New toy: Sony PVM-1342Q
potatohead
Posts: 10,261
Just picked up one of these. If you are going to get or keep a CRT for various things, I very highly recommend one of these. I'm tossing some displays this weekend, and was kind of waiting to get hold of one of these guys without breaking the bank. This completes the CRT set for me. I've got a monochrome amber, this thing, and a nice XVGA (1600 some pixel capable) all in small, easy to manage form factors. I'm just not a fan of LCD for entertainment. Like them for programming, CAD, etc... They are great. But, for movies, games, or anything standard definition, I much prefer glowing things behind glass. Plasma TV production ended this year. Bummer, but I've got a good one. So I'm set for a while now.
These displays are going for a song now, and many remain in fine shape. Mine has a tiny rotation in the yoke, but it's seen light use otherwise. I suspect that's just transport.
I'll pull the back off tomorrow and align it. (carefully, once I knock out a program for the right reference images. Focus is pin sharp on this thing)
This one I have does amazingly, offer up TTL RGB, so that's CGA, EGA, etc... Maybe I'll find the time to get a CGA driver done. Finally have a display capable of it. I'm a bit confused as to why these displays offered up that option. Maybe one of my friends in TV land can tell me what used to happen there. Maybe some production control gear went that route.
It's pixel perfect, and a lot of fun in that regard. These CRT's used a much finer pitch shadow mask (.025mm), and that makes a huge difference in overall quality. I didn't realize just how much, until I realized most consumer grade devices have a few CRT phosphors available at modest resolutions per display pixel. This thing has 4x that number, and is basically a high end VGA grade CRT, only for the usual set of common signals.
The circuit can pick stuff out of a composite signal I didn't think was possible. Beats my best HD capture card easily. With the fine dot pitch, it's both a monochrome and color display essentially. There isn't much in the way of fringing on these.
Looks like a lull coming up, and I've got some P1 and P2 work I want to do. 15Khz RGB is a nice spiff, as it can render my Apple 2 GS, once I sort out a sync. (Thanks Nutson) And if you are interested in arcade accurate images, or being able to display that kind of output for realism of any kind, these displays are going to nail it. I've ran a couple things on it today, and might drop a few images once I get the yoke sorted. Many arcade displays run at ~15Khz.
For driver work, it's got a delay mode that puts the sync, porches, etc... onto the display for viewing. Quick and dirty measurements are possible. There is an underscan button too, which drops the full frame into view.
Can't recommend these enough for SD signals worldwide. The closest consumer grade devices are the big SONY WEGA TV's and most of those available in the US won't do world standards. Mine is going to a good home this weekend. Bunch of guys want a big, fat, CRT for light gun type gaming. They will be happy, assuming we can lug the thing successfully.
If you get one of these PVM displays, just get a power on image or two. Some of these have burn in from displaying static images, like for a newsroom. Or the CRT / drive circuits have degraded from always on use. You can usually tell by a simple power on, menu display, brightness up enough to light the background. They are made for that, so again, most of these you find out there will be worth it.
These displays are going for a song now, and many remain in fine shape. Mine has a tiny rotation in the yoke, but it's seen light use otherwise. I suspect that's just transport.
I'll pull the back off tomorrow and align it. (carefully, once I knock out a program for the right reference images. Focus is pin sharp on this thing)
This one I have does amazingly, offer up TTL RGB, so that's CGA, EGA, etc... Maybe I'll find the time to get a CGA driver done. Finally have a display capable of it. I'm a bit confused as to why these displays offered up that option. Maybe one of my friends in TV land can tell me what used to happen there. Maybe some production control gear went that route.
It's pixel perfect, and a lot of fun in that regard. These CRT's used a much finer pitch shadow mask (.025mm), and that makes a huge difference in overall quality. I didn't realize just how much, until I realized most consumer grade devices have a few CRT phosphors available at modest resolutions per display pixel. This thing has 4x that number, and is basically a high end VGA grade CRT, only for the usual set of common signals.
The circuit can pick stuff out of a composite signal I didn't think was possible. Beats my best HD capture card easily. With the fine dot pitch, it's both a monochrome and color display essentially. There isn't much in the way of fringing on these.
Looks like a lull coming up, and I've got some P1 and P2 work I want to do. 15Khz RGB is a nice spiff, as it can render my Apple 2 GS, once I sort out a sync. (Thanks Nutson) And if you are interested in arcade accurate images, or being able to display that kind of output for realism of any kind, these displays are going to nail it. I've ran a couple things on it today, and might drop a few images once I get the yoke sorted. Many arcade displays run at ~15Khz.
For driver work, it's got a delay mode that puts the sync, porches, etc... onto the display for viewing. Quick and dirty measurements are possible. There is an underscan button too, which drops the full frame into view.
Can't recommend these enough for SD signals worldwide. The closest consumer grade devices are the big SONY WEGA TV's and most of those available in the US won't do world standards. Mine is going to a good home this weekend. Bunch of guys want a big, fat, CRT for light gun type gaming. They will be happy, assuming we can lug the thing successfully.
If you get one of these PVM displays, just get a power on image or two. Some of these have burn in from displaying static images, like for a newsroom. Or the CRT / drive circuits have degraded from always on use. You can usually tell by a simple power on, menu display, brightness up enough to light the background. They are made for that, so again, most of these you find out there will be worth it.