Fudoh's ode to old display technology

[FinalBaton]

Got a Sony KV-25XBR recently, and I'm over the moon with it. Picture is so damn awesome. I was worried for a bit since it's "only" 500 lines of horizontal resolution. But I was a fool. Scanlines are lovely, they're soft, so you barely see the blanked lines. But I love that actually. Yet phosphors are still packed decently close together

Whites are TORCHING yet everything is well balanced, great contrast, colors are toned down when they need to be yet still fairly rich, and VERY saturated when they need to. It's no BVM, but dammit is it ever FUN. Geometry is also amazing except for upper left corner that has some bowing(only say the upper 1/12th of the picture is compressed on the left side, and everything under looks super solid). No linearity problem, no noticeable distortion. Scrolling appears very even and smooth in all directions. Owners took care of it and it was lightly used they say, and I can believe that. Tube is still extremely vibrant and sharp

It is 25" viewable and it's a screen size that I've been wanting for a while (between 25" to 27") : pretty decent screen real estate yet super easy to roll around on a cart. It also has external speakers that sound quite decent I must say. and a pot to adjust the picture position horizontally, which is extremely useful when switching between different consoles. I had the PVM-2950 on my wishlist, which has 2 extra inches of viewable screen size and supposedly a picture that's a bit better, but I'm not even sure I'm gonna bother at this point. I'd probably have to massively overpay for a big PVM. I guess if a miracle happens and I find a cheap one I'll get it but for now, mu prosumer Sony makes me completely forget about the PVM-2950

I'm so damn excited right now, lol. Here's a not super great pic I took of it, sorry for the bluriness. Please see the link I provide below of nakedarthurs' set and some other guy's, their pics of the set are better than mine.


Link of the full-sized pic below : https://i.cubeupload.com/1bnNbK.jpg




photos of the set by nakedarthur : https://imgur.com/a/d6pLI#S8CRkrE
photos of the set by woolog : https://imgur.com/gallery/ret3Z

[Xyga]

Got a Sony KV-25XBR recently, and I'm over the moon with it. Picture is so damn awesome. I was worried for a bit since it's "only" 500 lines of horizontal resolution. But I was a fool. Scanlines are lovely, they're soft, so you barely see the blanked lines. But I love that actually. Yet phosphors are still packed decently close together

I've always much prefered that over those 800 lines or so monsters that look too artificial, this is closer to what arcade monitors and european rgb tvs look, and in no way a blurry mess. For '240p' this is the best choice.
25" is also my favourite size, sad they're harder to find now.
Treasure it!

[MKL]

Got a Sony KV-25XBR recently, and I'm over the moon with it. Picture is so damn awesome. I was worried for a bit since it's "only" 500 lines of horizontal resolution. But I was a fool. Scanlines are lovely, they're soft, so you barely see the blanked lines. But I love that actually. Yet phosphors are still packed decently close together

I've always much prefered that over those 800 lines or so monsters that look too artificial, this is closer to what arcade monitors and european rgb tvs look, and in no way a blurry mess. For '240p' this is the best choice.
25" is also my favourite size, sad they're harder to find now.
Treasure it!

I agree completely and always shake my head when people (mostly Americans who grew up using composite video) drool over the thick blank lines look of professional monitors and PC monitors through upscalers. To me nothing beats the picture you get from a Sony RGB capable TV from the late 80s/early 90s like the first scart models based on the SX1, RX2 and AE1 chassis which look the same as a PVM-2730 and surely also as a KV-25XBR (which I've never seen being a US model).

The 25" US Sonys have the same size as the European 27" Sonys (64cm viewable screen) and were no longer made after 1988-89 when 29" (US 27") was introduced. European 25" have 59cm screens.

[Einzelherz]

For many of us Americans a fine dot pitch CRT pc monitor was the first time we every had a chance to see blanking lines. That could be where some of the preference comes from.

[FinalBaton]

I've always much prefered that over those 800 lines or so monsters that look too artificial, this is closer to what arcade monitors and european rgb tvs look, and in no way a blurry mess. For '240p' this is the best choice.
25" is also my favourite size, sad they're harder to find now.
Treasure it!

Thanks man! yeah I will, don't worry! It's totally my baby now, haha

I agree completely and always shake my head when people (mostly Americans who grew up using composite video) drool over the thick blank lines look of professional monitors and PC monitors through upscalers. To me nothing beats the picture you get from a Sony RGB capable TV from the late 80s/early 90s like the first scart models based on the SX1, RX2 and AE1 chassis which look the same as a PVM-2730 and surely also as a KV-25XBR (which I've never seen being a US model).

