Devices for WIDESCREEN gaming on a crt

[headlesshobbs]

Lately I've had the bug to play a number of previous gen titles on my monitor and one of the big issues is having to reset the profiles so I can get the aspect ratio framed correctly. Many issues are either I get characters that are slightly taller, or I have to bump off the sides a bit in order to make a proper image, but I'm removing detail doing so.

I'm not sure if there's any converters that have the idea of supporting true 16:9 content on a 4:3 frame, but I'd like to up my knowledge base a little so I know what's best for me. 720p content still looks really good in analog believe it or not.

Keep in mind I don't want anything that "re-scales" the image. It has to be strictly line-for-line or avoid.

[Unseen]

Keep in mind I don't want anything that "re-scales" the image. It has to be strictly line-for-line or avoid.

So you want to cut away the sides of the picture and keep just the center part?

[headlesshobbs]

So you want to cut away the sides of the picture and keep just the center part?

Not at all.

The point of me asking was so I can preserve the video while maintaining the full aspect ratio on 4:3 monitors. There's only a few tv's that have a switch for widescreen modes that don't cut the resolution, but this being a standard computer monitor I would need something that does the job for it.

[nmalinoski]

I have a Sony KV-27FV310 that automatically switches to a widescreen mode when I enable widescreen on my Xbox (haven't yet tried with PS2, PS3, or Xbox 360), so no additional device is necessary.

If your TV doesn't do that, then you can probably use something like a Corio2 scaler. There are certain models that are even capable of downscaling to 240p.

[Fudoh]

but this being a standard computer monitor I would need something that does the job for it.

if you're using a multisync display you can increase the resolution to counter the (theoretical) loss in resolution through scaling. For example: if you have a 1280x720p source you can simply add borders on top and bottom, but instead of scaling down the 720p vertical res you can pad the image and put the active 1280x720p image into a 1280x960p signal. This way the original 720p image is 100% preserved.

Actually most processors will do that for you. Pick your poison.

[Danexmurder]

I've used a Corio 2 scaler to do this. It isn't perfect but I thought it still looked pretty good. It was certainly good enough to play with. Outside of a similar solution to this or what Fudoh recommends You'd need to track down a 16:9 crt.

These are shots from the switch set to 480p and scaled down and aspect corrected using the Corio.

[Xer Xian]

Most CRT PC monitors have both horizontal and vertical size adjustments (I've got two of them, both have it).

If yours doesn't, looking for another one that does might make more sense than adding a laggy video processor to your set-up..

[headlesshobbs]

My vertical width maxes out too soon when I adjust, so the controls on this function are pretty limited.