New Unico 26" 4:3 1200p LCD For Midway Cabs....

[Josh128]

I know, I know, its not a 4:3 4K OLED...but this is a workable alternative for those whose CRTs have given up the ghost. Coupled with an RT5X or upcoming super-scaler, will be a very nice option.

According to the site its a 1600x1200 resolution, which allows for perfect 5X 240p and 3.125x 384p. That is close enough to EGA that you can get integer scaling with just a tad of image cut off.

Unico USA Prepares to Launch Replacement 26" Arcade Monitors

I'm going to start this post off by saying, I know, I know, arcade purists...including most of the people in the hobby who I am friends with, turn their noses up at CRT to LCD conversions for legit old school arcade machines. I agree, in an ideal world all classic arcade games would continue to operate with original CRT monitors. But, given the fact that CRTs aren't produced any more, it's becoming more and more difficult to find working replacement CRTs for games over time.


This dearth of CRT monitors is why Unico USA, manufacturer of cool Arcade1Up-like MVSX Neo Geo home arcade machine and Neo Geo mini, has been working on creating a line of 26" replacement arcade monitors for classic arcade games. As I said, a lot of purists will probably immediately dismiss this product, but I definitely think that it has a place in the industry, particularly for multi-cade builds.


The project was delayed some by the pandemic, but it is nearing completion. Unico's Phoenix Series Arcade CRT Replacement 26" LCD Monitor will retail for $299. The monitors have CGA/EGA/HDMI/VGA inputs. Below are pictures of the first batch of 200 new monitors sitting on shelves ready to go to final testing. As soon as the final testing is complete on complete half of the batch Unico will start pre-orders for the new product. If the first batch of 200 monitors sells out (and I think that it will), Unico will ramp up production to 500 to 1,000, which will take 90 days.

https://www.knapparcade.org/post/unico- ... e-monitors

https://www.unico-usa.com/products/ulm2 ... d-monitors

https://twitter.com/Mid_GeekCrisis/stat ... 4863002625

[Dochartaigh]

Actually very cool. Previously the LARGEST possible ~4:3 LCD size you could get (i.e. easily findable) was around ~21". And even those I'm pretty positive they stopped making every sort of those many years ago, and you have to pick them up 2nd hand now. Sure, there was some larger super-rare/unicorn 4:3/5:4 monitors, or ancient 4:3 plasmas with like 1:50 contrast ratio lol, but neither of those count as you';; most likely never, ever, find ones like those in the wild.

At least this gives people a larger option – more akin to the ~25" CRT's that my favorite SFII cab commonly uses. If the final install uses a good scaler these could possibly look very nice.

Sure beats my idea of someday getting one of these and turning it sideways (with prob a slight crop) if I ever needed a larger 4:3ish ratio screen for a project.

[Josh128]

Just a bit more info, be very careful with these. It seems that despite advertising 1600x1200 resolution , 176 degree viewing angle, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 1.5ms response time on their site, the guy who actually bought on and demoed it on YT and Twitter/X shared the paperwork that comes with it says that it actually is only 1280x1024, 89 degree viewing angle, 800:1 contrast ratio, and 6ms response time!! Very amateurish or downright criminal (if intentional) is they are getting people to buy then giving them the old bait and switch-- these are not minor differences.


https://twitter.com/Mid_GeekCrisis/stat ... 9536947200

https://twitter.com/ToddsNerdCave/statu ... 3583504384

[wwse]

maybe someone will be interested:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.p ... c=167770.0

[Josh128]

Very interesting, but quite disappointing-- 1024x768. Integer 25KHz but slight underscanning for integer 15KHz.

[strayan]

Pretty sure this panel does have a native resolution of 1600x1200.

[Josh128]

Looks like its a 1024x768 panel, lol. Snake oil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_urPt8_EYOM

[strayan]

Josh my dude, this guy doesn’t sound like he has the faintest clue what he is talking about.

He can’t even seem to manage to throw a couple test patterns up, not that you’d need to, the pixels would be visibly huge if it had a native resolution of 768p (same size as a 31.5 inch 768p 16:9 panel so it could be possible).

He might still be correct but none of the testing he’s done has convinced me yet.

[Josh128]

Josh my dude, this guy doesn’t sound like he has the faintest clue what he is talking about.

He can’t even seem to manage to throw a couple test patterns up, not that you’d need to, the pixels would be visibly huge if it had a native resolution of 768p (same size as a 31.5 inch 768p 16:9 panel so it could be possible).

He might still be correct but none of the testing he’s done has convinced me yet.

I agree he doesnt seem to understand how to use a simple test pattern, I even sent him a 1280x1024 alternating black/white lines to see what the vertical res was, but havent heard back on if he was able to use it yet.

