It's depressing how little most people care about picture and sound quality. It's pretty much the same across mediums. I think it's because people don't care about details in general (that's kind of an oxymoron). They just want the big picture. The big, blurry, wobbly picture.
I way want the OPs PVM.. Shame I just bought another CRT for like £1, 28" Trinitron. lol My XRGB-2+ could fund it. Hmm.
In Europe at least, much of the blame should be placed squarely on console manufacturers. In spite of Scart being available on almost every TV manufacturered since about 1995, they insist in packaging Composite cables + Scart adaptors with their consoles. Your average Joe doesn't know the difference, they think it's just Scart. Sega at least deverve some credit for bundling a true RGB Scart cable with the console, even if they were maybe a couple of years too early. Depressingly, this still happens to this day with the HD consoles.
Keep in mind that it's a pain in the ass to move. They weigh about 80 kilos if I recall correctly and they are bulky. It's possible to carry them alone if you're well-built, but not up- or downstairs. It's also a bit dangerous since the centre of gravity is at the front and if you grab it by the framework it could topple over on the front while you carry it. >_> @Shakey Jake I used to know someone who owns a 32" LCD and a PS3. He was so happy about the graphics and wanted to show me (in about 2007 that was) and when he powered it up it was all blurry and just blatantly horrible! He didn't understand what was wrong, so I looked at the back of the TV - and found out the PS3 was hooked up with the standard cinch cable and a scart adaptor. You can hardly imagine a face more illuminated than his when he first connected it with the HDMI-cable I subsequently recommended to him. In restrospect, I wish "Freude, schöner Götterfunken" had played in the background, heheheh.
I think the heaviest CRT I've lifted by myself was a 28" late-eighties Panasonic that we found dumped round the back of our house. I almost fell over! The wooden/ chipboard cabinet made it a bit heavier than the usual plastic affair. It worked fine, so I can only assume it was thrown out because it was old-fashioned. The demise of the CRT sets was basically down to that. They were considered unfashionable and even once high-end (fully working) CRT sets went off to landfill, only to be replaced by some hideous first-generation LCD panel. I still find it bizarre how back in 2004/5, throwing out a good quality CRT for some overpriced PC monitor with a tuner bolted on seemed the acceptable norm. Half of them were Standard-def panels anyway :banghead: Nowadays I can understand it, as there is a stronger demand for HD content, and the picture quality (in terms of contrast ratio), has come a long way with LCD etc. A number of these CRT TV's are also dying a "natural" death, and are sometimes beyond economical repair (parts no longer available or too expensive etc). In a lot of cases there's simply no one around locally that's suitability qualified to fix them anymore.
No kidding on the weight, eh. Heavy bastards. You say it seems "kind of faulty"... how so? Other people have pointed out that not all SCART ports are wired for RGB. In my experience, though, I've seen countless TVs with SCART ports and I can't remember ever coming across one that wouldn't work with RGB when I tried. I think it's just very early SCART TVs or ultra-cheap Chinese shite that don't support it at all. Which is quite ironic given that SCART is an acronym for "Syndicat des Constructeurs d'Appareils Radiorécepteurs et Téléviseurs" (yes, I did copy and paste that from Wikipedia). Give it a French name and then don't even use it And then they fucked it up with the Dreamcast and bundled RF. At least here in the UK.
I must admit, every TV I've encountered with just 1 Scart socket has been RGB-enabled (not to say that ones that don't support RGB don't exist, of course). The problem is with TVs that have 2 (or more) Scart sockets because the second Scart socket is designed to accept S-Video input. S-Video was added to Scart after the standard had been finalised, and could only be supported at the expense of RGB. Of course, that causes all kinds of problems for people like us who are only interested in RGB, but maybe they had camcorder users in mind. I'm actually quite pleased with my 32" Sony Bravia LCD at home if only because both Scart sockets are RGB-enabled! And yeah, I was quite miffed to find an RF cable with my Dreamcast. I was surprised to find that RF supported PAL60 though.
