Sourcing Sony PVM/BVM monitors?

o1s1n

I'm thinking of downgrading my CRT in size to something between 20 and 25 inches (might be moving back to Bray in the next few months, need to prepare!)but only if I can find a broadcast/industry quality Sony TV.

Currently looking at the PVM-20M4E. Has anyone seen any PVMs or BVMs around Ireland anywhere? Anyone work in an industry where there's a room full of them gathering dust? :pac:

There are a few on ebay.co.uk and .de. but I'm sure the price of transporting them is insane.

By the way, if anyone wants to swap a gorgeous 29 inch 4:3 Sony Trinitron for a smaller PVM let me know

Steve X2

I've been looking at these myself. Seems difficult to get a screen larger than 13/14 inches.
And how do we hook these bad boys up? As in, they have RGB but they seem like bnc style connectors, how would I hook up a console to one?

Andrew76

Steve SI wrote: »

I've been looking at these myself. Seems difficult to get a screen larger than 13/14 inches.
And how do we hook these bad boys up? As in, they have RGB but they seem like bnc style connectors, how would I hook up a console to one?

Scart to BNC. They also have VGA in afaik. Faginrs had a youtube video showing off a BVM he got with this pull out drawer with all the pots/switches on it. Amazing looking yoke, but not easy to come by I would imagine. I know Pyong got himself a PVM of some kind but seemed a bit awkward having to open the thing up to get at the pots.

Here's Faginrs's BVM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdnC1mx7E0U

o1s1n

Here's a BNC to scart adapter cable. Thankfully you won't need to make one up

http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/sony-pvm-scart-converter-bnc.html

I hadn't heard on BVMs until this weekend. They're Sony's top level tier of CRTs. Even better than PVMs. Some of them cost $10,000-$12,000 :eek:

Steve X2

o1s1n wrote: »

Here's a BNC to scart adapter cable. Thankfully you won't need to make one up

http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/sony-pvm-scart-converter-bnc.html

I hadn't heard on BVMs until this weekend. They're Sony's top level tier of CRTs. Even better than PVMs. Some of them cost $10,000-$12,000 :eek:

I might try and grab a 13/14" PVM next month and see what all the fuss is about. Picture quality is supposed to be really really good on them so even at 13 inches it'll still be very nice indeed (and some can be powered via battery which opens up some mobile potential for them).

o1s1n

Excellent looking forward to see how you get on.

13 and 14 inch monitors can look really great. The Amiga/commodore ones that clock in that size are gorgeous.

There's also something nice about playing consoles on smaller screens

Check out the BVM one of the guys got on AO.



Moshpit wrote:
Recently got this beauty here. Probably the best CRT I've ever seen. You have convergence settings for ALL areas on the screen. The picture is just amazing. Looking at my E29s MS8 after playing a few rounds on this BVM is just straight pain in the eyes.

CathalDublin

Where would one acquire one of these monitors 13/14 would be fine for me?

o1s1n

Only place I can find them are ebay. As you can guess, postage is a killer

I wonder would Parcel Motel carry one of the smaller models?

Steve X2

o1s1n wrote: »

Excellent looking forward to see how you get on.

13 and 14 inch monitors can look really great. The Amiga/commodore ones that clock in that size are gorgeous.

Yeah, I've got an old Commodore 64 1702 (or maybe 1701) monitor from and the screen looks gods damn sexy on it. It's not a PVM but I still love the display on it and i think its about 13 inches or there abouts.

Steve X2

o1s1n wrote: »

Only place I can find them are ebay. As you can guess, postage is a killer

I wonder would Parcel Motel carry one of the smaller models?

I was wondering the same as delivery on some of them is 50 sterling to Ireland and free or 2.95 sterling to the UK for some reason.
I've noticed parcel motel are not super careful with packages though so that might be a risk with a crt. I've not had anything broken from them but lots of corners crushed on medium and large packages. I also got to watch one of the couriers fill up a motel recently and he wasn't exactly gentle with what was going in!

