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Post pics of your CRT monitors

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Reply 141 of 540, by Holering

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Thought I'd chime in and suggest whoever is using old CRT's (or old hardware in general) better do so carefully. You shouldn't even be handling old hardware, let alone a CRT, unless you are at least capable of changing large capacitors and have years worth of experience fixing big electronics and know what's really going on. Any bad earth-ground point can cause a hot wire to melt through plastic and contact chassis; your outlet-wall socket will burn up chassis to glow red hot, and your internal organs can turn inside out (death). Please be careful my friends.

Reply 142 of 540, by badmojo

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Holering wrote:

Thought I'd chime in and suggest whoever is using old CRT's (or old hardware in general) better do so carefully. You shouldn't even be handling old hardware, let alone a CRT, unless you are at least capable of changing large capacitors and have years worth of experience fixing big electronics and know what's really going on. Any bad earth-ground point can cause a hot wire to melt through plastic and contact chassis; your outlet-wall socket will burn up chassis to glow red hot, and your internal organs can turn inside out (death). Please be careful my friends.

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Reply 143 of 540, by retrofanatic

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Here's a photo of my Samsung 1100df 21 inch giant new in box I picked up a little while ago for next to nothing. The guy selling it just wanted it out of the way because it is so big. I included a stock Internet photo because I didn't want to take it out of the box.

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Reply 144 of 540, by Holering

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That looks just like the 955DF I'm using. That's a great find being new. I remember focus pot misadjustment causing negative reviews for 955df (blurry picture). Easy fix and great Monitor. Mines still going strong after all these years and a dog chewing VGA cable (cross fingers).

Reply 145 of 540, by retrofanatic

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Holering wrote:

That looks just like the 955DF I'm using. That's a great find being new. I remember focus pot misadjustment causing negative reviews for 955df (blurry picture). Easy fix and great Monitor. Mines still going strong after all these years and a dog chewing VGA cable (cross fingers).

Yeah it does look like the 955DF.

🤣...Don't worry...I think the VGA cable may be an easy repair if the dog does manage to get through it.

Reply 146 of 540, by Artex

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Just got these!

22" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2020U (Diamondtron NF) CRT (1999)
Check out that connectivity!!
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3 x Compaq P920 19 inch CRTs (Diamondtron NF) (2001)
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My Retro B:\ytes YouTube Channel & Retro Collection
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Reply 147 of 540, by retrofanatic

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Artex wrote:

Just got these!

Awesome....just awesome! Those CRT's, especially the 22" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2020U are the cream of the crop of CRT's. Love the fact that you found a nice white/beige one as well...I've only seen these in black.

Reply 148 of 540, by Artex

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retrofanatic wrote:
Artex wrote:

Just got these!

Awesome....just awesome! Those CRT's, especially the 22" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2020U are the cream of the crop of CRT's. Love the fact that you found a nice white/beige one as well...I've only seen these in black.

Thanks! It's a heavy sob! 😀

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Reply 149 of 540, by temptingthelure

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This is my CRT:

1516656_728277543891704_1105876627_n.jpg

It's a samsung syncmaster. I used it until recently. I'm now full LCD. That crt was very useful though.

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Reply 151 of 540, by TwOne

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HP 72 monitor 17-inch VGA, manufactured in December 2001

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Broke down a few months ago, my brother was watching a video on it, until the screen started spazzing and making high pitched noise. I turned it off and it left a plastic-like burn smell. Is capable of 1280x1024 @ 60Hz, but also 1024x768 @ 85Hz.

Salora CT2108T 21-inch 4:3 Colour TV, I don't know about the manufacturing date.

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Uses RCA or SCART and has a mono speaker system, but you can use stereo headphones. Weighs almost 21kg. Interesting thing is that it retailed until October 2007.
I currently use it for PS3 and only supports 576i at 50Hz. On 720p games, text is almost unreadable from less than 3 meters, and is pretty shaky.

