Sony FD Trinitron Wega KD-36XS955 4:3 Super Fine Pitch HD CRT

[Josh128]

Just got my hands on one of these! On paper, its the most technologically advanced 36" Trinitron ever produced. Will be putting it through its paces soon and updating this thread accordingly. Couple initial observations:

1.) Devastatingly heavy. According to the Sony documentation, its heavier than all of its 16:9 super fine pitch XS and XBR brothers, and 8 lbs heavier than the KV-36HS420.

2.) When powered off, the phosphor stripes on the front of the tube are basically invisible, notably different from all other FD Trinitron Wegas Ive personally seen.

3.) The menu system is vastly different from the KV-36HS420, and offers a variety of different vertical and horizontal expansion/zoom options, as well as the ability to output
in progressive 540p or interlaced 1080i by changing the DRC modes. When available, this allows 480i content to present as either progressive or interlaced depending on setting.
 
4.) The HDPT circuitry is present on this particular unit. When in HDPT mode, the normal menu is off center and its difficult to make adjustments as its hard to see what option you are changing. The service menu, however, is fine. The service manual clarified that HDPT=0 bypasses the MID (digital scaling) circuitry.

5.) Built in ATSC HDTV tuner.

6.) Service menu changes seem to be tied not only to specific inputs, but also input resolutions and modes, such as HDPT. Seem much moreso than the HS420 series.

7.) The amount of adjustment and deflection circuitry in this set is astounding. Size, rotation, dynamic focus, and dynamic beam landing / purity are adjustable from the SM. When I got the set powered on, noticed a small area of slight discoloration on lower left corner of the screen. Instead of correcting with magnets as I normally would, adjusted the LB option in the LANDING menu and it cleared it right up.

[tongshadow]

What are you playing on this?

[tacoguy64]

Can't wait to see your thoughts on this monster of a TV. It does both 240p and 480p and possibly 1080i?

[kitty666cats]

No, it doesn't do 240p.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Does it even do 480p without postprocessing?

[Josh128]

Just like all the other Sony HD sets, it needs to be fed 1080i or 540p for lag free display. I use the RT5X Pro to feed it 540p. 240p or 480p content can be displayed in 540p mode.

[Josh128]

Still havent had much time to try to fine tune the set, but did take it apart to clean (which is always a good practice) and MY GOODNESS this thing is nasty. The outside is in pristine shape but it was very obviously in the house of a smoker, a smoker which smoked in whatever room they watched this TV in, for YEARS apparently....this type of residue doesnt happen overnight. Honestly, its the nastiest internals to a CRT Ive ever seen. I spent about 2 hours yesterday evening brushing, vacuuming, and wiping smoke soot away from every surface possible. My main goal was cleaning the parts in the vicinity of the HV. With 32KV+ at the anode, I have no idea how this thing didnt track through the brown, smoky, tar residue that coated the anode cap, HV wire, and the entire tube basically. Its a shame to see this, really. Id like to know how many hours are on this thing, but I dont see anything in the service manual that shows it can even be done.




Overall, the picture seems OK, but a bit soft. Probably needs some adjustments to focus and convergence. Im excited to compare it to my HS420, which in its current tuned state has one of if not THE best HD pictures Ive ever seen.

[Josh128]

Had a bit of time with the set, will update this post as I get time to post. Here are some lag test results and a picture of the 5X in 540p mode displaying 240p to the set. Lag seems identical to all other Sony HD CRTs Ive tested or read about.

[Josh128]

Tried to take a few photos to give a sense of the difference of this "Super Fine Pitch" aperture grille, with this model being Sonys only 4:3 CRT to ever feature it. Note that my grayscale is off, I noticed that today in that my grays have a green component to them vs my HS420, where they appear "ash" gray. I wish I'd noticed that before I took all these photos, but they came out pretty well any way. You'll need to click on the direct link to see the full resolution and the aperture grille, which is so small its hard to capture without extreme closeups.

https://i.imgur.com/QJ20CZd.jpg (Full Size)

https://i.imgur.com/QYDMCOD.jpg (Full Size)

https://i.imgur.com/oO4wmo0.jpg (Full Size)


https://i.imgur.com/Sxc5L4O.jpg (Full Size)

[Josh128]

Heres a couple of comparison shots I tried to put together to show the HS420 vs the XS955. Note that the brightness difference in the Bloodlines comparison is down to the camera exposure and is not indicative of the actual HS420 image, which is essentially identical to the XS955 image except for more horizontal granularity.

