Why CRT TVs Are IMPORTANT for Retro Gaming

Hope you guys get some enjoyment out of watching this one, I put quite a bit of effort into it. Also I do wanna touch on how difficult it really is to record a CRT TV, these things will fight your camera tooth and nail. Given this it should be clear that this footage doesn't do my CRT justice, but I can assure you guys that this thing looks insane in person.

I also wanted to say that the footage you see of NES games on my CRT is via the Wii emulator FCEUGX. So no I’m not using a modded NES or anything like that. But the Wii does output 240p so these NES games look as intended.

0:00 Intro
3:56 CRT Technology
7:45 Interlaced Video
16:00 Types of CRTs
18:15 Analog Connections
21:53 240p Games on Modern TVs
26:21 Why 240p Looks Better on CRTs
34:22 How Cables Affect Your 240p Picture
40:27 What Do The Developers Think
45:35 480 Media
48:39 480i/480p Games
55:27 How Cables Affect your 480 Picture
57:22 60p vs 60i
59:20 480i/480p Games Via Emulation
1:01:27 I love old stuff lol

The videos I referenced in my video

[Saltydkdan]

I’ve been dying for a video like this for a while and this was awesome!! I really like how you formatted and talked about all the smaller details and intricacies. Awesome video!!

[Unblessify]

I think the CRT effect on old pixel art games is the reason why you hear people say "I remember it looking way better when I was younger" when they try the same game again but on modern screens or emulated.

[exotericidymnic]

Graphics artists optimized their work for the medium they expected it to be viewed on, this doesn't mean any of them would be upset if you used a different display medium.

[iamsemjaza]

You are right about the "raw pixel look" being wrong. Those games were not designed for "raw pixel." They were designed for the CRT to blend those pixels.

[noellawson]

For years I could swear PS1 games looked much more vivid in my childhood and this video has FINALLY confirmed that.

[PwPwPanda]

I feel like one thing you've glossed over in the raw pixel argument, is that the artists were using CRT monitors when making them. Back in the day, CRTs were all there was. It wasn't just TVs that used CRTs, computer monitors used them too. So when the artists were "working with the raw pixels" they were doing it on a CRT monitor. The artists themselves may have never seen what we call the "raw pixel look" when they were making it.

[MoonSarito]

Games that use pre-rendered graphics like Donkey Kong Country 2 and Killer Instinct look surreal on a CRT TV, it really gives the illusion of a game that uses 3D models, but on an emulator or on a modern TV the illusion simply breaks because you can clearly see the pixels and that everything there is just 2D sprites.

[hughjazz]

You may have been disappointed by that first 13" CRT, but that is how most people experienced gaming back then. THAT is the true, authentic experience! People weren't gaming back then on expensive studio monitors.

[Dosnmeda]

Dude, over here in Europe most CRTs of the early 2000s did support RGB cables. We also had 100hz TVs which got rid of the flicker. Motion clarity was pristine.

[BrianKingsbury-nlde]

I grew up playing 80s and 90s games on CRT TVs, as did my friends. In the early 2000's we all got into emulating (particularly SNES and MAME) in a big way, and one of the first things we were blown away by was how much clearer and cooler the pixel art looked to us on our flat screen monitors than our old tvs. Granted my experience is from a small friend group (and thus probably fairly unrepresentative of any wider held opinions out there), but I do always find it funny all these decades later to see people pining for the 'cooler' and 'better' look of the CRT monitors, when everyone I knew at the time was glad to be rid of them. I can see why people like the look on the CRT TVs, but personally I still find the look of playing my old favourites on modern monitors preferable.

[GYTCommnts]

I have to admit I don't really miss CRTs. I used them more than half of my life, and being able to play the classics of my childhood nowadays, emulated in a glorious gigantic sharp image... I don't know. Is heaven for me.

[DiamondMinerDJC]

I never really got the hype behind CRTs. I could see why competitive scenes liked them, with their better input lag and such. But this video really changed my mind. I came into it expecting to watch maybe 10 minutes before I got bored, but the very detailed and well-supported way you laid out your arguments really sucked me in, and before I knew it the video was over. Thanks for this!

[MINI_]

SCART connections were the standard in Europe. So if you live in Europe, RGB through SCART is easily accessible on most CRT TV's.

[lordovthorn]

it really is true guys
the games DID look better when we were kids
the truth is ya need a good CRT

[neoasura]

The problem with nostalgia...we didn't grow up with this very nice looking CRT image. 90% of us probably had a standard Zenith/Magnavox TV with our systems hooked up via RF and all kinds of noise and interference with important things like lifebars being cut off in the corners. Your average gamer back then didn't have access to PVMs, or high quality CRT TVs even unless you were upper class. I was blown away at how crisp and clean pixels could look via emulation on a high resolution monitor. I could never go back. And buying a PVM/Upscaler/SCART/RGB connection isn't "going back" its trying to re-write time.

[peppep]

As a programmer, a pixel artist, and someone who started gaming in the 90's I prefer seeing pixel art on LCD/LED. I miss basically nothing about CRT monitors.
Some things may look better on CRT but I think its the exception not the rule. And when things look better on CRT its often simply because the original pixel art wasn't shaded by the artist. The CRT makes the images look like they're shaded automatically. Most devs do shade their pixel art today, which is why newer pixel art looks good on LED/LCD.

[tehshingen]

The thing about CRTs is the different kinds. Quality across the board got raised as soon as the Trinitron patents expired.

[J-Chiptunator]

Finally, a much-needed video that explains in depth why CRT is very relevant in retro gaming, even down to the minute details that tend to get overlooked from the bigger YouTubers.

I'd like to point out that there's one use case worth mentioning that wasn't covered in the video where the raw pixels look trumps over any kind of CRT filter, and it's for uploading/streaming to video sharing platforms like YouTube.
Here, all videos go through the compression algorithm to get people watching one video without having to download a hundred of GBs worth of lossless video data. This includes chroma subsampling from RGB 4:4:4 and YCbCr 4:2:2 to YUV 4:2:0 that causes some detail loss crucial to conveying convincing CRT effects.
As a workaround, you could use 4K camera to capture some gameplay footage offscreen, but that might take the gameplay focus away from the viewer's attention. I'd like to see the ability to append an uncompressed CRT filter overlay through the .png file on top of the video that has raw pixels look, or even better, one that also pull the Black Frame Insertion trick whenever 120FPS becomes available on YouTube.

Also, the part where Minecraft is output to a CRT seems like the end result is a progressive 240p video, which certainly isn't ideal. Had the source 480p/720p/1080p signal properly processed into an interlaced 480i, I bet that the otherwise cropped-down text would become more legible.

[Glx-ue]

Thank you for actually citing the model numbers of products you show. TVs like all things vary massively in quality from one brand to the next, even from one product line to another within the same company.

[MrFreddao]

The image quality of this Sony tv is insane! Thanks for sharing!