CRT Fetish Thread

RAZ_HOE! said:

Yea, It's hard to find pro monitors at a decent price now in days. I remember a few years ago when you could find 20 Inch Pvm's for $50. Now that sellers and these recycling centers know that gamers are interested in them, they jack up the price.

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I paid $200 for my 20" PVM a few years back but I'd say that'd be cheap now.

$400 shipped for a 20" PVM is actually a really good deal now. That's assuming (which is a BIG assumption) they're shipping it properly in 2x double wall corrugated boxes inside each other, with closed cell foam between (and inside) each box. My shipping company I work with gave me quotes and it's roughly $210 to $265 to ship with FedEx depending how far away in the USA (which was cheaper than the quotes I got from FedEx directly where I would have to source my own packaging material). That's $115 to $190 for a 20" PVM - I paid $158 at a medical auction for my last one for for comparison.

Anyway, GohanX is completely right that most people will be extremely happy with a cheap-to-free nice Sony consumer TV with Component/YPbPr inputs, paired with a RGBS SCART to YPbPr converter. I highly suggest the Shinybow SB-2840 - it's been flawless for me. I still think anybody into CRT TV's should at least own one PVM in their lifetime though so they can compare and contrast - they really can be amazing once you start to notice the fine differences in picture quality between them and a consumer set – IF you can get one for a good deal (which can take luck, perseverance, both, and/or some money

lachlan said:

I paid $200 for my 20" PVM a few years back but I'd say that'd be cheap now.

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Yup. Your not finding a 20 now in days for under $300.

Dochartaigh said:

$400 shipped for a 20" PVM is actually a really good deal now. That's assuming (which is a BIG assumption) they're shipping it properly in 2x double wall corrugated boxes inside each other, with closed cell foam between (and inside) each box. My shipping company I work with gave me quotes and it's roughly $210 to $265 to ship with FedEx depending how far away in the USA (which was cheaper than the quotes I got from FedEx directly where I would have to source my own packaging material). That's $115 to $190 for a 20" PVM - I paid $158 at a medical auction for my last one for for comparison.

Anyway, GohanX is completely right that most people will be extremely happy with a cheap-to-free nice Sony consumer TV with Component/YPbPr inputs, paired with a RGBS SCART to YPbPr converter. I highly suggest the Shinybow SB-2840 - it's been flawless for me. I still think anybody into CRT TV's should at least own one PVM in their lifetime though so they can compare and contrast - they really can be amazing once you start to notice the fine differences in picture quality between them and a consumer set – IF you can get one for a good deal (which can take luck, perseverance, both, and/or some money

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The problem with buying these older monitors is that you don't know how long they are going to last. I've had 2 Pvm's die already on me. Unless you know how to fix monitors and know where to source parts for these old monitors your taking a gamble paying $400 for a monitor.

Fuuuuuck that. No way I'm paying 300 bucks for a pvm. When my last 2 die I'll just xrgb2 to 20 inch vga tubes.

skate323k137 said:

Fuuuuuck that. No way I'm paying 300 bucks for a pvm. When my last 2 die I'll just xrgb2 to 20 inch vga tubes.

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This

RAZ_HOE! said:

The problem with buying these older monitors is that you don't know how long they are going to last. I've had 2 Pvm's die already on me. Unless you know how to fix monitors and know where to source parts for these old monitors your taking a gamble paying $400 for a monitor.

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I agree it can definitely be a gamble (especially with shipping - which I've only had 1 shipped), but I've had better luck actually. I've kept a spreadsheet and in the last year (I know that's not a long amount of time) I've found roughly 50 PVM's. Over 75% were perfect. Remove the 8" models, and only one 14"+ PVM with RGB broke on me.

I'm not counting the ones where I had to do super-simple things like adjust geometry in the service menu, give them a bath and scrub with a magic eraser, or do simple maintenance like turn the focus dial, rotate the yoke a couple degrees to make the picture level, or adjust the rings to tune in purity a little bit (only done that twice). All these things only involve a philips head screwdriver, removing 4-6 screws total, and either rotating a dial, yoke, or some rings clockwise or counterclockwise for ~20 minutes until you get it right). Haven't heard from any friends or family, or people I sold a couple of these to that theirs broke all these months later either (still keeping my fingers crossed my own PVM/BVM's last for a long, long time).

