vicosku wrote:It's just when I turn on my 1701 that I become disappointed. Maybe the only thing I prefer is the smaller, denser, picture.
The back of that Commodore monitor is SVideo. You can get or make an adapter cable. Its a great "compact for CRT" monitor when running a second console for link games.
Yeah, that's what I use and what is shown in the picture I posted. I think I might have actually learned that in one of your threads and is why I grabbed it from my parents' garage to replace the Samsung GXTV I was using at the time. I prefer the s-video quality on the 1701 to RGB or component on the PVM.
vicosku wrote:I actually do have the service manual. I paid $5 on one of those sites to grab it, but it was worth it. You can get into the service menu by pressing the menu button once to bring up the regular menu, and then pressing degauss and enter simultaneously. The manual explains the settings pretty well.
I calibrated mine using Avia, and it does have a pretty good picture, but the contrast level is pretty low compared to my Commodore monitor or my 27" Wega. Also sprites on the commodore just look like animation to me, where the 20M2U allows me to see individual pixels clearly. Pre-rendered stuff like backgrounds in PS1 RPGs look like a pixellated mess unless I sit far away, and then I may as well use the 13" commodore. My Wega's quality is about the same, just with a larger picture and better contrast. It's been a while since I've seen an actual arcade cabinet with some old sprite-based games running in 240p, but I remember it looking better than this. My PVM would look pretty dull in an arcade. Yours is fine though?
Thanks so much for posting that link! Honestly, even stuff rendered in 240p looks amazing.
I'll get my hands on a calibration disc and see what I can do though...a little tweaking never hurt.
You're welcome! And wow...I feel stupid right now. While messing with a bunch of random stuff today I hooked my Wii up to the PVM directly instead of going through my video switch like usual and the difference was incredible. The picture is vibrant and colorful just like everyone always describes. The problem lies with the switch or the cables I'm using, apparently. Whoops. Well, I'm gonna go play some games!
Yeah, I've had switches in the past that RUINED picture quality. Luckily, the Shinybow switch I'm using now is pretty flawless, but it cost almost two hundred! That's more than I spent on my monitor!! Really worth it though.
Hey, this may not be the right place for this question, but has anyone tried hooking a PC into this monitor for MAME playback? Would I just need to set the resolution of my computer to 640x480 and buy one of these?:
You can't go straight from VGA to RGB with the 31Khz signal a PC outputs. You need a scan converter. I use an extron emotia I got from eBay and it works pretty well for most stuff if you set it to 640x480. I had to use my Nvidia card's software to move the picture down one pixel so that the doubled lines were eliminated by the emotia rather than the original. I never saw anybody else mention that issue. It ended up being a huge hassle and now that the Wii has just about every emulator I need, I've found it to be a simpler and higher quality experience than using a computer. With my equipment I don't have any of the frame stutter, sound crackling, or level of input lag I've put up with trying to get a good experience from PCs for the past 15 years. You can get more information about the PC/scan converter route from this oft-cited article, as I'm sure it's a good solution for some people.
ApolloBoy wrote:Your PVM might be worn out too, PVMs saw a lot of use in TV studios where they're on all the time so I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
This is prob the issue, this is a broadcast monitor, so they were usually run 24/7. We sell these my work, I have a ton of 14 and 20in in the back and may be able to give you a replacement if needed if you determine you cannot calibrate yours because it is just faded. At the time the Sony BVM line was the highest grade, used in professional color correction rooms (film/video). They were 20-30k per monitor. PVM and BVMs were used in the professional arena to give editors a true confidence monitor, because the desktop monitors would not show accurate color representation and what was played to air looked different that what editors see on their computer monitors. Now a days the cost of shipping is usually more that what the monitor is worth. If you are interested I could send you one for nothing if you are willing to pay shipping. Some professional shops are still using BVMs to this day because it is hard for LCD and Plasma to recreate the black levels you find on older CRT's like this.
vicosku wrote:I'll have to look into the Shinybow ones, but I found my old cheap powered monoprice one from a few years ago and it looks like it did the trick.
