Sony PVM: issues with computer input

[Ummon]

A cursory search yielded nothing, so I'm putting it up: I finally got round to trying the 'computer' input on one of my Sony PVM-2530s and there are two issues:

- vertical sync is impossibly sensitive, such that I can't set the pot to stop it rolling.

This is actually in-process: Zeb said to connect the sync wires together at pin 3, and I haven't split 'em yet to see if that fixes it, but I'm mentioning it anyways.


- color: note the image attached. Notice how it looks like 8-bit color or something? Zeb said to tap, either, the sync wires, or connect a wire from a +5v source on the PC, to pin 10 to let the monitor know it's getting RGB. Neither had any effect on what you see below.

[Zebidee]

Make sure that you RTFM (said nicely).

The colour does look not-right. Is it blooming? does the brightness control help?

Check the colour settings on PC?

As you say, 5v at pin 10 might help. Not sure, but try it if it is not too difficult.

I'm not sure what pin1 does. IBM select if high (5v) or open; or 3-bit TTL if grounded? If you have no luck with pin 10, you could try the 5v on pin1.

Pin 12 also is a blanking signal, and the manual says if this is at 5v or open then the monitor will accept RGB inputs from a "microcomputer".

Would be good if someone else out there understands this input format better. However, I suggest that you try a few things (including splitting the Horz & vert syncs) and see what happens.

Please post back to let us know if you sort this out

[richms]

Either your graphic card is in 16 colour mode (yes, it still exists) or the input is a TTL input for old CGA cards which only has off and on rather then analog.

[Jack Burton]

It's incredible that the image is visible at all if that is the case.

I have connected green component video to the green pin pin of this connector and a composite video cable at the same time to the sync pin and received green screen black and white signal.  It appeared as if all the gradations of color were present.  So I think that what you are trying to do is certainly possible. 

[Ummon]

Make sure that you RTFM (said nicely).

I don't know what that means.  ((later.....just now, actually: oh, the manual. Obviously I have been.))


So:

- I got the sync sorted out. I don't know WHY I thought 12 and 13 were sync; 13 and 14. I didn't put them together, though, so I don't know if that works, too.

- the card was not in 16-color mode. I had a different monitor connected on boot-up and it was obviously 32-bit color. Switch cables and still the same on the Sony. I wonder: this cable I think might be old...that is, it's male on one end, and the other end was female. Would that make a difference?

- I tried power* to each, and every combination, of pins 1, 10, and 12. No change. I notice it says when pin 1 is in the high state (+5v), pin 25 (ibm luminance) is positive polarity. I don't even have anything connected to that and have no idea where to my vga cable I would - but perhaps that's necessary?


* I think there is power coming from the PS plug, cos I accidentally touched metal with the wire connected to it and the PC restarted.

[Ummon]

addition for clarity on sync: I meant pins 13 and 14 on the vga cable.

[SailorSat]

Most likely the screen thinks its TTL level RGB, not analog RGB.

I think pin 9, 10, 12 should be High. I think pin 1 should be low as we are NOT using RGBI

Your sync looks fine. However I rather connected it with seperated H-Sync (on pin 3) and V-Sync (on pin 11).
But first lets get the colors done.

Code: [Select]

Pin   Signal         Descr
---------------------------------------------------------------
1     IBM Select     High: IBM mode (RGBI)
                     Low:  3 Bit TTL (RGB)

2     Audio Select   High: Audio input from pin 13
                     Low:  Audio input from LINE A/B/VTR jacks

3     HSync/CSync    Horizontal or Composite Sync, Negative Pol.

4     Blue Input     Video Inputs: Positive Pol.

5     Green Input    (Sync on green optional in analog mode)

6     Red Input

7     NC

8     NC

9     Analog/Digital High: Analog mode
                     Low:  Digital mode

10    RGB/Normal     High: RGB input selected
                     Low:  LINE A/B/VTR input selected

11    VSync          Vertical Sync, Negative Pol.

12    Blanking       High: Video input from RGB input only
                     Low:  LINE A/B/VTR signal is superimposed over
                           signal from RGB input

13    Audio Input    -5 dB / 100% mod.

14    NC

15-24 Ground
25    intensity      Positive Pol.


