TV for 480P...or not?

[soviet conscript]

I'll mention it again because it's kinda important, playing in widescreen mode in 480p on the Sony sets does introduce input lag. All 480p signals go through a digital conversion, but for some reason the stretching algorithm is noticeably more laggy. That's why I have a a multiple 19" and 21" PC CRT's but gave away my Hi-Scan tube, the PC CRT's are true multisync.

I never owned an SFP tube, though, those are pretty gorgeous.

I may not have a choice unless there are smaller or lighter widescreen versions. Its just not possible for me to transport and move a 200lb TV. At least the 4:3 ratio sets seem to come in smaller sizes.

[FinalBaton]

I never owned an SFP tube, though, those are pretty gorgeous.

They seem very interesting

1440 tv lines And apparently the colors are very good

Never seen one in person but I'm curious and will try to check one out

[Josh128]

The previously mentioned Samsung plasma is great for 16:9 480p.
Here's a snapshot of Swiss-forced 16:9 480p Skies of Arcadia Legends on GC on the 51"er. Looks quite nice, and even better in person.

I'd love to see some closeup shots of GC/Wii from your 4K set.

[soviet conscript]

The previously mentioned Samsung plasma is great for 16:9 480p.
Here's a snapshot of Swiss-forced 16:9 480p Skies of Arcadia Legends on GC on the 51"er. Looks quite nice, and even better in person.

I'd love to see some closeup shots of GC/Wii from your 4K set.

I'll try and take some tomorrow as well as get you the exact model. its just my phone cam but though.

I prefer a CRT but I would consider a plasma for widescreen 480P if they weren't still going for several hundred dollars. Theres a Sony PVM 1954Q in my local Craigslist that's really tempting me. it doesn't do 480p but it sure would be a nice upgrade from my 14'' PVM for 480i and back stuff.

[soviet conscript]

My 4k set is a lg 49ub8500

here are some pics of Monster hunter running on this TV via my Wii set to widescreen 480p. I don't have a huge selection of wii or GC games here to test but if theres a game that would make a better test subject let me know. Images taken with my Galaxy S4









playable but very blurry, other games don't fair much better.

[Fudoh]

that's hardly playable, I would call this a catastrophe. Don't know if your TV in general or your settings are to blame. Compared to this other displays (like Sonys since 2010) look fantastic.

[soviet conscript]

It seems to do 720P and up just fine. Ive been playing plenty of 360 and ps3 stuff on it and although its not jaw dropping I never once thought "this looks like crap". My gf was just playing Diablo III on it yesterday in 720P and it looked great but when I showed her the wii in 480P she agreed it looked horrible. I tried some GC games such as Fzero FX in 480P and although it fares better then poor monster hunter its still not very good.

I've looked though the settings and tried to mess around some but nothing really helps in this respect.

[Josh128]

Whoa... Agree that looks pretty horrid. With 4K res on tap, you'd think they could produce better scaling than that. Perhaps the algorithm was created with DVD video and not games in mind. Looks almost like the 2xSai or SuperEagle smoothing options from emulators.

You mentioned this is Wii-- it does produce a slightly softer image than a real GC, but nothing on this scale of blurriness. Do you have a GC with component cables? It may help a bit for GC games, but likely still fall way short of how it should look.

Below is another example of good 480p on a flat panel, this is from DC. Click on the image to see the full pixel detail. Ive seen some really good shape 43" 4500s on CL for $200. These sets also look spectacular (I'd say jaw-dropping) in 720p. If youre just looking to spend $50 or less though, you are going to have to do some hunting to try to find someone with a monster HD CRT in storage thats just taking up space. Perhaps post a want ad on CL.

[soviet conscript]

I actually do have a GC with component cables but its in storage on the other side of the country so its not really an option. But yhea, I was looking on going the CRT route anyways.

[BazookaBen]

I think you should go PC CRT. The Sony Hi-Scan tubes aren't really that special, they only get mediocre color after a lot of tweaking, and I haven't heard glowing reviews for the Samsungs and Toshibas either. It's pretty universally accepted that the Super Fine Pitch Sony's were the best, but you might have trouble finding one of those.