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Reply 152 of 540, by Holering

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Samsung 955DF. Included display timing shot so you can see the scanlines are native and not emulated. Emulator is centered @ 256x224 within 256x240 so no distorted pixels. No filtering of course. Screen is stretched via display controls to fill the 16 empty vertical lines (reminds me of a TV 😀 ). Image isn't as sharp in pictures (fourth photo blurry as heck), but I think it gives an idea. I wish they kept making CRTs; I'd definitely pick a new one today over DFP, maybe even without gsync-freesync.
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I do consider scanlines to be a powerful feature. Mortal Kombat 1-3 looks more natural with scanlines, since you can make out knuckles and skin tones on actors. Somehow those details get lost without the scanlines. Perhaps they act like a sort of blending-dithering pattern? Older low rez games seem to take advantage of this artifact to give a better appearance, and it seems like some sort of antialiasing effect without blurring image. 32x Blackthorne has waterfalls that look awful without scanlines. These are the main reasons I want a scanline generator for my line doubler, so I can play my NES with native cvbs while looking great, but with scanlines. I just can't stand the look of these older low rez games without scanlines.

EDIT:
Was going to post pics of line doubler, but friend decided to take it back (yeah it wasn't mine). He's also taking the 955DF off my hands. What an arse...

Last edited by Holering on 2014-07-28, 16:54. Edited 8 times in total.

Reply 153 of 540, by retrofanatic

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Scanlines kick ass for these older games...I do like having a high quality CRT to go along with the scanlines.

You seem to have some good quality images there with the samsung 955DF.

Reply 154 of 540, by GPDP

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Speaking of scanlines:

i3l3PYf.jpg

This was taken on my 17" Mitsubishi DiamondPlus 74SB. While it is capable of displaying "true" 240p using the 120Hz trick, this shot is actually in superwide 480p (3840x480 aspect-corrected to 4:3) with a scanline shader, with the monitor's SuperBright mode enabled. The emulator used in this shot is RetroArch using its Nestopia core, along with Blargg's NTSC-RGB filter and bilinear filtering applied horizontally. The result is quite authentic while still being nice and sharp.

Why 3840x480p with inserted scanlines instead of real 256x240p, you ask? Because superwide 480p is simply more flexible. To get real 240p, you have to go up to 120Hz, which introduces frame doubling and a slight ghosting effect. Getting rid of it to get back to proper 60Hz-like motion requires black frame insertion. Meanwhile, 480p already runs at 60Hz, so there's no need for that. Also, there were many resolutions that fall under the "240p" umbrella, such as 256x240, 320x240, 384x240, etc., and it basically necessitates a lot of per-system or even per-game configurations to get them all working properly, not to mention having to correct the aspect ratio for each modeline. A single superwide resolution, however, covers all bases once corrected back down to 4:3, since no monitor has a high enough dot pitch to resolve every single pixel, thus hiding any scaling issues. As for the scanlines, I found that simply adding them on top of a 480p image has a nearly identical result to a "true" 240p image. Granted, untouched "true" 240p tends to be brighter, but again, dealing with the frame doubling with black frame insertion halves the brightness anyway, so there's no real advantage in the end. And in any case, my monitor's SuperBright mode does a good job offsetting the loss in brightness without washing things out or messing with colors. And lastly, using RetroArch's interlacing.cg shader, which detects 400+ interlaced line modes, 480i games can also be displayed properly, whereas "true" 240p would cut out half of the visual output in such games. Thanks to this shader, 240p games display scanlined, and 480i games display interlaced, just like on a real TV.

Reply 155 of 540, by Holering

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@ GPDP
Great post! That is a very interesting effect, and it looks like an authentic arcade CRT of some sort. I think with supersampling and inserting blank lines for every blank line (e.g. 240p to 480p), emulators can have a very optimal effect on DFPs (or crts 🤣). BTW those Mitsubishi's used to be very expensive I believe, and probably some of the best CRTs from their time. I hear some of them can accept native 15khz RGB which is extremely rare for typical PC CRTs.

My friend sent me some pics of the NEC IDC 3000 doubler (what a sucker).

Composite:
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Svideo:
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Behind doubler:
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Can remove "l" before ".jpg" in image links for full resolution.

Used Mario Bros NES game, since NES has one of the dirtiest composite encoders I've ever seen. Not sure if it's 240p (I think it is), but scrolling screens look just exactly like a stationary screen; completely solid and sharp despite moving. There's no artifacts when mario is attacked and his sprite flashes. No ghosting, halos, or color bleed; just some minimal rainbowing from the nasty composite encoder (composite looks like RGB-VGA on good sources; no joke). Doubler is perfect with a model 2 Genesis; my capture card couldn't sync with it for some reason...

