Fudoh's ode to old display technology

[tacoguy64]

I just recently bought an xrgb mini, while i like the result it has produced on my plasma, i just feel like it might be a bit too big and stretched out for my liking. I was originally looking for the bvm or pvm monitors but the 20' inch ones were a bit difficult to find locally. I then came across the said crt monitor, but it seems to be more of a hassle then anything. Unless i have the displ which seems impossible to find anywhere.

[Eddyiori]

Hello everyone!!
Well I finally can get a Sony Bvm A20f1u monitor BUT its missing any component/rgb input.
I have no luck to find it yet only one sealed on ebay for almost 800U$$.
The monitor will cost me 700U$ so I really need to find a cheaper input board.
Can anyone give any help? Btw for what I could find the component/rgb board for this model is the BKM-68x.

[aaronmjr]

I just recently bought an xrgb mini, while i like the result it has produced on my plasma, i just feel like it might be a bit too big and stretched out for my liking.

Do you have your 4:3 images stretched to 16x9? Or are you talking about something else?

[tacoguy64]

Correct, I am playing my 4:3 games at 16x9.

[aaronmjr]

Yeah. There should be a button on your TV remote or menu option to change the picture so it displays 4:3. Yes it will have bars on the side, but it's the correct way to play and will look much better. Are you also running the XRGB Mini with scanlines? If so I've heard it looks most correct if you run it at 720p. Maybe this should be in a Framemeister thread, but anyways, hope that helps.

[Fudoh]

Since you got a framemeister already, why not just get the PC CRT and a cheap ($25) HDMI to VGA converter from ebay. Setting the Mini to a 4:3 DVI resolution should give you great results.

[alfshusen]

Is 47512 hours on a BVM-D24E1WU much?

[Ed Oscuro]

haha you're looking at one on eBay, aren't you
well, consider individual components tend to be rated around 60,000-100,000 hours, and when was the set actually tested?

You could chance it - I've thought of doing the same many times - just make sure it's a deal.

[alfshusen]

Yes, ebay it is The ad says its tested, but I dont count on anything. I am planning to chance on this one as soon as i have the total price inc shipping in place.
Tried to score a d24 with only 3000 hours on this weekend from the UK, but the the guy would not ship to me quite annoying since it went for just over 400usd. It would have been much shorter shipping from UK than from the US. I also found a 20f1u with 6000 hours on from UK, but from the same seller so it did not help me much

[Ed Oscuro]

There's been one 150 miles (roughly 240km) from me for a long while, but I've never dropped an offer on it. Don't know if it'd be worth the day trip, yet it's got 7,000 hours less on the clock than yours.

I will say that shipping can damage these monitors - we've had plenty of topics here about that. I had a PVM-20L5 shipped just 550 miles from Brooklyn, NY, and many plastic supports inside snapped. It still works fine with nothing out of alignment, but that seems to be luck that it wasn't dropped worse.

Overseas shipment would likely be worse. I've had two monitors shipped over from Japan with computers, and neither arrived working.

[andykara2003]

That's why shipping on a pallet is such a good idea. Fudoh suggested it to me when I was shipping my BVM from Ireland to England. I don't know why I didn't do that for my past monitors, it's such an obvious solution really. It cost me less than if I'd sent it via a standard parcel delivery company - and there's virtually no chance of the monitor being dropped. The pallet just gets gently put down and lifted by a forklift. You'd need to find a company (preferably near where the item is) that will pallet the monitor for you if the seller won't.

[alfshusen]

Yes indeed, that's the only way to do it with a pallet, if I'm gonna do this. Its a risky chance to take, but I'm tempted..

Ed Oscuro: Take the trip, I would have. I'm that crazy that I once drove 1200km+ in one day to pick up a set of JBL K2 s9800SE speakers.
Did your monitors from Japan arrive on pallets with fragile stickers on?

[Ed Oscuro]

No, no pallets for cheapo 15" X68000 and FM Towns monitors. Chucked 'em in; I was only unhappy because that left me without a good solution for those sets.

About the BVM...if I thought I could get it for a good price I'd have a try. But the pictures I'm seeing were obviously taken quite a time - possibly years at this point, I followed that auction all the way through last year - and they're not getting any better with the caps sitting around and starting to get unconditioned.

I did take a roughly equal all-day hike to pick up a couple PVMs and they were just astounding. Too bad BVMs and other Multiformat devices don't seem to have any use in the laboratory / medical field, because those are a great source for quality PVMs.

The pallet advice seems good...if I were bothering with that, though, I'd get a proper D20 or D32 or some such. And likewise I'd spare no expense if I could find a good Mits MegaView Pro.

[alfshusen]

How would it be to hook up a pc to a BVM thru a ArcadeVGA 5000 Card and run a emulator or/and old pc games in its native ratio. Would that be less quality than hook up the actual console?
And if you hook up the console, but decide to use a NES Everdrive for example, which is kind of the same as an emulator, would that be less quality that if you ran the game from the original cassette? Anyone tested?

[alfshusen]

Mitsubishi MegaView Pro 42. Is that a good one? At least it is a large 40" screen and 276lbs Heavy stuff there!

[Ed Oscuro]

Mitsubishi MegaView Pro 42. Is that a good one? At least it is a large 40" screen and 276lbs Heavy stuff there!

