Fudoh's ode to old display technology

[Fudoh]

absolutely. There were just a handful of players using the ABT102 processor and they were all excellent.

[Xyga]

I may have an excellent processor and a good TV, I still gave up on physical discs some time ago after my Nth player croaked.
All the playing is done from a PC now and it's looking even better without all that stuff.
Although it bothers me to rely on emulation too much for games, for movies watching I don't care anymore. :p

[KatKya]

or is there a certain recommended brand to look for on ebay and just buy what's available?

I think we established that for movie DVDs many current BD players are pretty good as well, e.g. the Sony ones and even the cheaper ones.

For DVD players the problem is that we didn't get the same models as you got in the US and if we got them they had different model descriptions. A bit hard to recommend something.

I wouldn't exactly call it recent, but how would you say something like a slim PS3 (cech-3000 or so) would do? Would it even work for that, I actually haven't tested it myself.

[FinalBaton]

I am stucked with this old mentality of needing physical copys on my shelf

But I have to say that I'm a little sketptical over your pc performance claim : movies on the net that are not yet released on Blu-Ray also had to be deinterlaced at some point (most probably during the capture/upload process). Now why would deinterlacing done by a PC be better than that of a standalone unit like a VP30, or a high end dvd player?

Same goes for the scaling process : wether it's done at the capture step or not, and whatever resolution you set your desktop as : why would it be handled better than by a stand alone processor or high end dvd player?



Only way is if the capture/upload process is done using a stand alone processor in the first place. I don't think average Joe uploading stuff would do this. That leaves legit content providers like Hulu, Netflix, Crunchyroll etc. But who knows if they went through this effort? Maybe some did but I couldn't tell you whom

[Fudoh]

I wouldn't exactly call it recent, but how would you say something like a slim PS3 (cech-3000 or so) would do?

bad, really bad.

[Fudoh]

Now why would deinterlacing done by a PC be better than that of a standalone unit like a VP30, or a high end dvd player?

it's nowhere close, BUT 90% of DVDs from 2002 onwards are progressive anyway, meaning that the actual MPEG2 stream just contains the 24 progressive frames and the player does a soft telecine when set to 480i output. Actual deinterlacing on PCs is crappy. You can get good movie deinterlacing if you put a lot of energy into it, but video deinterlacing on a PC is shamefully bad.

Same goes for the scaling process

scaling can be quite ok on a PC, especially if you're using avisynth live processing. But it's far from plug and play and anything standard players like Kodi, MPC or VLC can deliver isn't worth mentioning.

[Xyga]

Yeah you can find excellent rips and use a decent setup and player, it's not like genuine home cinema but much better than TV at least, it's also a matter of how much you care about having all your movies looking and sounding as good as possible, or just watch movies in good conditions without thinking about a million of technical things.
I quickly grew tired of hunting for 'right' releases and cheap discs full of ads and bugged crap that require about 5 devices including the display to run and look relatively right. Gave almost everything I had to my father, I can bother doing that sort of stuff for video games but not for movies really.

[FinalBaton]

or just watch movies in good conditions without thinking about a million of technical things.

This is a valid point and I can totally understand that

I personnally don't mind doing a bit of research on wich release has the best PQ. It's kind of fun to me actually. Like a treasure hunt
I recently ordered the Dirty Pair, Original OVA Series dvd and I found out while doing some research that the Nozomi release is remastered, and saw very positive comments about it. So that got me stoked! I ordered it, burning in anticipation like a kid on christmas eve, lol. When I got it, that really made my day. And indeed it looks fantastic *thumbs up*

[Xyga]

or just watch movies in good conditions without thinking about a million of technical things.

This is a valid point for sure

Freaking out about the colors and grain after 2 minutes into a movie is what stopped me from going further into the AV stuff.

[davidwhangchoi]

Hi guys, i'm new to the forum and this is my first post:

i just brought a Sony BVM 20G1U for a really great deal a few weeks ago

and wanted to share some observations of my set:
i posted this in neoGAF and just want to copy and paste it here to get more exposure:

this past week on mySony BVM 20g1u, i had an issue of discoloration on the upper right corner of the screen. brown/green stain most noticeable on white backgrounds.

i tried the degauss button and the color would go away and come back in a few seconds.


i discovered in the alignment menu that if i used the on screen rotation 00-255

(rotate max to the right = 00 and rotating max to the left = value of 255) if i rotate toward the value of 00 the upper right hand corner becomes darker brown. and if i rotate to the other end maximum value of 255 which rotates the screen clockwise the lower right corner becomes dark brown while the right hand corner stain disappears and vice versa. if i but the value is set right in the middle of 00-255=127/8, it eliminates the discoloration of both upper and lower right corners. however the top portion of the screen is slightly crooked.