Included extreme closeup of Crazi Taxi Svideo so you can see the detail. It looks better in person, but you can see the faint lines in black bar on bottom of title screen individually with no artifacts, which is usually impossible on my capture card; it could probably pass for RGB-VGA. Sometimes lines will appear on objects that do stuff too fast; extreme white flashes on some supers in MVSC2 sometimes show this, or helicopter blades in Crazi Taxi. Not all the time but it does happen. Also, on stationary screens, doubler sometimes shows artifacts on pixel edges, but it's very minor and not all the time (like it cant decide if the picture is moving or stationary).

In last post, you can see how my friend has monitor connected. There's no ghosting or anything else with PC passed through (was using 1280x960 @ 84hz). He captures the unprocessed composite/svideo on PC from monitor out, uses line-doubled output during game session, pauses game and switches doubler back to PC vga passthrough when he's done capturing; doesn't switch any cables and uses one monitor. Splitted signal via Monitor out, looks no different than original straight from machine. No lag at all (I can pull off air combos no problem in MSVC2 which is usually problematic on some scalers and DFPs; I beat him even with DFPs though).

EDIT:
I misunderstood my friend. He can only monitor the original signal when he's using RGB out. The doubler doesn't split the image (it only passes it through). Oops. Also, the doubler doesn't comb filter the image it appears, on 240P material (not even manually); it only works with strict NTSC signals.

Last edited by Holering on 2014-07-28, 16:54. Edited 14 times in total.

Reply 156 of 540, by GPDP

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Some have likened the 480p plus scanlines combination to be more akin to a Sony BVM, actually. Arcade CRTs, while still sharp, don't have nearly as pronounced black spaces, not to mention they were usually shadow mask types rather than aperture grille. I'm not gonna lie, this method is not for everyone. Some people don't like seeing prominent "scanlines" on their games. I am a total Trinitron nut, so I do not mind them at all (especially with some distance). I used to use a CRT shader on my LCD monitor, but after grabbing this Mitsubishi, for emulation, I am never going back, not until flat panel tech improves.

Reply 157 of 540, by Holering

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@GPDP
Right. That's actually what I meant. It looks like an arcade monitor of some unknown type that never existed. I'm the opposite however of liking Trinitron tubes 🤣 (sort of). I've always had bad luck with scrolling screens look like a warped woman, two horizontal lines going across screen, curved corners on flat screens (not that I dislike the curved corners hehe), and blacks having a red tint (heard this can be fixed via resistor mod). I'm happy with shadowmasks, but colors can be hard to get looking perfect, (my ViewSonic with trinitron tube has great colors all the time!), and I've had moire artifacts sometimes. I envy Artex with his "22" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2020U (Diamondtron NF) CRT (1999)".

I agree too about flat panels needing improved tech. I think the motion blur during movement, lack of all resolutions being native, no infinite RGB, and lag really hurts them. I like DFPs but they remind of a sort of low bitrate MP3 vs CD situation.

EDIT:
My shots look way better than my friends. He said he had problems with the 60hz line scrolling on camera and it couldn't focus; what a dumb arse.

Reply 158 of 540, by GPDP

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I'm sure the DiamondPros and beasts like the Sony FW900 are better still than my own, but to be honest, I am no longer a fan of big CRTs, and the better monitors tend to be in the 21" range. 17" is perfect for my needs.

Reply 159 of 540, by mdos401

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Hi here are my CRT monitors, and CRT HDTV's

CRT HDTV's:
Sony KD-36XS955redir?resid=9F55265F9567879B!9770&authkey=!AOoyr3_7Hu41XQw&ithint=folder%2C
Sony KD-34XBR960redir?resid=9F55265F9567879B!4985&authkey=!ANiuDUQiJNWrn5c&v=3&ithint=photo%2C.jpg

CRT Monitors:
Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2070sb
Dell P1130 (Sony Trinitron tube)
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Compaq P920 (Sony Trinitron tube)redir?resid=9F55265F9567879B!3410&authkey=!AK4np8agTz7kkss&v=3&ithint=photo%2C.jpg

I liked images from my OneDrive, any help would be appreciated,if they are not showing