CRT Fetish Thread
- Thread starter theMot
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Grabbed this Sony KV-29CL11 for free some years ago. It only ran for 2K hours when I got it. FE-2 Chassis: 60Hz, RGB, S-Video, NTSC via composite
Geometry isn't perfect but I don't mind that hard. Half an hour service menu and it was good enough for me.
I'm pretty sure you can still get them pretty easy and cheap in 2024 here. The FE-1 Chassis is more famous and sought after.
It was a lucky find because I normally stay away from more modern silver CRTs.
My 100Hz Metz is still my main CRT but those 100Hz TVs aren't for everyone.
Geometry isn't perfect but I don't mind that hard. Half an hour service menu and it was good enough for me.
I'm pretty sure you can still get them pretty easy and cheap in 2024 here. The FE-1 Chassis is more famous and sought after.
It was a lucky find because I normally stay away from more modern silver CRTs.
My 100Hz Metz is still my main CRT but those 100Hz TVs aren't for everyone.
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For some reason people in general don't like flat tubes but I think they're awesome!
I mean at that moment it time they were made they were in the in thing.
I find almost all of these have newer features like awesome comb filters that are just about as good of a signal as s-video.
What kind of RGB input does it have?
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Those European 29'' TVs have at least 2 Scart on the back. One of them is always RGB.
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Dumb USA question, is there non RGB scart?
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Yeah sometimes it carries composite or the input accepts both
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Much of that is misconstued. The primary ire is towards high definition flat CRT tubes as they are the ones with the obnoxious geometry issue most of the time.
The standard definition sets are fine for the most part. Many confuse them with the HD sets though. TBH, I have gone through many dozens of CRT's (probably over 100 at this point) in regards to ownership & I sold them back in the early 2000's and I have found that flat SD flat crt's have geometry very much in line with most of the convex ones. In top of that many, if not most of the pre-2000 sets tend to have some "city miles" on their tubes & as a result can have a PQ that is a bit softer than the post 2000 sets, particularly the flat ones. If you want to find an older set with a particular aesthetic (wood grain, classic trini, space age, etc) & want to have it in both top cosmetic condition & putting out the best picture it can then those examples are starting to go for some greenbacks........when you can find them.
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Most consumer sets with SCART sockets accepted RGB and composite over SCART. VHS and LD had composite SCART ouputs. Consoles and computers were generally RGB SCART by the mid-late 80s.
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Bro, go outside and touch some grass.
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Might break out in hives mate
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Mah ninja, I have 3 young children . I'm outside in the woods and grasslands every day. I crave for some inside time
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@skate323k137 and @wyo already answered but I would like to add something.
Scart was just the European standard connector. It can carry multiple signals.
The bigger TVs had at least two but only one does RGB. Smaller and older ones up to 25" often only had one. This one does RGB and Composite via Scart.
My Sony does RGB on one and the other one is S-Video/Composite over Scart.
S-Video/Composite to Scart, those adapters are the reason no one used the front composite here:
They were often included with consoles until the 360/PS3.
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It's nice to see this thread is still going strong after all these years...
Question for the group: I got my hands on a PVM 20M4U and I'm trying to adjust the colors. I've been playing everything at D93 because D65 looks a bit to orangy/red, but D93 is a bit cold looking. Is there a good set of gain RGB numbers that I can try to find something in between the two? I know this probably varies from tube to tube, but if I had a good baseline I can probably adjust it from there. Right now I'm using R: 625, G: 700, B:700 and it looks good but maybe a bit too red.
Question for the group: I got my hands on a PVM 20M4U and I'm trying to adjust the colors. I've been playing everything at D93 because D65 looks a bit to orangy/red, but D93 is a bit cold looking. Is there a good set of gain RGB numbers that I can try to find something in between the two? I know this probably varies from tube to tube, but if I had a good baseline I can probably adjust it from there. Right now I'm using R: 625, G: 700, B:700 and it looks good but maybe a bit too red.
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I use a test pattern, i.e. jamma board or 240P test suite in this case to balance the color bars.
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Well I have 240p suite on my SNES and Genesis, but what do I use as a reference? I guess I could pull a picture of the color bars up on my computer as well or something, but that's assuming my computer monitor is calibrated correctly.
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Don't touch it if it looks good enough. Every CRT is different you can't just use another as reference.
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True. I was looking more for a starting point I guess. What's a good game to use as a color reference? Something where you can easily see that the colors are too warm or cold.
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Easiest test for color warmth is to simply use anything with a solid white screen. If it's too warm it will have a yellow tint, if it's too cool it will be blue. For color reference, test patterns on 240p test suite or on certain arcade games is what you want. They'll have color ramps for R G and B and you adjust until the intensity is the same across all channels.
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As you noted D93 is a bit blue and D65 is yellowed (or orangey, however you perceive it). A lot of people prefer overly blue / bright.
The point of the 240P test suite (or any color bar pattern really) is to balance your CRTs brightness, drive, gain, cutoff, etc. Presuming the colsole is outputting the same signal level across the 3 colors, If you dial it in so the progressively faded color bars match each other well, you will be in really good shape. Much closer than you'll probably be able to achieve with any game off the top of my head. There's a reason basically every JAMMA board and arcade motherboard has test patterns.
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Personally, if I can't make it truly neutral, I prefer it on the blue side for video game content, on the yellow side for movies and video.