[Josh128]

Josh my dude, this guy doesn’t sound like he has the faintest clue what he is talking about.

He can’t even seem to manage to throw a couple test patterns up, not that you’d need to, the pixels would be visibly huge if it had a native resolution of 768p (same size as a 31.5 inch 768p 16:9 panel so it could be possible).

He might still be correct but none of the testing he’s done has convinced me yet.

Strayan, my dude, it is indeed 1024x768 , with a terrible-by-todays-standards 12ms of input lag. They completely lied about every single specification on this thing except the size!! Total scam/amateur hour. Purchase with extreme caution!

https://twitter.com/ToddsNerdCave/statu ... 1195654383

[strayan]

Cool, shame about the input lag.

[Josh128]

Todd Gill made a post on RetroRGB about it.

https://www.retrorgb.com/the-unico-ulm- ... bacle.html

[ldeveraux]

Todd Gill made a post on RetroRGB about it.

https://www.retrorgb.com/the-unico-ulm- ... bacle.html

I know we've had this discussion before, but I think I'm going to stop following them now. Everything is either god's gift to gaming or absolute trash and shouldn't be on the (niche) market. I'm just going to rely on the advice of people here, most of whom aren't paid to review products.

[yoZe]

Todd Gill made a post on RetroRGB about it.

https://www.retrorgb.com/the-unico-ulm- ... bacle.html

I know we've had this discussion before, but I think I'm going to stop following them now. Everything is either god's gift to gaming or absolute trash and shouldn't be on the (niche) market. I'm just going to rely on the advice of people here, most of whom aren't paid to review products.

You're tiresome with your gratuitous attacks on bob, you're clearly fixated on him. Get over it

[Konsolkongen]

I think it was pretty well written.
Except for the part about response time which is a different thing than input delay. Has been forever and I think it’s a perfectly fine detail to include in a spec sheet…

It seems like a bad product. Shame since the monitor in their MVS X is actually pretty nice and looks really good all things considered.

[SavagePencil]

Todd Gill made a post on RetroRGB about it.

https://www.retrorgb.com/the-unico-ulm- ... bacle.html

I know we've had this discussion before, but I think I'm going to stop following them now. Everything is either god's gift to gaming or absolute trash and shouldn't be on the (niche) market. I'm just going to rely on the advice of people here, most of whom aren't paid to review products.

Yes, let’s never listen to their biased yellow journalism as they objectively expose deceitful advertising.

[broken]

Hey guys, I’m Todd and I wrote the article. Yes, I need to update the article as I badly worded the section on panel response time vs lag.

Also, I’ve reached out directly to Unico and I am working with them to fix these issues. This has been an egg in the face moment for them and they are serious about fixing this stuff.

No ETA or timeframe, but it’s being worked on.

Hopefully we can go from lemons to lemonade

[strayan]

I would have been perfectly happy with a native resolution of 1024x768 if it supported 240Hz and had under half a frame of input lag.

[ldeveraux]

Yes, let’s never listen to their biased yellow journalism as they objectively expose deceitful advertising.

It's not journalism, it's reviews of stuff they got for free, eternally praising people they've previously worked with, and it's so painfully biased. Ever heard of superg? There's no middle ground, it's totally binary. Regardless, I'm out.

[Josh128]

It's not journalism, it's reviews of stuff they got for free, eternally praising people they've previously worked with, and it's so painfully biased. Ever heard of superg? There's no middle ground, it's totally binary. Regardless, I'm out.

What is journalism then? Dont you know that literally 100% of all day 1 tech reviewers are reviewing hardware that was freely sampled to them? 100%, not 99%. Intel, AMD, Nvidia, drive manufacturers, RAM manufacturers, mobo manufacturers, games. They ALL get reviewed by those that got free pre-launch samples specifically to review. If you only look at and consider reviews that were not given free samples, you have to wait days or sometimes even a week or more. So by your criteria, you cant consider sites like Eurogamer, Toms Hardware, Hardware Unboxxed, Anandtech, Guru3D, Techpowerup, Car and Driver, Cycleworld, Ridermagazine, etc, etc. journalism.

The even more ironic thing is, review that I linked from Todd on this panel was done on two of them that he bought on his own, he was not given any to review or test, so it makes even less sense that you would change the topic here from discussing the panel to journalistic integrity.

[ldeveraux]

It's not journalism, it's reviews of stuff they got for free, eternally praising people they've previously worked with, and it's so painfully biased. Ever heard of superg? There's no middle ground, it's totally binary. Regardless, I'm out.

