Why do some prefer consumer CRTs over PVM|BVM?

[Brad251]

Just wondering why some that have owned PVMs|BVMs prefer consumer CRT TVs over a PVM|BVM?

[Ed Oscuro]

Business reas...I mean, a matter of opinion based on different personal goals. Some people want "faithfulness" to a typical setup, have some kind of nostalgia, or think overly precise rendition of pixels harms the artistic design of some games (in particular with the NES and Genesis). There may be other reasons too; consumer TVs are pretty cheap but often still give most of the punch out of a pro TV - especially if you have component inputs available (either YUV or SCART).

[SuperDeadite]

Some people are just happy with what they've got?

[Brad251]

Some people are just happy with what they've got?

I'm talking about people who have owned a PVM or BVM and decided that they preferred a consumer set.

[Ikaruga11]

Colored scanlines

[bobrocks95]

I don't think I could play on a 20" display (at least not with company over), and good luck finding any professional monitor bigger than that for a reasonable cost. Add to that my preference for aperture grille sets and the available pool is practically zero.

If there are ~32" 4:3 aperture grille professional monitors I don't know of them (feel free to share if there are!).

EDIT: Forgot about some of the larger PVMs. I've never seen one of course. Any others besides the 2950Q?

[Einzelherz]

Colored scanlines

All scanlines on a color tv are colored.

[unmaker]

I don't think I could play on a 20" display (at least not with company over), and good luck finding any professional monitor bigger than that for a reasonable cost. Add to that my preference for aperture grille sets and the available pool is practically zero.

If there are ~32" 4:3 aperture grille professional monitors I don't know of them (feel free to share if there are!).

EDIT: Forgot about some of the larger PVMs. I've never seen one of course. Any others besides the 2950Q?

I believe the largest PVM is the 3230 though there's even larger RBG monitors. The NEC xm37 and Mitsubishi Megaview 37" are largest I've seen.

[tacoguy64]

Several reasons why I would think, they don't care, actually prefer the worse looking picture, or they don't know what they're missing. I always say this but I look at it at a PC gamer persepective. RF is below minimum, composite is low setting, s-video is medium setting, high end consumer and arcade monitor is high setting, and rgb monitors is ultra settings.

Part of the reason why I got back into retro gaming again was because of rgb. I don't remember games looking this brilliant in my life and I can't go back to playing games like I used to. I mean sure Sonic 2 will be just as fun on a low end consumer set on rf but to me rgb on a high end set is the way to go.

[Ed Oscuro]

The PC settings analogy doesn't really work, as even PC settings aren't that cut-and-dry. PC games look better at better settings, but even there you have to consider some things are a matter of taste - do you like bloom options? How about "HDR" (I mean the emulated eye adjustments to changing light levels)? Is the extra power cost of high AA settings really worth it (especially if you can compensate with resolution)? Lag vs. tearing?

For somebody who likes an inferior - speaking from a purely technical perspective - console connection, it might be showing some effects, or be "traditional" or nostalgic, like I wrote earlier.

[orange808]

Nostalgia is a condescending word. That's how the games looked.

[tjstogy]

I'd be really interested in seeing what a pvm looks like next to a RGB modded high end consumer grade tv. My 20" pvm is great but small. I'd love to one day have a 32" Sony wega RGB modded with scart out, but I'll need some good luck to find an in home modder.

[LEGENOARYNINLIA]

A PVM is always better. Just like fake tits.

[BazookaBen]

I'd be really interested in seeing what a pvm looks like next to a RGB modded high end consumer grade tv. My 20" pvm is great but small. I'd love to one day have a 32" Sony wega RGB modded with scart out, but I'll need some good luck to find an in home modder.

Why not use the component input with a RGB/Scart>Component transcoder?

[kamiboy]

While I own a 20" BVM A, it sits in the corner of the room, hidden under a white sheet mostly because I find it to be ugly to look at.

I play my games on various stylish looking B&O sets whith a picture quality that certainly is not as sharp as a pro monitor, but to my eyes they render the games beautifully regardless.

