Fudoh's ode to old display technology

[FinalBaton]

@Blair The official documentation for the NEC doesn't specify any TVL count, but I remember seeing somewhere 850 TVL being mentionned and according to my estimations, that seems about right (I personnally calculated 825 or so).

But the NEC is a huge ass screen! And 850 TVL on a 35 incher won't make for scanline as full as on a 20 incher with the same TVL count, when you look at the screen up close.

That said it's still an absolutely fine TVL count IMO. You have to take into order that you'll be sitting between 6 and 10 feet away from the screen, and from there the scanlines absolutely look full.

The slightly-rougher-than-a-great-PVM/BVM definition(but with still great colors and contrast), coupled with the fact that it's a slot shadowmask display, gives it a bit of an arcade feel, wich I love
(even though it doesn't have the same cell structure as a native 15kHz-only slot shadow mask)

[svensonson]

same here - picture on my bvm and NEC are really awesome but I love to play some arcade classics on the 15" Sharp CZ-613D multisync. not sure either how many TVL this one has but the colors and especially the black are stunning.

[Blair]

Here's a few close ups of my 20G1E, because why not, im bored.

beautiful screenshots AndehX! makes me want to pull out my copy of Metroid.



@FinalBaton and @svensonson


interesting, I'd love to see how graphics look on a shadowmask display (I haven't used one since the late 90s when I started buying Trinitron's). that's also one of the reasons I was thinking about buying the ViewSonic presentation monitor.

I have a 13 inch pvm that's really awesome, I've been trying to figure out how to mount it so I can play it while I'm in bed. ( but it will probably kill me if there's an earthquake ) (I might just try to get some type of shelf and put it next to my bed)

(here's some shots I took of it in action). (the pictures are kind of old, before I had a better idea of how photographing CRTs should be done)


[album link: https://imgur.com/a/J5ttQ ]

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[FinalBaton]

@FinalBaton and @svensonson


interesting, I'd love to see how graphics look on a shadowmask display (I haven't used one since the late 90s when I started buying Trinitron's). that's also one of the reasons I was thinking about buying the ViewSonic presentation monitor.

I will be buying a semi-decent point and shoot camera between now and the end of summer, and I'll take some pics of the NEC
(currently only have my phone, and it doesn't do it justice)

[svensonson]

I do havea Canon powershot g-whatever but I am not sure how to take proper 240p pictures with it (as you maybe already noticed in my recent posts )

[FinalBaton]

I do havea Canon powershot g-whatever but I am not sure how to take proper 240p pictures with it (as you maybe already noticed in my recent posts )

I think I'm gonna go with a Canon cam too. Katkya on here has a 2015 model Canon powershot(if I remember correctly) and he gets awesome CRT pictures out of it. It's not too expensive either, so it looks like good value.

For taking CRT pics, I think that :

1-Finding the right iso setting (this can be done rather quickly : just quickly take pics of the CRT with different iso settings and compare to find the best one)
2-Experimenting with shooting distances
3-Experimenting with shooting angles

are the main points to focus (ba-dum-tss!) on. I would recommend to focus pretty much on that only for a start, (so has to not waste too much time taking pics yet still getting decent results), and then as you get more experienced you can then try to tweak some more parameters' settings.

Of course, having a tripod is crucial.

That's my suggestion anyway. I'm not an expert photograph or anything though. But with the small experience I have, and from talking with people who do it right (as well as considering Phonedork's input on the matter), this is what I recommend going with.

[AndehX]

I use iso 200 when taking pics with my phone (see last page for my pics)

[Ed Oscuro]

If you want to get the most out of a camera it's worth looking up user research on what the "native" ISO steps are, and using the lowest one that delivers good results for your scene (within the f-number and shutter speed you need to use). Some cameras don't actually improve when stepping down from ISO 200 to 100, while others have their "native" ISO settings in steps like 80, 160, 320, etc. instead of the usual 100-200-400. Note that the ISO settings are there for a reason - don't use ISO 100 when you need to use ISO 400.

The settings process I choose when shooting CRTs is this:
1) Shutter speed first (so that the screen looks right, that possibly means a long shutter speed like 1/20 second)
2) Aperture second (bring it to the lowest value that makes it look as sharp as needed, no more, so e.g. move from f5.6 to f7.1 for more sharpness, but moving from f8 to f11 won't normally help and actually hurts sharpness for in-focus detail)
Adjust focus at this step as needed.
3) ISO aka film speed third (bump it up just as high as necessary using "brightness" as a rough guide - ideally using the in-camera histogram and ETTR)

[Charlie97L]

Hey I'm checking out a couple BVM's tomorrow near me at a recycler... they do have a few tiny marks on the screen, which I see from reading through this thread is likely the film. Is it hard to remove it?

Thanks!

[Mantis128]

Hello, I've been looking into RGB monitors and right now they're very high up on my "things I want to buy" list with the XM29 and 20F1U being my goal. I'm wondering, just how many hours RGB monitors can handle before they lose their color and sharpness? The last thing I want is to drop a large sum of money on a monitor that only has a month left.

On the subject of CRTs, last month I got a hardly used Phillips CRT with component input. It looks fantastic; but for some reason Mario 64 and Starfox 64 (PAL) come up letterboxed.

[kamiboy]

CRT's are generally pretty resilient. My Astro City is from the mid 90's, and prolly has seen many thousands of hours of use, but it still looks pretty nice. Pro and industrial monitors are made of tougher stuff than even that. A BVM is good for many tens of thousands of hours.