I would say 99% of these monitors weren't bought by an individual, they were purchased en masse for medical,broadcast, display purposes which = used and abused. It's a real gamble.

skate323k137 said:

Fuuuuuck that. No way I'm paying 300 bucks for a pvm. When my last 2 die I'll just xrgb2 to 20 inch vga tubes.

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I've done this, it's a great combo. A lot easier to adjust geometry as well.

lachlan said:

I would say 99% of these monitors weren't bought by an individual, they were purchased en masse for medical,broadcast, display purposes which = used and abused. It's a real gamble.

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it really is. my 1954 was probably a beater and ive had minor issues with it here and there but for the most part its a fantastic monitor.

i believe my pair 20L5 were bought from the original owner because when i picked them up, he lamented about how much he originally paid for them when they were new and how it was crazy how they werent worth much nowadays because CRTs are outdated and hdtvs are the new standard

lachlan said:

they were purchased en masse for medical,broadcast, display purposes which = used and abused. It's a real gamble.

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Medical ones are commonly the best of the bunch actually. They were usually used as endoscopy monitors (so maybe 5 ass-probings a day, 20 minutes each = barely any use), they were required to be calibrated on a regular basis, and the MD versions have slightly more robust power supplies they say (and an extra RGB input, although no 16:9 mode). Win. Win. Win.

Yeah pvm are not worth that kind of money. I don't even use my 20M2U anymore after I successfully modded a 27" Sony KV-27S42 for RGB. The rgb out of it is pretty good and the increase in screen size just makes the pvm look small.

ginoscope said:

Yeah pvm are not worth that kind of money. I don't even use my 20M2U anymore after I successfully modded a 27" Sony KV-27S42 for RGB. The rgb out of it is pretty good and the increase in screen size just makes the pvm look small.

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Was this rgb mod easy or a pain in the ass?

With the way PVM prices are going, I forsee a lot of RGB modding of larger sized sets in the future.

DanAdamKOF said:

I forsee a lot of RGB modding of larger sized sets in the future.

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Which makes absolutely zero sense to me. They're taking TV's like 2 series back (say ~1990-1995 instead of ones a full 10-15 years newer which have a much greater chance of having non-failing components), then spending all this time RGB modding them....when they could get a FREE much-more modern TV with Component inputs, tons more features, better clarity, newer parts, and all they need is a cheap RGB SCART to Component converter box. Done.

RGB converted to YPbPr, compared to RGB directly is literally identical to the naked eye (evident by how every single BVM or PVM I've picked up from a professional setting was using YPbPr connections and not RGBS). I mean, I get it (kinda), some people like tinkering -more power to them-, but they think their RGB modded consumer TV is the second coming of christ, when it's exactly what all of Europe (and most arcade cabinets) has had for like 30ish years now...

Dochartaigh said:

Which makes absolutely zero sense to me. They're taking TV's like 2 series back (say ~1990-1995 instead of ones a full 10-15 years newer which have a much greater chance of having non-failing components), then spending all this time RGB modding them....when they could get a FREE much-more modern TV with Component inputs, tons more features, better clarity, newer parts, and all they need is a cheap RGB SCART to Component converter box. Done.

RGB converted to YPbPr, compared to RGB directly is literally identical to the naked eye (evident by how every single BVM or PVM I've picked up from a professional setting was using YPbPr connections and not RGBS). I mean, I get it (kinda), some people like tinkering -more power to them-, but they think their RGB modded consumer TV is the second coming of christ, when it's exactly what all of Europe (and most arcade cabinets) has had for like 30ish years now...

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No way is component identical to pure rgb. If your saying that, it's because you don't know what pure rgb looks like. I can tell the difference between playing on my 27 inch Wega with a scart to component converter and playing pure rgb on a pvm. Picture is crisp, Colors aren't over saturated. The Picture looks perfect.

DanAdamKOF said:

With the way PVM prices are going, I forsee a lot of RGB modding of larger sized sets in the future.

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Same here bro.

RAZ_HOE! said:

I can tell the difference between playing on my 27 inch Wega with a scart to component converter and playing pure rgb on a pvm. Picture is crisp, Colors aren't over saturated. The Picture looks perfect.

