Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

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FinalBaton
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Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by FinalBaton »

Was wondering how Sony's second LMD series multi-format LCD monitors (lmd-322w, lmd-232w, lmd-212, lmd-172w, lmd-152) were faring when it comes to 240p content.

Read something on here about the first generations lmd LCDs (VGA panels)not-being such a great buy for retro gaming purposes, but since the second generation has an XGA panel and uses a different signal-processing unit ( MEU-WX2 instead of MEU-WX1 for the first gen), I thought that it might fare differently.

Also, am I correct in assuming that since it is a digital monitor, all lower resolutions are upscaled?
Manual says scanning frequency is 31.5 khz - 47.4 khz. Since it goes to 31.5, does that mean that 480p is played natively?

Anyone has experience with one of the secong generation LMD series?
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Xyga
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Xyga »

I think those are now really outdated flat panels with unfitting native resolution, and there's not much information about processing but I doubt it's ideal.

If you want decent performance with retro material on a flat panel you'd better find an external upscaler (like an XRGB) to go with a good modern TV set or monitor.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by FinalBaton »

Xyga wrote:I think those are now really outdated flat panels with unfitting native resolution, and there's not much information about processing but I doubt it's ideal.

If you want decent performance with retro material on a flat panel you'd better find an external upscaler (like an XRGB) to go with a good modern TV set or monitor.
Thanks for the answer!
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Retroman
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Retroman »

MEU-WX1 with LMD is perfect for 240p content. Image quality is on par with emulation!
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by fernan1234 »

I imagine that a scanline generator would make 240p stuff look quite nice, perhaps very similar to the CRTs with high TVL.

But I'd wonder how fast motion looks like on these. I imagine there must be a good deal of motion blur on old LCDs like these. And on top of that you'll also have persistence.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Retroman »

fernan1234 wrote:I imagine that a scanline generator would make 240p stuff look quite nice, perhaps very similar to the CRTs with high TVL.

But I'd wonder how fast motion looks like on these. I imagine there must be a good deal of motion blur on old LCDs like these. And on top of that you'll also have persistence.
https://youtu.be/RDEX5Eyg_AU
https://youtu.be/xU7sibtkCS4

Make sure to view these in 1080p.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by fernan1234 »

Retroman wrote:https://youtu.be/RDEX5Eyg_AU
https://youtu.be/xU7sibtkCS4

Make sure to view these in 1080p.
The picture does look really nice! There does seem to be some motion blur, especially on the metal slug action, but maybe it's less noticeable in person?

And how's the lag on it?
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Xyga »

fernan1234 wrote:I imagine that a scanline generator would make 240p stuff look quite nice, perhaps very similar to the CRTs with high TVL.
I imagine not. 720p panels are far from ideal for fake scanlines emulation, you're almost guaranteed to see uneven thickness patterns.
Unless the processing unit features many zoom levels to try and correct the scaling (at the cost of loosing a portion of the picture or playing with thick black borders) There's high chances this is whay you'll see.
fernan1234 wrote:But I'd wonder how fast motion looks like on these. I imagine there must be a good deal of motion blur on old LCDs like these. And on top of that you'll also have persistence.
It'll look like most LCDs, all lcds have blur of various types depending on their backlight, reactivity, and more or less persistence depending on that, but they always do have some anyway. Dunno which type of backlight this uses (probably ccfl) nor how the panel performance is, but I don't know what you expect.
Ancient expensive pro hardware doesn't always mean it's superior...I've had a look at the specs from the manual and several points bug me out, does that thing only work with the LMD line monitors and process everything to 720p ? well, even if it's very good at it I have a hard time imagining fake scanlines will be okay.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Retroman »

fernan1234 wrote:
Retroman wrote:https://youtu.be/RDEX5Eyg_AU
https://youtu.be/xU7sibtkCS4

Make sure to view these in 1080p.
The picture does look really nice! There does seem to be some motion blur, especially on the metal slug action, but maybe it's less noticeable in person?

And how's the lag on it?
No montion blur. It's my camera or youtube. Didn't test lag, but seems unnoticeable.
Last edited by Retroman on Wed Jun 12, 2019 8:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Retroman »

Xyga wrote:
fernan1234 wrote:I imagine that a scanline generator would make 240p stuff look quite nice, perhaps very similar to the CRTs with high TVL.
I imagine not. 720p panels are far from ideal for fake scanlines emulation, you're almost guaranteed to see uneven thickness patterns.
Unless the processing unit features many zoom levels to try and correct the scaling (at the cost of loosing a portion of the picture or playing with thick black borders) There's high chances this is whay you'll see.
fernan1234 wrote:But I'd wonder how fast motion looks like on these. I imagine there must be a good deal of motion blur on old LCDs like these. And on top of that you'll also have persistence.

