Bvm contrast levels

[andykara2003]

Quick question out of curiosity to the BVM owners here:

What do people run their contrast levels at? The default (technically correct) levels on the monitors are quite low - but the great thing about these monitors is that the impact and 'pop' of the image at higher contrast levels (combined with the clarity of the image) is unparalleled and my favourite aspect about them.

I run mine quite high - I turn it to max contrast and reduce just a notch until any bleeding disappears - and then set the brightness just a tad lower than flat. I'm interested in how this might affect the life of the monitor. My 20E1E has only 16,000 hours on it and the tube was replaced with a new one just 3 years ago.

My thoughts are that considering that I will probably use this monitor for less than 20,000 hours during my lifetime and these monitors can still perform well at the 100,000 hour mark - then even if running at such high contrast levels reduced BVM's life by half, then I would conceivably see no significant reduction in image quality in my lifetime.

Considering that i'd like my BVM to last a very long time, does that sound realistic or are there other variables that I need to think about here?

[Xan]

I use very similar settings on my monitors. It's true that you lose a bit of focus/sharpness and scanline thickness on high contrast settings, but the default settings are simply too low to produce a pleasing image for gaming. As far as the life time of the tube goes, I wouldn't worry about it too much if you have a few backups. In fact, if the 3 year old new tube in there has been new, you shouldn't think about it at all. There isn't much point in running very low contrast levels if the image winds up being too dark and you don't get full use out of your gear, IMO. There's also other components to keep in mind when it comes to reliability, like capacitors.

When I pause a game for 1-2 hours I usually just switch the input to an unused one, so that the tube doesn't run pointlessly. And in general I think it's suggested to let the monitor run instead of switching it on and off if it's only about short time spans, just to save a little bit on electrical wear and tear.

[andykara2003]

Cheers for that - your advice is much appreciated Good point re. switching to another channel when not gaming. The thing is that I don't have any backups for this monitor - maybe I need to find one if I'm aiming to be gaming on a BVM is 20 years...

[Ed Oscuro]

Personally I would look into appropriate ambient lighting - there is an ambient lighting setting appropriate for any tube. It might necessitate blacking out all the windows but I think the tube lifespan is worth it.

Interesting point with respect to switching the monitor over - that could possibly be helpful. I have to reserve judgment on leaving it on another channel for a few hours, but I have left my own PVM running on no signal for a half hour when needed - though I try to avoid this and set aside a block of time just for using the machine, instead of hopping on and off repeatedly. Basically I treat any tube television like this. Not having to run the heater circuit inside the CRT too often should definitely reduce hours. I also think that the degaussing circuit - specifically that pesky thermistor we've heard about before - would be a pain to fix if it went bad, and while this might be rare, I can think of one time when somebody reported that happening. Of course there is some wear when running the set - get a power conditioner / isolation transformer to help reduce that kind of wear, I'd think.

[fagin]

Most people run their contrast on CRT's way too high.

As alluded to above if you're going to set it, set it correctly on ambient lighting conditions (the darker the ambient, the less contrast you need), instead of wanging it up for your retina burning pleasure.

I normally set brightness on a black background, and turn brightness just back from seeing lighter pixels on the raster.

Running high contrast on a CRT will shorten it's life span, period.

[andykara2003]

Cheers guys that's massively helpful - time to start gaming with the curtains closed I think Just loving that BVM/1-chip SNES combo!

[Xan]

What's "too" high and how would one determine when that point is hit, though? I would rather say when the image has a darkish tone and colors don't appear vivid anymore, it's set too low. If a monitor has already served 40k+ hours, that can often be the case at default settings. Now I wouldn't crank it to maximum, but rather find a good compromise where the image is still subjectively appealing. For instance, on my PVM I have currently set it to +25 (with max being +50), and brightness at -9.

[fagin]

An easy way is to ensure you ensure you're not getting bloom, bleed and/or loss of focus.

You can perform some fairly simple checks using the Artemio 240p test suite. There are a whole raft of other methods you can use, to comprehensively produce test signals to tune your setup.