I am more worried about the fact it is an CRT HDTV with wide screen display.How retro are you going? For everything before the Playstation, I would say yes. You don't need much resolution for low-bit games, and some of those games won't even work/display properly on a different type of television. For example, the light gun from Duck Hunt does not work with LCD TVs because it takes a negative scan of CRTs specifically. And on my native widescreen LCD, the aspect ratio is often screwed up for games predating the SNES. Additionally, CRTs have a native refresh rate of 240Hz, and a generic LCD has a refresh rate of a mere 60Hz; this is what makes CRTs better for competitive gaming, as well as challenging games like Battletoads.
So, yes, it's best to get a CRT for retro gaming. Don't worry about ports--you can buy a 5-system switch on Amazon for $15. I bought my first one 10 years ago, and it still works like a charm. Liked it so much, I bought a second one in a lowball on CAG for about $9. So I have 10 consoles hooked into 2 component ports. You can get even more than that, since the SNES, N64, and Gamecube, among others, all share the same inputs. PSX and PS2 share the same input, and they can share a power cable with the Dreamcast.
You get my feelings exactly!Regardless of the type of TV, a 720p resolution isn't going to help make old games look any more acceptable since there are 720 horizontal lines. CRTs don't have the picture clarity of LCD/LED/Plasmas so the general blurry-ness would probably help a bit.
The only HDTVs I've found that do work fine for old school gaming are ones that have a max resolution of 1080i, which that means they only have 540 lines. We had a old rear projection TV that was pretty damn good for PS1/SNES games, but due to its size, we couldn't keep it around.
This is not true. 1080i is 1080 lines. Check out the comments under this misinformed article for an explanation: http://petapixel.com/2012/05/09/hd-video-explained-why-720p-is-better-than-1080i/The only HDTVs I've found that do work fine for old school gaming are ones that have a max resolution of 1080i, which that means they only have 540 lines.
I mentioned that the TV should have a maximum resolution of 1080i and unless I'm mistaken, 1080i TVs only have 540 lines, since they only need to show every other line at a given time. Yes, 1080i video is 1080 lines, I wasn't talking about a video signal.This is not true. 1080i is 1080 lines. Check out the comments under this misinformed article for an explanation: http://petapixel.com/2012/05/09/hd-video-explained-why-720p-is-better-than-1080i/
1080i works like this on a legitimate CRT screen.
1/60th of a second: Even lines are shown (the tube is shooting electrons at phosphers on the screen).
2/60th of a second: Odd lines are shown
Here's what most people do not realize. When the odd lines are being shown, the even lines do not disappear.
The process happens so quickly that you don't even notice this is going on.
On a flat panel display, the 1080i signal is being converted to a progressive signal anyway.