PVM Monitor question

[Roler]

Hello!

I have the chance to buy a PVM 20L4 or a PVM 20M4E.

Which one is "better"? I know the M4 was recently used in a studio and the seller of the L4 has a bunch of PVM's laying around.

First time getting a professional crt so any help is appreciated!

[ryu]

iirc the l4 is the successor to the m4, so it's newer

[Ed Oscuro]

For our purposes there's probably no difference at all in quality. There might be some difference in TV lines but this hasn't been a perfect guide to image quality.

iirc the l4 is the successor to the m4, so it's newer

I'll have to hunt down some brochures, but there appears to be a 20L2, a 20L4, and of course there is also the 20L5. This looks like a line dedicated for video pros / image editors.
The M series seem to be medical monitors, I think. If you want to be able to spot the difference, the medical monitors seem to often have a white cabinet, instead of the light to dark gray of pro video / broadcast monitors.

Additionally, I believe the PVM20L4 (pre-1997, I think) could be older than the PVM 20M4- series. Depends partially on when hospitals started switching over to LCD monitors; you don't really need some of a PVM's qualities to interpret many medical images, and the LCD format has many beneficial qualities for a hospital setting compared to a CRT. Compare this with video / broadcast engineering / image editing professionals who only have started to accept flat panel displays in this decade, and then only grudgingly (as I was reminded again lately, there's still a tradeoff between a fast panel and good viewing angles, as one has to pick between panel technologies like TN and IPS).

There don't seem to be PVM 20M5 or a PVM 20L3 monitors - looking forward to the day when I will do an internet search for these models and this post shows up, rather than posts by people who recommend these likely-nonexistent monitors, getting the L and M series mixed up apparently. There is a PVM 14L3, so probably Sony just skipped refreshing the 20-inch series there, and perhaps a reduced expense of upgrading means that small monitors were easier to justify refreshing than large ones. Don't know what pricing was like at the outset for 14 versus 20 inch models. There are also many other monitors with confusing four-number names, which I don't know anything about - these seem to be older.

[22point8]

30 series (2030q)= mid 80's (although that model was produced for a long time 1986-95)
40 series (2044qm)= late 80s
50 series (2054qm)= mid 90's
M series (20M4)= late 90's
L series (20L4)= early 00's

[Ed Oscuro]

Groovy post! (Is there some kind of simple database I could check, or is that just based on long study of the units?)

L series (20L4)= early 00's

Hmm, must have been just at the turn of the century. 2002 might be the first year of PVM 20L5 production.

I see that it's a mistake to call the M series medical monitors - the medical monitors all seem to have -MD at the end of the name. The ones people mention usually seem to be from the older series, but apparently even by the L series they were still being made, i.e. the 20L2MD.

[Fudoh]

Groovy post! (Is there some kind of simple database I could check, or is that just based on long study of the units?)

A good start is to check the official catalogues. In the Pro catalogue from 2000 (for PAL countries), the following monitors were listed available (among others):

BVM-D series (e.g. BVM-D24F1)
BVM standard series (e.g. BVM-20F1)
PVM-2950QM
PVM-20S1 / M4 / M2 / N6
PGM-200R (PGM-2950 successor).

[Ed Oscuro]

Yeah, I was just hoping there was some centralized, simple resource to check. I know about the catalogues, although it's easy to find ones that are revisions and can be misleading when the actual dates of introduction were earlier