The 25" US Sonys have the same size as the European 27" Sonys (64cm viewable screen) and were no longer made after 1988-89 when 29" (US 27") was introduced. European 25" have 59cm screens.

Yeah I've heard other people say this looks the same as a PVM-2530. In fact I had a PVM-2030 for a brief time and it for sure looks as good as that. In fact I'd say that the KV-25XBR has better colors than the PVM-2030 I had (but maybe that PVM had a worned out tube) but less tv lines I think. 25XBR actually has a different tube than the 2030/2530 it seems : "Microblack Trinitron" vs "Trinitron" or "Super Fine Pitch Trinitron". But should be in the same ballpark regardless

[Steamflogger Boss]

I've always much prefered that over those 800 lines or so monsters that look too artificial, this is closer to what arcade monitors and european rgb tvs look, and in no way a blurry mess. For '240p' this is the best choice.
25" is also my favourite size, sad they're harder to find now.
Treasure it!

Thanks man! yeah I will, don't worry! It's totally my baby now, haha

I agree completely and always shake my head when people (mostly Americans who grew up using composite video) drool over the thick blank lines look of professional monitors and PC monitors through upscalers. To me nothing beats the picture you get from a Sony RGB capable TV from the late 80s/early 90s like the first scart models based on the SX1, RX2 and AE1 chassis which look the same as a PVM-2730 and surely also as a KV-25XBR (which I've never seen being a US model).

The 25" US Sonys have the same size as the European 27" Sonys (64cm viewable screen) and were no longer made after 1988-89 when 29" (US 27") was introduced. European 25" have 59cm screens.

Yeah I've heard other people say this looks the same as a PVM-2530. In fact I had a PVM-2030 for a brief time and it for sure looks as good as that. In fact I'd say that the KV-25XBR has better colors than the PVM-2030 I had (but maybe that PVM had a worned out tube) but less tv lines I think. 25XBR actually has a different tube than the 2030/2530 it seems : "Microblack Trinitron" vs "Trinitron" or "Super Fine Pitch Trinitron". But should be in the same ballpark regardless

I kinda regret not picking up one of those older larger pvms when I had a chance awhile back. The main issue is that it was with a bunch of other crap (like a pro VCR) which the guy valued and wasn't willing to split. Not sure if he ever sold it, but the listing was taken down at some point.

[Xer Xian]

240p from an high TVL / fine pitch monitor might be offputting initially but I found that it grew on me. Now I actually prefer that to consumer CRT sets - at least up to a certain value (high end vga monitors still seem to push it a bit too far to me, but you generally need to pair them with at least a line doubler and then you will have control on scanline thickness).

That's why I don't get it when people say you don't need to look for PVMs here in Europe. Yes consumer CRTs had RGB here but that's not the point - going from s-video to RGB is nothing like going from a large to fine pitch monitor.

Also if you're looking for a do-it-all multisync monitor you've got no other choice than pro monitors.

[GojiFan90]

What's the general consensus on HD CRTs? I have an old Toshiba 26HF85, and I'm wondering if I should just send it to the curb. I mainly use my plasma + Framemeister for gaming these days, so I'm wondering if the Toshiba is worth the space it takes up.

[Einzelherz]

You would know better than any of us what with your already having it.

[Steamflogger Boss]

What's the general consensus on HD CRTs? I have an old Toshiba 26HF85, and I'm wondering if I should just send it to the curb. I mainly use my plasma + Framemeister for gaming these days, so I'm wondering if the Toshiba is worth the space it takes up.

They are a really simple and good solution if you still like watching VHS or LD. 480-720p video game content looks good. I found 240p video game content to be a little disappointing.

[GojiFan90]

What's the general consensus on HD CRTs? I have an old Toshiba 26HF85, and I'm wondering if I should just send it to the curb. I mainly use my plasma + Framemeister for gaming these days, so I'm wondering if the Toshiba is worth the space it takes up.

They are a really simple and good solution if you still like watching VHS or LD. 480-720p video game content looks good. I found 240p video game content to be a little disappointing.

