Best shadow mask CRTs

[atheistgod1999]

TL;DR: Can you recommend good RGB and/or NTSC consumer shadow mask monitors? Also,

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shadow masks have incredibly good convergence and geometry

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A couple weeks ago, I found a 20" Panasonic 600-line consumer CRT TV (CT-20G8G) manufactured in 2003 with Composite and S-Video input just lying on the sidewalk a block from my house. I took it home and was blown away. Just look at these pics!

Note 1: I set the sharpness to the lowest possible setting and set the rest to the exact medium for the PS2, and turned up the brightness for my AV Famicom to compensate for the lower IRE.

Note 2: There's some dirt that's really hard to remove on the bottom part of the screen. I haven't seen it in my pictures, but you might notice it.



Megaman X PS2 via S-Video (I got the collection back when I was hesitant to completely getting into retro gaming and didn't want to get any consoles older than PS2. I'm going to get the SNES version and play that instead):

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Gradius NES on AV Famicom via Composite:

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This thing has better convergence and geometry than I can set on my BVM-20F1U. The convergence is so good I can't even notice any issues unless I look look super close, and even then I have to be looking for problems to notice due to how minor they are (fraction of a pixel at worst) at the extreme CORNERS. I can't even notice any issues with the geometry, no matter how hard I look.

Ever since I first started getting CRTs again, I always wondered why I never noticed any convergence or geometry issues on the CRT I used for hours on a daily basis up until summer 2010 if horrible convergence and geometry issues were normal for consumer CRTs (that's the reason I upgraded to a BVM). I'm starting to get the answer: there were none.

When using the set, I felt nostalgia, as if this was how it was supposed to look like, so it definitely looked extremely close to the CRTs I saw back in the day. I realized as I was copying and pasting the huge amount of images (I wanted to make sure every area of the screen was clearly visible close-up) that this is actually the exact same model my grandma had up until ~2012, and I never noticed any convergence or geometry issues on that, either, and we visited her fairly often. I'm also starting to remember this being our model until ~2005, so I actually used it a huge amount myself (watched all my preschool shows on it, for instance).

I think the answer lies in the shadow mask this set, and almost every other set, used. It seems that issues with Trinitrons are common while shadow mask monitors are much better with convergence and geometry. I can't find much info, but from what I've read online shadow masks are sharper. I'd love to find the CRT model we had (my parents don't remember the model number or even the brand, but they remember it's 30-something inches. I remember that the brand is Toshiba, the casing is silver, it has composite and stereo inputs on the front left, its speakers are to the left and right of the screen, and it's curved) because I don't remember it being any better or worse than this one, and I remember seeing S-Video and Component inputs on the back (when I first found out about the different inputs, something felt vaguely familiar when I got my first S-Video cable, and I specifically remember the red, green, and blue RCA ports on the back).

I was also wondering why I never noticed just how bad composite was. I remember it being blurry, but not extremely blurry or having tons of artifacts or washed out colors. This TV handles composite how I remember it: as being much sharper and more colorful (I was pretty wrong about the whole NES composite colors thing; they're a lot more colorful than your HDTV or BVM or PVM or even Framemeister will show you).

So, anyway, I just wrote up the War and Peace of thread starter posts. It took my whole afternoon to write (and take pictures of the TV because all I had to use was my POS phone that sucks at focusing on things). What are some good RGB shadow mask monitors (or just consumer ones that were sold in the USA) besides the NEC XM29 or Plus?

[Ed Oscuro]

Good job for finding and saving a working TV. As for the question...well, if it looks good, there's not a lot more that you can do. Higher-spec TVs will fall into one of two camps: Better definition for appropriate sources, or different characteristics. Since you like the look of this TV, it's fair to say that you don't mind shadow mask. For "better definition," that will only really come into play if you start to deal with higher resolution consoles. 240p is more than adequately served by most any good shadow mask TV. The only thing missing out of most consumer TVs is RGB functionality, but for most consoles it's not really necessary, in my opinion, but that's up to the user to decide.

[Taiyaki]

Looks gorgeous.

I don't think Shadow Mask sets have any better convergence or geometry but they do have a different look up close. However it does seem like the round tv's do tend to have less noticeable corner geometry problems than the flat screens that are mostly Aperture Grille sets. I think the tradeoff is slightly less crisp colors usually (and I could be wrong).

Fantastic find congratz.

[FinalBaton]

II agree that composite looks fine on some consoles. PS1 comes to mind. it's composite signal is beautiful, barely any dot crawl and noise. The difference, compared to RGB, is that colors blend into one another and you loose a good chunk of nuances due to this, plus some color accuracy, but it still looks fine.

The NES toaster composite signal, however, I do not like. Lots of dot crawl and noise. Maybe it's my particular units?
But the composite encoded from the NESRGB chip looks just as good as the PS1 though.


Congrats on your find ag99. It's such and awesome feeling to find a display that makes one happy

[atheistgod1999]

So wait, this doesn't even have relatively good convergence or geometry despite being almost literally perfect? My pictures clearly showed that the phosphors stayed perfectly aligned even at the corners (only are a little off in a small area in the middle of the very bottom of the screen, and even then I have a hard time noticing it even when looking for it). I've never seen a trinitron IRL or on this forum or anywhere else that has even close to perfect convergence or geometry, not even pvms or bvms. Is it that you people think scanlines are first priority? I don't even like those and I've even seen them on my bvm quite clearly (as well as RGB) and I couldn't care less; if anything, they wear out the phosphor coating in the rows being scanned faster due to being more focused and therefore, brighter.