Don't forget rear-projection TV's. Incredibly expensive (I recall price tags of 7000DM, 10000DM) and really strange picture quality.
RGB SCART is totally worth the picture quality, i have been using it on my PS2 and Gamecube for almost 10 years and still to this day the picture looks perfect on my 32" old school widescreen TV The one thing i absoloutley hate about SCART is its a pain in the ass to plug into a TV that only has them in the back (like my TV), sometimes i am there for ages reaching around the back of my tv trying to jiggle it in/see if its the right way round...etc
I bought a Sony PVM 19" for around $80 including shipping years ago. I bought it primarily for arcade JAMMA games but I knew I'd be able to use consoles with it too. Another point was actually because I knew that the NES via composite would look so much better on it than my HDTV where it looked awful. My only disappointment with it was there was no S-Video, just Composite and RGB. S-Video would have been nice for the N64 I suppose and as a stop-gap until RGB cables were bought. You can certainly do RGB here. It may not be as affordable since it is so much more limited, but it can be done. I remember seeing something awhile ago about hacking some chinese CRTs to add RGB to them.
This is a bit old but mostly the same. Have a Denon now Sony died but was replaced by time i repaired it. Short story, I dont use RGB scart, I use modded component cables. Long story, i ordered a bunch of needed scart cables for the special connectors for systems like snes,saturn ect, http://www.lik-sang.com/search.php?query=rgb some sytems i just have a custom db9 on.(nes,3do,cdi,duo ect) i then bought a bunch(12+) of component xbox 360 cables dirt cheap on ebay. 360 cables are the only ones with 7(r,g,b,sync,left,right,gnd) conductors because they keep the composite line. i hacked off the scart connector on the scart cables and hacked off the 360 connector on the 360 component cable. used the r,g,b on the component cable as r,g,b from the systems and used the yellow(composite) as sync and right and left for sound. then i used the shield as ground. now i just have all my rgb systems hooked up to a pelican component selector box. the out of the pelican box has a cable converting component rca cables to the japanese rgb standard that is in the xrgb2 plus. on the pelicacn box i scratched off the the black paint on each button then printed my own lables that now light up for my classic systems(genesis,neo-geo,duo,snes,nes,3do,saturn ect) i needed 2 component boxes. one pelican 8 selector and a pelican 3 selector. i used y splitters to connect the 2 boxes i just turn one off that is not needed. (nes.snes,n64.genesis,saturn,dreamcast,neo-geo,duo,3do,jag,cdi) in the end it has very nice clean look and a great picture.
It's not a question of whether the PVM does both or not, it's the fact that NTSC is the inferior standard. There's a long-running joke in the broadcast industry that NTSC stands for Never Twice Same Colour. This was particulary noticeable in the old valve TV sets and with a weak signal reception. Of course, PAL is 625 lines as opposed to NTSC being 525 lines, there are other technical differences that often are counted against NTSC, although some actually like it just for being 60Hz. I'm not talking about what you'll get out of your console via RGB, I'm talking about living in a country that uses an inferior systemAl. Of course, with digital transmissions and blu-ray, that's less of an issue now. I'll cover some of the other questions - sorry for not quoting. It's late, I'm tired... and lazy Geometry should only be an issue if you cross the equator, so you shouldn't have a problem with it. Think about it - the picture in a CRT is made by bending the beams with magnetic deflection. If you move it to the opposite pole, the magnetic setup is going to be affected by the opposing pole, and therefore needs fine tuning. Japan had a socket that looked like SCART, but was wired differently. Was that not very common? All consoles via RGB? Not all N64s will output RGB, and good luck with a NES or Atari 2600! ;-) Yes, any TV with a SCART socket should do RGB. Yes, any TV with multiple SCART sockets (and I mean virtually ANY) will usually have at least one that doesn't do RGB. Yes, that's because it's meant to be an s-video socket. Despite s-video to SCART cables being