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What exactly do you mean by 'progressively faded color bars match each other'. Can you give me a screenshot example? I don't think I'm getting it.
CRT Fetish Thread
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Sure, here's an overly perfect example but what you are shooting for:What exactly do you mean by 'progressively faded color bars match each other'. Can you give me a screenshot example? I don't think I'm getting it.
If a color is too dim it will fade off the left side before the others, among other visual indicators for other imbalance. You can achieve pretty good balance this way. On the flip if it's too bright it will go solid before the others toward the right.
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Whatever will you do with all the space your CRT was taking up?
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Probably ask @Master Tasuke for some advice on shitty old AV equipment to fill the space. 
I actually had three CRTs for some dumbass reason.
I actually had three CRTs for some dumbass reason.
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I have a 5X Pro that I was going to use as a CRT replacement, but as it turns out my TV is too old and crappy so when the screen scrolls with dark backgrounds/graphics everything dims until it stops scrolling (refresh rate is too slow I guess). The 4K is probably good enough to replace CRTs for most people, but I don't even own a 4K TV. Maybe I should sell my 20M4U and by a nice one and a RT4K?
I tried to use the color bars to do this, but either I'm already pretty balanced or I can't see the nuanced gradients on the SNES version like I can in your picture. I *think* I got it to a good place by reducing the green a ton. I tried to take some pictures using my iPhone but we all know how that turns out (any hints for that?). Anyway with the two I did take you can't really see the color balance very well, but you can see how it appears that on the left side that the green is brighter than red and blue for 0 and 1. No matter how much I lowered the green the balance always seems to be this way on the color bard.
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I have a 5X Pro that I was going to use as a CRT replacement, but as it turns out my TV is too old and crappy so when the screen scrolls with dark backgrounds/graphics everything dims until it stops scrolling (refresh rate is too slow I guess). The 4K is probably good enough to replace CRTs for most people, but I don't even own a 4K TV. Maybe I should sell my 20M4U and by a nice one and a RT4K?
I tried to use the color bars to do this, but either I'm already pretty balanced or I can't see the nuanced gradients on the SNES version like I can in your picture. I *think* I got it to a good place by reducing the green a ton. I tried to take some pictures using my iPhone but we all know how that turns out (any hints for that?). Anyway with the two I did take you can't really see the color balance very well, but you can see how it appears that on the left side that the green is brighter than red and blue for 0 and 1. No matter how much I lowered the green the balance always seems to be this way on the color bard.
You could probably easily afford an OLED, if you sell one of those expensive PVMs. Mister + OLED + RT4K is pretty legit tbh.
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See if you can locate a green cutoff pot.
Edit: 20M4U it should be in the service menu.
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Ok and what do I do with it? How do I use it to fix that?
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If one color is constantly more bright than the others, lowering it's cutoff should fix the issue.
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I honestly haven't noticed it outside of the color bars. Do you think I need to mess with it? I'm not sure I want to tinker with things like that in the SM if I don't have to (I limit myself to geometry for the most part).
I think I have it looking good enough right now. Maybe it's not quite right, but it's loads better than it was. For example I was just looking at the sky in SMW donut plains and it's the correct sepia tone (or near enough) that most emulators show. It's not nearly as blue/white as D93 and not nearly as yellow/green as D65 are so I'm happy. I can try a few more games just to see if anything looks out of whack, but the color bars look pretty uniform for the most part.
Two more questions for you:
1. What does the chroma auto adjust option do? I adjusted my chroma correctly using the color bars and the blue only button so I don't think I need to mess with it, but I was really curious as to what it was for.
2. What's the best way to adjust v. linearity? I seem to recall people saying that the crosses on the top of the screen in the monoscope pattern should be the same height as the crosses on the bottom. And while I get how that works, I have a hard time getting an accurate measurement because it can change depending on your perspective if you know what I mean (looking at it too high up or to low).
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It's what I would do if my color bars looked like that, and those settings are easily revertable if you jot them down. Also IIRC you have to press degaus twice or something pretty deliberate to save the changes, otherwise they don't save after power off anyway.
I am not positive on chroma auto adjust, but I think the manual for this PVM is pretty easy to find (albeit massive). linearity is a tough one with curved tubes but I just try to stay level with the screen and get it as good as I can, not something I usually adjust more than once or twice.
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I didn't see anything labeled cut off in the service menu. For USER (the user adjusted color temp) I did see Red and Green B/O but I'm not sure if that's cutt off or not. Adjusting it didn't seem to make much of a difference, but I didn't change it too much since I wasn't sure what it was.
EDIT: Ok B/O is Blue Only so that's why it didn't do anything. Still not sure where the cut off adjusts are in the SM.
