Any CRT fans on the forum? Monitors, broadcast, tvs

[bignige]

Another day another BVM question(s).

The screen is looking a little blurry is this most likely a focus thing? Can this be adjusted with out going into the back of the BVM (I don't want to die by electric death).

When booting up Groovy Mame some games display fine for example Smash TV, but other games, Outrun, Bubble Bobble have a rolling display that just won't stop.

Finally, can anyone recommend someone who can give this thing the once over?

 

Thanks

[MrSpiggott]

8 hours ago, bignige said:

Another day another BVM question(s).

The screen is looking a little blurry is this most likely a focus thing? Can this be adjusted with out going into the back of the BVM (I don't want to die by electric death).

When booting up Groovy Mame some games display fine for example Smash TV, but other games, Outrun, Bubble Bobble have a rolling display that just won't stop.

Finally, can anyone recommend someone who can give this thing the once over?

 

Thanks

If some games look fine and others blurry, then it's unlikely to be your monitor. As I understand it you are using an emulator, converting to SD interlaced and then onto the the BVM? If so then this is probably a scaling issue.

Not all arcade and console games ran at full SD resolutions (see the difference between SNES and Megadrive for example), but always outputted at SD frequency rates; so one pixel in the game was one pixel on the monitor, there would just be little borders or less overscan. Your emulator is probably trying to scale these sub SD resolutions to full SD which results in one game pixel equalling maybe 1.1 monitor pixels for example.

Is there an option in your emulator to disable scaling and display in a 1to1 window?

 

As for your rolling.  Is your monitor set to sync on green or external syncs? Not all emulators can output sync on green.

If you are using external syncs then what are you using as a sync? I recommend the composite signal, it has the correct 300mv negative sync pulse, the video portion will be ignored.

Edit. Ah I see you say some games are stable and others roll.  This is going to be down to your emulator settings again. Could be a frame rate thing. Maybe the emulator is set to output at one frequency, but some games are at different frequency.

 

Do you have anything that outputs native SD? A SNES console, PS1, that sort of thing?  That would test the quality of your monitor and whether it's going soft.

[bignige]

1 hour ago, MrSpiggott said:

If some games look fine and others blurry, then it's unlikely to be your monitor. As I understand it you are using an emulator, converting to SD interlaced and then onto the the BVM? If so then this is probably a scaling issue.

Not all arcade and console games ran at full SD resolutions (see the difference between SNES and Megadrive for example), but always outputted at SD frequency rates; so one pixel in the game was one pixel on the monitor, there would just be little borders or less overscan. Your emulator is probably trying to scale these sub SD resolutions to full SD which results in one game pixel equalling maybe 1.1 monitor pixels for example.

Is there an option in your emulator to disable scaling and display in a 1to1 window?

 

As for your rolling.  Is your monitor set to sync on green or external syncs? Not all emulators can output sync on green.

If you are using external syncs then what are you using as a sync? I recommend the composite signal, it has the correct 300mv negative sync pulse, the video portion will be ignored.

Edit. Ah I see you say some games are stable and others roll.  This is going to be down to your emulator settings again. Could be a frame rate thing. Maybe the emulator is set to output at one frequency, but some games are at different frequency.

 

Do you have anything that outputs native SD? A SNES console, PS1, that sort of thing?  That would test the quality of your monitor and whether it's going soft.

Thanks for the reply. 
I took the side panel off and adjusted the Horizontal and Vertical focus and the picture looks sharp. 
 

Im using CRT Emudriver to get a stable picture by using the NTSC preset. Anything else and the picture rolls. 
 

When the image is rolling the scan lines look really good!

 

If the image is static they are harder to see - possibly jittering really fast. 
 

Here’s a video of a rolling image and the scan lines. 
 

 

 

[bignige]

Here’s the jittery effect on a static image. 
 

 

 

[MrSpiggott]

3 hours ago, bignige said:

Thanks for the reply. 
I took the side panel off and adjusted the Horizontal and Vertical focus and the picture looks sharp. 
 