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While there are cases where you're going to get lower quality component out of some sort of hardware than you are RGB, the difference between the two in this case is absolutely down to the calibration of the WEGA. On professional equipment, given that they're both configured properly, the differences between RGB and Component are extremely negligible. The same sort of idea would apply to a modded consumer set displaying RGB and the same set displaying Component, again assuming that the set is properly calibrated. Consumer sets, by default, are almost universally calibrated "badly" in that you're going to get way over-saturated colors, and garbage color balance. Essentially all of these can be fixed to get really amazing results.

Dochartaigh said:

Which makes absolutely zero sense to me. They're taking TV's like 2 series back (say ~1990-1995 instead of ones a full 10-15 years newer which have a much greater chance of having non-failing components), then spending all this time RGB modding them....when they could get a FREE much-more modern TV with Component inputs, tons more features, better clarity, newer parts, and all they need is a cheap RGB SCART to Component converter box. Done.

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The reasons they're going for older sets are relatively simple, really.

• Considerably improving the picture quality of what at this point may be seen as a less desirable set, given that many people have and do prefer to find Component capable sets.
• Non-Flat tubes. Even with lots of work, many flat CRTs just have glaring geometry and linearity issues that people just can't live with, and older sets are less prone to them.
• Considerably less complicated. For many older sets, RGB modding is just a case of finding out the proper voltage levels and buffering/clamping required to feed the jungle IC, and to activate blanking. This is more in the argument of modding old versus new stuff, but the newer flat models (specifically Sony) tend to include more complicated micro controllers to handle various things, which can lead to trouble with modding in RGB or what have you.
• To continue on the above, less complicated bit; Yes, older sets may have parts wearing out and starting to go on them, but due to them being older and less complicated, these parts are liable to be capacitors and other relatively passive components that you can still find replacements for extremely easily. While newer sets aren't going to have as much wear on the components(which I'm sure some would argue are lower quality and more likely to actually going bad than the older ones) there are considerably more active components in them to go wrong. A good example is the power ICs that go bad in a lot of WEGA sets; You can still find replacement parts for them, but fakes are rampant making things much more difficult.

Both options should be considered, but I don't see why either camp should look down on the opposite. In they end, both groups are just trying to get the best picture quality out of their old games that they can muster, just using different methods.

Have access to a well setup component set? Grab a transcoder and go to town.

Have a composite/s-video set in really nice shape, but want to get a bit more out of it?
Mod that thing.

Have a well setup component set but still want to mess around with RGB?
Fuck it, mod that too!

And a few photos under the spoiler:


Sadly, this set has since broken down and I haven't been able to take any new shots once I got the focus and sharpness better under control.

Yeah it really isn't fair to compare two CRTs to one another even if its the same manufacturer. Different tubes, different chassis, not calibrated, and including wear and tear on it due to usage all have a factor on the output quality.

Someone asked the question on retro gaming roundtable about rgb vs component being mathematically equivalent. The TL;dr is pretty much once you calibrate it, but you need to keep in mind not all retro consoles have ideal RGB so ymmv. Pretty much what KyaDash stated sums it up nicely.

Those flat screen crts can be nice when their geometry isn't tilted or bad, but almost every one I've seen needed serious time in the service menu. Sometimes the service menu isn't enough. Additionally I've noticed a lot of the flat Sony ones have horrible red push making reds look like Sunny-D.

I think Bob from RetroRGB is going to eventually show a component CRT vs it being RGB modded sometime, im just not sure when he will get around to it.

EDIT: If you don't mind me asking, do you use a device for color calibrating KyaDash?

RAZ_HOE! said:

Was this rgb mod easy or a pain in the ass?

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It honestly was not that hard on this set. This is the second consumer set I have modded and this one was pretty easy. The only thing that was giving me issues was forcing the set into s-video mode. I needed this so that I could use the luma as my sync. Once I figured that out it all worked perfectly. The bill of materials for this mod is pretty light as well. Of course anyone attempting this please know what you doing around the high voltage.

Pics of my crt mod
https://imgur.com/a/x9mLz

Like KyaDash said the two sets that I have modded have been the curved tubes. I like to play on these as opposed to the later flat crt that included component inputs.

RAZ_HOE! said:

No way is component identical to pure rgb. If your saying that, it's because you don't know what pure rgb looks like. I can tell the difference between playing on my 27 inch Wega with a scart to component converter and playing pure rgb on a pvm. Picture is crisp, Colors aren't over saturated. The Picture looks perfect.