[DoomsDave]

Hello, I've been looking into RGB monitors and right now they're very high up on my "things I want to buy" list with the XM29 and 20F1U being my goal. I'm wondering, just how many hours RGB monitors can handle before they lose their color and sharpness? The last thing I want is to drop a large sum of money on a monitor that only has a month left.

My BVM has 67,000+ hours and still looks pretty good to me.

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Just remember that these monitors are designed to basically be turned on 24/7 so they're really tough. There is no way you are going to be able to put any kind of significant hours onto it yourself. If you left it on for an entire year without turning it off you would only add 8.5k hours.

[Blair]

On the subject of CRTs, last month I got a hardly used Phillips CRT with component input. It looks fantastic; but for some reason Mario 64 and Starfox 64 (PAL) come up letterboxed.

that's a common problem with PAL games games, (I forgot what the exact reason was) what inputs are you using to play them? (composite, s-video, SCART RGB, component)

[Charlie97L]

PAL has a higher resolution (576p) so there's extra space. Sometimes it stretches stuff, sometimes borders.

[atheistgod1999]

PAL has a higher resolution (576p)

576i*

[maximo310]

*576p as well

[Blair]

adjusted the sharpness/contrast and color settings on the VP50, is it my imagination or do these look almost as digital as emulator output?

it's almost "too sharp" but for some games with blurry digitized graphics (Jurassic Park, killer instinct) I think these settings will look pretty amazing.

[album link: https://imgur.com/a/NIxlZ ]

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Camera Settings: ISO 400, White Balance: sunny, Focus: manual,  Resolution: 5m (2560x1920)  4:3 (compressed for the thread)

(blur on the last one is because my hands are bit shaky)

[peterwright1234]

Question about jittery image on BVM d24e1wj: I was looking at the picture on my bvm really closely and noticed that it has a wierd jittery shimmer on the edge of bright pixels. I noticed on ps1 and snes rgb signals. Does anybody know what this means? Is it fixable easily or should I get a technician to look at it?

[AndehX]

If it's what I think it is then I'm not sure it can be fixed. My 20G1E has it too.

[Mantis128]

On the subject of CRTs, last month I got a hardly used Phillips CRT with component input. It looks fantastic; but for some reason Mario 64 and Starfox 64 (PAL) come up letterboxed.

that's a common problem with PAL games games, (I forgot what the exact reason was) what inputs are you using to play them? (composite, s-video, SCART RGB, component)

For the 64 I use composite. All my other PAL games display correctly, is there any reason Starfox and Mario would be different?

[atheistgod1999]

On the subject of CRTs, last month I got a hardly used Phillips CRT with component input. It looks fantastic; but for some reason Mario 64 and Starfox 64 (PAL) come up letterboxed.

that's a common problem with PAL games games, (I forgot what the exact reason was) what inputs are you using to play them? (composite, s-video, SCART RGB, component)

For the 64 I use composite. All my other PAL games display correctly, is there any reason Starfox and Mario would be different?

They weren't optimized for PAL's higher vertical resolution; instead of rendering in the higher resolution, it's just rendered at the NTSC resolution and padded by the unused lines above and below it.

[Shoryukev]

I got my RGB SCART cables for a few systems and tried out my 14" PVM in RGB for the first time last night. No wonder you guys are all so obsessed with RGB!!!

I was kinda surprised that the color and sharpness controls of the PVM were locked out using the RGBS input, but I assume that's because the input is just pure color and pixel location data so it isn't needed by nature of the connection. Oh well....at least it keeps me from adding a bunch of noise into the signal trying to sharpen it too much LOL!

I didn't get a whole lot of gaming in (I have two small kids), but I at least got to play some Street Fighter 2 Turbo on my SNES a bit.

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[AndehX]

I actually never realised that using an external camera app was sigificantly better than using your phones built in camera app. Very suprised how close I can get to the screen using my phone now lol

[Shoryukev]

I actually never realised that using an external camera app was sigificantly better than using your phones built in camera app. Very suprised how close I can get to the screen using my phone now lol

Wow that is rather good! Which app are you using for that? I'd like to give it a try

[FinalBaton]

Happy to see you're digging your RGB monitor Shoryukev

[Shoryukev]

Happy to see you're digging your RGB monitor Shoryukev

Me too! LOL

Thanks to everyone who helped answer my questions to get to this point. I knew there would be a difference between CRT TV's and an RGB monitor, but I didn't expect it to be this much of a difference.

I did most of my gaming the last couple years on a mame cabinet I built. I just set my consoles on the control panel when I'm using them (if I'm not using the sticks)........now it's got me thinking about rebuilding it around a 20" PVM/BVM (or a larger one if I can find it). I put a lot of work into it (and used 3/4" plywood, it's rock solid) it so I'd like to keep using it......but that 32" TV has to go!!! Maybe one day I can find an XM29 and slap it in there.

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[Mantis128]

Has anyone ever seen a NEC XM37? I can't even find a picture of one, let alone a story of someone actually finding one.

[atheistgod1999]

Has anyone ever seen a NEC XM37? I can't even find a picture of one, let alone a story of someone actually finding one.

Someone on here has one.

[xga]

Has anyone ever seen a NEC XM37? I can't even find a picture of one, let alone a story of someone actually finding one.

I picked up a NEC XP37 yesterday. It's practically the same as a XM37 as far as I'm aware, but supports a few more higher resolutions and has OSD.

[Mantis128]

Besides the NECs, what are some good 35+ giant CRT TV\monitors?