However, in the PC CRT space, there are tons of awesome models. There are Sony or Dell-branded Trinitrons, Mitsubish, NEC, LaCie, Gateway-branded Diamondtrons. Plus, the 4:3 ratio works out better for most 480p games. There are tons of games that don't support 16:9, but only a few that don't support 4:3 (Xenoblade and Zelda: Skyward Sword are the only examples I'm aware of, and those are only 30fps so they still look great on a 480i PVM).

And then, there's always the 24" FW900 if you want a widescreen PC CRT. Be prepared to pay around $750 for a refurbished one.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=952788

[soviet conscript]

I think you should go PC CRT. The Sony Hi-Scan tubes aren't really that special, they only get mediocre color after a lot of tweaking, and I haven't heard glowing reviews for the Samsungs and Toshibas either. It's pretty universally accepted that the Super Fine Pitch Sony's were the best, but you might have trouble finding one of those.

However, in the PC CRT space, there are tons of awesome models. There are Sony or Dell-branded Trinitrons, Mitsubish, NEC, LaCie, Gateway-branded Diamondtrons. Plus, the 4:3 ratio works out better for most 480p games. There are tons of games that don't support 16:9, but only a few that don't support 4:3 (Xenoblade and Zelda: Skyward Sword are the only examples I'm aware of, and those are only 30fps so they still look great on a 480i PVM).

And then, there's always the 24" FW900 if you want a widescreen PC CRT. Be prepared to pay around $750 for a refurbished one.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=952788

Only one I see locally thats larger then 13 inchs is this one

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/sop/5258881204.html

19 inch isn't bad I think, beats 14 inch but I suppose I would need some kind of component to VGA converter.

[FinalBaton]

Only one I see locally thats larger then 13 inchs is this one

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/sop/5258881204.html

19 inch isn't bad I think, beats 14 inch but I suppose I would need some kind of component to VGA converter.

Why don't you consider that 30" 16:9 Sony Hiscan near you? :
http://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/ele/5251902781.html

Free delivery too

[soviet conscript]

Only one I see locally thats larger then 13 inchs is this one

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/sop/5258881204.html

19 inch isn't bad I think, beats 14 inch but I suppose I would need some kind of component to VGA converter.

Why don't you consider that 30" 16:9 Sony Hiscan near you? :
http://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/ele/5251902781.html

Free delivery too

I actually was looking at that. $100 is really at the top of my price range so I was a little turned off by that. also the mentions a "blemish" on the screen which made me vary wary.

then again I found this...NEC multisynic for free. I have no idea how to move a 400lb TV though.

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/wvl/sop/5216172007.html

[BazookaBen]

All good choices, though you want to test them out first to make sure they're not totally worn out.

The Dell monitor is good, I have a couple, the only thing is that they sometimes have a bug where the G2 voltage gets to high and they get too bright. The link in my last post has information on how to fix it though, you just need a $5 cable and Sony's calibration software. This monitor is also the only one of the 3 capable of 1080p.

That Sony XBR doesn't seem to be a Hi-Scan, since it says HDTV in the corner. I'm pretty sure that means it's a Super Fine Pitch tube, though I could be wrong. If it's in good shape, definitely worth $100, though you can still probably talk the guy down.

The NEC could be the best of the 3, though it may also be the oldest. I would definitely talk to that guy first and find a friend or relative to help you move it.

[FinalBaton]

I actually was looking at that. $100 is really at the top of my price range so I was a little turned off by that. also the mentions a "blemish" on the screen which made me vary wary.

then again I found this...NEC multisynic for free. I have no idea how to move a 400lb TV though.

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/wvl/sop/5216172007.html

Holy shit if I lived near you I would call a friend, order him to stop whathever he's currently doing(don't care if he's working) and join me at the Nec monitor's location as fast as he can lol . even if I'm at work myself

As for the Sony : have you read the whole ad?
''Asking $100, but will certainly take the best offer. Free delivery with full asking price! Contact us and LET'S MAKE A DEAL!''

Looks like you can easily talk it down a few tens of dollars.

[FinalBaton]

you want to test them out first to make sure they're not totally worn out.

yes, absolutely crucial to test them thoroughly.
And by that I mean : play Artemio's 240p suite(the scrolling Sonic BG test and the Grid, at least these two) , or some other calibration tool. I cannot stress this enough.