practically non-existant! (Yes, you can get them, but I don't think any manufacturer ever bothered making a dedicated one for their equipment.) How can I say this? Hmm, have you ever seen my collection of service manuals?! I have over 15,000 manuals. Yes, actual paper manuals. They run from the 1960s through to early 21st century. Funnily enough, I was moving some of them today and came across a PVM manual. Anyway, I've not come across a TV with SCART that doesn't do RGB.... considering the guns are red, green and blue, it's the simplest way to get a picture. Yes, you'll need a heavy duty step-up transformer. Yes, America has a three-phase system with 240V for washing machines. It is intended for those appliances ONLY. You shouldn't plug a US 240V appliance into a European outlet, due to the way the American system uses a common neutral. I wouldn't recommend plugging European appliances into the US 240V system, either. If you use arcade cabinets, you should know that some 25/28" monitors use the same chassis, and so have the same power requirements... hence you should know that a couple of inches doesn't make a difference... monitor power consumption-wise, that is ;-) When moving a CRT television or monitor alone, ALWAYS carry it with the screen towards you! SCART is like JAMMA - named after the organisation that came up with it. However, the French don't necessarily use acronyms... therefore they don't call the company SCART. Anyway, can you really say that you've heard of every organisation in your country? I'm sure most of us wouldn't be aware of many societies that are, quite frankly, boring to the layman. rgb3do, your host doesn't allow hotlinking. Yes, you probably see the images fine - most of us see a lake that tells us not to hotlink. Please use an image host that allows hotlinking. Looking at the picture, though - have you heard of crosstalk?! LOL, awesome first post! :sexy2: :thumbsup: Welcome, btw.
Take it from someone who has moved to America from across the world: Take one with you (freight). It shouldn't add on to your costs if you're shipping a container of crap and is likely better quality than the handful of options available to you. Amiga/Commodore (too small), PVM (Tate issues), arcade monitors (sync & casing issues). Wasn't.
Put it this way, I've never seen a TV with a JRGB socket, and I'm geeky enough to take sneeky looks at the back of your telly to see what sockets it has!
A select few of them had it, but they have gone the way of the dodo. The socket still comes in handy for converters from a Sigma (and other?) Supergun, the handful of homebrew 21-pin RGB <-> DSUB connectors, for those of us w/ arcade monitors, and the few 21-pin RGB -> A/V Multi converters. EDIT: On that note, I wonder what's entailed in getting a North American Wega to use RGB. Sure the model can't differ that much from the Japanese one. Too bad I'm a big pussy and am afraid of opening a CRT.
Most of the J TVs that have RGB inputs were from the early 90's. I've seen a few at Hard Off in the past but I'd imagine most of the TVs from 95-96 onwards do not have the input except some Sony models which had their proprietary connector.
On a related note, does anyone know why JRGB has different wiring compared with RGB Scart? My understanding is that they are otherwise identical.
lol, I wonder if "The heaviest TV you ever lifted" could get spun-off into it's own topic? The heaviest TV I had to pick up was a 32" Sony Trinitron/WEGA. I really like this TV for it's picture and feature set, but it's heavy (around 180 pounds, the weight of a person). I bought it off of Craigslist about 1 year ago for $50, and ended up having to move it down a flight of stairs in a blizzard with a team of other people. >_< It's kind of funny seeing all the hatred towards composite in this topic. When I was younger, it was like an upgrade of sorts for me. No longer was I required to go to channel 3/4 and pop out the cable in the back of the TV (since those RF boxes always degraded the TV's picture). I couldn't agree more about sound quality. Anything related to tinny-sounding speakers is my enemy. I'm an analog guy myself. Powerful 70s amps and quads FTW. There's an American SCART TV for sale in the Pittsburgh area right now: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/fuo/2225097774.html Whoever is in that area should get that! It's a pretty rare TV.
