New TV, Old Games

Tails Corra

I just got my new TV delivered today, it's a Hitachi 42" Widescreen Plasma T501 series.

Unfortunatly, I'm completely clueless when it comes to technology, and there are a few questions/concerns I have...

1) Will old technology (my NES, Genesis, Master System) ever play nice with it? The latter two I only have use of the RF channel for, but the NES I've used standard Video as well as succeeded in using a S- Video coupling. The NES is the only one I've tested so far, in which the Video connection looks nice, but is a bit garbled up. The S-video coupling washed out the colors as well as layed a black mesh over the graphics. Is there any solution to make these systems display nicely on this TV, or should I hang on to my old one for playing these?

2) I was hoping to get a TV with VGA input, but it was not to be so. Is it possible to get a coupling (or more likely an adaptor/converter) to connect a VGA source (like my computer) to an HDMI input? Or should I just stick with the S-Video Out on my video card for what the trouble's worth?

3) Something else I guess is enherant to high definition televisions, there is a slight blur when playing certain games. Is there a possible setting to eliminate this?

Sorry if these questions made you pull your hair out in disgust

Telemachus

First off, congratulations and yay!!!

1) I'd say hold on to the old TV if at all possible. Even with everythin functioning as well as could be expected, older systems are going to look worlds better on an old tube teevee. Even last-gen games sometimes look better on my roomate's 24" SD tube than on my 40" 1080p Samsung set.

2) There are adaptors for just about any connection out there. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing vga->hdmi around. You also might be able to look into component? Not too sure on this one.

3) Check your manual. Some TV's have a "game mode" that will better handle gaming and take care of any ghosting. Are you displaying in 720p or 1080i? 720p is generally preferable for gaming, sports-watching, or other high-speed activites.

Atlus Parker

Regarding #3, when I think an older system looks like junk on my TV I shrink down the image by turning on the Picture In Picture mode. Sure it only takes up half the screen but it looks alot better.

Edit: Maybe I meant in regards to #1

tsmvengy

I think you can do VGA->component. You don't have DVI? Because there are plenty of DVI->HDMI cables...

Tails Corra

Well, I've spent a little time with the TV, and I think I've worked out a lot of the kinks...

I've been using my S-video output from my computer and in bumping up the resolution I acctually got a very nice, clear picture, even better than my old TV at a lower resolution (even making out basic text without straining my eyes). I think I can live with this compromose since I'll mainly be using it for watching videos and the like for now (at least until I get a wireless keyboard/mouse). If I can theorise, could it be because the S-Video cable sends the single in analog instead of digital?

I still havn't managed to get an overly satisfactory picture from my older games, and I'm thinking that indeed it's something that will be inherant to the bare video output from the systems. Do you know if there are intermediaries I could use that could perhaps boost or clean up the signal?

One last concern I have, is when I turn the system off after playing games, if I stare REALLY closely at the screen I can sometimes make out shapes of life-bars and logos from the screen I turned off from. Is this something I should be concerned about when using this as a primarily gaming television, or is this something typical of Plamas?

Anarchia

Tails Corra wrote: »

One last concern I have, is when I turn the system off after playing games, if I stare REALLY closely at the screen I can sometimes make out shapes of life-bars and logos from the screen I turned off from. Is this something I should be concerned about when using this as a primarily gaming television, or is this something typical of Plamas?

Whu-oh. I can't be too sure without doing some research again, but I do recall learning when I was looking for a new TV that plasma TVs can have problems with stationary images, which a health bar staying in a corner of the screen would definitely qualify as. Something about how plasmas works can cause images that stay on too long to 'burn' into the screen.

I remember hearing that a lot of plasma TVs now 'jitter' the image a wee bit to keep this from happening, and there's probably been other advances in the technology, so get some info besides me before starting to panic.