Highly recommend the Sony Trinitron for MAME

[zelony]

Hi all,

I have an NFL Blitz 99 Showcase cab that I converted to a MAME cabinet.  I had replaced the 36" arcade monitor with a decased 36" Gateway Destination VGA monitor.  I was very happy with this setup as the VGA monitors picture was great.

Recently, I had decided to add a Playstation 2 light gun setup to my MAME cabinet but there is no way to use the VGA monitor and still have the light guns work.

So, I went out and bought a 36" Sony Trinitron TV off of Craigslist for $75.  I hooked up the PS2 via the standard composite video in and the picture is great and playing light gun games on that big of a TV is a blast.

The next step was to connect my MAME computer to the TV.  I used the s-video out of my ATI video card and cloned the picture at the standard resolution of 800X600.  I have MAME set to force all games to that resolution by default because that was the resolution of the Gateway VGA Monitor. 

Once I had it cloned, I fired up a game of The Simpsons on the new TV and was blown away!  The color was bright and vivid and the picture quality is outstanding, even better than Gateway Destination monitor and I always thought that it blew away standard arcade monitors.

I can highly recommend the Sony Trinitron with S-Video to anyone for use with MAME.  The color and clarity are the best I have ever seen in an arcade or MAME cabinet.

Have fun and keep checking Craigslist, you may find a deal out there.

Jeff

[DJ_Izumi]

Heh... And that's only using S-Video.

What model is it that you're using anyway?

[zelony]

It is a KV35S42.

I was suprised hom much better the games looked on the TV.  It has to be the Vivid color settings the TV is set to.  Now, I want to make it clear that the games look better, not Windows.  Windows text is a little hard to read, but once you fire up a MAME game it looks fantastic.  It also looks good in the front end I use, GameEx.  I also highly recommend GameEx for anyone looking for a front end.  I gladly paid the fee for it and use it on my cabinet and my daughter's cabinet and will use it on my cocktail cabinet if I ever finish it. ;-)

[RobbyMac]

Cool good to know. I just picked up a 27" 2 days ago (destined for my mame cab). Previosuly I'd only tested it on a 27" RCA we have (but couldnt transfer to the cabinet).
I picked it up because:
A) Ive never been dissapointed by anything sony
B) It has LOTS of inputs
3) It was the right price!

[DJ_Izumi]

Ah I see, it's a 90's model so it doesn't seem to have component.  I have a 2002 KV-27FS100, it's glorious I tell you.  But I couldn't image lifting something like 36 inches.  The KV-36FS100 weighs in at 206lbs, literally twice what the KV-27FS100 weighs. @_@

[zelony]

Yeah, it was a beast to move.  We used the forearm forklifts to move it.  Those straps work great.

[bkenobi]

I swear my 36" XBR weighs 5000lbs!  It looks awesome for everything I've tried on it, but damn it's heavy.

[DillonFoulds]

Ah yes, the sony XBR (xtra bux required) line. Throw some money at it, and all your problems go away!

Pretty much, if you're a Sony fan, XBR is your wet dream.

[bkenobi]

I would have never bought it myself, but I'd been oogling the thing for years and my wife one day said "just buy it!"  Oh, as if I needed pressure!  So, I ended up with the top of the line set.  Still works great, but definitely spendy.

[Ummon]

I can highly recommend the Sony Trinitron with S-Video to anyone for use with MAME.  The color and clarity are the best I have ever seen in an arcade or MAME cabinet.

Worth checking out, though I'm skeptical.

[FrizzleFried]

I have a Sony Trinitron 36" in the living room... HOLY CRAP is it a monster.  Easily the heaviest TV I've ever attempted to lift.  Even with two decent sized guys it was a major ---smurfette---....almost as if it was filled with lead or something.

[Hoopz]

I have a Sony Trinitron 36" in the living room... HOLY CRAP is it a monster.  Easily the heaviest TV I've ever attempted to lift.  Even with two decent sized guys it was a major ---smurfette---....almost as if it was filled with lead or something.

Mine crapped out a few years ago but what I found to be more of a pain in the ass than the weight is the ---smurfing--- honeycomb design underneath the tv.  It digs into your hands when you move the ---smurf--- and it's brutal.

[wp34]

I have a Sony Trinitron 36" in the living room... HOLY CRAP is it a monster.  Easily the heaviest TV I've ever attempted to lift.  Even with two decent sized guys it was a major ---smurfette---....almost as if it was filled with lead or something.

Mine crapped out a few years ago but what I found to be more of a pain in the ass than the weight is the ---smurfing--- honeycomb design underneath the tv.  It digs into your hands when you move the ---smurf--- and it's brutal.

And how!  I bring a table up from the basement to set mine on when ever I need to pull it out of the built-in to work on it.  To heavy to set on the floor and then get back up again.   It is an early HD model and the picture kicks the crap out of any LCD I've seen.  Too freakin' heavy per square inch though. 

[DJ_Izumi]

Luckily with my model of TV and related models, there's a nice handy place to put your hands to lift it right at the bottom sides:
http://reviews.cnet.com/sc/20404886-2-440-overview-1.gif

It gives you a bit more than 1cm of clearence, but more than enough to put your fingers under without any weight on'em and it's smooth.

[Ed_McCarron]

almost as if it was filled with lead or something.

Well, there -is- 5 or 6 pounds of it in the CRT...

[diazsinger]

I have a 36" Wega with the component inputs in the living room.  The weight of this thing you guys are right, is like carrying a sherman tank.
I purchased a Toshiba LCD and took it back due to the fact its picture couldn't compare with the Wega in SD and barely looked better IMHO than
the WEGA.