You can't go straight from VGA to RGB with the 31Khz signal a PC outputs. You need a scan converter. I use an extron emotia I got from eBay and it works pretty well for most stuff if you set it to 640x480. I had to use my Nvidia card's software to move the picture down one pixel so that the doubled lines were eliminated by the emotia rather than the original. I never saw anybody else mention that issue. It ended up being a huge hassle and now that the Wii has just about every emulator I need, I've found it to be a simpler and higher quality experience than using a computer. With my equipment I don't have any of the frame stutter, sound crackling, or level of input lag I've put up with trying to get a good experience from PCs for the past 15 years. You can get more information about the PC/scan converter route from this oft-cited article, as I'm sure it's a good solution for some people.
Thanks for the info on VGA to RGB though. The Wii emulates everything fine except MAME. Using a PC that's dedicated specifically to MAME would probably be best. Thanks for the info though, I'll see if I can find something similar.
RetroVision wrote:This is prob the issue, this is a broadcast monitor, so they were usually run 24/7. We sell these my work, I have a ton of 14 and 20in in the back and may be able to give you a replacement if needed if you determine you cannot calibrate yours because it is just faded. At the time the Sony BVM line was the highest grade, used in professional color correction rooms (film/video). They were 20-30k per monitor. PVM and BVMs were used in the professional arena to give editors a true confidence monitor, because the desktop monitors would not show accurate color representation and what was played to air looked different that what editors see on their computer monitors. Now a days the cost of shipping is usually more that what the monitor is worth. If you are interested I could send you one for nothing if you are willing to pay shipping. Some professional shops are still using BVMs to this day because it is hard for LCD and Plasma to recreate the black levels you find on older CRT's like this.
Sorry to once again stray a bit off topic, but since you have experience with a lot of these, maybe you can help. All the 20" PVM's I've seen look great. I've only seen a few that were larger and they definitely seemed like the picture quality wasn't as high. Obviously, there's a lot involved including how much they were used, but I was curious: Is there a big model of the PVM's that put out the same quality picture as the 20M2U? I'd really love a 32" or 27" PVM that has the same picture quality as mine.
RetroVision wrote:This is prob the issue, this is a broadcast monitor, so they were usually run 24/7. We sell these my work, I have a ton of 14 and 20in in the back and may be able to give you a replacement if needed if you determine you cannot calibrate yours because it is just faded. At the time the Sony BVM line was the highest grade, used in professional color correction rooms (film/video). They were 20-30k per monitor. PVM and BVMs were used in the professional arena to give editors a true confidence monitor, because the desktop monitors would not show accurate color representation and what was played to air looked different that what editors see on their computer monitors. Now a days the cost of shipping is usually more that what the monitor is worth. If you are interested I could send you one for nothing if you are willing to pay shipping. Some professional shops are still using BVMs to this day because it is hard for LCD and Plasma to recreate the black levels you find on older CRT's like this.
Sorry to once again stray a bit off topic, but since you have experience with a lot of these, maybe you can help. All the 20" PVM's I've seen look great. I've only seen a few that were larger and they definitely seemed like the picture quality wasn't as high. Obviously, there's a lot involved including how much they were used, but I was curious: Is there a big model of the PVM's that put out the same quality picture as the 20M2U? I'd really love a 32" or 27" PVM that has the same picture quality as mine.
I think 20in is the largest made in the PVM line. The BVM series has a 32in, which is really sweet, but it is very pricey. This is because they have HD Broadcast inputs...which is referred to as HD-SDI (higher quality than HD Component, basically HDMI for broadcast signals). It is basically an uncompressed HD signal that connects via BNC and it is why they cost so much. There are a few 32in BVM on ebay, but it is way out of consumer price range. You would pay more for the BVM 32in than you would for a brand new 50in 3D television.