[Zebidee]

I think pin 9, 10, 12 should be High. I think pin 1 should be low as we are NOT using RGBI

Yeah, my gut think that you're right Sailor. Thanks for posting that pinout. It is the most useful part.

[Ummon]

Okay. The bottom line is this: the only pins needing connection are:

- RBG  4, 5, 6

- all grounds to any one of 15-24

- sync wires to 3


Now here's the details. I SWEAR that when I first started working on this, the picture was dim. So I looked at the manual and thought maybe I needed to ground pin 9; the picture got bright, but it was funky-colored. So, tonight following SS's advice, I took that off and the color was normal. Conversely, pins 10 and 12 do not need 5v....or maybe not getting anything is 'open', which works also. Regardless, that simplifies things further.

Now the sync: when I de-grounded pin 9, the picture would no longer sync. ??  So I de-soldered the sync wires and put 'em both on pin 3 (like Zeb advised), and sure enough it synced. Okay, whatever.

Supplemental: there's a switch on the back above the RGB port that says 'sync on green', which of course you want off, otherwise it does weird stuff.


Oddities:

- Advancemame doesn't seem to like composite sync, but was having no problems in this case.

- whether using Advancemame or MAME, this monitor seems set up for x224 games. x240 games have overscan, and I have no idea, nor does it say in the manual, how to alter the geometry. Conversely, running vertical games vertically, it seems set up for x288 games, as you can see in the mspac image below. (Remember to click inside the picture windows after clicking on them, although the mspac is actually a little distance, so scanlines are only visible in the upper-right corner.)

[Jack Burton]

Looks good, looks very very good.  I think these monitors beat anything in the world when they are running right.

I think your assumption about the overscan is correct.  The monitor expects the extra lines 240p to be in the overscan and puts them there.  Does your monitor have an over/underscan button?  My two small PVM's do and you can see the extra lines when in underscan mode.  So it's not like the lines aren't there, they are just being displayed underneath the bezel.

To to try to alleviate problem this I usually played around a little bit with the vertical sync of the monitor to try to catch it at just the right moment of rolling and center it a bit better.  I lost some lines on the top and bottom but I could see the score.  Sometimes this doesn't work with games that change screens a lot cause you will get a vertical roll when they do that.

MAMEUI also has a vertical and horizontal position control that can be used to move the screen just a little bit.  It only works within the scan range of your monitor though, so it may not help you.  It helped me when I was playing DK in vertical mode on mine.

For the H-size I don't think that should be too hard to fix.  My monitor had a little hole in the back and a pot to control H-pos.  Does your monitor have that?  If not then I bet it is still there if you take off the back. 

There are several more pots inside that control geometry, and I'm sure one of them is V-size which would let you get 240 line games to display properly, but then you would probably have 224 line games running in letterbox if you did that. 

Overall I wouldn't worry about the vertical overscan.  I, like you, am a monitor nut, and can spend hours and hours tweaking things and trying things to try to get an image just right.  This can be tiresome and I feel that when you really start playing games it doesn't make much of a difference.  If you can get it pretty close then that is 10x times better than what you would run into in an arcade. 

Does your monitor have a 6500/9300 color mode switch?  I didn't even notice that one of mine did for over a month after I had it.  It was a little hidden recessed switch in the back.  It dramatically changed the look of the picture.  I think I prefer 6500 for video games.  It just looks more natural, and not as neon as the higher color temperature.  I think when I am adjusting a monitor I have a tendency to turn the contrast up too high and make the color bars just a bit too vibrant.  I have recently back off from that and learned how to do proper color and contrast adjustment and I feel that it makes a tremendous difference when you get down to playing games. 

