The Sony PVM topic: Why they are highly regarded for Retro Gaming

[xelement5x]

^That's correct. Consumer tubes will generally show signs of wear and picture degradation a lot sooner.

Honestly I think one would be just as well off getting a nice VGA CRT monitor and transcoding the signal. Requires more equipment and isn't as plug and play but the monitor is a lot more replaceable and for a lot less money (still possible to get good ones for free).

Yeah, there are also possible latency issues the more conversions you do which is another reason why people like the displays that take RGB natively better. That's one of the funky things about this whole RGB desire, since the games require interaction and latency is a big deal, some major engineering is required to keep times lows and that makes stuff expensive (I'm looking at u framemeister)

[Gypsy]

Yeah the Framemeister is ridiculous. At least OSSC production is ramping up and is much cheaper. I know it doesn't output VGA but that can be added cheaply and this situation is pretty close to lag free (the OSSC adds no lag). I think an older Micomsoft unit, the XRGB-2, is pretty much no lag as well when hooked up to a VGA monitor. I believe it's just a line doubler/transcoder essentially. That's a LOT harder to source now however.

There are a lot of random processors with VGA out, far too many to mention. If they take RGB or not is a mixed bag.

[Lord of Pirates]

With faster options you're under 16ms processing time. Add in use with higher resolution sources and I find monitors to be a better all-round option.

[DragonmasterDan]

I'm going into uncharted waters. I think I want to go for a Sony PVM monitor but want it to be around 19-20 inches. I'm a newb when it comes to the various models and features these TVs have. What do you recommend? What's the difference between Sony PVM, BVM and GVM? Thanks.

Additional links:

http://www.tested.com/tech/gaming/45...t-retro-games/



http://retrorgb.com/rgbmonitors.html

The general recommendation to anyone is buy what you can find locally as shipping these monitors takes considerable risk of damage during shipping.

BVMs ARE PVMs, they're just a line made specifically for broadcast equipment as Sony started catering to more specific groups of businesses.

[PhantomSentry]

Why don't you guys just buy up the cheap ass storage units that most deem worthless? Those pretty much always have two or three CRTs in them.

[DragonmasterDan]

Why don't you guys just buy up the cheap ass storage units that most deem worthless? Those pretty much always have two or three CRTs in them.

The quality of the image on the better pro monitors is a considerable improvement over most consumer CRTs, even if you're not accounting for the upgrade presumably to RGB for most retro consoles. The higher quality phosphors give much greater color and the higher resolution produces sharp scanlines.

[PhantomSentry]

What these threads say to me is that there's a lot of money to be made off of the picky.

[storino03]

I do have several regular flat CRT's, Samsung, Toshiba, 2 Sony Trinitrons, but I sort of want to go for a PVM ultimately. I do love my 19" Sony Trinitron though.

[Lord of Pirates]

Why don't you guys just buy up the cheap ass storage units that most deem worthless? Those pretty much always have two or three CRTs in them.

Why buy a bunch of junk when you can get specific junk instead?

[PhantomSentry]

To save or potentially make money.