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KyaDash and ChuChu already bit into this, but I was talking about on the SAME monitor the difference between RGBS and YPbPr is extremely small (since the signals themselves are nearly identical in quality when all things are equal). In most cases it comes down to how the monitor's hardware handles both input types, how it's calibrated, and how the converter box was built.

When I run mine on my BVM-D20F1U where I can switch from one preset to another very quickly with its two input cards, and flash between the same source on RGBS and converted RGBS>YPbPr, they are so close I would fail the Pepsi challenge picking one over the other.

Even when I try it side-by-side with my BVM-20F1U and BVM-D20F1U (calibrated for white balance at least with the BKM-14L probe less than a year ago) they're near identical once again. The SUPER slight differences are there if I squint and half-way guess (these are different sets) but then I can tweak the brightness a notch or two, or contrast, or R or G level or whatever and they'll be so close to each other it's not even funny.

KyaDash said:

The reasons they're going for older sets are relatively simple, really.

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I totally understand your logic. I've moreso been posting about the RGBS SCART to YPbPr converter option because ever since that "OMG RGB TV MOD IS SEX – BETTER THAN BVM" video came out you have people left and right wanting to mod their consumer sets. People who have never opened up an electronic device in their life. They think the mod is so easy because there's tutorials online and the thread on Shmups, and that after it's done they will have a TV with the same exact quality (if not better since *they* did the mod themselves) than a BVM...which I always laugh about lol.

Using a simple converter at least gives them another option on the cheap, with an easily found free consumer TV with component inputs. My own Sony KV-27FV310 looks beautiful with the Shinybow SB-2840 YPbPr converter. Little oversaturated (especially on the reds which Wega's tend to do), but when set to pro mode (with a couple slight tweaks...haven't even gone into the service menu much yet) it's a really sharp set (and like has already been said, that extra size doesn't hurt either).

Ok, very new to this, so bear with me please..

I went ahead and grabbed the (now my second) KV-27FS100. I have it going from my Analogue NT Mini vga to component, and my SNES from the multi to component.
Am I read the posts correctly saying that I can make the picture even better than what I'm getting with a basic setup like I have now?

Tell me where to start! super please!

F34R said:

Ok, very new to this, so bear with me please..

I went ahead and grabbed the (now my second) KV-27FS100. I have it going from my Analogue NT Mini vga to component, and my SNES from the multi to component.
Am I read the posts correctly saying that I can make the picture even better than what I'm getting with a basic setup like I have now?

Tell me where to start! super please!

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The highest quality input type of your TV is Component - so you've maxed out what your TV will do (unless you RGB mod it - which read above – it won't do much).

You can get a better consumer TV (which would also take component) - the Sony FV310 series are thought to be the best, or upgrade to a PVM or BVM (which can be extremely pricy although people still luck into finding them for free or cheap). The PVM/PVM could take a native RGB signal (which the SNES can output, and I think the Analogue NT as well), but will also look excellent with your existing Component cables.

Dochartaigh said:

The highest quality input type of your TV is Component - so you've maxed out what your TV will do (unless you RGB mod it - which read above – it won't do much).

You can get a better consumer TV (which would also take component) - the Sony FV310 series are thought to be the best, or upgrade to a PVM or BVM (which can be extremely pricy although people still luck into finding them for free or cheap). The PVM/PVM could take a native RGB signal (which the SNES can output, and I think the Analogue NT as well), but will also look excellent with your existing Component cables.

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Oh ok. Yeah, I've all but given up on the PVM/BVM route. Everything I find that's reasonable ($200 or less) is too far from South Carolina. I'll see if I can find a FV310, but again, my location limits that dramatically. I was really LUCKY to find the two 27FS100's I've had.

F34R said:

Oh ok. Yeah, I've all but given up on the PVM/BVM route. Everything I find that's reasonable ($200 or less) is too far from South Carolina. I'll see if I can find a FV310, but again, my location limits that dramatically. I was really LUCKY to find the two 27FS100's I've had.

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How far is too far?

ChuChu Flamingo said:

EDIT: If you don't mind me asking, do you use a device for color calibrating KyaDash?

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I do technically own a standalone probe which could be used for proper calibration, but I still haven't gotten around to learning how to use it properly and as a cheaper model I'm pretty sure it's a bit out of spec.

For the few consumer sets I've actually tried to get looking good, I've just had them display the output of a few different pro monitors which I see as relatively accurate and match then to that. A proper probe would almost without a doubt be both easier and give more accurate results, but this has worked well enough for my needs.