The Last Bandit

I'm having a bugger of a time getting my GVM to work with RGB.

It seems to be very fussy with regard to the input Sync signal levels, not one of the consoles I've tried meets its requirements. My Amiga does work with it however, so I know the monitor itself is good.

My Commodore 1084S takes whatever you throw at it though and has the bonus of stereo speakers - seemingly all of the Sony monitors have poor audio (if any).

o1s1n

Argh, that's a pain in the hoop. Are you using your own cables or did you give one of those BNC connectors a go?

http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/sony-pvm-scart-converter-bnc.html

The Last Bandit

Tried both and connected directly to the TV's motherboard, its basically the consoles are in the wrong - none of have the right Sync.

Will need to hook up a sync separator to fix it I think. Ridiculous amount of pcb's in that set, must have been 8 or 9 individual boards in there !!

o1s1n

The Last Bandit wrote: »

Ridiculous amount of pcb's in that set, must have been 8 or 9 individual boards in there !!

A sign of quality!

zilog_jones

I have a PVM-1442QM, circa 1991. It was a very lucky find - I found it underneath a stairwell in UL (where they normally put stuff for throwing out), and the plug was cut off but it was fully working, and it was free

It's got some minor issues with convergence and visible retrace lines (only really noticeable with black screens), but hopefully can be sorted out with recalibration - I just never get around to doing it! Unlike the BVM above, a lot of the more technical adjustments need to be done at the deflection yoke

The picture quality is better than any other CRT I've seen by far, and the cube-shape body lends itself well to rotating for vertical games if required.

Some things to watch out far:

• There are many different models, with different grade tubes and different inputs
• Regarding tubes, if the front bezel only says "Trinitron" and not "HR Trinitron" (later models) or "Trinitron Super fine pitch" (older models like mine), it has the lower-grade CRT which may not be any better than a consumer-grade set
• Lower-end models only have composite video inputs, and there are other later sets which could only have digital SDI inputs which is no use for any consumer equipment. Some have modular input boards, especially later models. Some are multi-standard (with older models it is denoted by a "Q" in the model name). For retro/arcade gaming you're best off looking for one with RGBS inputs (RGB + composite sync) - this will usually have composite and s-video too. Some have RGBHV (RGB + H/V sync) inputs which will require an external sync separator in most cases.
• North American models are measured by the viewable screen size, whereas models sold elsewhere use the entire CRT screen - and this is reflected in the model numbers. My PVM-1442QM is the same as a US-spec PVM-1342Q, except for the power supply. This why there are weird 1" differences between models - they are the same CRTs really.
• Many of these have had hard lives, so may have dull pictures, burn-in and other issues. Newer models with OSDs may have power-on counters.
• These generally only accept 15 kHz (SDTV 480i/576i) signals. Some later models may also accept progressive scan and HD inputs, but are less common (possibly only higher-end modular models or BVMs). Older models like mine have a "Digital RGB" DE-9 input which should be good for IBM CGA or C128 TTL RGB outputs but I have neither of these to verify.
• Don't expect to find a SCART socket! Only some low-end models (with lower-end tubes) had these (e.g. 1440QM). Generally they have BNC inputs for RGB and or YPbPr, and also composite inputs. S-video is usually the standard 4-pin mini-DIN. I made a SCART adaptor myself with components purchased in Maplin, but as shown above you can buy adaptors.
• Sound is usually an afterthought on these models. Mine has a tiny mono speaker. You'll need to invest in some amplified speakers or a hi-fi system, and your SCART adaptor will need to be designed to take your audio inputs elsewhere.

Regarding where to get them, outside of video production/editing these are often used with lab equipment (e.g. microscopes) and medical applications (e.g. endoscopy). There are models designed for medical use which are generally white and with optional "splash-proof" covers for the vents and controls - besides that I'm not sure if there are any other differences.

I have some documentation and service manuals if anyone is interested, although some of it is not hard to find.

EDIT: A picture might help!