Thank you for a constructive response, and not a snarky one. Obviously doesn't produce scanlines, but generation six consoles look pretty good on it. My biggest gripe is that it scales 480p content either to 1080i or 540p. Anyone know which is preferable? Neither is ideal, but would 540p be better for moving images while gaming?

[Steamflogger Boss]

Can you not disable that? I don't have one out right now but I remember a ton of options on the Sony ones I've used a lot before.

I believe the one I used for a long time could display 480p natively, but always upscaled 720p to 1080i. I don't really care enough about native 720p content to invest in a display for it but if I did it would probably be a plasma.

So in short if the one you have can't do native 480p I believe a bunch of them do, and you can probably find one that does for cheap or free. But definitely look into it first because I'm far from an expert on this.

[FinalBaton]

Can you not disable that? I don't have one out right now but I remember a ton of options on the Sony ones I've used a lot before.

I believe the one I used for a long time could display 480p natively, but always upscaled 720p to 1080i. I don't really care enough about native 720p content to invest in a display for it but if I did it would probably be a plasma.

So in short if the one you have can't do native 480p I believe a bunch of them do, and you can probably find one that does for cheap or free. But definitely look into it first because I'm far from an expert on this.

Yeah I believe some Sony ones can display native 480 progressive scan with some black borders around (to fill out that 540p frame)

[elvis]

For many of us Americans a fine dot pitch CRT pc monitor was the first time we every had a chance to see blanking lines. That could be where some of the preference comes from.

Ah that explains a lot. I never quite understood why my US friends had very different tastes in their CRTs to my European friends (I mean, other than one group not having easy access to SCART when the other did). Makes sense now.

[Einzelherz]

For many of us Americans a fine dot pitch CRT pc monitor was the first time we every had a chance to see blanking lines. That could be where some of the preference comes from.

Ah that explains a lot. I never quite understood why my US friends had very different tastes in their CRTs to my European friends (I mean, other than one group not having easy access to SCART when the other did). Makes sense now.

It's just speculation of course since the blanking lines would've been artificial.

There's also the possibility that it's a learned taste, e.g. high tvl = expensive = better.

[Xer Xian]

But blank scanlines weren't any more prominent on european CRTs.

No one ever cared about scanlines back then. I don't share the scanlines frenzy either and I think it's essentially just a dick size contest.

Monitors with thicker scanlines will on average be sharper though. That's entirely the point of hunting for PVM's, along with better geometry and convergence controls. And multisync capability for those who want that.

But this is just stating the obvious for most readers of this thread.

[GojiFan90]

Can you not disable that? I don't have one out right now but I remember a ton of options on the Sony ones I've used a lot before.

I believe the one I used for a long time could display 480p natively, but always upscaled 720p to 1080i. I don't really care enough about native 720p content to invest in a display for it but if I did it would probably be a plasma.

So in short if the one you have can't do native 480p I believe a bunch of them do, and you can probably find one that does for cheap or free. But definitely look into it first because I'm far from an expert on this.

Yeah I believe some Sony ones can display native 480 progressive scan with some black borders around (to fill out that 540p frame)

Unfortunately, there in no option to disable the image scaling. It's basically a budget Trinitron, so it doesn't have the nice features that a Sony set would have. I'll have to see if I can get a service manual for it to check if there's any settings I can tweak to possibly disable it. The other thing that annoys me is that if you display the image at the proper aspect ratio, you get gray bars on either side rather than the normal black bars. Every other television I have owned allows you to toggle between black and gray but not this one for some reason. I find gray bars to be really distracting.

[strygo]

As an American, my first encounter with seeing the scanline effect in a home was a late 90s model Sony Trinitron that a friend had. I remember being blown away by it and wishing the TVs in my home had similar output. Even in the PSX era, games looked so much better than on the rear projection screen my parents had.

I had long experienced arcade games in pristine RGB. The scanline effect was also present but to a lesser degree than on later model Trinitrons. Beyond sprite sizes, the vibrancy and clarity were off the charts compared to what I was used to.

For me, the holy grail was the Super Nintendo kiosks that Toys R Us had. I don't know what the monitor was, but the image was unreal. The screen itself was flat and the scanlines were very much present. I remember wishing that I had one of these screens in my home. My 19" Magnavox had nothing on the unit. In looking at pictures of these kiosks right now, I see many differences in monitors so I'm not sure if those are aftermarket or TRU happened to use a specific one compared to other stores. The one in my local store was a sight to behold.