What is journalism then? Dont you know that literally 100% of all day 1 tech reviewers are reviewing hardware that was freely sampled to them? 100%, not 99%. Intel, AMD, Nvidia, drive manufacturers, RAM manufacturers, mobo manufacturers, games. They ALL get reviewed by those that got free pre-launch samples specifically to review. If you only look at and consider reviews that were not given free samples, you have to wait days or sometimes even a week or more. So by your criteria, you cant consider sites like Eurogamer, Toms Hardware, Hardware Unboxxed, Anandtech, Guru3D, Techpowerup, Car and Driver, Cycleworld, Ridermagazine, etc, etc. journalism.

The even more ironic thing is, review that I linked from Todd on this panel was done on two of them that he bought on his own, he was not given any to review or test, so it makes even less sense that you would change the topic here from discussing the panel to journalistic integrity.

I don't mean "it's not journalism" as if to say their reporting is sub par, far from it. It's still a good place for retro gaming news. I'm saying their reviews are often unabashedly biased, making it impossible to determine if they liked a product because it's good, or was made by one of their friends. It's not quite a direct comparison given the defferent genre, but Consumer Reports doesn't accept free products, they always buy them to remain independent. This includes all cars they review. Even Amazon reviews, once they finally banned free products for positive reviews. I have much more confidence that finally their reviews are by the buyers, for the buyers.

I have to take their opinions with a grain of salt, or just stop listening to them. Journalism is one thing, reviews are another. And something you need to consider with those other sites too.

[SavagePencil]

I don't mean "it's not journalism" as if to say their reporting is sub par, far from it. It's still a good place for retro gaming news. I'm saying their reviews are often unabashedly biased, making it impossible to determine if they liked a product because it's good, or was made by one of their friends. It's not quite a direct comparison given the defferent genre, but Consumer Reports doesn't accept free products, they always buy them to remain independent. This includes all cars they review. Even Amazon reviews, once they finally banned free products for positive reviews. I have much more confidence that finally their reviews are by the buyers, for the buyers.

I have to take their opinions with a grain of salt, or just stop listening to them. Journalism is one thing, reviews are another. And something you need to consider with those other sites too.

You have completely derailed the thread. Todd posted an article summarizing the monitor being sold as one thing but decidedly inferior. Then you came in to shit it all up complaining about the bias of RetroRGB.

What happened to “I’m out”

[ldeveraux]

You have completely derailed the thread. Todd posted an article summarizing the monitor being sold as one thing but decidedly inferior. Then you came in to shit it all up complaining about the bias of RetroRGB.

What happened to “I’m out”

I'm out from reading their site. What happened to letting a conversation die naturally if you're not enjoying it? My comment was about the review of the topic of this thread, it's not derailed.

[DejahThoris]

Hey guys, I’m Todd and I wrote the article. Yes, I need to update the article as I badly worded the section on panel response time vs lag.

Also, I’ve reached out directly to Unico and I am working with them to fix these issues. This has been an egg in the face moment for them and they are serious about fixing this stuff.

No ETA or timeframe, but it’s being worked on.

Hopefully we can go from lemons to lemonade

If nothing else, it's nice to see they updated their site to show the proper resolution. But if they actually felt this was an issue then they would updated the rest of the specs to be honest as well. It's going to be hard to trust them at any point moving forward though because they knew what they had manufactured, and they knew what they wrote on their site (and what they still haven't updated to be accurate). It's kind of hard to get past that initial, seemingly intentional deception (because there's just about no way for that to happen accidentally).

[ZTylerDurden]

Holy hell we got a 26" 4:3 monitor.

Arcade purists be damned but if Unico does their firmware fixes, my friends who play on my cab won't care if it's 1ms or 12ms. If retro frog says the viewing angles are good, then it's probably good.

This is huge for arcade cabinet designs. I had to make my cab wider to accommodate a 16:10 just to cover the pillarboxing with wood panels.

No longer have to consider future builds by dropping in a 16:9 vertically to get a suitable-sized 4:3, either.
https://imgur.com/L7JRopv

Like, we can totally shit on this but it's about time someone took the risk to make em.

YT'er mid-geek crisis has a video of him enjoying the panel with TMNT until he got f----- with the spec pixel count. He enjoyed how it looked until he realized he shouldn't have been enjoying it.

[ZTylerDurden]

Looks like MSVX-Unico is going to update their ULM26 to 1440x1080. We'll see.
https://imgur.com/5l4kNii

[Josh128]

Hmm. Unless the procured a different panel completely, sounds like more snake oil. Also, that resolution is technically worse for 15KHz integer scaling as you end up with 11% of vertical screen size as black bars vs 6% if you stayed 768, and technically worse still for 24KHz integer scaling you end up with either 7% overscan or 29% underscan.