This thread is very useful to the internet.  I recently sold a small pvm monitor to that guy who was going to make a MKII bartop and although I provided him instructions on how to connect his board to the CMPTR input they were only my best guesses, but with this thread I'm sure he'll be successful.

[Ummon]

overscan: I'd rather have some games not quite fill the screen and be able to read the scores on other games. That's the sacrifice you make when using a standard res monitor for a mame cab. However here there seems no choice about it in this case.

No over/underscan button. In fact, I swear there were some kind of geometry buttons on the face that I used when setting S-video, but that was a while ago and they ain't there now. I dunno.

Tried the vsync trick you mentioned, but no go. There's a huge range that it syncs in and then it's either in or not and it's 'set'.

The little switches in the back are for 'remote' and 'manual' on/off. There are three little holes in the back of the case that seem to go to the kneck board: B BKG, R BKG, SUB-BRT. I don't have anything small enough and long enough to go in these holes, so I tried using a filed paper clip - it seemed to sort of lock inside the holes on the board - but nothing happened when I turned any of these. A little bummin considering how awesome they look.

I just fired up the other one and it looks as good if not better than the first one. Better than CGA monitors I've seen in recent reunion cabs - color, brightness, and focus - and these are over ten years old. Damn!


Here's a video of vertical games run vertically. For this, I used mame32 with an empty ini folder (except for the mame32 ini file; for mame, the mame.ini is in the main directory) and the following pertinent settings:

hwstretch 1
triplebuffer 1
matchrefresh 1  (In the mame32 help file, it talks about these two working well together in native res modes. Seems to work.)
switchres 1
resolution auto
auto rol 1  (if I instead use rol, it turns it horizontal. Like mame automatically sense the monitor is on it's side or something, I dunno.)





I might keep these now, though. At least one of them for a vertical monitor, as the overscan issue in that case is almost irrelevant. By the way, the degauss issue is fixed. I wondered that the button seemed half-pressed, so I came back after a few minutes and it had come all the way out, and degaussed just fine. All sparkly!

[Jack Burton]

A few notes:

Aperature Grille for FTMFW

Using windows on these monitors in vertical mode is

Dodonpachi is the best game to leave in attract mode.

Those BKG controls are probably something related to individual contrast settings of the colors of the monitor.  I would not mess with them if the colors of the monitor look good.  If you got them out of alignment it would be very hard to get them back and you wouldn't be able to see a good white.  At least that's what I can gather from here:

link

Don't know if you have this, but here's a link to the manual.

http://www.broadcaststore.com/pdf/model/5062/5062.pdf

I see that your monitor has a notch control.  Any clue what it does?  Best I can figure is that it is some sort of noise reduction.  Images on my Mitsubishi get dark and blurry when it's on.  I think it only works over the S-video and Composite inputs though.

I fixed the small gaussing in the corner of my monitor by placing a magnetic tipped screwdriver on top of the monitor on that corner. 

You can get purple girders in DK by switching from the Radarscope conversion to the normal version.

Have you tried watching TV through the S-video on these?  It's damn near HD quality.  The same goes for consoles. 

[Ummon]

Yeah, I forgot to mention the notch and dynamic color knobs are only for s-vid and comp. That's what I was thinkin about those inside controls. Probly good I couldn't turn 'em or whatever. I wish the monitor in my candy looked as good as these do, I tell ya.

[Zebidee]

So glad to see this working!

I'm not sure that you can adjust vertical size. It has something to do with the Sony screen's patented shadow mask - or aperture grill to be correct in this case. There are taut wires that take the place of the shadow mask.

Am I right in assuming that you can't get 640x480? I think you may have mentioned this waaaay back. Anyway, I was going to say that I couldn't get any interlaced modes on my 21" Sony PVM recently and was wondering if the same was true for you.