how i discovered this:
i noticed that if i hit the degauss button while the picture is rotated to the extreme values right or left the picture is auto centered exactly at the value of 127/128 for a few seconds w/ the discoloration disappearing for a few seconds. but once it reverts back to the original extreme angle it was set at, the discoloration returns.

so i decided to set the rotation number to exactly match the angle when the picture auto centers temporary when hitting the degauss button.

though it took away the discoloration, i'm limited to living with a slight angled top screen (very minimal)

has anyone have an issue of brown/green discoloration appearing in corners of a white screen while using the rotation alignment function?

anyways thanks in advance and nice to be part of these boards w/ a BVM=)
david

[bobrocks95]

I'll defer to other people, but a brown/yellowish discoloration on a white screen sounds like a purity issue doesn't it?

[accaris]

I'll defer to other people, but a brown/yellowish discoloration on a white screen sounds like a purity issue doesn't it?

Actually it sounds like screen burn or phosphor end-of-life to me, probably caused by running too long with overdriven contrast or brightness.

[davidwhangchoi]

I'll defer to other people, but a brown/yellowish discoloration on a white screen sounds like a purity issue doesn't it?

Actually it sounds like screen burn or phosphor end-of-life to me, probably caused by running too long with overdriven contrast or brightness.

i see... that maybe it, i paid a 100 for the set so it's not to big of a risk. i do see a slight burn in pattern of the 16:9 80 scale safe area shaped frame corner rectangles (barely seen on a static super bright white background)
so far, setting the rotation mathematically half of 255 there's no green/brown corners.


another observation i discovered was experimenting taking off the 75 ohm terminators while playing ps2 via component w/ rca to bnc adaptors and genesis w/ stereo RGB SCART with boosted sync TV lead to Female RGB Euro SCART to 4 BNC:

i noticed when removing the snyc terminator, the alignment horizontal phase shifted to the right a bit and the geometry/rotation straightened out a bit in the upper right side horizontally and the top vertical geometry that slightly bowed in the middle, straightened out a bit. (though the picture contrast shot up and bloomed, had to temp dial down the contrast.)

i'm so new at this but it's pretty fun tinkering w/ this CRT.

[daydreamnation]

Hey all,

First-time poster, long-time lurker. Since we're on the topic of troubleshooting, I have nice PVM that has a weird way of leaving "streaks" to the right of text/graphics in certain situations - but not others. See here:





What's weird here is that you see the effect happening when the background is grey but not when it's green.

Any ideas? I think/hope it's not a hardware issue but maybe I need to re-calibrate the monitor?

[Ed Oscuro]

Try wiggling the connectors, gently. (Somebody else has a similar problem recently, and I suggested this, but I didn't recall seeing a positive diagnosis.)

[Guspaz]

What type of connection is that? Streaking to the right is normal on weak signals, or on stuff that's overcompressed like the colour signal for S-Video. If that's component or s-video, maybe your luma signal is weak/noisy/etc.

[daydreamnation]

Hey guys, thanks for the input. It's over RGB SCART then with a SCART-BNC connector. Seems to be regardless of system. I'm still puzzled by the fact the streaking only seems to appear against certain backgrounds, and not others...?

[Guspaz]

So if you're trying two different systems, that's two different RGB SCART cables, and it happens with both?

That would seem to indicate it's either with the SCART-BNC connector, or the monitor itself.

Does your PVM support component? Can you try directly with component video from a console that supports it natively?

[werk91]

My back still aches from carrying a Sony KD28DL11U consumer CRT up three floors last night. Good thing my friend was there to help It was left right outside of my door with its original stand. After a good clean (it was just starting to rain) and leaving it to settle for a bit I turned it on. AV in doesn't seem to accept my Famicom at all. Tried the RGB in with the MD and picture is fantastic. Its set in Wide mode and I can't make it go to 4:3 until I get a remote for it though.. Unfortunately its not all great as there is discolouration in the right corner. You can see it on this photo.
Its self degaussing doesn't seem to be able to fix it as I tried unplugging it and leaving it for some time then turning it on. I read online that using another CRT that has a degauss function can be held directly in front and then it can degaus itself and whatever is in front of it too ?? I do happen to have a CRT monitor that has Degauss in its menu. Maybe if I can get it to switch to 4:3 it wouldn't matter as that area will just be not visible anyway. Happy with my find in any case. It has some sweet scanlines too

[FinalBaton]

Yay! I love a good CRT rescue story ^_^ Enjoy, looks like you got a nice one

[werk91]

I'm very excited to spend some hours on it! As long as I can remove the discolouration or set the active area to not be affected by it

[nem]

Its self degaussing doesn't seem to be able to fix it as I tried unplugging it and leaving it for some time then turning it on. I read online that using another CRT that has a degauss function can be held directly in front and then it can degaus itself and whatever is in front of it too ??

