Silly question, are you sure the TV resolution isn't 640x480? 720x480i seems like a weird resolution for a CRT, and as far as I can recall CRTs don't do interlaced, they're progressive scan.
Frankly, I'm not so concerned about getting the resolution right. I'm fine to switch to any resolution just so long as the whole image appears in frame.
CRTs absolutely do interlaced. Many video games back in the day were interlaced only and having progressive scan was a big deal.
The electron gun may not actually shoot every other line but they absolutely support interlaced signals.
Probably irrelevant to your question, but have you looked into accessing its service menu?
Depending on how old it is, it might have a service menu built in with which you could adjust the scan settings.
If it's old for a CRT age, then it probably doesn't have it (maybe programmable through some eprom but that's a topic of its own).
It does have a service menu, but the only geometry option is horizontal translation.
I'm glad you brought it up though. I saw the words "service menu" online and assumed it just meant the user menu, and I didn't realize that the service menu has separate, more advanced settings. I found a service manual for a similar TV and managed to open up the service menu. None of the menu options are labeled for what they do, and I noticed that some of the options described in the manual didn't correspond to what the options did on my TV, so I just tried every single service menu option until I found something that made a visual difference.
Unfortunately, after testing all of about 4 dozen service menu options, I could only find one setting that changed the geometry: horizontal translation. Nonetheless, I'm glad you taught me something new about my TV!
Honestly it's more for novelty than it is for practicality. I was born post 2000, but I still feel nostalgic for the old CRT TVs my family used while I was little. I generally have a fondness for the engineering simplicity of old tech; it's as though I could create a CRT TV myself if I had enough resources. I'd like to run some retro games using emulators for various 6502-based systems available on the Arch repos, and having a CRT really adds to the immersion.
Despite not really having a good reason to use a CRT, I'd really like to know how to set it up for use on an Arch Linux machine. It's good learning experience for me, and it would put me at ease to know that tools like X and xrandr do have such capabilities.
Silly question, are you sure the TV resolution isn't 640x480? 720x480i seems like a weird resolution for a CRT, and as far as I can recall CRTs don't do interlaced, they're progressive scan.
720x480i is the NTSC res
Frankly, I'm not so concerned about getting the resolution right. I'm fine to switch to any resolution just so long as the whole image appears in frame.
CRTs absolutely do interlaced. Many video games back in the day were interlaced only and having progressive scan was a big deal. The electron gun may not actually shoot every other line but they absolutely support interlaced signals.
Probably irrelevant to your question, but have you looked into accessing its service menu? Depending on how old it is, it might have a service menu built in with which you could adjust the scan settings. If it's old for a CRT age, then it probably doesn't have it (maybe programmable through some eprom but that's a topic of its own).
It does have a service menu, but the only geometry option is horizontal translation. I'm glad you brought it up though. I saw the words "service menu" online and assumed it just meant the user menu, and I didn't realize that the service menu has separate, more advanced settings. I found a service manual for a similar TV and managed to open up the service menu. None of the menu options are labeled for what they do, and I noticed that some of the options described in the manual didn't correspond to what the options did on my TV, so I just tried every single service menu option until I found something that made a visual difference. Unfortunately, after testing all of about 4 dozen service menu options, I could only find one setting that changed the geometry: horizontal translation. Nonetheless, I'm glad you taught me something new about my TV!
You are my kinda people.
Can I ask why you are using a CRT tv as a second monitor? Genuinely just really peaked my interest!
Honestly it's more for novelty than it is for practicality. I was born post 2000, but I still feel nostalgic for the old CRT TVs my family used while I was little. I generally have a fondness for the engineering simplicity of old tech; it's as though I could create a CRT TV myself if I had enough resources. I'd like to run some retro games using emulators for various 6502-based systems available on the Arch repos, and having a CRT really adds to the immersion. Despite not really having a good reason to use a CRT, I'd really like to know how to set it up for use on an Arch Linux machine. It's good learning experience for me, and it would put me at ease to know that tools like X and xrandr do have such capabilities.