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It's a fun novelty. You can find VHS for free at yard sales and other places. It often costs less to get a VHS than rent a movie on Amazon or something else. C
by everdrive 5y ago
It's a fun novelty. You can find VHS for free at yard sales and other places. It often costs less to get a VHS than rent a movie on Amazon or something else.
CRTs in general are honestly superior in a number of a ways. They effectively have built-in anti-aliasing, they tend to have better color depth, and usually have better speakers than a flatscreen TV. They're also better for most retro video game systems. Where I am, you can also still get a decent number of CRT TVs for free.
I've also never understood the obsession with higher resolutions. Particularly in the case of old movies, films were not shot with the expectation that you could see every detail. Even when we still had a flatscreen we'd rent from Amazon at 480p just to save a dollar or two. Higher resolution doesn't really inherently look better in many cases. But, I'll definitely admit some newer movies will flash some text on screen sometimes that is hard to make out on an old CRT.
I guess my primary argument is not really that CRTs are so amazing (although they're better than people remember) -- but only that flatscreens are not really that great either. A great movie is a wonderful experience on either. Once you get into the film, the story, music, and characters really prevent you from fixating on pixels. We're not missing anything, and we haven't spent any money to support this hobby. In the case of VHS and DVD, old movies generally look better on a CRT. In the case of new movies, there is some compromise, but it usually doesn't matter.
- scarface74 5y agoFilm has always had more detail than 480i.
- rosndo 5y agoNo offense intended, but if you truly believe these things you might want to have your vision checked.
- everdrive 5y agoNone taken -- I've got 20/20, or relatively close to it. It's not as if I can't see the difference, I just don't feel that sharper inherently equals better. At least in the case of watching movies or TV. My intuitive sense is that people don't actually care about increased resolution, but simply know that they're using the "inferior" option, and claim not to like it. I'm not suggesting this is actually the case -- it's just that caring about a sharper picture is foreign enough to me that it's not my most natural conclusion. Logically, I can certainly understand people probably do care about image sharpness. I'm just not one of those people.
- doldols 5y agoThe visuals have always been a huge part of cinema. You can hardly compare the experience of watching Lawrence of Arabia projected from film and Lawrence of Arabia in 480 even on equally sized screens. While there’s a plenty of content I enjoy watching even if it’s only available in 480, 4K DV content on the big screen offers a completely different level of immersion. I really like DS9, but it clearly suffers from its format. Even basic things like the ability to make out facial expressions of the cast become more difficult or even impossible at lower resolutions.
- baq 5y agoNot really. Content that looks awful on LCDs can look good on CRTs, to the point that there are image processors for old hardware to emulate CRT look on LCD panels. I've a hard time to find the exact hardware but check out this video for what I have in mind: https://youtu.be/ZsNKu4umHq4?t=218 https://youtu.be/ZsNKu4umHq4?t=218 - 'too accurate' is a very nice way of describing what LCDs do. Edit: https://www.amazon.com/Gam3Gear-Scanline-Generator-Portable-Emulator/dp/B07JYW96Q2 https://www.amazon.com/Gam3Gear-Scanline-Generator-Portable-... - that's one piece of kit