My MD2 which I recently modified with 50/60 Hz and region switches. My crappy old camera doesn't really do it justice...

Andrew76

Some nice info there thanks! Don't suppose you know where to get a manual for a HR Trinitron BVM-2016P?

zilog_jones

Sorry, don't have that. Whatever I found was through random googling.

Also, regarding The Last Bandit's difficulties getting RGB inputs working: I have had no problems with anything I've tried so far (PS1, PS2, DC, MD2, and some other stuff), although mine has RGBS - since he mentioned a sync separator I guess he has one with RGBHV inputs?

STG.Otaku

For the PVM and BVM monitors you want to be using native SCART from your consoke. Hook that up to either a sync strike and output VGA to BNC and Sync. Or couple the SCART to a SCART to BNC and sync cable. To be extra efficient, purchase a few 75ohm BNC terminators for the remaining port s on the monitor.

You will find that only consoles that output 240p will work immediately to these monitors as they handle a 15khz signal. A PS2 etc won't work as they output 480i. You need to introduce an Extron device or similar to force the output to a 15khz signal and so on.

The Last Bandit

zilog_jones wrote: »

Sorry, don't have that. Whatever I found was through random googling.

Also, regarding The Last Bandit's difficulties getting RGB inputs working: I have had no problems with anything I've tried so far (PS1, PS2, DC, MD2, and some other stuff), although mine has RGBS - since he mentioned a sync separator I guess he has one with RGBHV inputs?

I think it has both RGBS & RGBHV input cards. Since discovered while working on a 1084S that some of my LM1881's are duff, so must get back to this GVM at some stage and actually put the scope on it to see what's going on.

zilog_jones

STG.Otaku wrote: »

You will find that only consoles that output 240p will work immediately to these monitors as they handle a 15khz signal. A PS2 etc won't work as they output 480i. You need to introduce an Extron device or similar to force the output to a 15khz signal and so on.

I'm not sure what you're on about. Both 240p and 480i have the exact same 15.75 kHz horizontal frequency - just one is interlaced and the other is not. Any CRT SDTV should be able to handle both without any issues (assuming they can take 60 Hz). Many PS1 games used 480i modes, as do most Dreamcast games - I've used the PS1, PS2 and DC on my PVM without issue.

A sync stripper like the Sync Strike is not necessary in my case - I have the composite video connected straight from a SCART adaptor to the composite sync input on my PVM-1442QM. I've heard of many PVM owners doing the same. Maybe newer models are more picky about the sync signal?

@The Last Bandit: Which model GVM do you have? Do you know how old it is?

The Last Bandit

Its a GVM-2020Q I think, date stamp 1986 on some of the PCBs I seem to remember.

STG.Otaku

zilog_jones wrote: »

I'm not sure what you're on about. Both 240p and 480i have the exact same 15.75 kHz horizontal frequency - just one is interlaced and the other is not. Any CRT SDTV should be able to handle both without any issues (assuming they can take 60 Hz).

I worded it wrong. The above is correct. I was talking about downscaling the PS2 via an Extron interface to 240p.

zilog_jones

But why would you want to do that? It would look even more horrible than the usual jaggy mess you get from PS2 games.

STG.Otaku

zilog_jones wrote: »

But why would you want to do that? It would look even more horrible than the usual jaggy mess you get from PS2 games.

No it won't.

zilog_jones

I really don't understand why you would want to downscale 480i to 240p. You're just replacing half the vertical resolution with scanlines. Unless it's some port of a game originally designed for 240p but outputting 480i, but many will look terrible anyway because they used bilinear interpolation.

STG.Otaku

zilog_jones wrote: »

I really don't understand why you would want to downscale 480i to 240p. You're just replacing half the vertical resolution with scanlines. Unless it's some port of a game originally designed for 240p but outputting 480i, but many will look terrible anyway because they used bilinear interpolation.

Scanlines Demystified

Myrddin

STG.Otaku wrote: »

Scanlines Demystified

*insert homer droof gif....

o1s1n

Gorgeous pics aren't they?

