Fudoh's ode to old display technology

[Ed Oscuro]

Perhaps these were some of the last, and parts were moving between an older pool to the newer 2010 pool, or these were 2007/2008 that went back for repair? Just going by the badge on front, but you're right Ed those numbers don't add up. These were from a local TV station so 24x7 is more likely than not. Hopefully there are dates on internal components, haven't had time to crack them yet - barely even done a first pass calibration and test play...

The increase in lines on the F apertures is quite incredible to see up close, compared to a consumer KV-2900 which closely resembles the PVM-2950 in its external moulding - square handles. I'm even more impressed by the KV-2900 now, seeing them side by side. Now I want more PVMs. D'oh!

Actually, from what I've seen some people think the BVM-D series (i.e. the D32) had a poor service life (one person talks about a tube replacement after 1-2 years, and a warranty on the tube being just for one year, and a two year warranty for the rest of the unit). So maybe it's possible there were some retained components, and others were swapped.

Speaking of JVCs, check this out -
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... ink:top:en

Not a great photo (overexposed) but you can see the build date of July 2007 (!); however, it's a 15" TM-HI50CG and apparently doesn't have any RGB at all. Doh. Too bad it's the cheesy stuff like this that shows up in relatively close range and "hardly used," not the interesting stuff...

[cicada88]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... ink:top:en

amazing title & description on that auction btw

[bobrocks95]

Gotta love Craig's List. I found and picked up a 27" FV310 within 24 hours for $20.



Also, I do plan to keep looking for PVM / BVM but it's nice to have a bigger, nice consumer set too.

Anyone, have some ideas for some general settings for this TV? I restored it to factory settings & put it into Movie mode but I have no test disc or even a stand alone DVD player to hook up anyway.

Wow, you lucky dog. Took me about a month to find mine and I still had to drive 2 hours to get it. Plus it was like $100.

Use Artemio's 240p test suite. There's a thread for it on this forum, you probably have the means to run it on one of the consoles it's on.

[cicada88]

Gotta love Craig's List. I found and picked up a 27" FV310 within 24 hours for $20.



Also, I do plan to keep looking for PVM / BVM but it's nice to have a bigger, nice consumer set too.

Anyone, have some ideas for some general settings for this TV? I restored it to factory settings & put it into Movie mode but I have no test disc or even a stand alone DVD player to hook up anyway.

Wow, you lucky dog. Took me about a month to find mine and I still had to drive 2 hours to get it. Plus it was like $100.

Use Artemio's 240p test suite. There's a thread for it on this forum, you probably have the means to run it on one of the consoles it's on.

I have a DC but no way to burn discs at the moment. Which overall picture mode to you use with your 310..Movie?

[bobrocks95]

I just heavily tweaked standard, it doesn't matter which you use if you're calibrating it. Out of the box movie or standard look the best. Pro and vivid have the brightness way too high.

[Ed Oscuro]

More JVC stuff:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-JVC-DT-V171 ... 2338d5d9bf
(and similar auctions)

If 17" is good enough for you, this should be an excellent choice. It's apparently lacking the Sony / Ikegami-style pop-out adjustments tray, but these seem pretty close to new. Besides that and the size, I don't see any obvious flaws in this model series (though didn't check scan rate compatibility, the SDTV/HDTV ability means it should be flexible for consoles at least).

