Hello chaps, I'm looking for a recommendation for a new TV for the desktop, so no bigger than 19".

Main requirements are that it must have a great s-video, preferably via a 4 pin connector instead of a scart, and also be NTSC capable for my MAX and other NTSC Commodore's.

Any tips appreciated,

Cheers, Rob
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The old Trinitrons are the best you can find picture-wise.
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I recently bought 3 small tv's, one each for the kids 22 inch, and a 19 inch for me, for using with my PC, Xbox 360, C64 and Atari 800xl.

I did find that the cheapest big superstore own brand TV's seem to have the best features & compatibility. They may not have the build quality of the more expensive brands, but very cheap to replace.

Mine were from Tesco (UK) own brand "Technik" and are actually all LED tv's. The one I use is not 1080p, it's 720i and works well with everything, The only time I noticed a little "Glitchyness" was with the diagnal scrolling of Zaxxon. Fast horizontal scrollers were perfect though, & all text is pin sharp.

I was over at the in-laws the other night and they had a new Benq M2700HD monitor. It looked like pretty decent PC LCD screen, but then something caught my eye as I was flicking through the menus. As well as VGA, DVI & HDMI inputs, it also has composite, S-Video & component.

The next time I visit them I am going to take up a C64, an Amiga 1200 and maybe an ST as well to test both the composite and S-Video inputs. If this thing doesn't try to stretch the picture to 16:9 and doesn't look like crap I might just have to get one. The big old Loewe CRT is taking up too much room on the desk.
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You'll be disappointed.

C64 looks best on CRT, I would love to be convinced otherwise, there's always some artifact on flat screen TVs.

Using a Chameleon cartridge would probably help if you're forced to use a flat screen TV.

A PAL C64 has a framerate of exactly 50.1245Hz (985248/63/312) if your display doesn't allow it, it will inevitably result in a skipped frame every time the 0.1245 adds upp to a full frame, about every eight seconds... ( 1/0.1246 ) if the display is exactly 50Hz.

NTSC C64 has a framerate of 59.8261 Hz so that doesn't match up exactly either (with normal 60Hz).

Other problems are the "50Hz progressive display" method (that worked well for CRTs within the limits of the specification), often interpreted as an interlaced image that is converted into normal 25 fps. These things can result in blurrynes, lost effects such as objects that are supposed to change color every frame to appear as another shade may look different...


It would be really cool if there was at least one TV manufacturer that made a firmware for their TV to display an as perfect C64 picture as possible, seems to me there should be a C64-lover in such a position.

Maybe we just need to find a hackable TV and rewrite the firmware to show a C64 picture as perfect as possible and tear and blur everything else.

I think using s-video to vga adapter might be worth a try when using a flat screen & post some results.
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I got 13" Sharp Aquos LCD TV (LC-13S1E). It has great picture over s-video and cost me £20 on ebay. I like 13" as it's like commodore monitor.
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If there's anyone out there with a Chameleon that uses the VGA output, please share your thoughts on picture quality (with graphics that move).

Some people are more sensitive than others, a lot of people will probably say everything is fine and good unless there's some test criteria to actually look for the problems. Previously lag was the biggest problem, but that seems to have been improved upon.

My favourite choice for TV's is with Sony. I like their style, quality, and you'll always find some models somewhere to discount-prizes. As for a computer-monitor I prefer HP. They have IMHO the clearest picture, I swear on them.
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I got to try a C64 on the Benq M2700HD with it's native S-Video input. It was horrible, really horrible, I was amazed how bad it was.
Whilst it was possible to set the screen so it was in 4:3 the blurriness and bleeding was amazingly bad. So, cross one of these off your list folks.

I got an S-Video to VGA adaptor off Ebay a while back. It was pretty average in quality, but the worst part was it didn't remember the settings I put in. That has been thrown in a box somewhere.
I just don't understand why is it so hard for an LCD to display PAL (or NTSC) pictures without looking like garbage? I guess because the TV manufacturers assume you will be feeding in moving pictures off a VHS machine to these old school inputs then it's not really going to matter on quality.
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It can be tricky judging the quality from s-video if you use the luma and chroma directly - you'd get too strong signal on the chroma and new TVs seem to be sensitive about that which can cause all kinds of troubles.

Even if you do make sure you have the best picture possible it can still be a disappointment if you put a CRT TV next to it with the same picture.

But I guess we can be glad to get a picture at all of a 25 year old computer on a brand new HD TV.
If everyone would stop buying TVs that don't work well with a C64 then we'd have that problem solved shortly.