So I need to get an Extron now for my CRTs and a Framemeister for my LCDs.

Bloody expensive hobby this!

STG.Otaku

o1s1n wrote: »

Gorgeous pics aren't they?

So I need to get an Extron now for my CRTs and a Framemeister for my LCDs.

Bloody expensive hobby this!

I might have an Extron or two for sale soon. I gave up CRT pretty much. Going purely LED and using my DVDO VP20 w ABT card. Might get an XRGB 3 or Framemeister in future.

Feck it, might list them tonight. Watch this space...

zilog_jones

STG.Otaku wrote: »

Scanlines Demystified

That doesn't really change anything I said - it's only really for the benefit of games originally intended for 240p, and many PS2 ports etc. have been comprimised by bilinear filtering - there is a list here, including those that can be patched to natively output 240p: http://psx-scene.com/forums/f20/help-build-list-2d-240p-retro-port-games-117258/

The DC and PS2 can both output 240p natively (I think the GC and Wii can too). Look at JoJo's Bizarre Adventure on the DC (it's also why it doesn't work with the VGA output), or Gradius III on the PS2.

A game that is natively 480i (i.e. the large majority of sixth-gen games that aren't ports from older systems) are not going to benefit from this - all you're going to do is reduce the resolution. I'd rather deal with the flicker from interlaced video than downscale it. Even medium-res arcade ports like Sega Rally Championship and Gradius IV (both have PS2 ports, and the latter has several scaling options) will look like garbage downscaled to 240p. The only real way to improve on real 480i games is to patch them for 480p, which can also be done for some PS2 games. And then you'd need an ED/HDTV...

Steve X2

STG.Otaku wrote: »

I might have an Extron or two for sale soon. I gave up CRT pretty much. Going purely LED and using my DVDO VP20 w ABT card. Might get an XRGB 3 or Framemeister in future.

Feck it, might list them tonight. Watch this space...

Hello and welcome back dude.

Also Re the CRT.........

STG.Otaku

Yep. I have my 19" Dell still, but otherwise I'm CRT-less. Going the flat screen, Frameister/DVDO route now.

STG.Otaku

zilog_jones wrote: »

The only real way to improve on real 480i games is to patch them for 480p

Or use a video processor. Which is what I do. My DVDO VP20 does a fine job of producing a progressive output from an interlaced input.

Add in the ABT-102 card and flick it to either of the two game modes and the results speak for themselves. Check out my YouTube channel.

...and it doesn't look like **** on a CRT because that's the setup I used for years.

zilog_jones

A video processor converting 480i to 480p is creating half of the information from nothing, and it's even worse for video game content as there is no real motion blur between fields (unlike with real video camera footage) so motion estimation interpolation will not work half as well as it could and is much more likely to mis-calculate and create artefacts. Sure that kind of hardware will probably do a better job than typical HDTV de-interlacers but none of that stuff will beat getting real 480p video from the source, no matter how much money you throw at it.

Where is your YouTube channel?

STG.Otaku

youtube.com/stuffiwrote

STG.Otaku

Try this for starters.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_w9L5yNv-0

zilog_jones

Hmm, as I suspected it's failing to de-interlace fast flashing and just leaving combing artefacts, e.g. when the boss is flashing in G-Darius. This is a common problem with many real-time de-interlacers and their inability to deal with computer graphics. Other than that, the videos are too blurry and low framerate to make out anything else discernible (thanks YouTube! ). I'm also surprised you're not using scanlines for 240p games - isn't that half the reason behind these video processors?

Personally I think a decent 15 kHz CRT monitor like a Sony PVM would be a much better solution for this kind of stuff - 240p games look great with real scanlines, and 480i games will also look great if you're not offended by a bit of shimmering. Of course I understand not everyone has the time, money, space or inclination to have and maintain one.

STG.Otaku

I know. It is mentioned in the comments. I used the wrong game mode on the ABT-102. Switch it to Game Mode 2 and it is perfect.