Alternatively you can get a cheap degaussing wand from Aliexpress. They go for as little as $5 including shipping.

I have one. Worked like a charm on a wonky monitor I had.

[werk91]

Its self degaussing doesn't seem to be able to fix it as I tried unplugging it and leaving it for some time then turning it on. I read online that using another CRT that has a degauss function can be held directly in front and then it can degaus itself and whatever is in front of it too ??

Alternatively you can get a cheap degaussing wand from Aliexpress. They go for as little as $5 including shipping.

I have one. Worked like a charm on a wonky monitor I had.

I did thought about that but what if I cause even more trouble ? Isn't it supposed to be a special technique you need to use ?

[KatKya]

Hey all,

First-time poster, long-time lurker. Since we're on the topic of troubleshooting, I have nice PVM that has a weird way of leaving "streaks" to the right of text/graphics in certain situations - but not others. See here:





What's weird here is that you see the effect happening when the background is grey but not when it's green.

Any ideas? I think/hope it's not a hardware issue but maybe I need to re-calibrate the monitor?

Signal reflections from improper termination/flaky grounding?

[daydreamnation]

Hey thanks again all. I've used two different SCART-BNC cables, tried rotating the connectors and had no success, so I'm struggling a bit.

I suppose the next thing will be to try a different video input method? I'll also try connecting to a flatscreen with my SCART lead to rule that out as well.

I was hoping it would just be a change within the PVM settings but it's sounding like that's not the case?

Thanks again for any bright ideas...

[nakedarthur]

I'm definitely more of a CRT person, but I happened to run into a Pioneer PDP-V402 locally so I went ahead and grabbed it. Only 640 hours on it according to the timer, and it came in the original box. It's just missing the feet stands. I was mainly interested in it for shmups and arcade stuff, so the first thing I tried to hook up was my GroovyMAME PC. I built a VGA to SCART cable using this wiring that works great with my PVM and consumer CRT with Component transcoder, but I don't get any picture with it plugged into RGB 1. I next tried RGB 2 with a straight VGA cable, and the picture showed up!

I'm wondering though, are RGB 1 and 2 any different? I saw in the service manual that RGB 1 is supposed to have a "SCART RGB" setting, but I don't see it in the menu on my unit. I did check the input with some consoles and it worked fine, so it must not like the sync on my cable or something. The reason I ask is because I'm having trouble with some games that work fine on my CRTs, namely DonPachi and Mortal Kombat. According to GroovyMAME they both have sort of non-standard refresh at 57hz, and when I attempt to play them on RGB 2 I get a black screen with a "Out of Range!" message. I've looked in the manual and it's pretty vague about what exactly is supported, but I at least wanted to try both inputs. Any ideas?

Donkey Kong in TATE mode is pretty epic. Feels like you're climbing the tower yourself With 3ft ice chest for scale..

[Thamiel]

Nice pick up man, been looking for one here in Australia for years. Starting to think they never made it down here.

[cyborc]

Hey thanks again all. I've used two different SCART-BNC cables, tried rotating the connectors and had no success, so I'm struggling a bit.

I suppose the next thing will be to try a different video input method? I'll also try connecting to a flatscreen with my SCART lead to rule that out as well.

I was hoping it would just be a change within the PVM settings but it's sounding like that's not the case?

Thanks again for any bright ideas...

I had the same issue with one of my PVMs. (20M2MDU) I never did figure out why it did that.

[kamiboy]

Try turning down contrast.

[Fudoh]

@nakedarthur: you could try running MAME linedoubled instead. It wouldn't make a difference in terms of quality and maybe the accepted input range on the PDP is higher around the 31khz mark than it is with 15khz sources.

The difference between the two RGB inputs should just be which sync types are accepted and what termination options you have. Next to the inputs you have two switches. One's for choosing SoG (I think) and the other is a termination switch and they're both just available for one of the inputs.

I never exactly found out what the SCART option is good for. I assume it allows to feed composite video as sync.