[elvis]

No one ever cared about scanlines back then.

I can only speak from my personal experiences, but I remember clearly in the 80s and 90s plenty of discussions about RGB/SCART image quality, and better quality TVs with clearer images and the effects of scanlines.

The goal was typically to meet or exceed the quality of what arcade monitors looked like.

That's speaking as someone who grew up in Australia where SCART was available but not prevalent, and mostly consumed UK media where everyone had easy access to SCART. Obviously a radically different experience to most North Americans. I'd be interested to hear the same experiences of the Europeans and Japanese on the forums to compare regions.

Monitors with thicker scanlines will on average be sharper though. That's entirely the point of hunting for PVM's

Again from an Australian perspective, the PVM craze is only very recent, and mostly driven by a handful of YouTube channels. In the 80s and 90s European television brands like Grundig, Loewe, and Bang and Olufsen were in high demand by gamers for both their SCART inputs and their superior image quality and geometry/convergence.

My tastes are purely nostalgic, and I find most PVMs and certainly BVMs "too sharp" for my personal wants. I still game by choice on displays like these: https://i.imgur.com/PZUFy5D.jpg

[Xer Xian]

I have an entirely different experience, no internet and no income made sure I had neither the knowledge nor the means to care about AV quality back then I switched to RGB in the late '90s with the PSX but I've never had a choice when it came to the TV I would use, that was bestowed to me by my parents and it was never anything more than a 14/16" budget TV. Arcades were magical venues and very few if anyone could hope to achieve a similar experience at home.

I can't see anyone buying such luxury brands as B&O's or Loewe's for gaming back then, save for maybe a few real AV enthusiast or wealthy people. Trinitron CRTs were indeed much more common on the living rooms but not that much on an ordinary kid's room.

I think the only category of gamers that was likely to consistently play on good quality CRT's is home computer gamers (never been one myself). I'd bet that only very few enlightened console gamers experienced a similar picture quality in the late 80's up to late '90's.

I would like to hear about other people's experience too

[Fudoh]

bought a Commodore 1084 with Scart in 1989 to utilize RGB from my first import systems (PCE and Mega Drive).

Starting in the late 80s most TVs over here wew indeed equipped with Scart and RGB compatibility. Magazines back then already made RGB a topic and our import stores made sure to supply us with RGB mods when required or RGB cables when available. And as anyone can imagine, after getting started with RGB there's no turning back.

Still I don't think that scanlines were a topic back then, basically since you had no alternatives (like LCDs). When I switched to a bigger TV in the mid 90s (29" Sony) I found the heavy scanlines to be disturbing. On smaller displays I don't mind them, but with 29" it's just like in the arcades: the smoother, softer scanlines on your average dual-sync-chassis are much more pleasing than those heavy scanlines you get when running 240p on a tri-sync-chassis monitor.

[elvis]

Still I don't think that scanlines were a topic back then.

I used to read "Mean Machines" magazine, which was a UK console publication (and IMHO, the best gaming magazine in the world at the time). They'd talk about RGB/SCART and scanlines now and then. Usually when people would ask through the mailbag why their in-magazine screenshots looked so much better than home gaming experiences.

[Xyga]

Yep scanlines became a topic after they were gone.
Because we switched to flat panels and realized it didn't look the same anymore, upscaling and interpolation were breaking the original look.

[SNK-NEO-GEO]

"My tastes are purely nostalgic, and I find most PVMs and certainly BVMs "too sharp" for my personal wants."
I share your view as well... When I was a kid, I could not notice picture quality difference and I only cared about playing the games and we did not have internet back them;)...I made the RGB jump about 3 years ago. My first monitors were a BVM 20" and a PVM 20" which I thought looked incredible at the time, very sharp and pleasing to the eyes, just like a PC monitor. The down side was that I could see the two aperture grille lines which bothered me a lot...By pure luck, I purchased an NEC XM 29plus and I truly love the look of this monitor, the scaliness are great and I get the Nostalgic feel and look; plus no aperture grille. I got lucky again and purchased an NEC 3PG 27 and to my eyes this monitor looks slightly better than the NEC XM 29plus when it comes to scaliness and picture quality and can do 15/24/31khz. I have not seen in person the bigger PVMs over 20" line such as the PVM 2930 and maybe they also share the nostalgic look and are as good as the NEC's. It would be great to have a place where we could look at each RGB professional monitor brand and line and compare the picture quality. Since everyone has different taste and preference and based on this, we can see which monitor we need to hunt for, even if it takes a decade to get one:).

