Eygo and Square vs Circle Pixes

[jjc]

I have been flounderning abut the TV vs Eygo thing and I read that someone said that the Eygo wasn't quite arcade looking because it had square pixes and arcade monitors had circle pixels (HowardC?).

It's been about a month and off and on I have been glancing at arcade monitors here and there and why anyone would think that arcade monitors have circle pixels is beyond me.  They are rectangular like every other TV pixes.  Am I crazy?  What's the deal?

P.S. Has anyone bought an Eygo from Closeouts USA?

[Malenko]

tons of people each with mixed reactions have bought from closeoutsusa.

For example I got one and Im happy with it, Snake got 1, a replacent one (that still didnt work) so obviously he isnt too pleased.

If you can pick it up and check at the store then get it

[SirPoonga]

Malenko is the only success story I have heard about the 27" eygo from closeouts.

[MameFan]

*Technically* neither is correct.   The appearance of "square" versus "round" is caused by at least 2 other issues: Dot pitch (possible shadow mask layouts) and Refresh rate.

PC based monitors have tubes with tighter dot pitches than "TV" tubes.

Comparison: .24-.28 dot pitch is common on current PC monitors, while MOST TV's and arcade monitors of the 80's have a dot pitch of around .72 to .92.  

PC monitors run at a minimum of 31.5 KHz horizontally, most MUCH higher.   TV's run at a maximum of 15.75 KHz horizontally.

Therefore, if you compare the size of the "hole" in the PC monitor with that of a TV, and combine this with the fact that the scanning is done twice if not three or four times faster, you can see the PC monitor has tighter control over how small the dot is drawn.  A TV tends to have dots "bleed".

In most cases, this is a VERY good thing.  If you've seen some of the newer LCD's with TV tuners or even gas-plasma TV's (and to a slight extent pure-flat TVs) you will notice that the edges of things are now TOO crips.  TV works on the fact that your eyes blend things together (e.g. 30 frames per second, interlaced) and if pixels didn't bleed then you'd find yourself noticing way too many problems with your signal, dot crawl, etc...

Of course if your email text was smoothed on a PC monitor, that would be VERY annoying. Pictures or LARGE text is fine, small details is not.


I can say that the original PC VGA monitors (or even back to CGA which were the same as a TV as far as refresh rates go), when dealing with much higher dot pitches and much lower refresh rates, the pixels did tend to be "round".  Some of the best 13" PC monitors to hack for use in cabaret video game cabinets are the earlies VGA ones due to dot pitch (though very sharp, still had arcade feel) and refresh rates.  After a year or so, they stopped being compatible at the low rates at the same time they drastically improved dot pitch from .52/.42 to .32/.28

Also remember arcade monitors (low res--e.g. the classics) were 320x240 resolution.  TV is higher than that. Basic PC monitors are 640x480... 4 times as many dots on the screen. Smaller dots make things appear squarer/cleaner edges than old arcade tubes.

[ScottH]

SirPoonga,

You twit...  you seem to ber on a personal vendetta against the Eygo monitors.  Not sure why...

There are SEVERAL success stories about the 27" Eygos from closeoutusa.  Mine, a friends, and about 10 others I've seen on various mame messageboards. They've all posted pictures of their cabinets.

Some have had trouble with them, but many many more have had success.  

jjc - read the other Eygo monitor topics on this board...

[electricd]

Actually I have heard more success stories than complaints on these.  Its just that the complainers are VERY persistant, and no one posts successes, only complaints.  I have one of the EYGO (untested) from Ebay and the thing is outstanding!

[Lilwolf]

I like mine... but I was one of the first to get one.  I've heard many many shipped problems, but they were good about resending them... some received 2 broken ones before one good one...

If I could do it again, I would have gone SVid TV for many reasons (output mainly)... but I'm happy with my EYGO for now.  

mounting is a pain since it's braket is better then a standard cabinet.  In fact, for mine, the tube almost touches the side of my cabinet, and the courner brackets do.  So I had to hack it to mount it.  

But all in all... great for the price.  Just don't think its strange when you have to wait a month or so to have multiples shipped to you.