The CRT Hype Train Might Be Out of Control... - CRT vs OLED

dont worry Linus, i'm too poor to afford anything you recommend

Gotta remember graphics designers always optimise for their current display technology, a lot of people who think old games look like crap probably just never saw them displayed on a CRT.

Fun fact about the color issues of old games: old games were intentionally colored a certain way to work with CRT's and how they naturally mute out the intensity of yellows and browns, so games were programmed with odd neon orange and yellow colors because, when run through CRT's, the colors would be washed out through the tubes and would display the desired colors. With OLED, you're seeing the compensating colors without the CRT washout and wind up with jarringly oversaturated colors that don't look good. So what Linus and co. are seeing in the OLED screen with DreamCast sprite games is the raw coloring that you were never ment to see, which would be corrected by the CRT tubes. If you don't have these intense colors, the browns and yellows would be washed out completely.

The fact that CRT still has advantages really shows how great it was. Im 22 so i haven't had much experience with CRTs. As ours was replaced in 2007 so i was only 6 so it feels like we've had flatscreens for a long time. Would love to see a modern CRT capable at 4k resolution and HDR but not sure if that is possible, would be great for retro and modern gaming, would probably have to be pretty small as we are use to our light flatscreens even though they can be pretty awkward to hold at 65inch and up. 27inch would be fine

This is my favorite format now; staff member brings something they're passionate about, explains and shows it to Linus and they rate it as they go. It's so cool

If we bought everything you recommended, Linus, we'd be broke.

My last CRT was a great large screen tv. It looked great, worked perfectly but I threw it out for a LCD. No one wanted them back then so I took it to a dump, felt really bad like abandoning a dog that had always been faithful

These widescreen trinitrons are absolutely gorgeous blu ray monitors. I mean they rival any oled imo in terms of black levels and color clarity and resolution. I liked it so much I bought a second one of these exact tv's on craigslist. I got about 3 years of amazing gaming and movie watching out of my first one before the power supply died and the second is still in the closet. These Sony tv's use a special grid of phosphorus in order to maintain geometric clarity and color separation. They really were the best of the best of crt technology. Any Sony trinitron is worth grabbing.

The most vivid memory of a crt i have is a table collapsing because of the sheer weight of the 32 inch crt and it exploded, then we did not have a television for 13 years lmao.

Be VERY careful buying HDCRTs if you watch this and think "That's for me." Some of them have half second lag times. I've tested some. They are NOT all the same.

I have a 1980's console crt in my living room dedicated for my vintage systems and an OLED in the bedroom for the more current ones. It's tough to justify, but visitors always comment on how great it is to play old games as they were.

My main love for a CRT. No native display resolution. It just looks good at any resolution. I can make a 320x240 render and pop it up on my CRT and it looks lovely. Unlike with modern flatpanel displays where it it gets digitally blocky and smoothed depending on the settings

Another interesting note about CRTs and retro gaming is that for some consoles, such as the Sega Genesis/Megadrive, you might actually be hamstringing yourself trying to go for the best picture quality. Practically all transparency and extra color tricks rely on the signal bleed from a composite signal, of which only really works with a CRT accepting that signal. There's also another transparency trick that renders the sprite/background every other frame, taking advantage of the slight phosphor afterimage of a CRT.

the one thing I remember as to why older games that were made when CRT setups were the dominant format is that sprites and models were crafted specifically to use the screen lines to "complete" the sprite. Hence why the smooth aspect from LCD and OLED screens looks much more "wrong" on older games

Mgs 1 is a perfect example of CRT looking way different the colors (specially the codet calls) pop and look more vivid

You have gone throught many options, but it should be known that with retro games especially just a few gens back they were inherently designed with CRTs quirks in mind. The literal best example for sprite quality and shading is Dracula's blood red eyes in his talk portrait in Castlevania SOTN. CRTs biggest strengths are in its dream like haze and ability to apply extra blur to great effect, like in the ff10 cutscenes or Zelda: Majora's Mask.

CRT phosphors do emit light when theyre "off" if they've recently been activated. its why your CRT tv glows in the dark when you turn it off, and you can draw on the screen with a torch in the dark. but the contrast is so great that when other parts of the screen are lit the dark parts are basically as good as true black

The overly warm/red image on the HD CRT is likely due to what the CRT community calls "Trinitron Red Push". This red push was implemented by Sony to make TV content such as skin tones "pop" on the showroom floor, at detriment to the overall accuracy of the image. Luckily this "feature" can be easily disabled to bring the display back to a balanced and accurate color profile usually by turning the AXNT setting in the service menu from 1 to 0.

I managed to get my hands on a 24 inch JVC from the late 90s early 2ks this month and got rid of my Roku smart tv. Hooked Roku to this one and I couldn’t be happier watching old anime on this tv over my smart tv

I pulled out my old ColecoVision console and games (kept in original boxes) from the attic for a vintage game night that we had various consoles connected to a Vivitek 56" DLP TV that has DVI/HDCP inputs and it looked wonderful! When I mentioned my wife previously wanted to get rid of it when we purchased our 70" flat screen it started a bidding war among the true vintage gamers. I'm glad I kept it but I miss her from time to time!