Fudoh's ode to old display technology

[pedroTFP]

Perhaps I am expecting too much from a 2730/2530 though. I should mention that when I bought this I also threw in a 2130 from the same seller in the bargain and to my eyes the picture quality on it is in the same ballpark.

Has anyone had the chance of viewing an L2 and 2X30 in similar condition side by side to compare their image quality? Perhaps TVL being close on paper is not an accurate representation of how close the image quality on the two can be expected to be and the 2X30 series is just a step down from the L2 series.

I know the L2 has superior deflection circuits that lend themselves to better geometry overall, perhaps this also means the image quality is sharper overall with more defined scanlines.

I've a couple of very good 20" L2MD (2003) and a 2730QM (very low hours and recently served by a professional) but they're in storage.
IIRC the L2 is a little sharper but I suspect the smaller size always tricks the eye a little on that side. The L2 has a better geometry overall too, especially on corners.

Still, I prefer the 2730, probably because I value screen size more, all things considered. ^^'
Now I'm rebuilding my game room to host a few cabs but after that, maybe end of june, I get the PVMs out of storage and I can do a little bit of comparison, if anyone is interested.

[kamiboy]

I'd certainly be interested. I really do not want to take my 2X30's apart and attempt to service them unless I am confident that there is something to be gained from it. Geometry being better on the later PVM models is to be expected, and the geometry on my 2X30's are so and so. But I am more interested in TVL performance, and the potential to improve it on my 2X30's, as I feel they are so and so on that front as well, and in that regards I was kind of expecting a bit more. But I am not sure if I am expecting too much, or my sets just need new caps.

Of course there is also the deeper end of the TVL pool as covered by the increasing TVL on TV set thread here on the forums. Perhaps one day the work being done there will have matured to a degree where I might consider applying it to my sets, bringing their TVL performance up to par with higher end SONY sets.

[pedroTFP]

Ok, it's a deal then. (-:
I've pretty much any hardware to test, so if anyone want to ask something in particular, or give me specific directions about what to test, I'll gladly try to comply.

[kamiboy]

Last weekend I attended a private retro gaming gathering that is hosted by a friend twice or so yearly. He has a big house out in the middle of nowhere and has a pretty sick large collection of systems an accompanying screens. I didn't do a count, buy I reckon he had at least 20 CRTs, and maybe 5-10 flatpanels, all with systems hooked up, running at the same time for people to walks around and amuse themselves with. Systems ran the gamut of consoles, 8bit all the way up to current generation systems and some commodore stuff as well. He even had the Nuon and several handhelds, rare ones too like Neo Geo Pocket and Swan, plus, a Virtual Boy! The focus was of course on the retro stuff and this was what got the most attention, it is basically retro gamer heaven whenever he chooses to do one of these, bless the man.

Everything was setup with flascarts, hdd solutions and what have you, so you basically have access to the entire library of games for any given system. This is the third year I am attending this event, and while his CRTs spans everything from large Bang & Olufsen TVs (the lions share of screens actually) to SONY PVMs and Toshiba consumer sets, there is one particular set that keeps drawing my attention.

Disclosure: The images look like hot garbage compared to seeing this beauty in person. I wasn't even trying to take pictures of the image quality, I took photos of a game I completed, as is my way.



And I am not alone, I have caught many of the other guys attending the event over the years remark how good the picture on this tiny set looks. It is simply phenomenal, I have everything from BVM's, 90's/2000's PVM's B&O TVs and Retrotink 4K at home, but this little fella, this one somehow takes the cake.

I cannot quite put my finger on why though, when you look closely at the picture there aren't even any visible gaps between the scanlines, the image looks solid but for the subpixel structure, up close it looks more like na LCD than a CRT, but when you move back the image is just so bright, vibrant, sharp and overall pleasing to the eye.



Maybe it is the small size, I am not sure how big it is actually, you can see the top of a famicom cartridge at the bottom of the photo for reference.

It bears no model number on the front, and I forgot to have a look at the back to see, a few google searches didn't help either. I reckon it must be somewhere from 9-14" inches in size, a European model with RGB SCART on the back. Prolly at some time between late 90's to mid 2000's?

Anywaste, in conclusion, if you ever get the chance to acquire this little gem, don't let the small screen and its consumer nature deter you, it just happens to host the most pleasing CRT image these eyes have ever been witness to. I haven't really seen any other small SONY trinitron sets to compare it with, so I do not if this is par for the course or not, but I have a feeling that this little unit has some special SONY magic that might be a bit unique. Because I have seen larger SONY consumer sets and they do not hold a candle.