Im using CRT Emudriver to get a stable picture by using the NTSC preset. Anything else and the picture rolls. 
 

When the image is rolling the scan lines look really good!

 

If the image is static they are harder to see - possibly jittering really fast. 
 

Here’s a video of a rolling image and the scan lines. 
 

 

I think the rolling is too slow to be a missing reference problem, but it's definitely not locked. Could be a mismatched frame rate thing.

I've got a couple of BVMs, but they're connected to old consoles rather than emulators.  I'm not familiar with Emudriver, I'll have to look into it, the closest I've got to your setup is an original xbox I modded to also run Mame and that runs fine on a BVM.

Are those scan lines artificial? Is this an interlaced image that's pretending to be a single field?

 

I'd really recommend trying to connect a genuine SD bit of kit to rule out any hardware problems with the monitor. Do you have a SCART to R,G,B,Sync phono adapter?  

[bignige]

25 minutes ago, MrSpiggott said:

I think the rolling is too slow to be a missing reference problem, but it's definitely not locked. Could be a mismatched frame rate thing.

I've got a couple of BVMs, but they're connected to old consoles rather than emulators.  I'm not familiar with Emudriver, I'll have to look into it, the closest I've got to your setup is an original xbox I modded to also run Mame and that runs fine on a BVM.

Are those scan lines artificial? Is this an interlaced image that's pretending to be a single field?

 

I'd really recommend trying to connect a genuine SD bit of kit to rule out any hardware problems with the monitor. Do you have a SCART to R,G,B,Sync phono adapter?  

Most of this goes over my head! Apologies. 
The scan lines are real. 
I’m pretty sure my BVM does 240p and 480i. 
Unfortunately I don’t have any SD kit - it got sold when moving. 
I’ll try and source something. 
 

Ta. 
 

 

[acidbearboy]

I know it’s not a CRT, but this is surely the best place to ask! Does anybody here have a Pioneer PDP-V402? I’ve dug mine out from the garage and I’m  pleased to say it’s still working. There’s a small scratch on the glass screen, but you can’t see it whilst playing. I was hoping to hook up my Xbox 360, but was unable to get a good picture last night. My VGA cable caused an out of range error message on the tv. The component cable (via BNC) was a green screen image. And the Scart cable I have (unofficial, so possibly not even RGB) gave a black and white image. 
 

I did manage to hook up my modded Wii via RGB Scart. SNES games look fantastic. Also had a quick try on GameCube PSO which was lovely and crisp compared to the 14” CRT monitor I played it on last. 
 

 

[MrSpiggott]

14 hours ago, bignige said:

Most of this goes over my head! Apologies. 
The scan lines are real. 
I’m pretty sure my BVM does 240p and 480i. 
Unfortunately I don’t have any SD kit - it got sold when moving. 
I’ll try and source something. 
 

Ta. 
 

 

I've been trying to think of a way for you to test your monitor without access to an RGB or YUV source.

One quick and dirty option is to use a composite signal. (Often camera's come with those horrible little yellow cables, that's composite).

Plug that into the 'G/Y' input of your monitor, select component input and ensure you have external sync turned off. Now depending on your version of monitor you'll either get the luminance portion of the video shown, or luminance with scrolling chrominance noise (some revisions of monitor filter this noise out). It doesn't matter, the luminance will be stable and that's all you need to see that your monitor is okay. Just tried it on various monitors and it works.

It's been a long time since I've had to think about analogue video! 🤔

[bignige]

41 minutes ago, MrSpiggott said:

I've been trying to think of a way for you to test your monitor without access to an RGB or YUV source.

One quick and dirty option is to use a composite signal. (Often camera's come with those horrible little yellow cables, that's composite).

Plug that into the 'G/Y' input of your monitor, select component input and ensure you have external sync turned off. Now depending on your version of monitor you'll either get the luminance portion of the video shown, or luminance with scrolling chrominance noise (some revisions of monitor filter this noise out). It doesn't matter, the luminance will be stable and that's all you need to see that your monitor is okay. Just tried it on various monitors and it works.

