CRT or LCD

[Harrison]

If you had to setup a retro system these days, such as a SNES, C64, Amiga, PS1, then would you try to use a CRT TV or monitor for that authentic experience, or would you instead try to find the best way to get the image onto a modern display?

[Tiago]

CRT should be better, but i dont have space for one. LCD for me. CRT only if i have lots od space

[Harrison]

I held on to CRT monitors and TVs for years. Wanting that authentic display with the scanlines. But I decided they were too huge and taking up a lot of room. I gave away my Toshiba 29" CRT TV a couple of years ago as it was just too big and hardly ever got used. The only CRT I still have in the house is a single Philips Amiga Monitor. I'm holding on to it at the moment to test Amigas and STs before I sell them. Once that's done I might sell the monitor too. I do still have a Microvitic Multisync at my parents house and possibly a Commodore monitor. If they still work I might eventually sell them too.

For many years now though I've mainly looked for the best way to get older systems working with modern TVs and monitors. Quite a few PC monitors have legacy ports. My Dell U2711 is very useful for this with composite, component, VGA etc so you can get most systems to display on it and the onscreen menu has a lot of settings to get the most from it. I've also kept one of our older 23" Samsung TVs as it has a lot of legacy ports and is a good size display for older consoles. Most new current TVs though have ditched pretty much every legacy port though. Many only have HDMI and USB now. I'm lucky that my 65" 4K Philips actually has a huge range of legacy ports including Composite, Component and even an RGB Scart port which is very rare these days, and my Sony AV Amp has a built in upscaler, so if it has a composite or Component input it will upscale them to HD and output them via the HDNI port to the TV. I use this for the PS2 and original Xbox and they look very good.

I have also played around with various upscalers to see how good they are compared to letting the TV do the scaling. Ther cheap Scart to HDMI upscalers are a requirement these days if you don't have a TV with a Scart port. The cheaper ones do the job OK, but the image and colour is not perfect. You do need to pay quite a lot of money to get a decent upscaled and converted output as modern TVs show any and all imperfections. A lot of the cheap converters are rubbish though.

Which is where emulation comes into its own as you have none of the hassle of trying to make an original retro system work and look good on a modern display. There are loads of wireless retro style controls available too these days from companies such as 8bitDo so you can get a near authentic experience too. Although emulation never feels 100% like the real thing, which is why I do still have 16bit and newer systems. But it also comes down to how much room you have to store everything. Keeping a CRT display needs room and looks out of place in a modern day living room,