[Xyga]

There's been such a great variety of crt's in history it's not safe to think about engraving in stone forever that only one type (high-TVL trinitrons) is the best kind period.

I've said it somewhere but the most beautiful crt I have ever seen (and as an european I have seen fucktons of rgb crts) was a 19"~something quite curvy and heavy color tv from the 80's, shadow mask full analogue chassis, incredibly natural colors and shaping of the dots.

[Xer Xian]

It would be great to have a place where we could look at each RGB professional monitor brand and line and compare the picture quality. Since everyone has different taste and preference and based on this, we can see which monitor we need to hunt for, even if it takes a decade to get one:).

Picture quality has many facets, but you probably already know you can get a good idea of what sort of look you should expect from a CRT basing on its mask type and pitch size (and of course screen size if distance from the TV is fixed).

Here's a nice comparison of different mask/pitch combinations (only missing one is low TVL/large pitch shadow mask): https://www.elotrolado.net/hilo_monitor ... 1744833418

Low density aperture grille are pretty awful imho. I got a low-end aperture grille sometime ago (Mivar 21MF51) which must be the worst CRT I've ever had, besides the very unpleasing jailbar-like phosphors grid it has a terrible geometry that I can't fix no matter what.

[Xyga]

Here's the kind of shadow mask done right I like:

Spoiler

[MKL]

Low density aperture grille are pretty awful imho. I got a low-end aperture grille sometime ago (Mivar 21MF51) which must be the worst CRT I've ever had, besides the very unpleasing jailbar-like phosphors grid it has a terrible geometry that I can't fix no matter what.

No TV tube has an aperture grille except Sony's. That recent Mivar model has indeed a very bad quality Samsung tube (the higher deflection angle that makes the tube shorter is also responsible for geometry and convergence errors in peripheral areas). Try some 1990 Pioneer with Toshiba tube instead. I don't understand the "jailbar-like phosphors grid" as all shadow mask tubes have phosphors arranged in continuous vertical stripes since the introduction of in-line gun tubes in the early 1970s. Only monitor tubes ("M tubes") have a dot phosphors pattern.

[FinalBaton]

Picture quality has many facets, but you probably already know you can get a good idea of what sort of look you should expect from a CRT basing on its mask type and pitch size (and of course screen size if distance from the TV is fixed).

I think that it being dual-sync or tri-sync also affects the look. tri-sync have thinner scanlines on 15kHz content, than straight 15kHz-only monitor do.

Here's the kind of shadow mask done right I like:

Spoiler

Man that looks awesome. that's a very pretty "grain", or phosphor structure I should say. It has a kind of shimmering effect on whites/very bright colours



After a few more days of playing, I can confirm that this is the most fun crt I've ever owned (not that I've owned a ton : a PVM-2030, PVM-1354Q, NEC XM37 Plus, some late consumer Sony, and this one, the KV-25XBR).

PVM-2030 had sightly less rich colours. The PVM-1354Q, at 600 TVL on a tiny 13", had those laser-beam like scanlines, and I find that I don't like that as much (at least it had FAT scanlines, those I like better in that context than thin ones. Looks better on the NES' small sprites). The NEC was pretty damn awesome but the scanlines were very thin. Also the colors on it were very vibrant when I was running it at 93K, but I was losing accuracy on warmer hues that are not saturated, and at 65K it was too yellow-ish. PVM-1354Q and NEC monitors were still awesome though.

The KV-25XBR just looks so sexy, colors are rich and I basically see a solid picture, blanked lines barely visible. Yet it still looks crisp and vibrant. Streets of Rage 1 looks bonkers on that set, I swear. Pure eyegasm

This is all my personal opinion of course. I love the variety of tubes that's out there, and I want to keep discovering more. I love the old arcade in-line shadowmask tubes as well, and I want to see more shadowmask tubes.

[svensonson]

Picture quality has many facets, but you probably already know you can get a good idea of what sort of look you should expect from a CRT basing on its mask type and pitch size (and of course screen size if distance from the TV is fixed).

I think that it being dual-sync or tri-sync also affects the look. tri-sync have thinner scanlines on 15kHz content, than straight 15kHz-only monitor do.

Picture taken from a barco tri-sync 33" Monitor
never saw any bigger scanlines anywhere else imo