What IS a huge deal is that you'll be getting European-only models, and the whole reason this discussion comes up is usually because Americans want a way to use RGB for their consoles. Information on a European-only model is going to be useless for them. My broadcast monitor table was extremely wide lol... but it contained info that people probably don't need. I can't find it now :\ There is no picture quality difference in medical monitors - they have certain characteristics that need to be more stringent, e.g. ensuring they won't interfere with life support systems and reliability. BTW, the wattage I posted for Ave's monitor was from official Sony documentation.
Hopefully the info I'm putting up there is concise and relevant. Where possible I'm mentioning where there are European and North American variants of the same monitor. So with any luck, the info here will be useful to both Americans wanting to get in to RGB, and Eurpoeans making the move from a regular TV with SCART to a PVM with BNC and/or something-else-that-isn't-SCART.
I may be getting a Sony 20M2U soon hopefully if I win the auction. the specs are nearly the same as the medical version minus the ports. This picture says it all.
Are PVM's usually noisier than regular old CRTs? I just got my first PVM a few days ago (PVM 20m4u) and I noticed after its on for a few minutes it gets a little noisy. Is that just some bad capacitors I gotta replace?
Haha alright I guess it's all good then. My other is totally silent so I guess maybe I'll check it out when I get around to it.
One thing I have noticed about that 15khz CRT noise, is that in some circumstances it can actually leak into your audio lines and then you get double effect. I had a CRT connected to a sound system and I was wondering why it was so loud. Then I discovered the whine was also getting amplified in the audio. Using an isolation transformer on the Audio ground helped greatly.
Hello, If needed I've documented how to build a scart adapter for PVM -> http://thefab.no-ip.org/pvm/UK.htm
I would add to that, the fact that it's not necessary to separately wire each of the video grounds. You can save time and effort by wiring them all to one ground. I personally used pin 17, though some people have told me pin 18 is a better choice - this is probably due to the fact that not all SCART cables have all of the ground pins connected. Though in cases where pin 17 or 18 do not have ground connected, it's a simple mod to make a bridge from another ground to that pin. There's really no benefit to using separate grounds for each lead; it has no effect on video quality. Perhaps it's more "elegant", but there's no tangible benefit. If anyone can offer a counterargument to this, I'd love to hear it.
OCD, maybe? If your soldering iron is hot anyways, may as well do it properly, even if not strictly necessary. And It only takes a few seconds more, after all.
True, but if you're like me and not very skilled at soldering, it could take a few minutes more rather than a few seconds. Still not a big deal, but... meh. It also has the advantage that, if one or more of the ground pins are not connected (on the output device), it's easier to modify it to use the correct pin - since you only need one pin to be modified. Whereas if you have each of the ground pins wired separately, you'd need to rewire all of the missing leads. Again, not a big deal, but it could potentially save a little bit of time.
Another thing: If you decide to cut corners, at least use separate ground pins for audio and video, do decouple the PVM from the sound system. Just to be on the safe side, in case one of them decides to suicide by shorting his ground to mains or sth like that.
Sure, I would agree with that. You should use a separate ground for audio and video. But I think "cut[ting] corners" is a bit of an exaggeration.
Video and audio grounds are bound to be connected on the console side anyway so making them separate likely wont change anything for most of what you connect to your PVM.
True, that was basically my reasoning. Though adding one extra pin doesn't take very long, so you might as well. I've had issues with audio/video interference with SCART before, so it's not a bad idea. But as you said, it probably doesn't matter.
Hi there, I recently bought my first PVM, so I'm new to the club. It's a Sony PVM2950QM and guess what... I can't get any of my consoles to work properly. There seems to be a sync issue. Currently it's wired up like this: 5-wires-BNC>VGA cable, R-G-B plugged into the corresponding inputs of Line 3 and the other two into HD/COMP and VD. The cable is connected to a SyncStrike (with power supply). When connecting my SNES, MD1 or MD2 (all PAL), I get some kind of rolling image +sound for about 4 seconds, then it blacks out. Everything is connected with RGB cables from retrogamingcables.co.uk. Same issue with my Neo GEO MVS MV-2F +Supergun/MAK. After reading up about sync on retrorgb.com and several forums, I thought it'd be a good idea to try every possible combination with the 2 BNC sync cables. HD/COMP only (like it should be, I think), VD only, both. Long story short, it didn't help at all. Same problem. And I don't understand "sync" AT ALL.^^ Now, this post came to my attention: So, the cables are not wired correctly for my setup?! What would be the best solution for me? Rewiring all my cables (I can't solder), getting some other SCART>BNC cable without sync stripper or throw everything out of the window and grab a beer? I'm totally confused. Hopefully you guys can help me. @RetroSwim: Thx for the FAQs! Maybe you could also add how to get into the service menu. PVM2950QM: Monitor on standby, press [DISPLAY] [5] [VOL +] [POWER ON] successively.