It'll look like most LCDs, all lcds have blur of various types depending on their backlight, reactivity, and more or less persistence depending on that, but they always do have some anyway. Dunno which type of backlight this uses (probably ccfl) nor how the panel performance is, but I don't know what you expect.
Ancient expensive pro hardware doesn't always mean it's superior...I've had a look at the specs from the manual and several points bug me out, does that thing only work with the LMD line monitors and process everything to 720p ? well, even if it's very good at it I have a hard time imagining fake scanlines will be okay.
Only works with it's own LMD panels. Panel takes power from the MEU-WX1 itself via a weird 4-pin LXR cable. No blur whatsover in real life. It's my camera. Doesn't the manual say this thing can do 1080? I'll try to add scanline via the hdmi scanline generator when I get one of those.

Fudoh has much more knowledge. I hope he can test one of these out and let us know.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Xyga »

There is motion blur no matter what, unless constantly strobed/roll-scanned/interpolated there is no way around blur, but maybe just not enough to bother you (I always say people make too much of a deal of lcd motion blur and persistence, depending on what contents/use/size it's very well tolerable, you just can't expect optimal motion for everything in every situation...)
For the lag you don't know before testing properly indeed, many people don't notice 2 or even 3 frames of it. 2 isn't much IMHO really, good-enough for most player's sensitivity and ability.
For 1080p unless I misunderstood it says in input, but output is 720/768p max, can't be otherwise as the panel's native res is fixed and as you confirmed it's made for the LMD line which seems to peak at 720p (should be possible to hack that and connect many other displays)
The quality of the downscaling must be key there then, but it's relatively easy to make the picture look good as long as you're not trying anything too revealing like fake scanlines.
Remains to see what it makes of 480p + scanlines generator upscaled to 720p (or to 1080p then downscaled to 720p? dunno...)
I'm not trying to burst your bubble Retroman, I'm sorry if I do, I'm just trying to look at it rationally but this combo might not be anything special not even compared to a hacked GBS8220 + any decent modern 1080p display.
Now, there might be several qualities specific to it, (it's a Sony after all :p ) not saying it's completely useless either, I'd be curious to try it myself.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Fudoh »

many years ago I shortly tested a LMD/MEU combo, but it wasn't impressive by any measurement standard. I wanted to get a MEU-WX2 on its own for some time, but the lack of 1080p output always killed my motivation to get one.

The fact that is processes 240p quite nicely might make me revisit the unit one day.

I have a small LMD unit on hand and it's terrible (except maybe for its coolness factor). And the larger LMD/MEU combos aren't THIS cheap to justify the expense. Any OSSC/LCD combo with a carefully selected monitor will be way better. And if you have a little money to spare, an OSSC + PVM OLED is hard to to beat.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Lawfer »

What kind of backlight technology do these use? WLED? CCFL? Something else?

Do these accept S-Video and/or HDMI or DVI-D?

Fudoh wrote:many years ago I shortly tested a LMD/MEU combo, but it wasn't impressive by any measurement standard. I wanted to get a MEU-WX2 on its own for some time, but the lack of 1080p output always killed my motivation to get one.
Does it do 720p at least?
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Retroman »

Xyga wrote:There is motion blur no matter what, unless constantly strobed/roll-scanned/interpolated there is no way around blur, but maybe just not enough to bother you (I always say people make too much of a deal of lcd motion blur and persistence, depending on what contents/use/size it's very well tolerable, you just can't expect optimal motion for everything in every situation...)
For the lag you don't know before testing properly indeed, many people don't notice 2 or even 3 frames of it. 2 isn't much IMHO really, good-enough for most player's sensitivity and ability.
For 1080p unless I misunderstood it says in input, but output is 720/768p max, can't be otherwise as the panel's native res is fixed and as you confirmed it's made for the LMD line which seems to peak at 720p (should be possible to hack that and connect many other displays)
The quality of the downscaling must be key there then, but it's relatively easy to make the picture look good as long as you're not trying anything too revealing like fake scanlines.
Remains to see what it makes of 480p + scanlines generator upscaled to 720p (or to 1080p then downscaled to 720p? dunno...)
I'm not trying to burst your bubble Retroman, I'm sorry if I do, I'm just trying to look at it rationally but this combo might not be anything special not even compared to a hacked GBS8220 + any decent modern 1080p display.
Now, there might be several qualities specific to it, (it's a Sony after all :p ) not saying it's completely useless either, I'd be curious to try it myself.
No bubble to burst. I'm just impressed and surprised how well it processes 240p. I placed it side by side with my emulator and the image quality is the same.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Fudoh »

I'm just impressed and surprised how well it processes 240p.
indeed. But after all that's the processors work and you can use the processor with any display.
What kind of backlight technology do these use? WLED? CCFL? Something else?
CCFL.
Do these accept S-Video and/or HDMI or DVI-D?
composite, s-video and component through BNC. No HDMI or DVI. VGA is available. SDI, HD-SDI and DV (compressed 15mbit D1) through add-on boards.
Does it do 720p at least?
the processor is fixed to 768p output.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Retroman »

Fudoh wrote:
I'm just impressed and surprised how well it processes 240p.
indeed. But after all that's the processors work and you can use the processor with any display.
What kind of backlight technology do these use? WLED? CCFL? Something else?
CCFL.
Do these accept S-Video and/or HDMI or DVI-D?
composite, s-video and component through BNC. No HDMI or DVI. VGA is available. SDI, HD-SDI and DV (compressed 15mbit D1) through add-on boards.
Does it do 720p at least?
the processor is fixed to 768p output.
You mean I can connect the MEU-WX1 to any display other than the LMD? I tried it with couple of my Dell Computer displays and it said not supported or something like that.