I'd go with the 37" or the 29" myself. My cheat sheet is this post:
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/archive ... 12397.html

[tacoguy64]

aaronmjr: Yes I understand that these 16 bit games have an original aspect ratio of 4:3 but I just dont like the black bars on the side. First world problems xD

Fudoh: I think thats the route I will end up going. But first I have to see how much I can haggle this guy down. I will then use an adapter with the framemeister to see if I can have similar results on a pc crt as I would on a pvm/bvm.

And as far as pvm/bvms are concerned, is the suggested price to spend on these 20' inch unit still it the $50-$250 range? Just asking because all the ones I've seen on ebay usually go much higher than that and the ones I've found on craigslist are usually really far from where I live.

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

I recently picked up an Emotia Extreme MX and after some initial difficulty setting it up with my CRT I think I've figured out the problem. My set does not have a dedicated RGB channel (although it does accept RGB of course) and the Extron isn't providing the switching voltage, so I'll have to solder something in to the scart lead to force it.

I'm not sure exactly how this works though - is it simply one end of a battery to each pin (8 & 16), or one end to pin and one to ground? I've had a look but I can't seem to find a layman's guide.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, cheers.

[Fudoh]

Just a battery between pin 16 and ground. You don't need pin 8.

Mind though that the Emotia Extreme does not output 240p. It only does 480i, just like the later Extron VSC units.

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

That's good enough for what I need I think, should be a vast improvement over the crappy VGA-composite adapter I've got at the minute. Much obliged Fudoh.

[tacoguy64]

I wanted to get your guy's opinion on this monitor.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ikegami-TM20-17 ... 2c958c8f89

Seems pretty nice. From what i been reading its a sony pvm equivalent. My only concern about it is that it has light screen burn. Does that completely ruin the monitor?

[604_degrees]

I have a question about PMV and YPrPb.

I'm currently using my modded Pal PS2 hooked up to my plasma with YPrPb (through Framemeister), and it works fine (except for both PAL and NTSC PSX titles for some reason).

What I'd like to do is to add Sony PVM to my setup and I don't actually know how to hook up PS2 into it. Are RGB monitors even capable of handling YPrPb video signal or I need another piece of hardware to wire everything up? I have an RGB SCART cable for it, but as I understand, it works best only for 240p titles. Sorry if it's already answered, I didn't find it.

[Xan]

You need to look at the inputs or in the manual whether it can take component. But if the monitor is 15 kHz only (which most PVMs are) you are better off with RGB anyway.

[Necronopticous]

Every PVM/BVM I have ever owned accepted component with no problems, but I agree that if you already have everything you need for the RGB route, just go RGB.

[Ed Oscuro]

The PVM-20L5 can do 480p, 1080i, and 720p via component, but I would be cautious about having one shipped. Mine made it, but barely, and it was heavily used anyway.

You're likely to find good flat panels for higher progressive resolutions in flat panels - at least soon with lag getting worked out of sets. Meanwhile, good RGB monitors in the PVM line might be available locally: Check auction sites, check out electronics recyclers, and labs, colleges, and hospitals all are likely sources for recent PVMs in good shape with light use.

For systems that had easily available component cables, I tend to use those for the sheer convenience - PS2 and Xbox are like this, plus the Xbox doesn't output RGB anyway. It also makes jumping over to a HD display much easier, to take advantage of 480p and up in the many games that support it (even the PS2 has slightly more games in 480p than in 480i only).

[Xan]

PAL Xbox does output RGB. And isn't the PS2s component output supposed to be noisier than RGB?

Lack of YPbPr seems to be mainly a thing with lower end or really old PVMs, I think. One advantage would be that a SCART to BNC adapter isn't needed, and RCA to BNC adapters being cheaper and easier to set up, but at equal resolutions RGB should always be superior to component.

[Ed Oscuro]

PAL Xbox RGB is probably a waste of time if you have any HD displays available; almost every single game supports 480p at minimum. Unfortunately I did gloss over that - sorry, my NTSC prejudices are showing

PS2 is an interesting case. Fudoh has asked me about that before with my systems, and I don't doubt it does appear in some cases, but I wasn't able to find it. It might just be the slim units I was using. There might be some other variables - difference between NTSC and PAL regions, too.

Testing out different cables shouldn't be too expensive, but my first thought is that it's probably not worth worrying about unless there is some outstanding problem with the component cables. Whatever comes easiest is probably the right choice - except that the most important consideration is whether your games, cables, and display support 480p or better.

[CMcK]

I wanted to get your guy's opinion on this monitor.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ikegami-TM20-17 ... 2c958c8f89

Seems pretty nice. From what i been reading its a sony pvm equivalent. My only concern about it is that it has light screen burn. Does that completely ruin the monitor?

It's more like a BVM equivalent. I have one of these screens as well as a BVM20F1E and there isn't much between them. The Ikegami being older is all analogue controls compared to the digital controls on the BVM. Also the tube on the Ikegami is slightly more curved again reflecting the age of the screen.

I don't know if I would take a chance on buying a monitor with screen burn though. Must have serious running hours on it.

[Ed Oscuro]

I don't know if I would take a chance on buying a monitor with screen burn though. Must have serious running hours on it.

This probably goes to show that BVMs deliver more performance than most video games require, as far as resolution goes: The TM20-17 is a 600TVL (a bit on the low side) monitor positioned as being low-cost, rather different from the BVMs. But it's good to hear that these are good - I always wondered about it.

Definitely wouldn't buy that one though.

[tacoguy64]

Oh wow, bvm level picutre quality? Thanks for that bit of input. I found another Ikegmai of the same model, but the seller here is telling me that its in perfect condition. If thats the case then i might jump on this one and take a chance. The asking price is $200 but that's before shipping.