People here are too hung up on metrics and the hunt for the theoretical best. Consumer sets, arcade monitors and pro CRT displays each have their own aesthetics. As long as you feed them the best quality signal possible they will please each in their own way.

[Taiyaki]

Several reasons why I would think, they don't care, actually prefer the worse looking picture, or they don't know what they're missing.

That's a silly assumption to make... I have played on multiple PVM/BVM's. I have also owned 2 BVM-20G1U units, both in impeccable condition. Tweaked (both in menus and internally) them to the best I could. Even upgraded all console setups to play them through RGB scart. I played one of these units for over a year.


My opinion is that these pro units were just not as satisfying as consumer sets. First of all as bobrocks pointed out, 95% of these pro monitors out there are 20 inch and smaller. I'm fine with 20 inch monitors, but with pro monitors (PVM and BVM's) of 800 line count from a normal viewing distance (probably 2.5~4 feet) you can't even see the mask/grille at all (it looks more like an LCD). You need to bring yourself about a foot and half from the screen to be able to appreciate some "CRT like" characteristics in the video.


I do see some use to BVM's for people who adore thick scanlines, the scanlines on a BVM are noticeable up till about 3 feet away in my experience.



If I had to summarize how I feel about the different options CRT gamers have and how I would advise I'd say:


PVM and equivalent Pro monitors:
- For people who favor sharper video than consumer sets could offer, want the benefits of no input delay. Also perfect for younger gamers who didn't experience CRT's much and want a picture more approachable coming from LCD's.


BVM and equivalent high end Pro monitors:
- For people who want the sharpest possible video, superior colors, ease of calibrating geometry and convergence externally, the benefits of no input delay, and very thick scanlines*.


Consumer sets (of any kind):
- For people who want CRT's in their purest form, with flaws included, with blooming, bleeding, light expanding geometrical warping, more visible mask/grille, onboard audio etc. Also for gamers who basically want crt's as they remember them.



*I have to add that the scanlines of BVM's are nothing like traditional scanlines, these feel much closer to emulated scanlines on an LCD in my opinion due to attributes such as blooming and bleeding being pretty much absent from these sets.




Also if we're talking about size it's worth noting that in reality 20 inch pro monitors are (as far as I've seen) in fact 19 inch monitors. On top of this as there is still a slight curve on these you're probably getting something more or less of an 18 inch viewable picture. In contrast to this most 20 inch consumer sets released in the 00's were actually 21 inch, and due to the tubes being flat, the entire real estate is used to it's fullest. As someone who actually prefers 20 and 24 inch sets (I don't go for sets bigger than I can move around on my own) the pro monitors actually are noticeably smaller even when comparing to other 20 inch tv's.


At some point I'd like to upload comparison pictures I took (I have to find them on the laptop) from a SNES through RGB Scart to a BVM and then the same game through S-video to a high end consumer crt. The BVM looks like the game could be running on an emulator with a good shader for heavy scanlines. The consumer set looks softer but completely organic, it's a picture only a crt can deliver, and to me that's the whole point.

[Xyga]

Again that question, well do not take this the wrong way; people who have known pretty much only Sony pro monitors and before that mostly composhit on N-A consumer TVs, cannot really appreciate there's been a world of other qualities of genuine RGB CRTs in this world, especially if they haven't spent much times in the arcades or of course haven't experienced the many RGB consumer CRT TVs we've had in Europe, which are the closest thing to precisely that.

Also Trinitrons, despite their incredible strenghts you can get tired of their very specific look after a while, the very pronounced scanlines rendering, pushed to the extremes with the BVMs, is not necessarily the most enjoyable experience.
Lower definition Trinitrons may look fuzzier but their softness is closer to the real thing, and many shadow mask tubes had extremely good looking output, giving more unity and natural-looking shapes to details.
Note that it's a huge mistake to think lower def and shadow mask are 'blurry', it's the shape of their phosphors and how they deliver light that's different, but it's not flawed or anything.

I've mentioned it elsewhere but the most beautiful CRT picture I have ever seen was from an 80's 19'~ish shadow mask, full analogue chassis, consumer tv.
The same games on BVM next to this would look much closer to an emulator on a computer monitor indeed, and I don't find that 'better' nor believe it's what games of that time were expected to look like on average.