Sony claims a 65% finer aperture grille for the Super Fine Pitch units, but oddly enough when I count the subpixels/phosphors, it appears the XS is about twice as fine as the HS from what I can tell.

https://i.imgur.com/Bexjqz0.jpg (Full Size)


https://i.imgur.com/dJVFrBq.jpg (Full Size)

[donluca]

Your pictures reminded me the reason why I sold my 800 Lines 14" BVM in favor of saving a small 14" consumer CRT I had in my holiday house.

The resolution is so high that it might as well come from an LCD monitor with a good filter, to me it kind of loses that CRT feeling I get with a "normal" TV.

That's not to say the picture isn't fantastic: it is exceptional, but I personally prefer, for 240p games at least, the look of a mid-level consumer TV.

I wonder if I'm alone on this boat or if other people share the same feeling and the BVM/PVM craze is getting to an end.

[Bassa-Bassa]

This is not actual 240p after all, but 480p with black lines (which is similar to a 15khz 800 TV lines picture, indeed). I'm with you though, I've always thought that's overkill despite only being able to tolerate RGB and well adjusted sets. Said that, if this set is able to display full-screen 480p without scaling and postprocessing (even if it's through heavy geometry tweaking), it's likely the best thing ever for 640x480 and I'm really envious. A bit too big perhaps as I like close-up gaming, but still, really envious myself. Congrats.

[Josh128]

Your pictures reminded me the reason why I sold my 800 Lines 14" BVM in favor of saving a small 14" consumer CRT I had in my holiday house.

The resolution is so high that it might as well come from an LCD monitor with a good filter, to me it kind of loses that CRT feeling I get with a "normal" TV.

That's not to say the picture isn't fantastic: it is exceptional, but I personally prefer, for 240p games at least, the look of a mid-level consumer TV.

I wonder if I'm alone on this boat or if other people share the same feeling and the BVM/PVM craze is getting to an end.

You are right, this thing is essentially a giant BVM that more obviously exhibits any small imperfections in the source, as well as any misconvergence or geometry issues that might be present in the set. As you can see in Links hair, it does resolve more texture and color detail than the HS 420, but it loses "something" in the overall look. It does look great in person, but I actually prefer the HS420 as well due to its more "granular" look and glow-- the same reasons I gushed about the 1024x768p Samsung F4500 plasma years ago. Even though the full 1080p F5300 was identical with higher resolution, I preferred the 4500 as it had that granular / SDE look (which still disappears at normal viewing distance) that the 5300 lacked.

As I mentioned earlier, I have some white balance and greyscale issues to sort on this monster, but even so I doubt its going to top the HS for me. Im not exaggerating when I say my HS, after about 16+ hours of tuning, has probably the best picture Ive seen on any CRT. Its so good I literally dont want to touch it lest I mess something up.

That said, I saw this on FB and snagged it because I love messing with this stuff and on paper its very hard to argue that this is not the ultimate 4:3 CRT ever created, a behemoth BVM, and I jumped at the chance to get my hands on one. It would be interesting to have a shootout between this and a Mitsubishi Megaview 36" monitor.

[Josh128]

I'd like to mention one important caveat when using these Sony HD CRTs with the RT5X, and I need to update my HD CRT settings video showing the RT5X settings. By default, for some reason, the RT5X displays a different horizontal width for a 240p source than it does with a 480p source (at least it does when using a GameCube). So when you get your screen sizes dialed in for 480p on the set, when you switch to a 480i/240p source (switching the 240p Suite from 480p to 240p/480i for example), the horizontal with is about ~10-15% narrower, leaving about 2" of black on either side of the image.

Fortunately, the RT5X seems to use and retain different settings for different input resolutions, even though the output res (in this case, 540p) is not changed. So to correct this, you need to adjust the horizontal settings (increase size and eliminate left and right cropping) on the 5X to stretch the image horizontally so that 15KHz sources and 31KHz sources are identical in size on the set. When I get a minute I'll share these settings.

[tacoguy64]

No, it doesn't do 240p.

