Alright...second question is a go. It's not really a dilemma as the post title states, but lately, I have been thinking about Anna-Lena's successor, Anna-Lena II
I love Anna-Lena, a standard definition RCA TruFlat CRT set, 20 inch, model 20F512T. Made in August 2004. I just bought her from a second hand store back home this past summer, and the main reason was that her picture quality is stunning for a modern CRT set. The colors are gorgeous as well as the overall sharpness of the picture. Despite that, I have been feeling the urge to upgrade to a flat panel TV set for the past week or so.
One possible reason is that my parents got a nice LG flat-panel TV for Christmas, and it looks sweet. We got HD Dish Network service not long afterwards. SD looks somewhat awful since they stretch the 4:3 image to fill the 16:9 frame, but HD is great.
Second reason is that I tested a cheap plug and play NES-on-a-chip TV game into the LG TV that is on the floor lobby of my dorm. This LG also stretches the 4:3 image to 16:9, but there was no remote so I couldn't change it. Either way, the graphics actually looked smooth, not blocky as I expected to be. There was bad input lag though, and I will get to that in a bit.
There are a couple reasons why I shy away from flat panel HDTV sets. As mentioned earlier, my previous experience with flat panel HDTVs proved to me that they don't really render old video game systems too well. 16-bit systems like the Super Nintendo just appeared very blocky and pixelated to me with my old Sansui 19'' HDTV, which I still have.
Another reason is input lag. CRT sets have no input lag whatsoever, but flat panel HDTVs unfortunately do because they need to scale lower resolution content to the LCD panel's native resolution. If there is input lag, then your old Super NES, NES, Genesis, and other games become unplayable. Thankfully, my Sansui 19'' set has a fast video processor, and input lag is virtually nonexistent. I was able to play my video games on the set without problems. You can only see the lag if you have the Sansui set next to a CRT, but even then, you will notice the lag is extremely minimal, probably below 20ms.
Yet another reason is that standard definition content looks...poor when compared to a CRT set. Every DVD, VHS, and video game I own is standard def, save for my Snow White Diamond Edition, which has a BluRay + DVD. I can connect a BluRay player to Anna-Lena, but it won't be in HD.
Despite these issues, I still have an urge to upgrade to a flat panel TV set. Seeing as how the graphics from that plug-in-play NES game looked rather decent on the LG (they didn't appear blocky at all), perhaps the video processing has improved. The Sansui 19'' HDTV, which I named Max, was made in 2008, and it shows. No HDMI inputs at all...just composite, SVideo, VGA, and RF input. HD looks good, if not a bit grainy. SD content is alright if you don't stretch it, but it still looks inferior to a CRT.
It's extremely hard to find CRT TV sets brand new these days, as flat panels are the only TVs you'll find at WalMart, BestBuy, Kmart, and any other big box retailer. You can only get CRT TV sets used these days, and while there are some that are well looked after, how long are they going to last? Anna-Lena won't last forever, and if push comes to shove, I may have no choice but to go for a flat panel TV set to succeed her.
Here is where you guys help. Should I go for a flat panel HDTV set, or just hang on to Anna-Lena? I do have the money to get a set at this time, but that money would be better budgeted since it has to last me until May.
I love foxes, especially the one in my avatar.