Looking for a good CRT monitor

I've been trying to settle on a CRT monitor to play some of my older games on for a while, to no avail.

I've heard good things about monitors like the PVM-20M2MDU and the Commodore 1702, but I honestly don't know what I should be looking for, or where I should be looking.

Any suggestions? (I'm located in Canada, for what it's worth.)

 

Commordore 1084S has RGB and stereo sound. But I don't know how its display quality compares to the Commodore 1702.

 

I was in the same boat as you not too long ago. I'd personally recommend just going to various thrift stores and hoping you come across a hidden gem. I got lucky and found a great CRT PC Monitor for less than $10. I'm sure a professional quality monitor like the one you listed has better picture, but the games still look fantastic anyway.

 

The 20M2MDU is a great monitor. For retro gaming (i.e. low res video), you can't do much better. It has RGB, component, S-Video, and composite inputs. I've spent a lot of time with mine, so if you have any questions, just ask. Here's a video I made a while back showing the monitor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMMoAaABFyQ

 

I actually came across your thread while doing some searching earlier, and it's what made me want to find that specific monitor. It's definitely the 'ideal' monitor that I'd want.

The problem is, I don't know if coming across one is even a reality for me. The cheapest I could come across a used one on EBay for was $300 with shipping. And while I'm not above spending $300 on a monitor, horror stories about monitors being busted during shipping (should sound familiar) and faulty monitors in general are kind of turning me off.

 

Perhaps you could order one from the US. Shipping would probably be expensive, but it would still probably be less than $300 total. There definitely is a risk associated with buying a monitor like that. You'll have to decide for yourself if it's worth it.

Another thing: you needn't limit yourself to just the 20M2MDU as far as professional monitors. That and the 1271Q are the only ones I personally have experience with, but I think there are other PVMs and professional monitors made by other companies (NEC/Mitsubishi comes to mind) that would probably do just as well. My advice would be to try to find a newer model, late 90s early 00s. They made some huge strides in CRT picture quality before they finally disappeared.

 

All the above suggestions are good. Any Sony PVM will serve you well, but as such they are sought after by people like us.

Mine is a Sony PVM-2950Q, that's a 29" screen. Nothing short of sexy.

 

Well, I managed to find one in the US that's about $80, and the fella told me it would be about $75-100 to ship it.

Looked all around Craigslist and Kijiji for the cities around me, and I can't find a local one within the next four cities, so that's probably a non-option.
Worth it?

 

Sorry to double-post, but I have some questions regarding SCART cables and the like.

Bare with me, because I've only heard of SCART in name before today, and I've never done any real research until now, but I figured now was a better time than ever.

In order for me to hook up, say, my SNES to a PVM-20M4U monitor (as this seems to be the one I'm likely going to shell out for), I'm going to need three things:

A SNES SCART cable:


A RGB-Scart cable/adapter:

And three of these RCA-to-BNC adapters:


Am I wrong here, or is there anything else I need to know about these things? I'm not gonna pretend that I actually know more than I've read in the last hour, so I'd appreciate a helping hand if possible.

 

That would get no sound without an adapter. 3 pins isn't enough to carry red, green, blue, left audio, and right audio.

You'll also have to sort out cable genders.

Both the SCART ends are male.
Both the RCA ends are female.

 

Needs something for sync and I only see RGB there, assuming it merely converts SCART to RCA.

 

Oh, right. My bad.

So what I'm looking for is more along the lines of... a RGB-Scart cable like this, with a female to female SCART adapter?

Sync? I'm afraid I don't understand.

 

As well as the Red, Green, and Blue signals, the TV has to know when to start a new scan line, and when to start a new field or frame. These signals are "sync" signals.

In SCART, the composite video signal on pin 20 is used as a source for these signals. When using BNC cables with monitors like these, they need an extra cable, in addition to the R, G and B cables.

That Scart-RCA adaptor is designed for component video (Y/Pb/Pr), where the sync signals are merged on to one of the signal cables. The PVM will accept such signals, but your consoles don't output them that way. (Actually later ones do, like PS2, Gamecube and Wii)

The cable pictured there with the SCART plug and 6 RCA plugs is exacly what you need, just use that with some RCA-BNC adaptors and you're cooking.

 

Groovy. I'm learning something new every day here.

Before I go on and start making some purchases though, I've heard some things about NTSC consoles not supporting SCART from the get-go? Could you tell me a little about that if you're familiar?

 

From memory:
No NES supports RGB without a special chip that's hard to find.
NTSC SNES supports RGB but the cable is different to PAL, just something to watch out for. Same with NTSC Gamecube.
Only very early NTSC N64's and some French PAL N64's with (FRA) in the model number support RGB.

Other than that (and somebody else will hopefully be able to verify/correct/clarify the above), pretty much every console either supports RGB, or can be modded quite simply (i.e. just adding connectors and maybe some resistors/caps) to support it.

 

Good to know. The SNES, N64 and GameCube I'll have to be careful around, looks like.

I'm glad I have a couple extra N64s, getting someone to mod one shouldn't be a big issue.
As for the SNES/Gamecube, I'll just have to do some careful reading when I track down a cable, I guess.

Thanks for all the help! Hopefully I'll get this thing up and running soon and I'll be able to post results!

...If only I could find the actual cables instead of just pictures now, haha. I feel like I'm going to struggle to find R/G/B cables rather than Y/Pb/Pr. Unless I've misinterpreted everything by this point.

EDIT: I think these are what I need, right? Along with a female to female SCART adapter and a couple of scart cables for my consoles?

 

i assume you don't have a rgb scart or any kind of rgb input. so the cable you linked won't work. it is a passive cable, you need an active scart to component transcoder to actively use your component inputs.

also ntsc gamecube doesn't output rgb at all. there are some hacked component cables to output rgb, but i don't know if they are worth the price. pal gamecubes output native rgb.

the cable you are looking for your snes is called "ntsc snes scart cable" or alternatively you can get "pal gamecube scart cable" for your snes too. don't worry, both are the same thing. the cable you shouldn't buy is "pal snes scart cable".

 

The monitor does support RGB input, so the cable should work. Unless I still don't know what I'm talking about, in which case disregard me.

With that said, I think I found the perfect cable in my searches afterwards.

 

This whole thread is about a Sony PVM. It's all about RGB!

 

No N64 model outputs RGB without modification. For the earlier models the mod is fairly simple, whereas later models require a CPLD and the mod is more complicated. The PC Engine also does not output RGB without modification. The original SNES models output RGB, but the revision (the SNES "Jr.") requires modification to output RGB. Many people do this mod because a) the SNES Jr. is much more attractive and b) its RGB video output is much better. NTSC Gamecubes do not output RGB, unless you modify a component cable.

As far as NTSC consoles that output RGB without need for modification, you have:

SNES/Super Famicom (not Jr.)
Genesis/Mega Drive (32X)
Saturn
Dreamcast
PS1/PS2