[SuperSpongo]

This is a Sony KV-14LM1E with the latest 60Hz chassis, the FE-2.
There's also the KV-14LT1E with a slightly different shell. I think one of them had SVideo over the other, both support Scart RGB.

Because of its small size, there are no warping issues that plague the bigger 29 inch flatscreen models.

[kamiboy]

Are there bigger screen versions of this TV with the same chassis and tube? I wonder how a potential 20" version will look next to this smaller model.

[SuperSpongo]

There are 20 Inch versions with a similar flat tube, yes.
Namely the KV-21FX30E and KV-21LS30E.

[spmbx]

Personally i'm hoping the hype stays with BVM/PVM and everyone keeps blowing 500-1000eur on those so i can keep picking these consumer trinitrons up for peanuts.
Although even for these we're approaching the time where most people have cleaned out their spare bedrooms and studyrooms so they are starting to become more rare and start getting advertised as "retro gaming tv" with accompanying pricetag. (which still is a lot less than broadcast-realm but more than i want to spend on)

[SuperSpongo]

True, unfortunately. Never thought us Europeans would see the day But then again, we had plenty of time and people seriously interested in the hobby picked up a couple of sets when picking was good.

[kamiboy]

In my part of the world (DK) we are many years past quality consumer CRTs like this being possible to find, regardless of price. The major exceptions are anything by B&O, as those are still relatively easy to acquire for low prices, but at some point that well too will run dry. Actually I think it would be much easier to find a PVM or BVM than a quality Japanese consumer CRT over here. The PVM/BVM units had enough utility and were expensive enough for people in neighbouring countries to have hung on to them for quite a while longer than consumer CRTs.

Germany is a good place to get professional CRTs, but good luck if you are looking for that particular SONY.

[SuperSpongo]

I've been watching the German market closely for about 5 years. The 14 inch FE-2s don't pop up that often and if they do, they oftentimes are ridiculously priced. Maybe someone somewhere already recomended that particular model for home computers or something.

[xeos]

This is a Sony KV-14LM1E with the latest 60Hz chassis, the FE-2.
There's also the KV-14LT1E with a slightly different shell. I think one of them had SVideo over the other, both support Scart RGB.

Because of its small size, there are no warping issues that plague the bigger 29 inch flatscreen models.

is it possible that part of what makes it look good is also it's small image size is better suited to 240p content? I love 27" CRTs for 480p/i content but nobody needs "pixels" that big for 240p.

[SuperSpongo]

I think it's a couple of reasons.
First, this was the last generation of Sony tubes, so it incorporates all the advances in technology that they made. The flat tubes look good, but have common disadvantages like bad linearity and corner convergence/focus. But those problems are getting more apparent with size and are unnoticable on small tubes (at least the ones I've seen).

[kamiboy]

While size might be a factor, what strikes most people most are the colours and vibrancy of the image. Perhaps SONY at this generation was using tubes with some tweaks that led to the observed effects. I am sure chassis had a hand in it as well, the geometry looked good, not that I was taking special note of that. The image quality is just very, very pleasing and natural to the eyes. I would be interested to see my PVM 14L2 next to it since that is to my eyes the best image quality I’ve seen on a professional CRT.

[TheShadowRunner]

Protip/note to self for 20F1E:
If error occurs during Auto callbration process using SMPTE pattern @ Control_Preset_Adj > CH Set > Auto > SMPTE CB, it can help to temporarily recenter the test pattern source position (SET UP > ALIGNMENT > H PHASE).
It seems the BVM has a certain tolerance for the pattern position and outside the boundaries the setup fails.

[H6rdc0re]

Does anyone here have any experience with the Toei TC-L292? I believe it's using an Orion tube but I'm not sure.

[ASDR]

Still have 4 of these FE-2 chassis tubes. They're fantastic. I think I got at least 3 of them for free and the other one certainly wasn't more than 10-15EUR. This wasn't the last gen of Sony CRTs, though. After that was the BX1 chassis used in the FQ/CL models. I got a couple of those in basically new-old-stock-condition. They have some advantages and fancier features like comb filters and such, but overall I prefer the slightly older FE-2 flat screens (FX30/LT1, etc.) or the fantastic last curved-gen FE-1 screens like the X5/C5.