Looks like it does great with upscalers tho.

[tacoguy64]

Your pictures reminded me the reason why I sold my 800 Lines 14" BVM in favor of saving a small 14" consumer CRT I had in my holiday house.

The resolution is so high that it might as well come from an LCD monitor with a good filter, to me it kind of loses that CRT feeling I get with a "normal" TV.

That's not to say the picture isn't fantastic: it is exceptional, but I personally prefer, for 240p games at least, the look of a mid-level consumer TV.

I wonder if I'm alone on this boat or if other people share the same feeling and the BVM/PVM craze is getting to an end.

You are right, this thing is essentially a giant BVM that more obviously exhibits any small imperfections in the source, as well as any misconvergence or geometry issues that might be present in the set. As you can see in Links hair, it does resolve more texture and color detail than the HS 420, but it loses "something" in the overall look. It does look great in person, but I actually prefer the HS420 as well due to its more "granular" look and glow-- the same reasons I gushed about the 1024x768p Samsung F4500 plasma years ago. Even though the full 1080p F5300 was identical with higher resolution, I preferred the 4500 as it had that granular / SDE look (which still disappears at normal viewing distance) that the 5300 lacked.

As I mentioned earlier, I have some white balance and greyscale issues to sort on this monster, but even so I doubt its going to top the HS for me. Im not exaggerating when I say my HS, after about 16+ hours of tuning, has probably the best picture Ive seen on any CRT. Its so good I literally dont want to touch it lest I mess something up.

That said, I saw this on FB and snagged it because I love messing with this stuff and on paper its very hard to argue that this is not the ultimate 4:3 CRT ever created, a behemoth BVM, and I jumped at the chance to get my hands on one. It would be interesting to have a shootout between this and a Mitsubishi Megaview 36" monitor.

A good color calibration can go a long ways to giving you a nicer picture, but it probably wont do much for you since there are other aspects you did not like. For me, I do like the BVM look, even if you have to use an upscaler to achieve the results.

[Josh128]

Looks like it does great with upscalers tho.

A good color calibration can go a long ways to giving you a nicer picture, but it probably wont do much for you since there are other aspects you did not like. For me, I do like the BVM look, even if you have to use an upscaler to achieve the results.

It does do great with them, just like VGA CRTs, but keep in mind you dont need an upscaler at all if you have a GC running Swiss or a PS2 running GSM-- you can output 540p or 1080i directly from the consoles with identical results.



Ive probably spent 4-6 hours in the last few days setting white balance, grayscale, and color cal. It made a huge difference to me. Dont get me wrong, I think its amazing, its just different. I got this thing pretty well tuned, I think. My reference HS420 is in the background of these shots. Previously, my greys and blues had a greenish-yellow tint to them, its pretty well balanced now.

[strayan]

I have to applaud Josh for his dedication to this backbreaking hobby. One things for sure, Josh is a man who appreciates good picture quality so it couldn’t have found a better home. Congrats on saving yet another gem of a CRT. Finally these old sets are being used to their full potential!

[Josh128]

Thank you my friend, wanting to play with these is both fun and painful.

I did some lag testing using an SNES composite out to the RT5X, splitting off at the input of the 5X to direct feed an SDTV, then running the output of the 5X at 540p to the XS955. Tested some different modes to demonstrate the difference between XS955 HDPT=0 using RT5X Frame Lock vs Triple Buffer and also XS955 HDPT=1 using RT5X Frame Lock vs direct fed SDTV. Lines up pretty well with the expected 0ms lag for 540p @HDPT=0 and 3ms RT5X Frame Lock lag, 32ms lag for 540p @HDPT=1 and 3 ms RT5X Frame Lock lag, and 0ms lag for 540p @HDPT=0 and ~16ms RT5X Triple Buffer Lag. These figures should be identical for all Sony HDCRTs containing the MID bypass circuit.

[kitty666cats]

No, it doesn't do 240p.

Looks like it does great with upscalers tho.

SOME. A slightly old RT5X firmware & most definitely a dedicated one that will be included in the OSSC Pro

[Lord of Pirates]

Cool that the lag can be brought down that low. Is the HDPT setting specific to particular models?

