Did They Really Look This Bad?

You know the old saying, that we all look at the past through the lenses of rose tinted glasses. Lately though I hear people say "I don't remember these games looking so bad" In some respects this IS nostalgia.

But that is not what I am talking about.

They mean that they don't remember edges being so hard, and characters looking kind of weird. Some people blame an emulator, saying it was coded badly. Some people just accept that when they were younger they did not notice this because they did not know better. Both of these assumptions are wrong. It is our TV's.

New television and computer displays are super sharp, high definition and "progressive" displays.

Back in the day, televisions for half a century used scanlines of empty space. When programmers made these games they took these into consideration. TV's "blurred" the lines so that we did not notice this as much, and programmers used the blur to make nice looking graphics.

From Game Collecting with Rick

The problem... people don't believe it. Why? Because there are lots of types of TV's still out there, and many of them look the same even though their technology is different.

"It says HD on the screen" "I payed 1200 bucks for this TV 3 years ago, its HD" "Top of the line when I got it"

It is one of the reasons why there are STILL people that say they don't see a difference in HD gaming from SD gaming. People think(because of good marketing) they all have high definition, advanced displays. Its not the consumer's fault really, for 50+ years all TV's were basically the same, a tv is a tv is a tv.... but not anymore.

My living room has this type of TV.

From Game Collecting with Rick

My friend's game room has this type of TV.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Both look the same, but the technology behind them are very different. My living room TV is actually the OLD kind of TV, a smaller tube TV that is projected. Old game systems look GREAT on these. If I had room, I would own one of these just for my pre-HD systems.

My friend's TV is actually a small LCD screen that is projected to the front. Old game systems look decent on these. Why? Any projected screen is going to have SOME blurring, and it just so happens that for scanline information like the old systems, it is enough blurring to look decent.

Neither is true High Definition 1 per 1 displays. My living room TV makes my Playstation 3 look like crap though, and my friend's TV makes the Playstation 3 look wonderful.

My game room TV is a full on HD LCD flat panel display. Old games look like crap on it. This spurred my interest in learning all the different types of TV technology because it did not make sense to me. For years I was told new tv's make NES look bad, but I did not notice it for a decade because of the TV's I owned or my friends owned.

So people that are really into the retro scene want a tube television. There is almost no tube televisions being imported into the US now. The ones that are, are 12 inch VCR combo TV's that are mostly used for surveillance. Your best bet is to find a Good Will. Good Will has good 15-32 inch tube televisions for 20-30 bucks all the time.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Hoard your panasonics and your sony tube TV's, you might cash in later.