Check out my later ESPGaluda test videos to see the results. Regarding scanlines I use an SLG 3000 in the chain for that. Hooked to a CRT or TFT.

Of course a CRT is the perfect solution. But messing atound with video processors gives excellent results too, and something needs to be done because CRTs are not produced any more.

o1s1n

STG.Otaku wrote: »

Yep. I have my 19" Dell still, but otherwise I'm CRT-less. Going the flat screen, Frameister/DVDO route now.

I had 7 CRTs in my sitting room last week. 7!

2 arcade machines
1 Sony Trinitron
1 Commodore 1094s
3 Hantarex CT 25 EQs

It was CRT paradise. Although I did stop and pause, having an almighty sense of 'wtf am I doing?!' moment.

That moment where you realize you're that old woman found starved to death, surrounded by a collection unopened tins of beans. Or that old man who's house was cleared out after he passed, with floor to ceiling newspapers dating back to the 60s.

The Last Bandit

o1s1n wrote: »

I had 7 CRTs in my sitting room last week. 7!

2 arcade machines
1 Sony Trinitron
1 Commodore 1094s
3 Hantarex CT 25 EQs

It was CRT paradise. Although I did stop and pause, having an almighty sense of 'wtf am I doing?!' moment.

That moment where you realize you're that old woman found starved to death, surrounded by a collection unopened tins of beans. Or that old man who's house was cleared out after he passed, with floor to ceiling newspapers dating back to the 60s.

Should have went of a Darius setup with the 3 Hantarex's

CiDeRmAn

The Last Bandit wrote: »

Should have went of a Darius setup with the 3 Hantarex's

And then wind up with a certain pink bullets merchant living in your house!

The Last Bandit

Finally got my GVM working, just needed a clean up on the sync signal. Geometry is still a bit off and needs tweaking but at least now there's a picture

o1s1n

Nice one

What's the picture quality like?

By the way;

BVM - Broadcast video monitor
PVM - Professional video monitor
GVM -???

The Last Bandit

Picture is great alright, really sharp just need to adjust the geometry and its sorted

No idea with the 'G' stands for though.

Myrddin

Gaming Video Monitor, obviously

o1s1n

Rise from your grave!

Bringing back this thread rather than creating a new one...

Have a question for you good folks in anyone knows.

I want to create a video chain, to display the same picture on three monitors.

I take it you go video out from one monitor, to video in to the next and then video out/video in to the next one etc. So I need two RGB BNC cables to link the three together.

What I'm trying to figure out is this, will this type of BNC RGB cable work? (three BNC cables, one for each colour)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RGB-COAX-VIDEO-EXTENSION-CABLE-ASSEMBLY-3-BNC-to-3-BNC-/8776373662?pt=US_Video_Cables_Adapters&hash=item20b1cd59e

Or will I need the extra sync cable too? (the BNC to scart console cable adapter thingy I'm using has four cables, Red, Green, Blue, Sync)

The only other ones I can find are RGBHV (Which I believe is component?) - these have 5 BNC cables and I'm fairly sure they wont work.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6ft-RGB-HV-Male-to-Male-Hi-Res-5BNC-Video-Cable-/320813883817?pt=US_Video_Cables_Adapters&hash=item4ab1ff61a9

The Last Bandit

You'd have to link up the SYNC as well I'd imagine otherwise you'd only have pretty rolling colours.

The 5 BNC cables should be grand, they just have the extra cable because they are for split horizontal/vertical sync signals - on most devices if you don't supply vertical sync then composite sync is expected on the horizontal sync input -- if that makes sense

o1s1n

Thanks for clarifying that, had me a bit confused!

I guess the cables are all the same really aren't they? Just coaxial?

Bought a couple of them there anyway. Should look class once they're all linked. For what purpose, I haven't a clue

The Last Bandit

Just cus you can

o1s1n

The 9 inchers look pretty excellent stacked

That's what she said