Also, what's the difference between the WX1 and WX2? I looked quickly at the manuals and couldn't find the difference...
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by fernan1234 »

If you get a chance you should throw some 480i stuff like PS2 or GC/Wii games, or DVD movies. I'm more curious now about how it would handle that. In 2004 there were still a lot of 480i DVDs going around so I imagine these monitors/processors may have been suitable for those too.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Lawfer »

Fudoh wrote:indeed. But after all that's the processors work and you can use the processor with any display.
So you can use it with any Monitor? That's interesting, especially considering that the OSSC has no S-Video input.

Fudoh wrote:CCFL.
Thanks.

Fudoh wrote:composite, s-video and component through BNC. No HDMI or DVI. VGA is available. SDI, HD-SDI and DV (compressed 15mbit D1) through add-on boards.
No RGBs or RGsB?

Fudoh wrote:the processor is fixed to 768p output.
Oh that's too bad.

What about 480p then?
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by strayan »

Looks like the SDI module only supports 4:2:2 :(
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by strayan »

Fudoh wrote:
Does it do 720p at least?
the processor is fixed to 768p output.
Do you by chance know if it outputs 1360x768?
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by fernan1234 »

strayan wrote:Looks like the SDI module only supports 4:2:2 :(
If this behaves like the D-series CRTs it should take 4:4:4 HD (720p, 1080i at least) RGB signals over the BNC connectors paired with appropriate adapters/converters (e.g. HDMI to VGA to BNC).
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Unseen »

strayan wrote:Looks like the SDI module only supports 4:2:2 :(
SDI is almost always 4:2:2.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Xyga »

Google MEU-WX1 (or WX2) Operation Manual, open the pdf and see the specs at the bottom.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Fudoh »

@Retroman: I'm pretty sure I had the MEU-WX running on another display (or attach to another processor) briefly already. I mean it's a standard DVI output and there's no communication. If there was a lockout, you could get around it with a simply EDID minder and by copying the LMD's EDID data into it.

@lawfer and strayan: all the widescreen LMDs available for this processor unit (17", 23" and 32") are 16:10 1280x768, so that's the only widescreen resolution supported by the processor. Since the same MEU units also support the 4:3 LMD panels (15" and 21"), which have XGA resolution and I don't see a way to select the output res through the menu, the selection is likely based on the available EDID data as well.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Lawfer »

Fudoh wrote:@lawfer and strayan: all the widescreen LMDs available for this processor unit (17", 23" and 32") are 16:10 1280x768, so that's the only widescreen resolution supported by the processor. Since the same MEU units also support the 4:3 LMD panels (15" and 21"), which have XGA resolution and I don't see a way to select the output res through the menu, the selection is likely based on the available EDID data as well.
Any 4:3 resolution supported?
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Fudoh »

XGA is 4:3, but as said, I don't know what dictates the processor to output which resolution.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Lawfer »

Fudoh wrote:XGA is 4:3, but as said, I don't know what dictates the processor to output which resolution.
So it is 768p no matter what? So basically it takes 240p (or maybe 480i/p too?) and upscales it to either 1024x768 or 1280x768 and outputs that through DVI-D to a monitor, is that correct?

Fudoh wrote:I don't know what dictates the processor to output which resolution.
Maybe it detects what is the native aspect ratio of a monitor is somehow? Like it will detect an LMD-152S as being 4:3 and output 1024x768 while it will detect the LMD-2030W as being 16:10 and will output 1280x768?
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Fudoh »

So it is 768p no matter what? So basically it takes 240p (or maybe 480i/p too?) and upscales it to either 1024x768 or 1280x768 and outputs that through DVI-D to a monitor, is that correct?
it takes SD, ED and HD (720p/1080i) as well as usual PC resolutions, but 240p of course isn't detected as 240p. It still run through the scan converter. The algorithm just works for 240p (as do other processors like the early Faroudja models).
Maybe it detects what is the native aspect ratio of a monitor is somehow? Like it will detect an LMD-1410 as being 4:3 and output 1024x768 while it will detect the LMD-2030W as being 16:10 and will output 1280x768?
yes, but as said, there's no communication link. The only possibility is the EDID.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Lawfer »

I see, thank you.
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Re: Sony lmd series LCD multi-format monitors (WXGA)

Post by Retroman »

fernan1234 wrote:If you get a chance you should throw some 480i stuff like PS2 or GC/Wii games, or DVD movies. I'm more curious now about how it would handle that. In 2004 there were still a lot of 480i DVDs going around so I imagine these monitors/processors may have been suitable for those too.
What's a good PS2 game to test?

Meanwhile, PS2 Dragon Quest VIII on LMD-210 with MEU-WX1: https://youtu.be/YU9PAn5r_xI
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