I was looking at the service manual and on page 22 it describes adjusting the white balance, but it isn't particularly helpful unfortunately. https://archive.org/details/SonyPVM20M220M4ServiceManual/page/n21/mode/2up?view=theater
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Sorry, sometimes cutoff is called BIAS, so turn down green BIAS, here's the factory settings for reference
Sony PVM-20M2U PVM-20M4U Service Manual : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Sony PVM-20M2U PVM-20M4U Service Manual PVM-20M2E PVM-20M4E PVM-20M2A PVM-20M4A PVM Professional Video Monitor CRT
archive.org
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I'm almost 100% sure that BIAS and grayed out when using RGB. Both in the regular and service menu.Sorry, sometimes cutoff is called BIAS, so turn down green BIAS, here's the factory settings for reference
Sony PVM-20M2U PVM-20M4U Service Manual : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Sony PVM-20M2U PVM-20M4U Service Manual PVM-20M2E PVM-20M4E PVM-20M2A PVM-20M4A PVM Professional Video Monitor CRTarchive.org
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You might not see clearly defined color bars if your brightness/contrast is jacked up too high. Either on the brightness or contrast controls themselves, or the various gain adjustments on everything are set too high. Most people when setting things by eye, including myself, tend to associate "brighter is better" but on a crt you'll cause blooming and lack of color definition.
On the 240p test suite there are a few brightness/pluge patterns to play with for adjusting brightness and contrast (also sometimes just called Picture.) Brightness adjusts the black level, Contrast adjusts the white. Brightness you adjust by finding a pattern that has true black in it and turning it up until it is gray then backing it down until it hits black again. Contrast you need a pattern with full white and you start at the high and and reduce it until the brightest white no longer blooms. I actually adjust mine to be slightly higher than "correct" for personal tastes.
The white bar in the color bars shown above can be used for this but it's not the best pattern. The background is true black, the 0 in the pattern is also black, and 1 should be the darkest gray that is still visible. On the bright side, F is the brightest white but D and E should be less bright and a distinct difference from F. If the contrast is too high they'll blend together at bright white. Likewise, if the Brightness is too dark the lower end of the scale will all blend together as black.
On the 240p test suite there are a few brightness/pluge patterns to play with for adjusting brightness and contrast (also sometimes just called Picture.) Brightness adjusts the black level, Contrast adjusts the white. Brightness you adjust by finding a pattern that has true black in it and turning it up until it is gray then backing it down until it hits black again. Contrast you need a pattern with full white and you start at the high and and reduce it until the brightest white no longer blooms. I actually adjust mine to be slightly higher than "correct" for personal tastes.
The white bar in the color bars shown above can be used for this but it's not the best pattern. The background is true black, the 0 in the pattern is also black, and 1 should be the darkest gray that is still visible. On the bright side, F is the brightest white but D and E should be less bright and a distinct difference from F. If the contrast is too high they'll blend together at bright white. Likewise, if the Brightness is too dark the lower end of the scale will all blend together as black.
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I have my brightness set to the middle (or the bump on the knob) so my blacks aren't gray, but I do have my contrast cranked up to about 80% because I think it looks better. When I turn it down everything starts getting dim and lifeless.
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Brightness and contrast are controlling black and white levels and really have nothing to do with color. Once you have those nailed down, then you start looking at adjusting the color settings. If your black and white levels are set properly but your colors are dim, then you need to start adjusting the color settings in the service menu. Also, the knobs on the front are really just for fine tuning, there are a *lot* more adjustments that can be done in the service menu.
Unfortunately, it's not particularly user friendly. It was designed to be done by a trained technician, after all. The newer your PVM the easier it is and the more the menu items resemble real English.
Unfortunately, it's not particularly user friendly. It was designed to be done by a trained technician, after all. The newer your PVM the easier it is and the more the menu items resemble real English.
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If you are not set to USER (i.e. you are on D65) you can't touch them IIRC
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Turns out they're grayed out, but you can still adjust them. How odd. I changed the green bias from 512 to 410, hopefully that will fix things.
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Right on. It can also mean the setting isn't active in your current mode i.e. input or scan mode (like the PAL options are gray while NTSC video is input), but the 20M4U is definitely in the upper tier of complicated monitors. #hopethishelps
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I'm sure I'll keep fiddling with it as my OCD allows, but I'm pretty happy with the way things look right now. Are the colors 100% correct? Who knows? Do they look better than the presets? Definitely. I honestly don't think I'll be able to get much better without a color meter or some other tool. At least I can say that if they're not 100% right, the colors aren't too far out of whack.
Thanks for all the help, I appreciate it.
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For what it's worth, the PVM I'm using right now didn't look that great when I got it either, I actually wondered if I had made a mistake. I'm certainly not an expert and I wouldn't say it's calibrated perfectly, but a couple of hours fiddling in the menus got it to be one of the best images I've ever seen. Just write down the values first before you start fiddling so you can restore them if you do something really wrong.
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You're welcome; good to cross paths again. Cheers.
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I'm still not sure I see what all the hype is about the 20M4U and its 800TVL, but it does look pretty darn nice. I ended up getting it for a song ($300) because it had that three line issue and needed a recap. I actually got two at that price but I gave my friend the other one for what I paid because he did the recap for me and talked me into buying them in the first place.
Yeah, funny how that works isn't it? Small world.
. I still have the 1943MD, I use it as a backup now. I noticed it has a little bit of light burn in in the upper left corner, but it's not noticeable except under very specific circumstances (it took me almost 15 years to notice!)