For your vertical games on a horizontal screen, (or any games for that matter), you could try a slightly larger resolution. For example, play 224x256 games in 352x288. Galaga will still get cut off a bit by the overscan as it uses all 288 lines, but that is the price we pay ...

[HaRuMaN]

Yeah, I forgot to mention the notch and dynamic color knobs are only for s-vid and comp. That's what I was thinkin about those inside controls. Probly good I couldn't turn 'em or whatever. I wish the monitor in my candy looked as good as these do, I tell ya.

What's wrong with your candy monitor?  Mine's crispy.   

[Zebidee]

Yeah, I forgot to mention the notch and dynamic color knobs are only for s-vid and comp. That's what I was thinkin about those inside controls. Probly good I couldn't turn 'em or whatever. I wish the monitor in my candy looked as good as these do, I tell ya.

What's wrong with your candy monitor?  Mine's crispy.  

I've got a candy too, and it is good, but these Sony PVMs are definitely heaps better & brighter!

[Ummon]

So glad to see this working!

I'm not sure that you can adjust vertical size. It has something to do with the Sony screen's patented shadow mask - or aperture grill to be correct in this case. There are taut wires that take the place of the shadow mask.

Ahhh.

Am I right in assuming that you can't get 640x480?

I sorta thought about it, but didn't check, as I have 31khz modes loaded and haven't bothered with checking. In the desktop images above I actually have it at 640x240 (rather than 336x240), but it's still a x240 mode so I don't know why x240 games have overscan.

For your vertical games on a horizontal screen, (or any games for that matter), you could try a slightly larger resolution. For example, play 224x256 games in 352x288. Galaga will still get cut off a bit by the overscan as it uses all 288 lines, but that is the price we pay ...

Yeah, maybe. AdvanceMAME always pics 400x256, but I don't recall whether in this case it runs it better. Still, because I can't get the horizontal x240 game overscan sorted out, these monitors seem better for vertical orientation.

What's wrong with your candy monitor?  Mine's crispy.  

I remember you saying. Mine probly needs a cap kit, cos I remember the image being a little dim when I first turned it on with the Tetris board that came with it. It's definitely playable, but it's not stunning.

[Zebidee]

I sorta thought about it, but didn't check, as I have 31khz modes loaded and haven't bothered with checking. In the desktop images above I actually have it at 640x240 (rather than 336x240), but it's still a x240 mode so I don't know why x240 games have overscan.

For your vertical games on a horizontal screen, (or any games for that matter), you could try a slightly larger resolution. For example, play 224x256 games in 352x288. Galaga will still get cut off a bit by the overscan as it uses all 288 lines, but that is the price we pay ...

Yeah, maybe. AdvanceMAME always pics 400x256, but I don't recall whether in this case it runs it better. Still, because I can't get the horizontal x240 game overscan sorted out, these monitors seem better for vertical orientation.

Well ... imagine that the overscan obscures (say) 8 lines at top and 8 lines at bottom. Then, for your x240 games, if you choose x256 or even x288 resolutions you should be perfectly fine. You will get all your x240 and x256 games fitting in if you use a x288 resolution.

The only drawback is a bit of black at the top/bottom, but most experienced mamers would prefer to have black bars than missing high scores etc.

IMHO, these Sony monitors are not so good for vertical application. This is because of their patented screen again. The problem is that the Sony screen are like the side of a cylinder (rather than the side of a ball, like most CRTs). This is because the taut wires they use for the shadow mask must be kept STRAIGHT - curves are practically impossible with taut wires.

That means that the Sony's look great in horz mode (it is a little easier for people at the sides to see the screen), but when you mount these screen vertically, especially for a scrolling game like 1942, you really feel like you are on a spinning log, or going around and around on a barrel.

Reminds me of really some bad SPFX in early Sci Fi shows like Dr Who & Blakes 7 to represent planets spinning beneath a space ship etc.

