Yesterday I hung out with my pal BBQ and he was finally thinking about getting a widescreen HDTV and ditching his old and trusty conventional TV. He wants an LCD HDTV that can display a video from a NTSC video signal as well as a PAL signal. It ends up he has about five DVDs that are PAL and it would go nice with his super duper region-less DVD player that can skip anything. He is looking for something around 20 inches.
He has a plethora of old-school retro video game system from the 80s to the current day so having a HDTV that is friendly to old school game systems. My HDTV is not so friendly to some game old systems. So if know of any good recommendations for an HDTV that are NTSC/PAL friendly and have no scan flicker problems with old US/NTSC school game systems.
I find it especially amusing that the number one movie that he wants to watch is The European widescreen release of The Goofy Movie since it really reminds him of camping with his dad.
Actually I would say the #1 is Battle Royale II, but that's pretty funny.
HDTVs are not good (i.e.: crap) for old game systems. You need a good ol' CRT TV.
However, I've read that you can get somewhat better results on LCDs by using an external upscaler, to get less input lag and a better image.
One suggestion -- you could play the PAL DVD from a computer using a VGA/DVI/HDMI connection. That will do the scaling/scanrate conversion fairly well and also be useful for playing other media.
No suggestions on the actual monitor, but if he doesn't need a tuner, you probably can get better quality at a lower price with a widescreen 22" computer monitor and separate sound system.
LCD's that are dual system (NTSC/PAL) are traditionally more expensive, and have lower specs than newer, american ones. a 20' unit may or may not have all the bells and whistles that he may want. Also, the higher the resolution, the more the old school stuff will look bad. You'll see all the flaws in the image source. try looking at the samsung ln22a450 or ln22a650. If he runs the game sources via an upscaling unit such as a good av receiver, output via hdmi, might work the best.
He might just have to get a new dvd player that can be unlocked such as the philips dvp5982. and go to videohelp.com to get the unlock codes for it.
A PAL/NTSC HDTV would a useless purchase; your friend should just get a PAL/NTSC Oppo DVD player.
Most AV enthusiasts swear by that brand, which makes terrific upconverting players that just happen to play/convert PAL/NTSC signals.
Problem solved :)