[Xan]

Fudoh / Guys, firstly a quick hi. I've been lurking on the site and specifically on this thread for a fair few months now, and because of the wealth of info I've gleaned from it I'm now the proud owner of 2 x pvm 20l4s and 2 x pvm 20m2e's. I use them for mame/ps2/xbox/amiga /c64 /dc/snes and wii. I've got an opportunity to buy a widescreen pvm 20s1we for about £25.00 here in the uk. I'm interested in this as I would really like to play the widescreen compatible ps2 and xbox games on a pvm, and obviously this monitor fits the bill. Ideally I would have liked to get the bvm-d24e1-we for widescreen goodness, but the prices of these things are obscene (one on uk eBay now for £2400!! ). My question is, the 20s1we is only 300 lines . . Correct me if I'm wrong?. Does this mean the picture will be pretty poor?. Bearing in mind I only want to use this monitor for 16:9 ps2 and xbox games. Thanks for any advice

Normally I'd say it's unlikely that a professional monitor would have lower specs than the average TV from the day (whatever that average TVL spec would have been), but it's interesting they'd make a 16:9 monitor with such a low horizontal resolution, considering 14" 4:3 models with 800 TVL tubes. For that price you probably can't go too wrong, however.

[niall]

Hey does anyone know the pin-out for DB9 Serial to DIN mini 8, to hook up to the front socket on BVMs with a BKM-11R?

[22point8]

Aren't those front sockets for the auto set-up probe? Those control units only work for certain models.

[Fudoh]

As far as I can tell, the 11R works on all units that regularly work with the 10R.

And the protocol should be the same as well, so it would just be about measuring the right pinout.

[Ed Oscuro]

The 20S1WE's resolution probably has to do with it being such a small set. Remember that it's a 20" diagonal, and considerably smaller height than a 4:3 tube.

I've been mulling over a D24 myself but I don't think even that has ideal dimensions. Using the handy tool at http://www.silisoftware.com/tools/screen.php here are some calculations on a few common sizes, in inches. If you are in a metric area you can still directly compare the ratio of one measurement to another (height, width, area) without converting anything but the diagonal to centimeters for metric-area devices:

27" and 4:3 = 21.6 by 16.2, area 349.94 fullscreen (very close to exact real measurements for KV-27FS120) 262.07 for 16:9 content
32" and 16:9 = 27.89 by 15.69, area 437.53 fullscreen (BVM-D32E1WU = 16" height) 327.28 for 4:3 content
24" and 16:9 = 20.92 by 11.77, area 246.11 fullscreen (BVM-D24E1WU = 11 1/8" height, roughly more than 18" width - one source states the actual viewing area is closer to 22") 184.1 for 4:3 content,
20" and 4:3 = area 192.01 fullscreen

JVC HV-M300VSU 30" diagonal 16:9 (no actual measurements - should be 26.5 by 14.71, area 384.11 fullscreen, 287.65 for 4:3) 127 pounds (this is an interesting one, basically view it as a high-spec consumer TV)

Generally I find the 4:3 area measurement most interesting because of the likelihood that 4:3 content will be used. On the other hand, if you consider using a monitor for 16:9 content, looking at that measurement is important too.

You can round these to tenths of an inch and plug the numbers in your favorite paint program (i.e. 216 by 162 pixels) to see how these stack up. I did a little comparison image of 27" 4:3, 24" and 32" 16:9 sets this way, and the 24" is notably shorter height than the other sets. No matter how close I would get to such a monitor, even for 16:9 content the short height would hurt immersion for me. On the other hand, at 127 pounds the JVC HV-M300VSU (priced originally somewhere between $7000 and the final MSRP of somewhat over $4000) seems to offer a nice set of capabilities for a relatively light weight, something like just 30 pounds heaver than a 4:3 KV-27FS120, and it seems to offer a VGA input over DB-15 too (some other JVC sets also do).

By the way, I found out another demerit of using JVC or Panasonic monitors compared to Sony BVMs: At least some of them do not have internal shielding so that they are more influenced by the earth's magnetic field or the operation of devices that have magnetic fields. The models I've been looking at don't seem generally intended for use right alongside other monitors.

[Rogue_element]

@Xan and Ed Oscuro. Many thanks for your advice. It gets delivered in a couple of days, but now I'm thinking it's gonna be too small to be of use. hmmm. I'll let you know my opinions when it gets here.