[FinalBaton]

atheistgod : Why would the shadow mask tech have better geometry than the aperture grill tech?

please explain that one to me because I don't get it

[atheistgod1999]

Why would the shadow mask tech have better geometry than the aperture grill tech?

I used a shadow mask CRT for hours daily for years and never noticed any convergence or geometry problems. However, every trinitron I've seen has very noticeable convergence and geometry issues. The first shadow mask I find has no issues. I've also seen a few people online say shadow masks have better convergence and geometry but never the opposite (and I specifically searched this biased towards aperture grilles).

[FinalBaton]

Why would the shadow mask tech have better geometry than the aperture grill tech?

I used a shadow mask CRT for hours daily for years and never noticed any convergence or geometry problems. However, every trinitron I've seen has very noticeable convergence and geometry issues. The first shadow mask I find has no issues. I've also seen a few people online say shadow masks have better convergence and geometry but never the opposite (and I specifically searched this biased towards aperture grilles).

I like shadowmask CRTs too, but I fail to see how exactly their make gives them better geometry. Hopefully someone with better technical knowledge will confirm of deny this.

BTW I play on a shadowmask CRT everyday. The geometry is pretty good on it, but it's not perfect. Although those little tweak can probably all be done in the service menu, I just haven't gotten to it yet (except horizontal linearity, but it's not bad on my set. there's just a tiny bit of a problem there but it's barely noticeable, you really have to focus on it to notice it. Overall I think I really lucked out with this set).

But you know what other tubes give you plenty of geometry adjustment in the service menu?
TOTL consumer Sony Trinitron flat screens CRTs. Everything but horizontal linearity is adjusteable on these through the regular menu + the service menu

[Xyga]

Why would the shadow mask tech have better geometry than the aperture grill tech?

I used a shadow mask CRT for hours daily for years and never noticed any convergence or geometry problems. However, every trinitron I've seen has very noticeable convergence and geometry issues. The first shadow mask I find has no issues. I've also seen a few people online say shadow masks have better convergence and geometry but never the opposite (and I specifically searched this biased towards aperture grilles).

Curved vs. flat makes sense in regards to geometry, not mask vs. aperture.

[bobrocks95]

I've never seen a trinitron IRL or on this forum or anywhere else that has even close to perfect convergence or geometry, not even pvms or bvms. Is it that you people think scanlines are first priority?

This thread is reminding me that I'm not a fan of shadow masks. I honestly wouldn't trade an aperture grille for perfect geometry, I prefer the look that much. It's a preference thing so I'm not saying you're wrong, but the overall look is much more pleasing to the point that I can ignore what I would consider to be minor faults.

But you know what other tubes give you plenty of geometry adjustment in the service menu?
TOTL consumer Sony Trinitron flat screens CRTs. Everything but horizontal linearity is adjusteable on these through the regular menu + the service menu

I have some more minor problems than horizontal linearity that can't be adjusted in the service menu on my FV310, but horizontal linearity and convergence issues (which I need to get some convergence strips for) are definitely the bigger problems. My assumption is that problems exist because my brother and I beat the ever loving s**t out of the set getting it down the woman I bought it from's steps.

The NES toaster composite signal, however, I do not like. Lots of dot crawl and noise. Maybe it's my particular units?
But the composite encoded from the NESRGB chip looks just as good as the PS1 though.

The NES makes a trade-off of dot crawl to get a sharper image, that's just how the encoder is. It's the sharpest composite source I've ever seen, not that that's saying much. This was discussed in some old thread on here at some point.

[Taiyaki]

Why would the shadow mask tech have better geometry than the aperture grill tech?

I used a shadow mask CRT for hours daily for years and never noticed any convergence or geometry problems. However, every trinitron I've seen has very noticeable convergence and geometry issues. The first shadow mask I find has no issues. I've also seen a few people online say shadow masks have better convergence and geometry but never the opposite (and I specifically searched this biased towards aperture grilles).

First of all who said bigger scanlines are better? I also prefer consumer sets to PVM/BVM's. It's not just scanlines, the entire look is more organic to me and less of that emulated scanlines look when sitting at proper viewing distance.


Now as for the difference between the two technologies, I can guarantee you can get near perfect convergence + geometry on a good aperture grille. Keep in mind absolute perfect geometry is just impossible. The goal should be to get all the lines around the edges and then down center straight but you will have some parts of the picture that might appear to warp when pictures scroll in some direction or other in some games, but this is unavoidable and part of the nature of this technology, even on BVM's (something I learned the hard way).

A proper calibrated aperture grille looks exactly like your set, you have to put your nose to the screen and look at the corners and focus on the picture to see unconverged lines. I have 2 sets that I worked on with some help that look exactly like that (I should take some pictures at some point). You've probably just had bad luck with Aperture Grille sets. Truth is even with a brand new set you need to work on some parts of the picture to get it near perfect and this requires manually working on the insides. It's possible your set was calibrated by a pro at some point and that's why it looks so good. I doubt it came out of the box like that to be honest.