It's been a long time since I've had to think about analogue video! 🤔

Thank you. 
 

I’ll need to buy in one of this cables and a plug for it as I only have BNC connectors on the back. 
 

Another thing, it only rolls when trying to take a 240p image. 
 

Tye 480i image seems to be ok. 

[MrSpiggott]

28 minutes ago, bignige said:

Thank you. 
 

I’ll need to buy in one of this cables and a plug for it as I only have BNC connectors on the back. 
 

Another thing, it only rolls when trying to take a 240p image. 
 

Tye 480i image seems to be ok. 

I thought that might be the case. This is going to be a settings or video card thing.

 

It may be cheaper to buy a few phono to BNC adapters, if you've got plenty of phono leads. Something like this.

 

[MrSpiggott]

3 hours ago, acidbearboy said:

I know it’s not a CRT, but this is surely the best place to ask! Does anybody here have a Pioneer PDP-V402? I’ve dug mine out from the garage and I’m  pleased to say it’s still working. There’s a small scratch on the glass screen, but you can’t see it whilst playing. I was hoping to hook up my Xbox 360, but was unable to get a good picture last night. My VGA cable caused an out of range error message on the tv. The component cable (via BNC) was a green screen image. And the Scart cable I have (unofficial, so possibly not even RGB) gave a black and white image. 
 

I did manage to hook up my modded Wii via RGB Scart. SNES games look fantastic. Also had a quick try on GameCube PSO which was lovely and crisp compared to the 14” CRT monitor I played it on last. 
 

 

Your plasma has a maximum VGA input resolution of 640x480. Whatever you're plugging into it is outputting something higher.

[watusi]

On 24/02/2022 at 22:39, dvdx2 said:

RGB-pi is now available on pi4 and looks like it’s giving the mister a run for its money. Dead easy to use, and looks and runs amazing on a pvm/bvm. Groovymame is great if your skilled enough to programme a nuclear reactor….

 

RGB-PI on Pi4 is amazing! It seems incredibly stable for an Alpha. Not quiet managed to get guncon2 working for lightgun games yet though - i can calibrate but not working in game.

 

I tried groovymame but I couldn't even get it to show a picture on my CRT so gave up.

[bignige]

@MrSpiggott I managed to get it working!!

 

I had to take my desktop resolution down to 240p and now I have a steady image in mame!

Its looking great!!

Many thanks for all your help. 
 

[dvdx2]

2 hours ago, watusi said:

 

RGB-PI on Pi4 is amazing! It seems incredibly stable for an Alpha. Not quiet managed to get guncon2 working for lightgun games yet though - i can calibrate but not working in game.

 

I tried groovymame but I couldn't even get it to show a picture on my CRT so gave up.

Agreed - it runs all the FBneo stuff that the 3b struggled with!

[Ninja Doctor]

Result!

(No longer John Woo style)

[ucci]

Who'd have thought that Virtua Cop 2 was released on PS2? 

[Ninja Doctor]

No HotD rerelease though. 

[jamesy]

5 hours ago, Ninja Doctor said:

Result!

(John Woo style)

That's the exact tv I had back in the day! There's a certain joy to be had from standard portable crt tvs compared to professional monitors. 😀

 

[Ninja Doctor]

For 25 quid it does RGB, has built in speakers and supports 60Hz.  Can even change the settings using only the buttons on the front. Bargain. 

[acidbearboy]

Fixed my own problem with the Xbox 360 and the Pioneer PDP-V402. I found a video on YouTube that showed you how to reset the video output resolution on your console (hold down Y and RT when you boot up the console). Now I have a lovely 640x480 image over VGA. 

[jamesy]

12 minutes ago, acidbearboy said:

Fixed my own problem with the Xbox 360 and the Pioneer PDP-V402. I found a video on YouTube that showed you how to reset the video output resolution on your console (hold down Y and RT when you boot up the console). Now I have a lovely 640x480 image over VGA. 