BTW, it is the Sony screen that makes these monitors so wonderful. The aperture grill design allows up to 30% extra brightness compared to traditional CRTS. Colours are not only brighter and clearer, but also the resolution is sharper/crisper. The disadvantage is that the screen must be cylindrical and will weigh a fair bit more than other CRTs.

[Ummon]

Yeah, definitely the color quality, brightness, and sharpness are very nice. I look at that thing for a minute, then come back to my multisync, which I generally really like, and it's like looking at a soot-covered monitor, the color's so brilliant on the Sony.

I tried 224x256 games displayed horizontally using 352x288 but there was actually worse overscan.

Using 352x288 (or any other higher mode) for horizontal x240 games, the result was the same if there was any change. The x240 games that are a problem, though, are 336x240. (Marble Madness score tables are a little below the top, so you don't miss the score there.) Below 336 there's little to very little overscan and hence not an issue. I ran Golden Tee '97 (384x240), and there didn't seem to be an issue there, either.

I see what you mean about the 'roll' in scrolling games in vertical orientation, but I don't think it's a major factor, and something I'd get used to very quick. Besides, with how good the picture quality is, I really don't care. So I think I'm going to keep one for a vert cab, cos I already have my candy and my main rig that are horizontal....plus another, different monitor that I'm going to try again with......

[Zebidee]

I tried 224x256 games displayed horizontally using 352x288 but there was actually worse overscan.

Using 352x288 (or any other higher mode) for horizontal x240 games, the result was the same if there was any change. The x240 games that are a problem, though, are 336x240. (Marble Madness score tables are a little below the top, so you don't miss the score there.) Below 336 there's little to very little overscan and hence not an issue. I ran Golden Tee '97 (384x240), and there didn't seem to be an issue there, either.

You need to look at your .ini settings (mame.ini and each [romname].ini).

In particular (looking at your earlier post) turn off hardware stretch, otherwise mame will just try to fill the screen and make your overscan worse:

"hwstretch 0"

Your games will look much better with hwstretch turned off anyway.

[BASS!]

or if you take the case off there are the picture boards on the side that have little pots that you can adjust with a screw driver. They have all sorts of options. Everything from width and zoom to sync. There is also a full on geometry/convergece board on the back by the neck of the crt. Color is all adjusted on the board on the right.

[Ummon]

You need to look at your .ini settings (mame.ini and each [romname].ini).

In particular (looking at your earlier post) turn off hardware stretch, otherwise mame will just try to fill the screen and make your overscan worse:

"hwstretch 0"

Of course hwstretch is off. I just looked to make sure. That's just a typo above. I've been working straight from the inis cos the desktop was too small to see anything from mame32's ui. I rarely run command line, and I even more rarely add arguments to the line when I do cos I don't seem to get 'em right or something.

An interesting feature is that when I run 640x480(P), it does that split screen thing the JPAC does. But I think it's like someone above said, that it's actually the bezel covering up the last few lines, cos it's designed with 224 lines viewed in mind....although, why higher line modes aren't doing what you suggest may be due to some active circuitry in the thing that's also doing the split screen in VGA.

So (sorta echoing BASS!) unless it's decased, I think that's just out.

[SailorSat]

Na, theres not special circuit involved
If you feed 31khz signal in, it simply can't sync to every hsync and will only sync to the every second thats why you get split screen.

As for the other... Its the basic overscan, can be adjusted using the pots inside like basically every other screen out there

[Zebidee]

You need to look at your .ini settings (mame.ini and each [romname].ini).

In particular (looking at your earlier post) turn off hardware stretch, otherwise mame will just try to fill the screen and make your overscan worse:

"hwstretch 0"

Of course hwstretch is off. I just looked to make sure. That's just a typo above. I've been working straight from the inis cos the desktop was too small to see anything from mame32's ui. I rarely run command line, and I even more rarely add arguments to the line when I do cos I don't seem to get 'em right or something.