[Joshms]

I happen to own a Dimensia myself, but unfortunately I have not been able to successfully get that socket to accept RGB input. Either it will only take RGBI input (think the output from a Commodore 128's 80-column mode), or isn't wired up correctly for RGB.

I picked up a 27" Dimensia recently and was also unable to get it to work. From what I read the online, and the manual RGB isn't hooked up on the scart connector. Now my wife is yelling at me to get rid of all these CRT's that have accumulated in our guest room >_<

[Xan]

I personally like the 14"ers best, at least for 4:3... that's the size I was always gaming on. They are handy and there is nothing lost here compared to the larger ones if you just sit a bit closer... of course it depends on the individual setup and what one is used to. I have one larger one as well (PVM-20M2E) and I don't use it mainly because the hum is a lot louder compared to smaller CRTs.

[Ed Oscuro]

Sony PGM-200R2U (x2)

How is the image on these?

Reading about the optional line-doubling of 15KHz signals...well, I likely wouldn't want one of these for 15KHz signals if that's the case. But do they fare well with 480p?

[niall]

Aren't those front sockets for the auto set-up probe? Those control units only work for certain models.

It's for both: when using the 11-R the probe connects to the 11-R and 11-R to front socket. You can connect to either the front or rear socket, just need the right cable - but I can't find the pin-out for serial to mini din8 anywhere online.

[someguyihate]

Hey everyone, I recently got two PVM monitors for free that both have a similar fault, I've been trying to figure out what's causing it but I have no idea, I'm guessing it's a faulty cap but I have no idea where to even begin to look, hopefully someone can help.

The models are PVM-1440QM and PVM-1442QM and they both have a horizontal line running through the screen, the line is present across all inputs. The line isn't completely uniform all the way across and kinda splits into two halfway through.

Aside from this, the screens work perfectly and look great.

Here's a photo:



Has anyone come across this before?

Thanks!

[Rogue_element]

The 20S1WE's resolution probably has to do with it being such a small set. Remember that it's a 20" diagonal, and considerably smaller height than a 4:3 tube.

I've been mulling over a D24 myself but I don't think even that has ideal dimensions. Using the handy tool at http://www.silisoftware.com/tools/screen.php here are some calculations on a few common sizes, in inches. If you are in a metric area you can still directly compare the ratio of one measurement to another (height, width, area) without converting anything but the diagonal to centimeters for metric-area devices:

Got the 20S1WE today. Really really pleased with it. It is as you said , a lot smaller than I'd vouched for (akin to a widescreen 14 incher in effect) , however as I'm using it in a small room it is ideal. 16:9 PS2 and original Xbox games look superb on it. Excuse me, off to play Metal Slug 3 on the Xbox

[Ed Oscuro]

You're going to make me rethink a 16:9 BVM-D in 24" heh. (Though still reluctant to do so since its height is less than a BVM-D20!)

Was the lucky buyer of this PGM-200R2U one of us? I was mulling it over (hence my unanswered question the other day) but fiddling with linedoublers seemed like an uncertain deal to me.

[andy251203]

It was me. I live a mile up the road from those guys. I saw it and had to do a double take because finding a brand new in box PGM is unheard of. Going to fire it up for the first time tonight.

[Fudoh]

absolutely! Brilliant find and awesome price. Make sure to take some pictures.

[Ed Oscuro]

It was me. I live a mile up the road from those guys. I saw it and had to do a double take because finding a brand new in box PGM is unheard of. Going to fire it up for the first time tonight.

Oh, cool - it won't be bouncing all over creation then. I can definitely smile on that!

Speaking of line-doubling sets, I've been rethinking a Toshiba 36HF72 I could find locally. It's got HD capability (1080i - edit: no 720p, but does support 480p) but I wonder about lag and line-doubling on 480i sources. Lag probably can't be easily tested for - is there anything to look out for? And if it's got line doubling on 480i inputs, it's not likely I'll find some setting to disable that, is it?