[Josh128]

Honestly, knowbody seems to have the definitive answer on that. There is a user here, @incrediblehark , that had the misfortune of getting 2 different Sony HD models that did not have working bypass circuitry , a 40XBR and a 32HS420. I have a 36HS420 and a 36XS955 and they both have it.

[tacoguy64]

No, it doesn't do 240p.

Looks like it does great with upscalers tho.

SOME. A slightly old RT5X firmware & most definitely a dedicated one that will be included in the OSSC Pro

Maybe not all scalers, but the right scaler.
I would not frown upon such a setup. As Josh has shown here, it looks great and performs good too! Just need to add scanlines and bam! Ultimate display.

[tacoguy64]

Looks like it does great with upscalers tho.

A good color calibration can go a long ways to giving you a nicer picture, but it probably wont do much for you since there are other aspects you did not like. For me, I do like the BVM look, even if you have to use an upscaler to achieve the results.

It does do great with them, just like VGA CRTs, but keep in mind you dont need an upscaler at all if you have a GC running Swiss or a PS2 running GSM-- you can output 540p or 1080i directly from the consoles with identical results.



Ive probably spent 4-6 hours in the last few days setting white balance, grayscale, and color cal. It made a huge difference to me. Dont get me wrong, I think its amazing, its just different. I got this thing pretty well tuned, I think. My reference HS420 is in the background of these shots. Previously, my greys and blues had a greenish-yellow tint to them, its pretty well balanced now.

I knew you could squeeze out all the image quality out of this big boy!

[Josh128]

Heres some more super fine pitch porn for ya! All kidding aside, I think this beast could use some new electrolytics, at least on the deflection section and maybe the neck board. I think the power section is OK. There is a very slight (about a half a scanline) slow vertical jitter that I noticed in the image at all resolutions and regardless of HDPT mode. Its slow and very hard to see unless your nose is on the screen, but its identical to this except it jitters slower. This guy claims he fixed it by recapping the deflection board. I can very much believe I have some out of spec electrolytics in this unit because I suspect it has very high hours. Like an old lady who doesnt leave the house much and watches the Price is Right and soap operas all day every day while smoking a pack and a half of Marlboro Reds amount of hours . I hate to even think about doing it, but if it would help, would be cool if I can help and dont completely mess it up.

[BazookaBen]

I haven't read through the thread yet but these screenshots look fantastic.

Glad we have some outstanding citizens here keeping these tubes alive

[Lord of Pirates]

Honestly, knowbody seems to have the definitive answer on that. There is a user here, @incrediblehark , that had the misfortune of getting 2 different Sony HD models that did not have working bypass circuitry , a 40XBR and a 32HS420. I have a 36HS420 and a 36XS955 and they both have it.

I see, thanks. I don't recall seeing the option in the service menu for the 34XBR800 or 960 but it's been years and it's not like I was looking for it. I wonder if maybe all SFP models and later hi-scan models have it? Are all the lag measurements in your first post with HDPT set to 0 or only the 1080i measurement?

[Josh128]

Honestly, knowbody seems to have the definitive answer on that. There is a user here, @incrediblehark , that had the misfortune of getting 2 different Sony HD models that did not have working bypass circuitry , a 40XBR and a 32HS420. I have a 36HS420 and a 36XS955 and they both have it.

I see, thanks. I don't recall seeing the option in the service menu for the 34XBR800 or 960 but it's been years and it's not like I was looking for it. I wonder if maybe all SFP models and later hi-scan models have it? Are all the lag measurements in your first post with HDPT set to 0 or only the 1080i measurement?

The thing is, both of his sets still had the service menu option-- it just doesnt do anything. Its like they didnt bother to change the firmware on the models that lack the MID bypass circuit.

I think it is specific to input, so Im thinking all the tests were done at HDPT=0. It really doesnt matter though, it doesnt bypass the MID / scaling circuit unless you give it a 33.75KHz resolution, either 1080i or 540p or something very close to either that it will sync to.

[Josh128]

Tried a MiSTer on this set over the past week, using a 540p modeline, converting to YPrPb via a Portta transcoder, and it worked like a charm. Very impressive, actually. Used with one of the SAFFUN wireless N64 controllers and I also give those particular controllers a huge thumbs up. Basically cant tell SM64 on MiSTer with this controller from the real thing.

[kitty666cats]

Damnnnnn that looks so good. Hell yeah!