I still feel that you have hwstretch or something similar at work here. Don't forget that there are multiple .ini files to consider (as noted above), and if you are using mameuiXX then you may also have to worry abaout that .ini file as well! 

Here is an example of what I mean: Donkey Kong Jr (vertical, 224x256) displayed on a horz Sony PVM2730QM at 352x288. If you look carefully, you mightl see that there are large black bars to each side and small black bars top and bottom. These are not really really noticable, esp. when you have a black bezel around the screen.

If you have a look at the shape of the rectangle on the start screen, you can see how big the curvature is on these trinitron screens.

[Ummon]

Na, theres not special circuit involved
If you feed 31khz signal in, it simply can't sync to every hsync and will only sync to the every second thats why you get split screen.

I think the monitor in my candy will not sync to 640x480 progressive without the JPAC.


Zeb: only the mame32 ini. At the beginning of this testing, I deleted all the game-specific inis so I wouldn't have any possible conflicts. Plus, if hwstretch were selected, the picture would look all blurry. I've tried that before, and I can't bear the look.

monitor curvature: oh, I know. I'm just sayin I don't notice it much after a little while. A regular, fully curved screen I do, because the very center of the tube is, like, reaching out to eat me (heheheheh), which of course is more apparent when it's sitting free on a table.

[BadMojo12]

Gents:

Thanks for this very useful thread.  I scored a Sony PVM 2530 the other weekend and I am really happy with it so far.  Occasionally it will "pulse," and by that I mean that the screen will repeatedly reduce in size slightly, by about a half inch all around; it will do this rapidly back and forth, almost like a flutter (if anyone has any thoughts about that I would love to hear them).

Otherwise I was playing Crysis in 600x800 and the picture looked great.

I am considering putting this in my mame cab but I have a few questions that I can't quite figure out from the post:  (1) is the VGA connection THAT much better than the S-Video?  (2) what are the final pin assignments for me to make a VGA cable from a RGBVH cable? (3) will I be much better off using an ArcadeVGA card for the VGA on this monitor or can I get good performance using a regular video card?

Please help.

[Ummon]

(1) is the VGA connection THAT much better than the S-Video?

If you can't tell at magnification from the pictures posted, then I dunno.

(2) what are the final pin assignments for me to make a VGA cable from a RGBVH cable?

Same. Seems you're thinking different looks means different wiring. The leads are the same, cept in your case it's been spelled out for ya.....well, except for a ground wire.....I haven't clipped ends on one of those to know.

(3) will I be much better off using an ArcadeVGA card for the VGA on this monitor or can I get good performance using a regular video card?

If running native, see soft15 thread. If not running native, why use an AVGA?

[Zebidee]

Gents:

Is this a men's room? I guess that explains the smell and why those yellow cakes taste funny.

Thanks for this very useful thread.  I scored a Sony PVM 2530 the other weekend and I am really happy with it so far.  Occasionally it will "pulse," and by that I mean that the screen will repeatedly reduce in size slightly, by about a half inch all around; it will do this rapidly back and forth, almost like a flutter (if anyone has any thoughts about that I would love to hear them).

This is a common problem with the Sonys. I've seen it occur before and I asked a professional Sony tech guy about it several years ago. He said it was to do with the horizontal output stage, possibly with the horizontal oscillator if I remember right. He said that "all the PVMs will eventually get it", which is not encouraging. However, I have about four more of these 27" Sony PVMs in my shed, and one in my arcade cabinet that has been going for several years now. Who knows, maybe I'll eventually work out how to fix the problem.

The monitor I'm currently using occasionally suffers from the "wobble", as I like to think of it, but it is always in 640x480 or higher when it occurs. t has been behaving itself perfectly for several months. So for now, the problem is intermittent (occasional) and only really impacts on interlaced modes. It often fixes itself up if I change to a low-res mode and back again to 640x480. It also helps to let the monitor warm up a little.

[Jack Burton]

this wobble happens to my little PVM every once in a while during startup and only in higher resolutions.