[nyder]

I got a weird problem with my 20l5

I have 2 PVM's at the moment a very minty 20l2 and a beat up 20l5 that has amazing picture very notable improvement over the l2.

I've had the l5 hooked up to my Wii via component for emulators etc and its amazing and performs flawlessly.

I recently received a Genesis model 1 RGB SCART with stereo breakout from retro_console_accessories so I unhooked the Wii and got the BNC breakout cable back in and hooked up the Genesis. I got a picture but it had wavey/shakey/jitter all across the menu of the game.

I thought it was my SCART switch so took that out of the equation and still it was there, not only that the OSD was shaking like crazy even after I removed all the cables from the back of the PVM.

My first thought is that my l5 was dying and needed a recap or worse. I hooked up the wii again and it worked fine, no wiggle, no weird waves/jitters nothing.

I was thinking maybe it was the cab;e so I hooked upt he genesis with the new SCART to my l2 and it was perfect, rock solid.

I hooked up a PS1 to the L5 via SCART an had the same affect. weird wiggling/jitters/waves.

I finally hooked up a Super nintendo today with a composite sync SCART I got from Retrocablesuk and its doing the same thing, weird waves willing across the screen, its really noticable on text.

This seems to be an RGB specific thing, as component is fine.

WTF?

Not sure what to do.

Anyone have any ideas?

You thinkit might be a bad cap on the RGB side of things inside the l5?

HELP!

Thanks in advance.

Nyd

[niall]

I asked a while ago, but didn't get any answer. Can anybody give photos or a general summary of the internal construction of BVMs or Ikegami monitors (any and all mentioned are appreciated)? I've already made comments about the PVM and would like to compare.

Here you go Ed - these are all from the inside of a pair of BVM-20F1E/A (tube is SCC-J32A-A May/September 1996. The BVM-D20F1A's are from 2001, serial number was misleading D'oh).

First up is the LHS (when looking from rear) - you can see the flyback board with the high-voltage lines to the CRT anode and off to a focus sub-board which you can see in the upper-right, close-up photo below:





RHS (from rear) is fairly boring - a sub-board marked PA, sits adjacent to the power board so presumably power distribution related?



Next up we have two overhead shots - towards the rear you can make out the neck and neck board with a single black pot, and there are quite a few purity/convergence rings sitting behind the deflection coil housing (white) which has 2 dials and a recessed pot:



The grey plastic structural support is very sturdy and supports the top of the option cards that are fitted from the rear.

Close-up of the rear of the neck board - RV1 is the single black pot on this board:



Towards the front you can see the back of the tube and shielding, with the flyback sub-board down on the left (hidden underneath the high-voltage cable support (circular white thingy) and the (presumably) power related sub-board on the right.



Last of the internal shots is the backplane for Slots 1-5 (remote is installed into slot 1) where the optional cards are installed:



Finally, here's the symptoms on the two BVM-20F1E - a visible rolling distortion resembling a moire pattern. Previous owner said both flybacks needed replacing - I've got some old school CRT repair and diagnosis manuals which I haven't had time to consult yet, but I suspect the previous owner was one of the TV station engineers and knows what he's talking about, so I've just got to find some replacement flyback boards (A-1190 229-A) and we should be able to put them back in service:

[Ed Oscuro]

Interesting. In some ways it looks like the 20L5...but there's differences too. I bet that white cover (over the yoke section?) can be lifted right out for easy cleaning (just being careful not to snap the plastic, which may have gone brittle). I was able to do that with my 20L5.

I never was able to tell if the increased weight of BVMs was due mainly to the pop-out geometry drawer, but from these pictures the side panels of metal seem to be strong mounting points for the boards. I'd count that as an improvement over the PVM 20L5, which has plastic "wings" supporting boards to the sides (and these can crack, along with all the other plastic bits). Of course the metal can be bad in a drop, too, but at least that should be able to be pounded back into shape - mending or replacing broken plastic stuff is hard to do.

