I know that pretty much every light gun (up to guncon3 and that 3rd party gun that was made for xbox/ps2) MUST have a CRT for them to work, HOWEVER, I had a few questions that I have never had answered, but I'm guessing I can answer them right.

I just need some confirmation

both rear projection and front projection CRTs work, but front works better in high ambient light (I'm thinking back to the arcade cabinets that were enclosed so the rear projection screens didn't wash out)

HDTV CRTs don't work (based on trying to get NES games to work with my 36" panasonic flat screen crt that runs at 1080i) Can someone exlpain this to me? does it have something to do with it operating on 1080i and due to the higher number of horizontal lines, the cathode ray timing is now off from what the game is running off of (480i)?

A follow up question to that would be how does the flat screen CRT work and would that be affecting functionality also? i assume that to draw the edges of the of the flat screen without noticeable lag, that the gun sped would have to change, effectively altering the Cathode ray timing and affecting functionality of the lightgun aswell.

My reason for asking:
I have that monstrous panasonic in my garage, it just wouldn't turn on one day, so it sounds like it isn't a tube problem and may be easily fixed. So I was debating taking it to a repair man to diagnose it and, if reasonably priced, fix it. OR just buy a new CRT that operates at 480i

I think i answered my own question and I should just buy a 480i CRT with a bubble screen

anyone willing to do a sanity check for me?