Now I don't dismiss those high TVL/pro Trinitrons entirely either, but I think they're better for 480p and up from what I could see.

[Einzelherz]

So, to summarize, people like different things.

[Elixir]

CRTs are far easier to come by, and don't have IBM Model M status attached to them.

[SGGG2]

A plasma/upscaler combo looks leagues better to me than anything a BVM offers.

[LEGENOARYNINLIA]

Is there anyone in here who uses a PVM or a BVM to display games in 480i? In my experience 480i material looks especially harsh on super pronounced Trinitron. So, I'm just curious.

[Gered]

I play Gamecube games on my 20L2MD in 480i with component cables. Would obviously look better in 480p, but truth be told, I actually like the look of 480i on PVMs. *shrug*

[Einzelherz]

Is there anyone in here who uses a PVM or a BVM to display games in 480i? In my experience 480i material looks especially harsh on super pronounced Trinitron. So, I'm just curious.

The only thing I notice compared to my consumer slot mask set is the added brightness makes the interlace flicker more pronounced, usually on bright scenes but I still usually get used to it.

[BazookaBen]

Is there anyone in here who uses a PVM or a BVM to display games in 480i? In my experience 480i material looks especially harsh on super pronounced Trinitron. So, I'm just curious.

Yeah, I play 30fps games on my PVM, like Pikmin 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles. You do have the flicker on horizontal lines, but otherwise the visuals are really sharp and of course the colors are incredibly natural on a PVM. And the look is a little nostalgic for me, because I got my first job right after the PS2 and Gamecube came out, and I bought s-video cables for both right away. So I've always been a bit of a videophile (and audiophile), I was enjoying the super sharp 480i look when all my friends were still getting dot crawl city with their composite connections.

For 60fps games, I'll play at 480p on a PC CRT. If you play a 60fps game at 480i, you end up missing half the vertical resolution, making the game look less sharp overall. Like Metroid Prime looks noticeably sharper on a 480p display.

[satstation]

Price, difficulty in finding one locally, age of most PVMs/BVMs compared to modern sets. I'm sure they look great but when I factor in those reasons it's really not an option for me.

[Taiyaki]

Does anyone else feel that there's also been a hipster like quality to owning PVM/BVM's? There were several articles that popped up some years ago and it got the attention of most gamers, and owning a tip top pro monitor suddenly became cool. You can see a lot of folks on various sites bragging about their pvm/bvm and bragging about how incredibly retro the games look on them, when in reality, it hardly looks anything like what these retro games actually looked like back in the day, at home and in the arcades.

[WelshMegalodon]

There are also way too many YouTube videos of superguns or expensive upscalers being used to play MVS carts and other rarities ... in widescreen.

[FinalBaton]

You can see a lot of folks on various sites bragging about their pvm/bvm

there is indeed a bit of bragging going on, but I think it's the same as in every hobby. People gloating about their state of the art gear is nothing new, just go check some audio forums...

I think it's not too pronounced on here though. It's seems way more present on neogeo.com, neogaf and reddit.
*shots fired*

Here there are a lot of people who acknowledge that RGB on a good consumer tube looks great and gives a super enjoyable picture. And I am one of those and I've always said so since i registered here

[Einzelherz]

The neogaf thread I frequent is hard to read so I just skim for the pictures.

[buttersoft]

I have room for some low TVL PVMs (2530s) on RGB as well as some high-end BVM stuff. The PVMs are profeel-line sets, and basically like slightly upgraded consumer sets. I find both appealing, though it almost depends on the game. The 2530s are set up in driving-cab positions, so you play really close to them - in the same spot, a BVM would be too sharp. That said, SoTN looks amazing on the BVM, and while sharp, it's still nothing like an LCD.

There were some huge PVM's made too. There's the 4330, though I believe it's 31kHz only, and also a PVM-3230, IIRC. And of course things like the Mitsubishi Megaviews at 37" and 39", which were true multiformat sets.

EDIT: Forgot about some of the larger PVMs. I've never seen one of course. Any others besides the 2950Q?