Did you have the impression that many of these boards can be easily lifted out for servicing (or replacement)? On the 20L5, at least, a number of boards seem all but anchored by a rogue-seeming wire length connecting to spade connectors on boards here and there.

Oh, and a little update on my last question, about consumer TVs: From what I can see, most of the consumer 1080i-capable sets are line doubling 240p, which is probably not what I want for retrogaming (breaks lightgun support, for example, and I'm not sold on scanline / lag quality, though I'm not really worried about lag - if it's just line doubling). Panasonic calls this "Enhanced Progressive Scan Doubler" (in the Panasonic Tau CT-27HL14, for instance). When you look through the user manuals, look carefully for text similar to that.

[niall]

Yep every board is easily removable and interchangeable. Very strong frame.

[Rogue_element]

I got a weird problem with my 20l5

I have 2 PVM's at the moment a very minty 20l2 and a beat up 20l5 that has amazing picture very notable improvement over the l2.

I've had the l5 hooked up to my Wii via component for emulators etc and its amazing and performs flawlessly.

I recently received a Genesis model 1 RGB SCART with stereo breakout from retro_console_accessories so I unhooked the Wii and got the BNC breakout cable back in and hooked up the Genesis. I got a picture but it had wavey/shakey/jitter all across the menu of the game.

I thought it was my SCART switch so took that out of the equation and still it was there, not only that the OSD was shaking like crazy even after I removed all the cables from the back of the PVM.

My first thought is that my l5 was dying and needed a recap or worse. I hooked up the wii again and it worked fine, no wiggle, no weird waves/jitters nothing.

I was thinking maybe it was the cab;e so I hooked upt he genesis with the new SCART to my l2 and it was perfect, rock solid.

I hooked up a PS1 to the L5 via SCART an had the same affect. weird wiggling/jitters/waves.

I finally hooked up a Super nintendo today with a composite sync SCART I got from Retrocablesuk and its doing the same thing, weird waves willing across the screen, its really noticable on text.

This seems to be an RGB specific thing, as component is fine.

WTF?

Not sure what to do.

Anyone have any ideas?

You thinkit might be a bad cap on the RGB side of things inside the l5?

HELP!

Thanks in advance.

Nyd

Mate, i had much the same problem with both my L4s. Everything i threw at them worked flawlessly through RGB. Then i tried my PAL SNES. After spending about £ 100 pounds on SCART Cables (including an original Gamecube Cable costing over 50 pounds - and dicking about with caps and resistors ) i gave up - I could only get a pink/purple washed out image no matter what i tried. A few months later i picked up a 20M2E and for the hell of it I tried the SNES with that. Guess what ? - worked perfectly , straight away, on ALL the 4 or 5 Scart cables i had bought. Something to do with the way 'L' series PVMs are made. ? . Maybe others can explain?.

[andy251203]

Here is the PGM I picked up on Friday:



Original box and instructions



Here it is!



Built in April 2000. Note that the RGB connectors in the middle are OUTPUTS.



The RGB input card can be replaced with a BKM-201SC upscan converter. Wish I could find one...



Fired it up! Good picture!



Comes with the manual for it's big brother, the R1 model. The R2 manual is just a leaflet that explains what's missing from the R1.




This letter came in the manual bag. Can someone translate it?

This monitor is the same as the R1 version with a few missing features.
-The cubic frame is missing
-The control buttons on the right side of the monitor are gone. The "RGB" light remains (and presumably the other lights would light up if the scan converter is installed)
-The monitor must be controlled with a remote which is not included. My remote for my PVM-2950Q works.
-External speaker functionality is missing

This is a really nice VGA monitor but I really need to add a scan converter to have any use for it. Guess it's time to get an XRGB3...

[Fudoh]

That's basically a FCC statement.

[ryu]

I'm super jealous.

Don't worry about the missing upscan converter, it's not good anyways.