I have been looking for a BVM For a long time now and one has finally came up. I am not able to go and view and test the unit my self so i am after some advice before making this sale. The following is from the sellers advert.
20inch Broadcast grade 1 Sony monitor.In full working order.No burn marks and fully tested.The monitor comes complete with the YUV input card,SDI input card and The BKM-10R Remote panel plus cable.
The monitor features are:-
YUV bnc Video input
SDI bnc video input
4x3-16x9 Switchable
1000+ TV Lines
Pal-Ntsc Format
110-240volts
Is there anything i should ask the seller about this unit before buying? Can anybody tell anything from the first picture with the color bars? Does the screen look dull or anything? As i say i am unable to view the item my self and i don't know much about these monitors but i know they are highly regarded for retro gaming,so any advice is much appreciated!
To be sure, ask for the hours the unit has run. Can be displayed through the menu. Not that it really matters, but it will give you an idea and a better estimate on what to pay for a such a unit.
The price on ask doesn't seem especially high, but you could try asking them to knock off 55 pounds or so...it's hard to price these in comparison to the PVMs because these show up rather infrequently, and many of the examples on eBay ask for too much.
It's also difficult to estimate how worthwhile this is given that the color bar doesn't tell very much (but it seems to be off center a bit, I think). I highly recommend asking to test in person.
Another reason for visiting in person is that a personal pickup is ideal (assuming you don't want to shell out for specialist shipment, which seems reasonable). Too many CRTs are being destroyed lately from shipping.
This one is a bit too far away for me to visit, i think i might hold on for something closer to i can inspect, i don't want to make a decision out of desperation. Also having done some more research im not entirely sure if a BVM is for me, From what i have heard they are super clear, some have said so much so that they look like an lcd with scanlines, This is not the look im after, im after the closest to an arcade monitor as possible. I live in Europe so have access to RGB scart TV's im not sure if this might be a better option for the arcade monitor look, rather than just the best possible picture.
I traveled nearly four hours each way to pick up my pair of PVMs recently - I'm sure there are some more locally given these are for medical use but it is deadly hard to find them. And then there is the price to factor in.
I can't imagine what the chances are that there are many facilities between these and you, but if they seem even slightly possible then I'd arrange a visit. I don't know what the ratio of BVMs to PVMs is but I wouldn't be surprised if it is 1:100 or even ten times less common.
It's worth saying that with only a couple extremely rare exceptions, most of the BVMs I could source on eBay are 500 miles or even 1,800 miles away (800-nearly 3000 km).
What I would really focus on is considering whether BVMs are what you need, or whether PVMs will pass muster. Those you might have some more luck finding, and at better prices still. Make no mistake, I think the asking price for the BVM you've shown is likely very good (depending on how good a picture it shows / how much life is left in the components). But I will acknowledge that it's quite possible it won't be worth it to you, especially with cheap but great PVMs in a similar price range.
There seems to be quite a few pvm's within reasonable distance to me, but this is the only bvm ive seen in months.
Seller has just messaged me to say it has 11 thousand hours and new tube in 2011. sounds promising but is there anyway to prove this? can the hours be reset?
11000 hours is nothing. But why would it need a new tube after that little? Perhaps the 11000 hours are for after the swap. I believe a service person can reset the hours, as would make sense after a tube replacement.
kamiboy wrote:11000 hours is nothing. But why would it need a new tube after that little? Perhaps the 11000 hours are for after the swap. I believe a service person can reset the hours, as would make sense after a tube replacement.
My thoughts would be the hours were reset at swap. Hmmmm tempted to grab this now.
I have read some posts at sites like Creative Cow complaining about the tube service life of some late-model BVMs (like the A and D series) but this is probably just a tube-swapped model.
I'd just make sure that it has very good quality on your sources, because it should with only 11,000 hours on critical components. At worst, perhaps some other components inside have seen heavy use, but those will all be trivial to replace in comparison to the tube.
kamiboy wrote:11000 hours is nothing. But why would it need a new tube after that little? Perhaps the 11000 hours are for after the swap. I believe a service person can reset the hours, as would make sense after a tube replacement.
I've had several BVM's of which some of the tubes have been replaced. I also confirm that the hours were not reset. Instead they would put a sticker on the tube to tell you what hours it was before the tube was changed.
Although slightly irrelevant, the model number and production hours on this particular model is encoded into the ISR remote board. Taking this and swapping with another board will transfer all this information too. Luckily, there is also a serial number at the back of the monitor which you can compare to to see if it has been tampered with.
