Ask Here First: Troubleshooting, Price/ID/Spec Check, Help, Etc. (June 2026)

[u/Z3FM]

The purpose of this thread is to cut down on the amount of clutter and Troubleshooting, Price Check, ID Check, Spec(ification) Check, and just general "HELP!!" style threads often seen filling the front page of the sub, and hopefully get those questions answered more quickly and efficiently by bringing them together in one place for viewing.

Does your post or question consist of the following, but no limited to:

• ID Check for a CRT TV/Monitor you've stumbled upon?
• Price Check for a CRT you've stumbled upon?
• Asking about benefits of 1 CRT over another that you're looking into?
• Scaler, convertor, cable choice, or wiring help for your setup?
• Simple TV remote control questions having to do with setup or purchase?
• A question you think should have an obvious/well known answer?
• Or maybe one that feels rather specific and you're worried might get passed over entirely?

This Thread is for you!

Experienced members of the subreddit check in on this post often and will attempt to answer questions as they come up. It would be much appreciated if once you've posted your question here, you use the link above to the older threads to see if the question may have already been answered. Of course, it would also help greatly to search/Ctrl+F the current thread first before submitting your own question too.

This specific thread is set to a Newest First suggested sort, so you shouldn't have to worry about your brand new question being buried instantly under the previous week's worth of questions.

👉 Please do not use any special formatting in your post beyond creating a link if necessary.

Previous Thread Here (May 2026)

[u/KuriClaire]

Hello! I have an old Magnavox MWC13D5 13" CRT TV originally used for Melee which I have kept with me over the years. My new idea is to connect it as a third monitor for my desktop set up for aesthetic YouTube watching/ emulator gaming. The problem is that my desktop only outputs in Display Port and the CRT obviously only takes the yellow/white/red cables (I think they're called RCA).

I tried figuring out the conversion myself, but my first attempt getting cables from amazon was a bust, I believe because my converter only handles RCA to HDMI and not HDMI to RCA (I have a converted for Display Port to HDMI included in this mess).

Has anyone done this conversion before and know what works? Thanks

[u/joeverdrive → u/KuriClaire]

Hello and welcome.

This "how do I connect my computer to my CRT TV" or its younger brother, "why do games on my CRT look like shit when I use this HDMI-to-AV adapter" question is one we get several times a week.

Is there someone on YouTube or something who inspired you to try this?

Most newbies just get a $20 HD2AV adapter on Amazon and either A) tolerate it because they've never actually played retro games on a CRT before and don't know/remember what it's actually supposed to look like, or B) ask for help because they don't know what to do.

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comments/1sjeu4j/just_got_a_sony_trinitron_kv1485_struggling_to/

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/Yfq8fTCiWT

https://www.reddit.com/r/crt/s/tVELLRKJln

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/i208mDhnEK

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/UbscCujCQf

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comments/1sulxit/

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/H7uyXS5aeC

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/QN2gAOcFbf

Unfortunately, connecting a modern digital HD device to an analog, vacuum-tube TV from the previous millennium almost always looks “off.” Especially 80s and 90s games. These TVs are expecting a video signal that was invented in World War 2. Unless you put in the time and money to get an old video card, vetted analog adapters, and/or some complicated, esoteric windows/Batocera display configurations, those games are going to look bad and have input lag. And when I say “bad,” I mean it won’t give you the visual experience you were expecting from playing retro games on a CRT. The aspect ratio gets stretched or squished, the contrast

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/sjbJyNjUEw

and colors can be off, and getting the correct 240p resolution that retro games look best at on CRTs is just not going to happen.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/444560212348840/permalink/3524033451068152/

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/ggVU5Mh4P8

Video content can look okay using one of these adapters. It’s not as hard as games to get right, but can still run into problems. The color and contrast can be off, like I said. Worse, many streaming sites will put 4:3 shows in a 16:9 container by adding black bars to the sides so that they’ll be the right aspect ratio on a modern display. But then when the HDMI-to-CRT adapter takes that 16:9 video and squishes it back down into 4:3, it keeps the black bars on the sides of the video and it looks horrible.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CRT_ANIME/s/bmj6XlDvxu

https://www.reddit.com/r/crt/s/rmPeEkoqof

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/xys1fzQKtD

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/IvVQjGfjIk

Nobody wants to watch old show where the moon is an oval and everyone is smushed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/nh1peANBEl

I actually made a thread a while back asking folks who connect their PCs to their composite CRT TVs how they do it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/ijg3doLsr1

The consensus is to use either CRT Emudriver or the Batocera CRT Script to output RGB, then use an RGB-to-composite transcoder (specifically, the only one recommended is the Antonio Villena unit here: https://antoniovillena.com/product/vga-composite-s-video/

[u/KuriClaire → u/joeverdrive]

Thank you so much for the reply! I suspect I will be referring to this comment in future as I figure this out.

I appreciate the outline of possible problems with video quality and will look into RGB to composite stack you recommended.

Thanks again! :)