Where to buy PVMs?

[fastbilly1]

I just occasionally use searchtempest.com to look through Craigslist ads for "PVM". Before I found my 29" PVMs, I was using IFTTT to give me email alerts for local Craigslist ads.

Fastbilly, I normally pass over the 8" kind but if you are serious, I will keep an eye out for you. Are you still in the Atlanta area? I can't remember if you moved or not.

I am near Nashville, but travel to Atlanta often. Whats the average price you see 8s going for?

My gameplan is to get four and finally build the Four Swords Arcade machine.

[Erik_Twice]

Computer monitors are likely expecting VGA which is 31kHz. RGB from old video game consoles is almost always 15kHz. I don't think it will work.

Doesn't this mean, though, that you could display MAME (and other emulators) through RGB without the need to use Soft15Khz and the like?

I've seen some of these things going for 15-20€ so if that's the whole drawback I would pick one. My fear is that they might not look like PVMs at all and simply look "good".

[bmoc]

I am near Nashville, but travel to Atlanta often. Whats the average price you see 8s going for?

My gameplan is to get four and finally build the Four Swords Arcade machine.

To be honest, I haven't been looking lately. Most of my money in the past year has gone to the construction of my new house.

However, I need to get my PVMs worked on soonish. One has some color bleeding if I don't boost the green up all the way and the other looks like it has a bad pincushion circuit. I may have to cobble them both together to make a fully functional one if they can't been repaired. If I have to combine them, I will need to start looking for a new spare. I've just had other priorities in the past few months. I am hoping that I can get them worked on by June. But I really should start looking since the 25+ inch ones are so hard to come by. I'll let you know if I come across some cheap 8" ones.

[bmoc]

Doesn't this mean, though, that you could display MAME (and other emulators) through RGB without the need to use Soft15Khz and the like?

Yes. Don't let the 5 BNC connectors on that monitor fool you. A typical VGA cable may have 15 pins but it only uses 5 of them for VGA. Red, Green, Blue, Horizontal Sync, and Vertical Sync. If you were to use the 5 BNC connectors, it would still be VGA but just separated out over different wires.

Though monitors with BNC connectors are typically higher end so they would work well with emulators for sure. But you probably won't get natural scanlines. You'd have to use the emulator's scanline filters.

[Erik_Twice]

Thanks for the comments bmoc

I thought it was weird that there were only a handful of PVMs on sale in Spain, surely with our wasteful 28 different regional channels we must have a lot of them around, right? So I decided to broaden my search.

I started to look for "RGB monitors" and "Professional monitors" and noticed some JVC ones. So I started looking for JVC monitors and...bingo! Far more plentiful than PVMs and much cheaper, there's a "negotiable 75€" 17" one when a 14" at 150€ was the best Sony I found. I guess JVC was bigger here than Sony back then, which from my personal experience is likely.

So yeah, I think I can find one now. Shame I don't have any cash on me, though

[bmoc]

That is a good point. I have seen some Olympus "PVMs" here in the states before but I haven't tried one or seen it in action. I have also read about NEC monitors that are highly regarded.

[ApolloBoy]

I have seen some Olympus "PVMs" here in the states before but I haven't tried one or seen it in action.

The Olympus monitors are nothing more than rebadged PVMs so they should be exactly the same.

[chuckster]

Thanks for the comments bmoc

I thought it was weird that there were only a handful of PVMs on sale in Spain, surely with our wasteful 28 different regional channels we must have a lot of them around, right? So I decided to broaden my search.

I started to look for "RGB monitors" and "Professional monitors" and noticed some JVC ones. So I started looking for JVC monitors and...bingo! Far more plentiful than PVMs and much cheaper, there's a "negotiable 75€" 17" one when a 14" at 150€ was the best Sony I found. I guess JVC was bigger here than Sony back then, which from my personal experience is likely.

So yeah, I think I can find one now. Shame I don't have any cash on me, though

Just want to chime in and say I love JVC monitors. I have three 13", two Y/C only, the other RGB. I also have 4 13" and 2 20" PVMs, and honestly, I prefer the look of the JVCs. It seems JVC is/was the lower-cost option to the PVM series, but for my uses, they really have been just as good if not better.

The JVCs have two major advantages for me. First, the colors are spot-on (I'm guessing its the P-22 phosphor vs. the SMTPE). I've never personally used the phrase eye-candy, but woof! On all neutral settings, nothing is pushed too hard, nothing bleeds (within reason for the composite sets) and they really epitomize what I think my old games should look like. Two of my PVMs had huge color shifts that I was only able to get close to fixing, and eventually sold them.

Second, the geometry on all three was 99% perfect from the word go, while every PVM I have has had horrible geometry that took me hours to fix. Again, there is a difference here in that my JVCs are shadow mask and Sony of course use Apeture Grill, but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. This also may be a reflection of different uses at the TV station I got most of my monitors from, but All I know is the JVCs have all been plug and play, while all my Sony sets had issues.

So if you see a JVC in your desired size and input configuration, I say jump on it, because these really were/are world class monitors.

[Erik_Twice]

So if you see a JVC in your desired size and input configuration, I say jump on it, because these really were/are world class monitors.

I did buy that 17" JVC and it was indeed a great monitor. It's a good size, has great colours and had the huge benefit of having gone through very little use: It was used to check that cameras worked and little more. I've been very happy with it and the repair shop that sold it to me gave me a short guarantee, which I just took advantage of to fix the imagine being slighty tilted to a side.

Funny I made this thread two months ago because I have now found two potential ways of getting a bunch of monitors.

But yes, looking beyond Sony monitors is very important, you can find incredible monitors that way.

[aaron]

I am just waiting for the next person within 8 hours of me on the forums to put up a bunch for sale. I need 2 more 8 inches PVMs...come on bmoc and Aaron.

just now saw this... but yeah, the well has been dry for a bit. i need to go hunting again soon.