Any pics of this incoming?🤓 I believe there's quite a few 360 games that support both 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratio which is nice.

[Grey Fox]

On 01/03/2022 at 13:17, acidbearboy said:

I know it’s not a CRT, but this is surely the best place to ask! Does anybody here have a Pioneer PDP-V402? I’ve dug mine out from the garage and I’m  pleased to say it’s still working. There’s a small scratch on the glass screen, but you can’t see it whilst playing. I was hoping to hook up my Xbox 360, but was unable to get a good picture last night. My VGA cable caused an out of range error message on the tv. The component cable (via BNC) was a green screen image. And the Scart cable I have (unofficial, so possibly not even RGB) gave a black and white image. 
 

I did manage to hook up my modded Wii via RGB Scart. SNES games look fantastic. Also had a quick try on GameCube PSO which was lovely and crisp compared to the 14” CRT monitor I played it on last. 
 

 

 

That is lovely! I always wanted one of those Pioneer screens.

[acidbearboy]

It's stopped working, sadly - powers on (standby light comes on) but the fans don't start and no display at all screen. I'm hoping it's just the fuse blown in the power cable, otherwise I'm stumped. 

[MikeJ]

I've had a Philips CM8833 on duty in my games room for the last couple of years but it's always been too small for the room and very few larger screens will fit in the space I have, so I picked up a 21" B+O MX4000 when one finally appeared locally. Luckily it fits the space nicely (atop a single Ikea Kallax in the corner of a room).

 

It comes with a "contrast screen" which is a bit of shaded plastic that fits over the front of the screen and serves to enhance the black levels as the CRT is quite grey, I took this off and the CRT itself was covered in a thick film of muck. Removing it has provided a nice boost in brightness.

 

The geometry was off and I couldn't ignore it, this model requires you to take the back off the set and short a couple of pins to get into the service menu so I ran some wires out the side of the set to achieve this and avoid having to open it again if I need to tweak anything.

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

Here it is with the AES, for some reason it did not like this console at all via my SCART switch box so I had to plug it directly into the second SCART input.

 

 

In terms of image quality it's definitely softer than the monitor was (as expected) and a bit softer than I generally prefer but the extra size is just right and makes up for it I think. 480i stuff like Dreamcast looks better on it than the Philips which used to have a bit of combing on edges. The built in sound is pretty good so I have been able to get rid of the external speakers I have been using.

 

Overall: I like it.

 

 

[acidbearboy]

Looks nice! What are you gonna do with the CM8833?

 

The new fuse did not fix my PDP-V402 so I have sent a couple of messages to local TV repair companies to see if it can be looked at.

[Colonel Panic]

Trying to fix a JVC CRT at the moment. Something is blowing the fuse. 
 

[MikeJ]

12 hours ago, acidbearboy said:

Looks nice! What are you gonna do with the CM8833?

 

The new fuse did not fix my PDP-V402 so I have sent a couple of messages to local TV repair companies to see if it can be looked at.

The CM8833 is being repurposed as a computer-only monitor in another room so will live another day. 
 

Good luck fixing the plasma, I don’t think I have ever seen a 4:3 one in the flesh. 

[acidbearboy]

Well I spoke to the local TV repair man and although he said it sounds like a problem with the sustain board, he doesn’t want to touch it due to the age of the unit. Does anyone happen to know anybody who services these old screens? There are a bunch of boards for sale on eBay if the fault can be identified. 

[roobarb]

18 hours ago, MikeJ said:

 

 

I have a very similar telly (MX4002)

I like it too! 

Can I ask what you are using to generate the test pattern?

[MikeJ]

21 minutes ago, roobarb said:

I have a very similar telly (MX4002)

I like it too! 

Can I ask what you are using to generate the test pattern?

I’m using 240p Test Suite on a PlayStation (you can get it for a lot of consoles).