The Last Scan: Keeping old TVs alive

Reluctant CRT owner here. I have one because it was cheapest and easiest way to get a low input lag display for speedrunning. I paid $30 for my 27" Trinitron on Craigslist and had to drive a bit to pick it up. It's a monster of a TV, requiring a sturdy rack to sit on and a couple strong friends if I want it somewhere else. The picture quality is great and the scanlines definitely add an old-school feel but it doesn't look better than my SNES Classic on my generic HDTV.

It's not that you CAN'T speedrun on LCD displays, it's that it's expensive and inconvenient. Connecting a retro console like a SNES to a modern display requires converting one of composite/S-video/component/RGB SCART to DVI or HDMI, and most of the devices that do that aren't designed with latency in mind. If you search on Amazon you'll find a bunch of cheap knockoff upscalers that, if they even work, add 50ms+ of latency. The cheapest acceptable option is the OSSC, a custom-made upscaler for retro gaming that costs about $200. Many people who built their setups before OSSCs were easily available use XRGB Minis/Framemeisters, which run about $320 and add very slightly more lag. Both the OSSC and Framemeister expect SCART input, so there's some extra cost there for cables/converters.

After you buy an upscaler, you'll still need a monitor with acceptable latency after all the extra image processing is disabled. The Melee community uses particular models of Asus monitors that people have checked, but it's difficult to find good information on input lag in general because it's not something manufacturers care to advertise. If you're buying new, figure about $200 for something like an Asus VG245H.

Lastly you'll need DVI/HDMI capture and splitting/passthrough. Not an issue if you're already capturing modern consoles, but S-video capture for retro hardware is dirt cheap. A good 60fps HDMI capture setup is easily $100-200.

So, overall it costs $500-600 to replicate the CRT experience from a retro speedrunning perspective and the results are a mixed bag - slightly (although imperceptibly) higher latency but higher video capture quality and some space savings. For comparison, my CRT setup cost $30 for the TV, $35 for a GV-USB2 capture dongle and $20 for a S-video/composite splitter, under $100 total. Unless something happens to make low input lag HDMI more cost-effective, expect retro speedrunners to continue using CRTs as long as they're viable.

Is there an international effort to document and preserve human knowledge so if/when disaster strikes, we can get back on our feet sooner rather than later? In this case the simpler technologies need to be documented with more importance because they will be far easier to reconstruct than more advanced ones.

This might seem like a frivolous effort, but this, along with documenting and conserving the planet's biodiversity are honestly two of the most valuable things humanity can do. We musn't recklessly rush ahead without even planning fallback scenarios or preserving valuable buffers that will cushion the impact of potential setbacks.

I would suggest that the biggest group to mourn CRT technology would be our feline overlords. I had several cats that used to perch themselves atop a screen, trying to capture my attention and keeping warm but blocking an air vent in the process.

The switch to DVB-T from PAL saw us recycle our last CRT telly. I threw out my Trinitron computer monitor some years earlier. Its sharpness had deteriorated over time. Text became too fuzzy, perhaps something to do with electrons mentioned in the article.

I miss the vertical pixels - 1600x1200 was a standard but LCDs embraced 1080 panels from the Blu-ray craze. Luckily I have a 1024*1280 LCD (rotated) for A4 documents.

I remember my parents bought a 32" widescreen CRT HDTV (1080i) back when HD was first becoming a thing. That was the heaviest TV set I've ever had to move in my life.

They offered to give it to me a few years later when they upgraded to an LCD... wish I would have taken it (no idea what happened to it now). It took me forever to find a decent CRT on craigslist for retro gaming :)

I am surprised that an article on CRT displays mentions John Logie Baird but not Philo Farnsworth and Vladimir Zworykin. Baird's TV was electromechanical, whereas the Farnsworth/Zworykin designs (the two were competitors) were all-electronic. Zworykin, in particular, is credited with coining the name "Cathode Ray Tube."

Will we someday see some low-latency, low-persistence TV screens, like the panels we can find in VR HMDs? These could easily replace most uses for a CRT TV.

What I miss the most on a modern TV or computer screen is the low persistence. Just look at some moving sharp edges on a CRT versus an LCD screen (glxgears, for example). The difference is striking, as you can follow the edges on CRT TVs, but not on a regular screen.

I actually suspect that the 144Hz gaming craze has more to do with persistence than framerate!

What I miss most about CRTs are accurate light gun video games. I tried Overkill on PS3 and while it was fun, the crosshair positioning was terrible. Rail shooters seem to have vanished into history (much like Ruby on Rails) (I kid! I kid!)

I still keep a CRT around for my C64 - a little 13" Sony Trinitron. It might see more use once I get around to replacing the electrolytic caps in my SNES and getting it working again.

Similar niche business keeping monitors going (catering to contemporary art) in London: http://www.the-block.org

Critical for Atari-fans. Some of the old systems, without mods, need cable input or antenna screws.