[SuperSpongo]

What size are your FE-2 sets? I found that the 29FX30E has bad horizontal linearity more often than not (4 bad sets, 1 good).
But the 21 inch sets are better in that regard. I always wanted to take a look at a 25 inch flat FE-2 set. There is one available on German classifieds right now but not in my area.

[TheShadowRunner]

What size are your FE-2 sets? I found that the 29FX30E has bad horizontal linearity more often than not (4 bad sets, 1 good).
But the 21 inch sets are better in that regard. I always wanted to take a look at a 25 inch flat FE-2 set. There is one available on German classifieds right now but not in my area.

Speaking of FE-2, I have a 14' KV-14LM1U and I can't seem to find a way to disable 16/9 auto-detection on SCART on this model.
I've been able to disable this via TT codes on most Sony screens I came across but not on this one.
Chassis FE-2 only seems to have
- TT64 Enable/disable RGB priority
- TT65 RGB auto-detect enable
Sadly 64 has no impact (on 16/9 autodetect), and 65 will disable full RGB detection altogether, not only 16/9 auto-switch.
On other chassis, such as BE-3, there's TT14: Forced AV 16:9 detection on/off, which was perfect, but no equivalent on FE-2 😥
Any workarounds ?

[ASDR]

What size are your FE-2 sets? I found that the 29FX30E has bad horizontal linearity more often than not (4 bad sets, 1 good).
But the 21 inch sets are better in that regard. I always wanted to take a look at a 25 inch flat FE-2 set. There is one available on German classifieds right now but not in my area.

I only have 14/21/25" TVs. Don't have the space and moving around anything larger is just too hard. I've seen a flat FE-1 (FE-1b or whatever?) chassis 25" set once and it looked real nice.

Speaking of FE-2, I have a 14' KV-14LM1U and I can't seem to find a way to disable 16/9 auto-detection on SCART on this model.

The older BE-3D TVs are nice, my X1 is great. They seem like luxury / high-end models compared to the more spartan later X5.

I have a couple of poorly build cables where aspect ratio voltage is not correct, so I can see why it's annoying. Also with mechanical switchers when the output is left floating the TV can often do a lot of random switching. I can see why you want to disable it. I wonder why RGB priority and aspect ratio switching is even related? Those are totally separate pins? I actually can't find any test code to disable aspect ratio detection in either the X1 or FX30 service manuals. It's been a while since I messed with any of this, I remember there were quite a few config menus that are not documented in the service manual including configuration type stuff, maybe something is in there?

[TheShadowRunner]

Yeah I used to have a KV-X2100B, best consumer TV I ever had. I managed to kill the tube after 20 years of intense use (many, many jpn rpgs). I regret it dearly ^^;

RGB priority isn't linked to RGB switching at all, they're just the only 2 RGB- related TT codes for Chassis FE-2.

The only other way I can think of is a physical mod at the scart socket, always supply 12V to pin 8 and disconnect it. I wonder how doable this is.

[SuperSpongo]

Yeah I used to have a KV-X2100B, best consumer TV I ever had. I managed to kill the tube after 20 years of intense use (many, many jpn rpgs). I regret it dearly ^^;

RGB priority isn't linked to RGB switching at all, they're just the only 2 RGB- related TT codes for Chassis FE-2.

The only other way I can think of is a physical mod at the scart socket, always supply 12V to pin 8 and disconnect it. I wonder how doable this is.

This is the way to go, IMO. I seem to remember that RGB defaults to 4:3 when no voltage is present. That way you could physically disconnect the pin. If you don't want to modify the set, you can buy a small SCART extension or one of those audio breakout adapters and modify that.

Also, there's a solution for this exact problem that I heard about on the RetroRGB roundup:
https://consoles4you.ch/en/scart-sense-injector

It's prohibitively expensive IMHO though, a DIY solution with an old 12V wall wart would work just as well.

[ASDR]

I would not disconnect then pin, the you might get issues as well due to it being left floating.

The price for that thing RetroRGB showed was ridiculous, I agree. Actually I think an elegant solution would be to just use the 5V supply and create 12V from that. There are chips like the MAX662 that can do that with very few external components, would all fit in a SCART head.

I would not mod the SCART socket on my TV. Pin 8 is actually useful. You get automatic input switching and automatic aspect ratio switching on systems that support it, which is the vast majority unless you got a crappy cable. It's especially nice on the 360 where it perfectly switches to 16:9 on later games that had no more 4:3 support.

