Old TVs were shit though. The quality was a mess even with cable boxes. Pushing 4k TV through the air requires fancier signal processing, and fancy signal processing requires software. Asking consumers to pay more for good software is asking for them to switch to the competition, so you get buggy pieces of shit for great prices. As for casting, good luck getting that video on your phone to your analogue 625i CRT.
You can get the old timey experience back. First, you get one of these boxes:
Then you plug in your analogue input to the SCART input at the back, set the right options for the region your analogue signal is from (NTSC/PAL/SECAM), and plug your HDMI cable into the output on the right. You can then ignore the remote that came with your TV and use your analogue devices on your huge modern flat screen in all its 625i@50fps blobby glory.
All of those issues are covered by other devices that most people will already have. An XBox360/PS3 or any newer gaming system can output 4k and make the smart features in the TV unnecessary. The same is true of a cable box, Roku plugin, fire stick, or any other streaming device. All the TV really needs is to display the 4k signal it receives. TVs don’t even really need receivers anymore just a USB hub, a processor for video and audio output, and a screen.
But that’s exactly what TVs do? The buggy crap is all in the video casting features, the wireless display crap, and the apps you install onto it.
If you just want a display with ports, get yourself a nice and big monitor. It’s a tad expensive because those things aren’t subsidised by ads and tracking and paid-for services like so many cheap TVs are, but they’ll do nothing but display a signal you feed it.
I was happy with the quality, and don’t get more enjoyment from all the advancements since, but only ever remember plugging it into the wall, plugging an aerial into the back of it & pressing one button to get the tuner to pick up channels. Batteries into the remote once that became a thing. Plug in a VCR or DVD player once they appeared.
And no thank you, I’m not going to do all that. I don’t care enough about any shows to go through all that hassle. I just want my TV to work without extra expense, and I will complain when it doesn’t because I hate big corporations and I want them to fail.
The comparison between CRT and digital is not as simple as “625 vs 4k”. Those analog signals were intended for a triangular subpixel shadow mask with no concept of horizontal pixel count, making them effectively into ∞×625i@50fps signals (1), compared to the digital fixed 3840×2160@60fps square pixels regardless of subpixel arrangement.
It takes about a 6x6 square pixel block to correctly represent a triangular subpixel mask, making 4K LCDs about the minimum required to properly view those 625i@50fps signals.
(1) I’m aware of optics limitations, CoC, quantum effects, and ground TV carrier band limitations, but still.
Given a high enough quality signal and fast enough switching hardware inside the TV, you’re right. In practice, real world shadow masks had a fixed resolution. It doesn’t matter how fine your control over the electron beam is if you’re still only capable of lighting colour phosphors of a limited resolution (between 500-800 depending on how crappy/good your TV was, several times that for some widescreen CRTs). You can apply some trickery to partially light the individual dots on the screen in low-light environments, but that requires the transmitter and receiver to map the input signal to the same shadow mask/aperture grille or you’ll mess up the colours. Infinite horizontal resolution only works for black and white displays.
Emulating the exact pixel arrangement on a digital display would require some absurd resolution for sure, but back in the day the input signal rarely ever had that kind of resolution in the first place. No need to set up an 8000 lines horizontal camera when the people watching your video only see 800. Very few things you can still hook up to a TV will produce more than the low SDTV resolution because the world moved to analogue. Even LaserDisc, the greatest analogue format to hit the home market, has a horizontal resolution of about 440 lines.
Old TVs were shit though. The quality was a mess even with cable boxes. Pushing 4k TV through the air requires fancier signal processing, and fancy signal processing requires software. Asking consumers to pay more for good software is asking for them to switch to the competition, so you get buggy pieces of shit for great prices. As for casting, good luck getting that video on your phone to your analogue 625i CRT.
You can get the old timey experience back. First, you get one of these boxes:
Then you plug in your analogue input to the SCART input at the back, set the right options for the region your analogue signal is from (NTSC/PAL/SECAM), and plug your HDMI cable into the output on the right. You can then ignore the remote that came with your TV and use your analogue devices on your huge modern flat screen in all its 625i@50fps blobby glory.
All of those issues are covered by other devices that most people will already have. An XBox360/PS3 or any newer gaming system can output 4k and make the smart features in the TV unnecessary. The same is true of a cable box, Roku plugin, fire stick, or any other streaming device. All the TV really needs is to display the 4k signal it receives. TVs don’t even really need receivers anymore just a USB hub, a processor for video and audio output, and a screen.
But that’s exactly what TVs do? The buggy crap is all in the video casting features, the wireless display crap, and the apps you install onto it.
If you just want a display with ports, get yourself a nice and big monitor. It’s a tad expensive because those things aren’t subsidised by ads and tracking and paid-for services like so many cheap TVs are, but they’ll do nothing but display a signal you feed it.
Or grab a mini media focused computer to hook up to it.
I was happy with the quality, and don’t get more enjoyment from all the advancements since, but only ever remember plugging it into the wall, plugging an aerial into the back of it & pressing one button to get the tuner to pick up channels. Batteries into the remote once that became a thing. Plug in a VCR or DVD player once they appeared.
No need for a phone line or internet or updates.
I was fine with the quality of old TVs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And no thank you, I’m not going to do all that. I don’t care enough about any shows to go through all that hassle. I just want my TV to work without extra expense, and I will complain when it doesn’t because I hate big corporations and I want them to fail.
I would prefer analog TV, honestly. At least then a partial signal is something.
Descrambler box + skinamax?
The comparison between CRT and digital is not as simple as “625 vs 4k”. Those analog signals were intended for a triangular subpixel shadow mask with no concept of horizontal pixel count, making them effectively into ∞×625i@50fps signals (1), compared to the digital fixed 3840×2160@60fps square pixels regardless of subpixel arrangement.
It takes about a 6x6 square pixel block to correctly represent a triangular subpixel mask, making 4K LCDs about the minimum required to properly view those 625i@50fps signals.
(1) I’m aware of optics limitations, CoC, quantum effects, and ground TV carrier band limitations, but still.
Given a high enough quality signal and fast enough switching hardware inside the TV, you’re right. In practice, real world shadow masks had a fixed resolution. It doesn’t matter how fine your control over the electron beam is if you’re still only capable of lighting colour phosphors of a limited resolution (between 500-800 depending on how crappy/good your TV was, several times that for some widescreen CRTs). You can apply some trickery to partially light the individual dots on the screen in low-light environments, but that requires the transmitter and receiver to map the input signal to the same shadow mask/aperture grille or you’ll mess up the colours. Infinite horizontal resolution only works for black and white displays.
Emulating the exact pixel arrangement on a digital display would require some absurd resolution for sure, but back in the day the input signal rarely ever had that kind of resolution in the first place. No need to set up an 8000 lines horizontal camera when the people watching your video only see 800. Very few things you can still hook up to a TV will produce more than the low SDTV resolution because the world moved to analogue. Even LaserDisc, the greatest analogue format to hit the home market, has a horizontal resolution of about 440 lines.