Sony LMD-1530W monitor - good for arcade stuff?

[mojo]

I have the opportunity to buy a Sony LMD-1530W for about £300 which seems cheap. In just wondering if it's worth it. It's a broadcast monitor but I can't find much information on it. I'm not sure it will cope with odd video modes.

I'm basically looking for a smaller LCD version of the NEC XM-25. I have one of those and it's awesome, but rather large and heavy.

[Xan]

There is a good reason why Sony had to resume production of CRT PVMs until OLEDs were ready...

[Xyga]

Would be the worst purchase of the year.

Outdated panel, useless resolution, horrendous price, couldn't be more different than your NEC even in your worst nightmares.

[mojo]

Thanks guys, very helpful. Now I know.

Can anyone suggest a good display for this purpose? I have heard that those Century Plus One 8000V displays are good. The X68000 guys like them. There are the On-Lap ones that are similar but I can't find much information on them.

[Xyga]

Well there's almost zero interest in smaller/portable monitors for gaming since all of them are... too small, and more importantly equipped with crappy TN panels of poor resolution.
So whatever you buy don't spend £300 on it. Really please don't, that would be completely absurd.

There's hardly anything decent on the market that's under 21.5" (16:9) and those are entry level Full-HD VA or IPS panel computer monitors.
e.g. BenQ VW2245Z (IPS) & VW2235H (VA) are miles better than any small TN monitor, and can be found for around £70-£110.
Even if that's too big for your needs it's to show you that any monitor smaller than those, with a TN panel and a lower resolution, has to be cheaper (or equally expensive at worst), otherwise it's not really worth the purchase.

[Ed Oscuro]

At smaller sizes, CRTs really don't weigh all that much nor seem to have big problems with reliability. It seems like I won't be finding much information on the Century Plus One 8000V, but I'll take a real CRT display over any obsolete LCD even if it had multisync.

[Xyga]

^this.

[mojo]

Thanks. I should point out that it's mainly for development, not playing. I am working on a supergun and some other stuff. Coping with strange video modes is the most important thing.

[Xyga]

Thanks. I should point out that it's mainly for development, not playing. I am working on a supergun and some other stuff. Coping with strange video modes is the most important thing.

Then by all means avoid LCDs and get a small CRT monitor or TV with rgb input.

[Ed Oscuro]

One thing that's quite nice about 15" (which seems a bit too small to me, even for arcade playing) is that you can get very high end equipment even on eBay at almost unheard-of prices, some of it probably quite new, so the lottery aspect is less of a problem than usual. I found that there are some nice HD-era Ikegami units (if you want HD) for not much money, though the cabinets aren't much narrower than the usual 20" units.

[mojo]

A CRT takes up quite a bit of space and weighs a lot on my desk, which is why I was looking for an LCD. I just assumed that super flexible LCDs would be available for broadcast use, since who wants to lug around an XM-29 if they don't have to. I guess not.

Apparently the Mitsubishi MDT152X is the boss, supporting 15khz, 24khz and 31khz well. I think it was only ever released in Japan and I can't find one here. The Century 8000V is supposed to be good for 15KHz as well, but is only 8"... Okay for development I suppose. Kind of expensive at 15,000 yen. I was looking for an XRGB here but couldn't find one in the shops anywhere, surprisingly.