A shite BVM-A20F1 vs Panasonic 2000's consumer EDTV look

[andykara2003]

I agree with Kamiboy - I prefer 29" for 480p. For me, 20" is too small for 480p and anything larger than 29" and the PQ starts to tail off IMO.

I was trying to find a backup NEC XM29 for my 480p stuff and was having no luck. I got talking to an extremely knowledgable (and decent) CRT guy from the arcade controls forums called Apfelanni who mentioned that the absolute top of the line for 4:3 480p consumer CRTs in Europe are the Metz that MKL mentioned above - specifically, the 605 chassis. The other 600 chassis Metz are compatible as well but have minor issues.

The great thing is that unlike the NECs, they are still very easy to find in Germany (on eBay.de and ebay kleinanzeigen). They were introduced really late in the CRT phase (2005) and so it's easy to find one with low hours. Here's the catalogue page:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/336 ... 005-de.pdf

The higher tier ones look like this:



and



I got the first one as I prefer the look. Apfelanni rates these at the same level as the NECs and he's right - the image is absolutely stunning - amazingly crisp & vibrant. I just thought that might be useful for anyone in Europe struggling to find a great, true 480p 4:3 CRT EDTV or monitor in a larger size. The NECs and Sony PGM series are getting very scarce now, especially in good condition. My Metz looks almost brand new, only has a few thousand hours and was really easy to source... Of course, unlike the NEC it's no good for 15Khz as it is a 100Hz CRT but for 480p only it's stunning. To me, 29" is too big for 15kHz anyway.

As MKL mentioned , they take 31Khz through a VGA to scart cable which is not too hard to cobble together...

[Fudoh]

Do these have the VGA board by default ? I remember that many of these had optional VGA boards. Loewe as well.

[andykara2003]

I'd thought the same, but I don't think these particular models did. They all have a 9 pin RS232 socket in the back, but they are just used a service connection for engineers. As far as I know, 31Khz has to be input via the scart socket... I know that quite a few of the Loewes had the VGA card option although the cards and the 4:3 VGA-installed Loewes are really rare now..

[Fudoh]

thanks! 9pin is RS232 though. VGA has 15 pins.

[andykara2003]

Sure - just corrected myself there :)

[kamiboy]

Personally I think ~ 29" is the ideal size for all sub HD sources, be it 31khz or 15khz. Too bad all my 15khz CRTs are 25" and below. I'd get a 28" B&O, they are basically giving them away at this point, but I think 3 B&O sets are quite plenty enough for my one room apartment that in total houses 6 CRT screens, and one LCD.

[andykara2003]

I'm really curious as to how a Loewe Aconda with VGA card would handle 480p widescreen. I'm thinking that it would look incredible as long as the screen size isn't too big - perhaps 34" or 36" at most. I don't know how my wife would welcome yet another CRT into the house, especially one that big! I'd be interested to hear from someone who uses one though....

[kamiboy]

480p widescreen has very little utility for gaming purposes though. Most 480p capable games from the PS2/NGC era were designed to be played in an 4:3 aspect ratio. Few offer a widescreen option at all, and when they do they often do not render in proper 16:9. That is why back in the day I was hunting for a 4:3 EDTV capable TV, as most of the ones I found were 16:9 models which by that time had long become the standard for consumer CRT televisions being sold.

I suppose a 16:9 EDTV would be ideal to play Wii games on, as that was a "next generation" system, thus most games made for it were designed for a 16:9 aspect ratio. Though, unfortunately, the anemic Wii library of quality titles does not justify a dedicated screen.

[Josh128]

Actually, the Wii has many games (most of them, in fact) that offer widescreen, 480p.

[kamiboy]

I know, that is what I wrote.

[bobrocks95]

I spent years to hunt down Panasonic's last 16:9 EDTV plasma, but we have limited options here in the states and I will readily admit I'm crazy. It's great to use with the original Xbox and the Wii, and I stretch PS2/Gamecube games with homebrew, which is more a YMMV thing. It makes for a new experience personally, since I mostly play games from that era that I've played plenty of times before.

I'd still recommend an EDTV for people who play a lot of games from the 480p era and could easily get one, since it looks great, but a good 480p processor is probably the more reasonable option for most.

[andykara2003]

I can't get into anything but CRT for SD consoles - personally I haven't seen a flat panel that comes close to a really good CRT for SD. Josh's Samsung is the closest I've seen (I have one), but it's still a way off. I'd be interested to see how a decent 480p processor setup would fare with the Wii and the 6th gen stuff but apparently the the Wii is notoriously difficult to get a really good image out of with processors. The console has a reputation of having a rough video output but it looks absolutely gorgeous on the NEC/Metz.

Thinking about it, I don't think there are enough games I play on the Wii/6th gen for me to bother investing in a widescreen CRT though. I expect the Galaxy games will get an HD makeover one day and they're the ones I'm most interested in....

[Fudoh]

The next big thing will be upscalers with 4K output that offer customizable shaders for external sources.

[andykara2003]

I'd wondered about that - I imagine that this could be amazing.

[kamiboy]

720p, 1080p, 4k. Scaling to me will always be polishing a turd.

[andykara2003]

But the customisable shaders sound interesting. 4k will find finally provide enough resolution to emulate shadow masks well - and many of the CRT characteristics. Still, CRT all the way for me, or at least untill my main CRTs and their backups die off (hopefully far into the future).

[BazookaBen]

Yeah, I have 3 PVM's and a few hi-res PC CRT's, so I'm set for a while.

But I do look forward to the day when I can play all my consoles with HDMI mods on a 4k OLED.

[bobrocks95]

Maybe some day we'll have another non-fixed-pixel display type and solve the scaling problem in general. That's my current pipe dream.