[kamiboy]

You know what really bugs me? The fact that as far as I know, despite there being a plethora of SCART switching solutions out there, not a single one has the option to output 12V on the correct pin to force CRT TVs into the correct aspect ratio. It would be so easy to implement too. I have two switchers myself, and they both cost a lot of money, yet no dice.

[ASDR]

You know what really bugs me? The fact that as far as I know, despite there being a plethora of SCART switching solutions out there, not a single one has the option to output 12V on the correct pin to force CRT TVs into the correct aspect ratio. It would be so easy to implement too. I have two switchers myself, and they both cost a lot of money, yet no dice.

I think a lot of modern SCART equipment is designed by Americans etc. that actually never used normal consumer SCART equipment and have no idea how it actually behaved and was used. So stuff like automatic input switching, automatic RGB vs composite selection, aspect ratio switching, the fact that SCART is bidrectional etc. let alone the more esoteric stuff like overlays or data connections etc. is not given much consideration. For them it's just an RGB consumer standard.

[Bassa-Bassa]

The older BE3D TVs are nice, my X1 is great. They seem like luxury / high-end models compared to the more spartan later X5.

I don't know. I've been trying a KV29FX11 these days and I'm really disappointed by the limitations of this chassis. First off, you can't solve horizontal positioning like with other models no matter what you do in the service menu. Neither have I found a way to correct the red push this unit has where rarely white isn't pink - not having red drive/cut-off options hasn't helped. It's the first model I've tweaked without these. Then, for some reason, it takes some minutes to get signal stability - it even goes to black momentarily more than once until that period has passed every time an RGB source is turned on.

There're of course the usual linearity issues being 29'' which don't seem solvable, though that really wouldn't bother me at all if I could get the above sorted.

Too bad the FE2 unit I got has severe focus problems on the sides, the picture is great if you don't look there lol (unless you feed it through a TTL/Csync cable, which makes the colors go crazy - first time I experience this on a Trinitron as well).

[TheShadowRunner]

I would not disconnect then pin, the you might get issues as well due to it being left floating.

The price for that thing RetroRGB showed was ridiculous, I agree. Actually I think an elegant solution would be to just use the 5V supply and create 12V from that. There are chips like the MAX662 that can do that with very few external components, would all fit in a SCART head.

I would not mod the SCART socket on my TV. Pin 8 is actually useful. You get automatic input switching and automatic aspect ratio switching on systems that support it, which is the vast majority unless you got a crappy cable. It's especially nice on the 360 where it perfectly switches to 16:9 on later games that had no more 4:3 support.

That seems to have been attempted but creates interferences :S
https://www.neo-geo.com/forums/index.ph ... cs.240127/

[ASDR]

Hm, not familiar with the KV29FX11 :/

I heard some Sony's have a weird color issue with CSYNC consoles. It's strange, I currently don't have anything but SoC consoles hooked up to mine, but the PI2SCART works perfectly fine on the X1 I got it hooked up to, and that certainly does have CSYNC. IIRC there were actually some undocumented settings in the service menu that could fix these problems, but these don't save, it seems. Be careful, some settings in there immediately make the picture cut out :/

I'm pretty sure you can generate the 12V 4:3 voltage required in some way that does not leak whatever switching the boost converter does into your AV, but that is certainly above my electronics design knwoledge :/

[Bassa-Bassa]

Hm, not familiar with the KV29FX11 :/

I heard some Sony's have a weird color issue with CSYNC consoles. It's strange, I currently don't have anything but SoC consoles hooked up to mine, but the PI2SCART works perfectly fine on the X1 I got it hooked up to, and that certainly does have CSYNC. IIRC there were actually some undocumented settings in the service menu that could fix these problems, but these don't save, it seems. Be careful, some settings in there immediately make the picture cut out :/

Good to know that the Csync issue is a known one with some models, never read about that. Though now I recall, a unit with FE1 chassis I have also has issues with the same SAT cable. My FE2 chassis doesn't like much a sync-on-luma cable for the PS1 either - the colors are clearly a bit pale with it. Older AE2 or BE3B chassis for non-flat tubes are definitely fine, though.

[ASDR]

Hm, I converted a SoC cable to SoL for use with my PAL-to-NTSC converted 3-chip SNES and it looks just fine both the FE1 & FE2