I once bought a big ass tv that looked fine when I checked it at the guys place, but when I got it home I realized that it had Horizontal Linearity problems (when video games backgrounds were scrolling, there was a very noticeable 'wave' distortion), and that there was no way to fix this in the service menu.
I've since learned my lesson.

[soviet conscript]

I actually was looking at that. $100 is really at the top of my price range so I was a little turned off by that. also the mentions a "blemish" on the screen which made me vary wary.

then again I found this...NEC multisynic for free. I have no idea how to move a 400lb TV though.

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/wvl/sop/5216172007.html

Holy shit if I lived near you I would call a friend, order him to stop whathever he's currently doing(don't care if he's working) and join me at the Nec monitor's location as fast as he can lol . even if I'm at work myself

As for the Sony : have you read the whole ad?
''Asking $100, but will certainly take the best offer. Free delivery with full asking price! Contact us and LET'S MAKE A DEAL!''

Looks like you can easily talk it down a few tens of dollars.

I emailed the guy about the nec monitor. I'll pay someone if I have to to help transport it. Waiting for an email back on it atm. Failing that I'll probibly check out that sony. Hopefully the "blemish" isn't to seroiuse.

[Josh128]

If youre serious, you should consider calling him, being that he gave his contact number on the ad. I wouldnt play around with email. That NEC is a beast, and likely wont last long being free. Plan a road trip for the weekend.

[BONKERS]

that's hardly playable, I would call this a catastrophe. Don't know if your TV in general or your settings are to blame. Compared to this other displays (like Sonys since 2010) look fantastic.

Upscaling 480p that high is rarely going to look good the way tvs do it these days. (And based off every upscaling test of low res to 4k i've seen it almost never looks great. The ratio is just too high unless you are doing straight point filtering to look decent. (Which will then cause you to run into issues with at non-integer)
Not even the best upscaling tools work that well at such high ratios. They start losing their effectiveness around 2x2.

720x480 | 2.25x2.25 = 1620x1080
720x480 | 4.5x4.5 = 3240x2160

Given that 9/10 480p era 3D rendered games have 0 Anti Aliasing means it's going to look even worse.

Examples:
480p source scaled
4.5x to 4k Point http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/45pointscaling.jpg
4.5x to 4k Bilinear http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/45bilinear.jpg
4.5x to 4k SuperRes+SuperXBR+Nnedi3 http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/45madvr.jpg


Here's what 480p looks like upscaled on a number of TVs
http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/js9000upscaling480pl.jpg
http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/ju7500upscaling480pl.jpg
http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/uh30uupscaling480pla.jpg
http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/x900cupscaling480pla.jpg
http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/x930cupscaling480pla.jpg

As you can see it all looks quite bad. (Considering this is real life photography, taking raster aliasing out of the picture at native before upscaling)


Now compare this to a simple 2x2 ratio.

2x to 960 Point http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/2xnoAApoint.jpg
2x to 960 bilinear http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/2xnoAAlinearcopy.jpg
2x to 960 SuperRes+SuperXBR+Nnedi3 http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/mpchc201510090450179.png (Compare this to the one below this line)

IF these 480p games had Anti Aliasing it would make upscaling look a lot better. But it still takes some really good scaling to get it to look great

480p with AA 2x to 960 SuperRes+SuperXBR+Nnedi3 http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/MPCmadvr.png (Compare this to the one above this line)

[Fudoh]

Here's what 480p looks like upscaled on a number of TVs

these snapshots were taken with the TVs in cinema or movie modes. 480p upscaling can look stunningly good on modern TVs. There are enough 1080p and UHD sets sets on which a good 480p console signal looks great.

IF these 480p games had Anti Aliasing it would make upscaling look a lot better. But it still takes some really good scaling to get it to look great

I think we expect different things from upscaling. I want a rendition that's as close as possible to the native output, so neither of your samples are close to what I expect (and get!) from a TV these days.