When I do make the switch to HD i will def. make a sit down cab with the WEGA

(once i make sure I am no longer going to move again)

[Level42]

Trinitron looks wrong for arcade games IMHO because of the shadow mask that Trinitron uses. It's not so noticible when watching TV from a normal distance, but up close it's very noticeable, esp. with a huge tube like that.

Also the tube is flat sideways, which is not arcade authentic IMHO.

I've always loved Trinitron pictures on computer monitors, but I hated the little dark wire going across the screen that is so obvious when most of the screen is white.
I never liked Trinitron for TV. The used color dyes are not my taste.

Also, S-Video can never match RGB quality

Just my personal opinion.

[Blanka]

Maybe not authentic, but I like the Triniton look for arcade too. I bet later arcades used Trinitrons though, as they were produced much longer, even Philips used Sony/Mitsubishi tubes at some point. Wider gamut (the green is so much nicer), no fuzzy tridot mask and total flat tubes (first they were cylindrical, the later ones were total flat).
With CGA resolutions, the damper wires (the horizontal lines) will be invisible in the wide-spaced scan lines. They are only obvious on 1000 line computer resolutions. Diamondtron by Mitsubishi was a nice in-between.

[Jack Burton]

I have a few PVM's and I love them.

All of the following is in regards to RGB connections with arcade games in native resolution.

They are not as authentic as a curved tube, but I never notice at all when I'm playing.  It looks just slightly odd at first maybe on the true flat one I have, but the older ones don't even register as being different to me.

I'm much more distracted by the extremely pretty colors on screen.  The Trinitrons I have seen have better color and contrast than any arcade monitor I have ever seen.  

The stripe pitch is noticeable, but has no effect on me.  I prefer its on most games.  Only on a very few older games, like Galaga, do I like a blurrier dot triad style.  On trinitron PC monitors the dot pitch is very very fine indeed though, and does not look good IMO.  But on the older PVM's it is a non-issue.

The wire is simply invisible to me.  I noticed it when I first got it, but that was years ago and when I look at one now I never ever see it.  Even on completely white screens.  I have to force myself to see it.  


I have a lot of different monitors of makes and models, and I firmly believe my little 12" trinitron has the objectively best looking image among them.  The larger 19" ones are a close second. It's not necessarily the most accurate image, but based on pure visual appeal I think it is the winner.  

[DJ_Izumi]

Maybe not authentic, but I like the Triniton look for arcade too. I bet later arcades used Trinitrons though, as they were produced much longer, even Philips used Sony/Mitsubishi tubes at some point. Wider gamut (the green is so much nicer), no fuzzy tridot mask and total flat tubes (first they were cylindrical, the later ones were total flat).
With CGA resolutions, the damper wires (the horizontal lines) will be invisible in the wide-spaced scan lines. They are only obvious on 1000 line computer resolutions. Diamondtron by Mitsubishi was a nice in-between.

I agree.  The late 90's or older Trinitron TV is certianly the best you can get if you're not going for a true arcade monitor.  More over, if I was building real arcade hardware around that time or just before LCDs became popular I'd totally be installing Trinitrons into the cabs.

They're just so damn nice.  My Xbox and PS2 ports of arcade games look glorious on the things.  Best part is, with those games since they are often ported from closely related hardware (Konami's DDR PS2 based machines, the PS2 based Namco System 246/256 and the Xbox based Sega Chihiro) you are getting rendering at the native resolution and the picture is lovely.  I'd kill to get Time Crisis 3 setup on a pair of the TVs I'm using.

For my events, it's just a shame that I only have one of these: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_OGF8hEl8vOg/Swsb_dmybaI/AAAAAAAALLA/oNeL24zQz1I/s1152/DSC_0149.jpg

When lots of other games are forced to use more typical TVs and composite inputs.   http://lh6.ggpht.com/_OGF8hEl8vOg/SwscBAL6NjI/AAAAAAAALLE/3bWfRLttHLY/s1152/DSC_0150.JPG

[diazsinger]

I wonder how many people have been killed by 36"  Trinitrons/Wega's ?  Imagine if they would have just
kept increasing the size how heavy they would end up being. 

[Alpha17X]

The largest I've ever gone for an arcade monitor was 27", which is standard in all my cabinets now.   Anything bigger to me is.. too big.  But I prefer the more.. 'intimate' sized cabinets. (Street Fighter II, MK2 style).

Also I do a lot of the work on my own, so chances are if I can't lift it, I won't use it. To each their own though.

[SephYuyX]

Picking up a Trin 22" today from a craigslister. Finally after a month of looking, I found the perfect TV for my cab. I hope I wont be dissapointed ^^

[SephYuyX]

Was only a 20" ;-; I guess itll have to do, looks good at least for 50$

[mrjah]

I finally found a 27" Trinitron for the right price the other day.  It is now mine.  Yes.

Already have the service manual ready to go too.   

[Billy_Goatfeet]

I can highly recommend the Sony Trinitron with S-Video to anyone for use with MAME.  The color and clarity are the best I have ever seen in an arcade or MAME cabinet.

 Great news, I have the exact same television too.  I was going to use it for a Mame cab build but ended up buying a showcase cabinet instead that already had large monitor.  This bodes well for future projects....

[Zebidee]

I can highly recommend the Sony Trinitron with S-Video to anyone for use with MAME.  The color and clarity are the best I have ever seen in an arcade or MAME cabinet.

Agreed ... but go RGB if you can! Wow! Colour is awesome.  Looks v.nice for horz scrolling games.

I have quite a few Sony PVM monitors here - and a couple of other Sony's too. I use a de-cased 27" PVM for my main cabinet.