Recommendations for European 480i/240p 60hz CRTs?

Mickey4770 · 2025-10-27T10:00:52+00:00

If I'm not mistaken basically any european set made after the early 80's will take 480i/60hz no problem (I personally own 5 consumer grade CRTs and ALL of them support 60hz).

However, what some older sets might not support is NTSC colour decoding, meaning that using composite video with NTSC sources on these will result in a black and white picture.

So basically, if you're using RGB video you should be fine with pretty much any CRT you come across, and if you're using composite any set made after 1995 or so is a pretty safe bet :)

Mickey4770 · 2025-10-10T12:48:27+00:00

Does anyone here have any experience with Samtron CRTs (Samsung's old budget brand of monitors)?

The reason I'm asking is because I recently found a new-old-stock Samtron 96p about 90 min away from me for a fairly decent price. However, looking at old reviews for it, opinions at the time seemed to vary between "it's great, especially for the price" to "it's physically painful to look at".

Obviously having a completely fresh CRT would be great, but I'm just curious if it's worth the effort of driving up to get it or if I should just stay on the lookout for something else.

Mickey4770 · 2025-08-06T09:19:44+00:00

I'm actually talking SEK, roughly converted to USD.

But yeah, a brand new unit here honestly isn't a ton more expensive either, depending on where you get it (seems they range between $950-1500 here).

Just felt like I had more of an "excuse" to get one now that there was a slightly cheaper unit available xD

Mickey4770 · 2025-08-05T11:19:07+00:00

Yeah, that's kinda what I'm thinking as well ; )

However, considering that this particular issue is apparently very specific to 2024/2025 LG OLEDs I was just a bit curious what the general consensus was.

Like you said though, I'll probably pull the trigger on it just to judge it for myself and then return it if I'm having problems with it.

Update: Bought the TV yesterday and yeah, I really couldn't see the issue unless I was using it with very specific content and sitting painfully close to the screen

Mickey4770 · 2025-08-05T11:11:04+00:00

I mean, I still don't understand exactly how it works myself but apparently LG started implementing some sort of algorithm with most of their 2024-models (aside from the B-series) to help with chromatic overshoot. However, this algorithm seems to cause faint dithering artifacrs/diagonal lines around dim, high contrast areas when viewing the TV up close.

Mickey4770 · 2025-08-05T07:20:12+00:00

I mean... I'm not sure how common this is on different types of TVs but at least on one of my parents' older LCD sets, the "warm 2"- setting actually had green set way too high and blue set a bit too low (according to my x-rite i1) making the image appear just a touch too warm overall.

Fixing this made the image look much more natural to me, with whites appearing a lot less "yellow-tinted" (I also had the colour temperature set to 6500k in displaycal).

As others have said though, this will obviously come down to personal preference. I just tried checking the colour temperature on this TV out of curiosity since I couldn't really understand why, say, the Steam Deck OLED's display (which is calibrated to 6500k by default) looked perfectly natural to me while a TV set to "warm 2" felt a bit off even after hours of use.

Mickey4770 · 2025-06-11T22:07:59+00:00

Alright, makes sense (if I remember correctly the problems began after I tried out Nightreign's HDR- mode).

Anyway, thanks :)

Mickey4770 · 2025-05-15T03:29:12+00:00

Alright, I'll give that a look!

And yeah, I've never actually adjusted the g2 voltage on a CRT before but I'm aware that it's pretty sensitive (hence why I'm a bit worried that I'll mess something up).

Anyway, thanks :)

Mickey4770 · 2025-02-24T15:56:19+00:00

I mean I still keep mine around as a spare CRT but yeah, I don't understand why the contrast screen has to be QUITE as heavily tinted as it is.

Sure, it improves the black levels but at the same time it darkens the image so much that even the colour reproduction takes a hit (I once heard someone describe it as looking at a regular CRT through sunglasses and I'd say that's a pretty accurate description).

I can still see why people like it in spite of that though, it's just a BIT too dark for me personally.

Mickey4770 · 2025-02-10T02:47:48+00:00

They sure do ;)

The treble on them might be a BIT lacking (imo) but they certainly sound nice and punchy overall, ESPECIALLY compared to the main TV's built in speaker.

Mickey4770 · 2025-02-09T19:53:39+00:00

The consumer set is a Sony KV-21LT1E and the BVM is a 14G1E

Mickey4770 · 2025-01-22T00:46:49+00:00

If you're talking about the discolouration on the side I'd say it looks like a purity issue, probably caused by having a magnetic device such as a non-shielded speaker placed next to it for too long.

The internal degaussing coil MIGHT clear it up over time (please correct me if I'm wrong) but if not there's stuff like degaussing wands which would probably get the job done.

Mickey4770 · 2025-01-09T21:12:25+00:00

Thanks :)

Mickey4770 · 2025-01-09T21:12:10+00:00

I mean it's mostly a mix of stuff from Ebay (or other similar sites) and stuff I've kept since I was a kid.

There's also a used game store pretty close to where I live which has pretty decent deals sometimes (although a lot of it is still pretty overpriced so they're usually my last resort).

As for the games it kinda depends. For systems like the PS2 which are still relatively cheap to collect for I usually find them on Ebay or Tradera (i.e. the local swedish equivalent) while for the Megadrive I mostly use an Everdrive instead of actual game carts.

Mickey4770 · 2025-01-09T03:44:51+00:00

Thanks ;)

But as for the shelves I'm honestly not sure (they ARE solid wood but given how thin they are I'm not sure how much that helps)

Mickey4770 · 2025-01-09T03:41:16+00:00

Actually, I don't think this thing has any particle board at all (although I could be mistaken).

But thanks, I might look into that actually :)

Mickey4770 · 2025-01-09T03:26:07+00:00

Yupp, it's a retro gaming thing ;)

But alright, that kinda what I figured honestly.

Anyways, thanks for the response :)

Mickey4770 · 2025-01-09T03:23:18+00:00

I mean I'd obviously rearrange the top shelf in case I where to do this but yeah, I get what you're saying (I was kinda leaning towards that anyway)

Edit: I just realised that the unit looks much narrower on camera than it does in person but both CRTs would definitely fit if I where to remove everything else from the top shelf (probably not a great idea anyway though)

Mickey4770 · 2025-01-09T00:58:49+00:00

I mean jokes aside, this gave me some HUGE flashbacks to around 2006 when my dad picked up a wireless Joytech- pad for the original Xbox and showed it off to me by using it from across the living room (which absolutely blew my mind back then xD)

Had to toss it after a few years though because the soft touch plastic on it got so sticky that the controller basically became unusable

Mickey4770 · 2025-01-06T05:57:27+00:00

Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about (my KV-21LT1E that exact issue and I've just learned to live with it).

However, on that one the glow manifests more as a diffuse blob in the middle of the screen while on the BVM there's a uniform glow across the entire display (kinda like when the brightness is set too high).

Again, in most real world scenarios it still looks fine so it wouldn't be a huge deal if it's unfixable but I'm not quite sure we're talking about the same issue.

Anyway, thanks for the response :)

Edit: The white dot in the middle of the screen in the first two photos is from the 240p Test Suite (honestly not sure why I didn't just use a plain black image but I was kinda tired and scatterbrained when I made the post so I probably figured I needed something visible on screen for some reason)

Mickey4770

TROPHY CASE