[soviet conscript]

If youre serious, you should consider calling him, being that he gave his contact number on the ad. I wouldnt play around with email. That NEC is a beast, and likely wont last long being free. Plan a road trip for the weekend.

yhea, I may do that this morning if I can overcome my phone anxiety (yes, I'm serious). When I say though I have no one to help me transport it I really mean that. I moved here not to long ago and besides my girlfriend thats no stronger then I there really is noone to help move the thing. neither of us have any friends out here.

The only solution for me is likely to hire movers which if I'm lucky will cost about $50 since its only 1 thing and not terrible far away but could be more so in reality its not a free pick-up for me.

[BazookaBen]

For the size of that TV, you might actually need two people to help you move it. I just remember my 30 inch sony being a pain in the ass to move for two guys, so I can only imagine adding 7 inches to the tube.

[soviet conscript]

FinalBaton...I could swear you left a comment that just disappeared about the NEC monitor but yeah. I have no idea where to put it or how to transport it but I'm going to grab it if I have the ability. called and no answer but I sent a text so will see where it goes from there. also no reply from the XBR set guy either so who knows, maybe they will all be a wash.

[Guspaz]

My dad and I tried to move a 32" Sony WEGA trinitron flatscreen, and failed. It only weighed 163 lbs. That NEC display weighs 240 lbs.

[soviet conscript]

My dad and I tried to move a 32" Sony WEGA trinitron flatscreen, and failed. It only weighed 163 lbs. That NEC display weighs 240 lbs.

228.2lbs according to the manual I found online which is actually less then what I thought it would weigh.

[BazookaBen]

Definitely bring some decent gloves. The plastic edges will not feel good on your fingers. Something I also learned from my hi-scan sony.

[Ed Oscuro]

Bonkers, that upscaling is outta sight! The Rtings review site has a bunch of pictures of upscaling content on various 4K screens, but I'm not sure I can compare those 16:9 aspect ratio source scaling tests when the 480p content we're talking about is usually 4:3. When comparing the Sony x930c to the LG, there are additionally some detail patterns in the Sony output that aren't present in the LG, e.g. the blue bands in the sky, which leads me to wonder how much in focus the LG sample is, because it's correspondingly blurrier than the Sony set.

I expect that TV makers add blur filtering to their upscaling to avoid sharp artifacts, which sports and movie watching fans would complain about endlessly. Unfortunately, for gamers, I get the distinct impression that the move to 4K has been a total disaster, and even scaling from 2K doesn't look good to me.

[tacoguy64]

You will need two strong guys for that NEC, it's a real bitch to move.
If you need to, you could probably call a moving service to have them do it for you
And make sure you have a good set up because once it's down you wont be moving that tv.

I do have to say that i am not sure if the monitor works with component cables.
I plugged my xbox 360 with component on the rgb inputs and got it to work but the color was all green. Haven't tried my Wii U yet.

There are some other things as well like the fans are loud, menu options are kind of limited, and of course the weight is a huge thing, but aside from that it really is a fantastic display. Truly one of the best all in one displays. If you do decide to get it could you scan the user manual and post it online?

[Ed Oscuro]

Don't forget the sync stripping woes many people get with this monitor. Beyond that, yeah, sounds pretty good.

I'd spring for a Mitsu Megaview Pro if given the option though

[bobrocks95]

Bonkers, that upscaling is outta sight! The Rtings review site has a bunch of pictures of upscaling content on various 4K screens, but I'm not sure I can compare those 16:9 aspect ratio source scaling tests when the 480p content we're talking about is usually 4:3. When comparing the Sony x930c to the LG, there are additionally some detail patterns in the Sony output that aren't present in the LG, e.g. the blue bands in the sky, which leads me to wonder how much in focus the LG sample is, because it's correspondingly blurrier than the Sony set.

I expect that TV makers add blur filtering to their upscaling to avoid sharp artifacts, which sports and movie watching fans would complain about endlessly. Unfortunately, for gamers, I get the distinct impression that the move to 4K has been a total disaster, and even scaling from 2K doesn't look good to me.

We've now got settings to individually adjust color gain and cutoff in super-advanced menus for people with color calibrators. I think it's pretty silly that there isn't a way to switch to nearest-neighbor scaling tucked away in some deep menu. It's the easiest type of scaling to implement is it not?