-type) to Female RCA Adapter? Or do some go thru a VCR and then use RCA (red/white/yellow) into the back of their tv's?

 

One last question, would a regular RCA cable work in place of (substitute) the original RF cable?

 

Thx.

[flammingcowz]

I had to use my lcd hdtv to play my atari for a while before i found a sdtv on the side of the road. Way better picture and it never hurt my hdtv

[Awesomepants]

Quick question(s): What is the "definitive" answer (Im sure this has been discussed ample amounts of time).......is it 'safe' to connect an old Atari 2600 to a modern HDTV (LCD/Plasma) without burn in?

 

Realizing of course, the image will be heavily pixelated.

 

In doing so, do most use a cable box swtich in conjunction with a Coaxial (F-type) to Female RCA Adapter? Or do some go thru a VCR and then use RCA (red/white/yellow) into the back of their tv's?

 

One last question, would a regular RCA cable work in place of (substitute) the original RF cable?

 

Thx.

Everything will work fine, no harm done. The RCA is interchangable. The A/V inputs on you TV are not good ideas, as they simply will not pick up on the signal. But to answer your first question, there will be no harm on your TV. There may be lag though.

[Rex Dart]

Quick question(s): What is the "definitive" answer (Im sure this has been discussed ample amounts of time).......is it 'safe' to connect an old Atari 2600 to a modern HDTV (LCD/Plasma) without burn in?

 

Realizing of course, the image will be heavily pixelated.

 

In doing so, do most use a cable box swtich in conjunction with a Coaxial (F-type) to Female RCA Adapter? Or do some go thru a VCR and then use RCA (red/white/yellow) into the back of their tv's?

 

One last question, would a regular RCA cable work in place of (substitute) the original RF cable?

 

Thx.

 

1) It's fine as long as you follow the standard precaution of not leaving it on a still image for hours on end.

2) Switch box? Nope, I connect it directly through a RCA (male) to Coax (male) adapter, using a fat RG6 coax cable.

3) So long as you have some adapter to use that RCA cable with your TV's coax, sure.

[HatefulGravey]

Any RCA cable will work with one of these:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103471

 

I use one I got at the local Radio Shack for about $2. Mine just isn't all pretty and gold. Plug the RCA cable into the Atari and then that will convery it to the right connection that most tvs still have. This will also work for NES model 101 as well. Haven't tried it with the model 001 yet.

Edited July 29, 2010 by HatefulGravey

[tetrode kink]

On a plasma, leaving a single image on-screen for a long period of time will cause burn-in, similar to a CRT.

 

There is no such danger on an LCD TV. You can leave it on forever and it won't suffer burn-in.

 

You can use a VCR to convert the Atari's RF to composite for easy hook-up. Doing so may actually help your TV accept the Atari's slightly off-standard signal if the TV is especially picky about input signal standards.

 

Note that using a VCR to convert to composite will not improve the image, in the way that doing an A/V mod on your Atari would. It just gives you another connection option if your TV's RF-in is occupied or nonexistent.

 

-tet

[Underball]

Not entirely true. LCD tvs do suffer from what's called "image retention" which has the same effect as burn in on a CRT.

 

The only tv platform that doesn't is DLP.

[tetrode kink]

Not entirely true. LCD tvs do suffer from what's called "image retention" which has the same effect as burn in on a CRT.

 

The only tv platform that doesn't is DLP.

Ah, DLP. Ya just gotta love the irony. At the birth of television, all-electronic TV quickly killed mechanical TV (before it really got started) because it was deemed superior. Now DLP outshines LCDs in many (most?) cases.

 

I mean, come on guys, it's almost as if you want to go backwards. When are you going to give us the holy grail of flat-screen TVs, the home JumboTron? The blue LED was perfected, what, ten years ago? We now have the trifecta of LED colors necessary to generate any color in the rainbow, and I've seen LEDs where the light source was smaller than a pin-head, so you should be able to cram enough of them in a matrix and light 'em up. OK, sure, pure LED TVs are starting to trickle out, but they should have been common in the home years ago!

 

It's like you want to repeat the story of the common mass-storage device for computers, the hard drive. Mechanical, spinning magnetic platters read by a moving read/write head was old in the late 20th Century; now we have common, cheap solid-state hard drives that make those whirring, spindly things look like old Victrolas.

 

Wait - never mind.

 

-tet

[Pioneer4x4]

It's like you want to repeat the story of the common mass-storage device for computers, the hard drive. Mechanical, spinning magnetic platters read by a moving read/write head was old in the late 20th Century; now we have common, cheap solid-state hard drives that make those whirring, spindly things look like old Victrolas.

 

Wait - never mind.

 

-tet

Personally I have a Sony (YES I KNOW!!!) SRX 50" which is VERY nice! Except for the fade to green after 2.5 years, thank god for warranty!

And I still have my Great-Grandfathers wax cylinder player sitting next to my drawers of atari carts. (Picture a record like a pringles can, not a platter.)

[tetrode kink]

Personally I have a Sony (YES I KNOW!!!) SRX 50" which is VERY nice! Except for the fade to green after 2.5 years, thank god for warranty!

And I still have my Great-Grandfathers wax cylinder player sitting next to my drawers of atari carts. (Picture a record like a pringles can, not a platter.)

Ah, the wax cylinder record, Edison's first iteration of the phonograph. Actually, wasn't his first successful experiment with a tin cylinder? Wow, that technology is now over two turns-of-century old. It's way past my time, but I still feel old just knowing about it.

 

Anyway, back to our original programming, a couple things come to mind about the original topic (anyone remember the original topic??? ):

 

"Safe?" Heh, yeah, it's safe. It's not like your crude, primitive Atari is gonna blow up your TV or something!

 

Regarding the "burn-in" phenomena, it would take years of playing the same game for it to happen. More accurately, it would take years of having the same, static image on the screen for it to happen.

 

Most of the first VCS games have burn-in prevention (or at least mitigation) programmed into them: Screen savers during non-play time. When not playing the game, it cycles through all the colors so no one color stays on-screen for long, and all portions of the screen display all colors eventually.

 

For games that don't have the screen saver feature, you can reduce the risk of burn-in by not leaving it on 24/7 when you're not playing it. Unless you play the same game twelve hours a day for years, I doubt there's much chance you'll burn-in your screen.

 

Another thing you can do to help prevent burn-in is to lower the brightness on the TV. Most TV's (CRTs, anyway) default settings have the brightness set too high anyway. Unless you're playing in a brightly-lit room, you can lower the brightness some, thus further reducing the chance of burn-in, while the picture will still be bright enough to see easily. Of course, the brightness issue doesn't apply to LCDs.

 

I think those last tips are most appropriate for CRTs, though of the newer display technologies, plasma TVs are most susceptible to burn-in.

 

Bottom line, there is a small chance of burn-in, depending on what kind of display your TV uses. But it is manageable, and is not inevitable if precautions are taken.

 

-tet