Man that is some wonderful news nintygaming and some great advice. Man I can't wait to get play some old school games tonight lol. Hmm.. But first some research I'm going to star looking into getting info on my service menu and hopefully it's possible to turn off digital processing (crossing fingers XD)
-_-.... My my what a sad state of affairs HD gaming has come too. Sad indeed. When I'm in the market for a new TV I'll have to reconsider my options. I'm an LG fan but the Sammy was a gift. However, I'll probably stick with LED, plasma's run way too hot for me, kills me in my room since its a bit cramped and I don't like running A/C all day lol.
I'll have to start doing research on best HDTV's for gaming.
Digital processing/post-processing is a demon when it comes to games due to it creating anywhere between small-to-massive amounts of input lag. Digital technology should (IMHO) have stayed far, FAR away from Televisions, especially when you consider that 95% of all programming and movies are shot in Analog Film or Analog Video, and whenever you do a "Conversion" from Analog to Digital, you loose alot of information in the process - degrading of sound/video quality - due to the way digital conversion works (taking a source that doesn't understand 1's and 0's and then forcing it into 1's and 0's, essentially its compressing it). Most people think that High Definition automatically means "Digital", but this is not entirely true. Take for instance that most movies have been recorded on Analog film, and some of the highest quality movies were shot on Film. Look at Wizard of Oz, a freakin OLD movie, and it was shot on 35mm film which has been "opinionated" to be roughly the equivalent to 8k (or higher) resolution (8k is 7680x4320p), but this is not true as Film has no "real" resolution as its not shot in pixels, so Film is definitely higher in resolution. For Blu Ray, Wizard of Oz was scanned in 8k due to Film not having a fixed resolution, and then compressed to 1080p. Not bad for "old outdated analog" right? So Wizard of Oz can look EVEN BETTER than 8k. While on the other hand, movies like Star Wars Episode II will NEVER look better than 1080p because it was Digitally shot IN 1080p. So much for "Digital is better" right?
So basically HDTV's could have been Analog all along if 2 things would have never happened.....
1. Digital TV transition would have never happened (this would mean that your HS500 would be analog instead)
and
2. SED or FED technology would have been the flat-panel tech instead of LCD and Plasma (I'm pretty sure that "Pixel" based displays like LCD/Plasma are digital regardless, although I could be wrong)
And as a result, we gamers would not even know anything about Input Lag (other than issues within Emulators), simply because it would not exist.
So we gamers have to suffer through the flaws of digital technology in order to play in HD nowadays.
If your serious about looking for another HDTV but with low input lag, then consider that Plasma's are the safer choice simply because they don't require nearly as much post-processing due to having much superior picture quality. Have you tried a Plasma to see if the heat is really that bad? I heard that heat output on those Plasma's have been significantly reduced over the past few years. Check out this thread right here -
http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?threads/sub-1-frame-hdtv-monitor-input-lag-database.145141/ - and see what you may - or may not - find. Its REALLY hard to find a sub-1-frame HDTV, especially in 2013.
Otherwise, if you can deal with the size issue, then I'm willing to bet that your HS500 will make 1080i-capable consoles look amazing, along with Blu Ray's as well. Those Sony Hi-Scan TV's are truly like an old souped up muscle car (lots of bulk, yet lots of power) and while old retro games will never look "perfect" on it, they will still look far better than a pixel-based display with the CRT's anti-aliasing nature, and thus I'm willing to bet if you try Retroarch in 512x480p for NES, and 512x448p for SNES, and 640x448p for Genesis, etc that you will be pleased if you adjust sharpness to acceptable levels and turn off as much digital processing as possible.....and most importantly, turn off HDPT or the equivalent within the Service to get rid of Input Lag. You can find out about how to get into the Service Menu via looking at the Service Manual here -
http://www.scribd.com/doc/79561778/sony-kv-32-42hs500-hv600-drc500-xbr800-drc800-v2-da4-ET - you can also do other great things like eliminating red-push (if your TV has it) and reducing overscan, etc. JUST BE SURE TO WRITE DOWN ALL ORIGINAL VALUES WITHIN YOUR SERVICE MENU BEFORE YOU CHANGE ANYTHING.