Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Monitor/Video Forum => Topic started by: RetroJames on January 30, 2004, 12:53:01 am
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I am "collecting" some old 19" tvs for use with the 8liners chassis for my Omega Mame. At the risk of waving the noob flag, what is/are the differences between a 19" TV and a 19" "arcade monitor"?
Technical
Asthetic
Other
Thanks for any info or links to info already posted you can provide.
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As far as I know and other may flame me if I'm wrong--there are no differences between the tubes, just in the electronics. This meaning that if zenith made a 19" tv and a 19" arcade monitor, the tubes would be the same. However, a sony tv may not replace a zenith tube--see where i'm going? If you test the ohms on the vertical windings and match a tube with similar properties you should be okay--When in doubt ask the 8liner guy--he should be able tell you how well it works.
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Thanks for the reply, but again I am looking for info on the differences between the electronics and subsequent performance. In a nutshell, when I tell someone I just "built" an arcade monitor from a tv tube, I want to be able to answer the question, "Why didn't you just use the TV?"
Thanks for any further info
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The difference is the 8liner chassis has rgb input and unless you live in scart country, most tv's won't have this connector. RGB is a much higher quality signal than svideo output from a video card to a tv. Basically, it makes the games look exactly like they did when I played them in the 80's.
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Here's the main differences between tv sets and commercial arcade video monitors:
TV sets:
home use
low quality
disposable (if it breaks its cheaper to throw it away)
extensive use of 'surface mount' parts (requires special expensive soldering equipment)
lots of extra crap you don't need like tuners, stereo audio, sleep timers, remote control
proprietary components (especially in RCA sets)
Commercial Arcade monitors:
commercial use (rugged, day in day out)
discreet components with minimal to no use of surface mount parts
high quality
made to be repaired not thrown away (look at all the parts still being made for Electrohome monitors even though they were last made in 1982)
lasts 20+ years
circuitry is just power supply, deflection and video without a bunch of extra crap to screw things up
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Here's the main differences between tv sets and commercial arcade video monitors:
TV sets:
home use
low quality
disposable (if it breaks its cheaper to throw it away)
extensive use of 'surface mount' parts (requires special expensive soldering equipment)
lots of extra crap you don't need like tuners, stereo audio, sleep timers, remote control
proprietary components (especially in RCA sets)
Commercial Arcade monitors:
commercial use (rugged, day in day out)
discreet components with minimal to no use of surface mount parts
high quality
made to be repaired not thrown away (look at all the parts still being made for Electrohome monitors even though they were last made in 1982)
lasts 20+ years
circuitry is just power supply, deflection and video without a bunch of extra crap to screw things up
Ken,
Thanks for the input as always, from your post above, expand on hi/lo quality if you would.
Are you reffering to the craftsmanship and engineering of the components or the quality of picture. If quality of picture, what differences might I see using svideo to the tv with mame, then after swapping the same tube with the 8-liners chassis with an arcade vga etc?
BTW: Saw your pic a while ago in a thread here, you look like you stepped out of mission control on the apollo missions! That is a compliment BTW. "Steely eyed monitor man!" (From Apollo 13 movie)
Thanks, James
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TVs employ the cheapest technologies and typically use cheaper components.
some of the larger technical differences being:
composite or s-video vs RGB or VGA.
fixed 50Hz or 60Hz vclock vs 50-60Hz
The best TVs are basically cheap arcade monitors, SCART TVs that can handle both pal and ntsc. Even these TVs, however, can still have problems with odd vclocks like 53.2Hz (mk series) and 57Hz (williams games). On a similar note, not all arcade monitors are equal either. So whether you're buying a TV or an arcade monitor, you really need to do you're research before you buy.
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Ken,
Thanks for the input as always, from your post above, expand on hi/lo quality if you would.
Are you reffering to the craftsmanship and engineering of the components or the quality of picture. If quality of picture, what differences might I see using svideo to the tv with mame, then after swapping the same tube with the 8-liners chassis with an arcade vga etc?
BTW: Saw your pic a while ago in a thread here, you look like you stepped out of mission control on the apollo missions! That is a compliment BTW. "Steely eyed monitor man!" (From Apollo 13 movie)
Thanks, James
Layers of picture quality from worst to best (talking signal transmission here not formats like VHS, HDTV, etc..)
1) RF (Consists of a color composite video signal with a mono or stereo audio signal in low bandwidth, aka TV Antenna/Coax cable TV connector) HIGH dot crawl and interference and color imperfection
2) Color Composite (Combined luma (b+w) and chroma (color) signal compressed together) High dot crawl and some color imperfection
3) Color Separate aka S-Video (separate luma and chroma signals). Dot crawl minimized, color better but still not perfect
4) Component aka Y, Pb, Pr aka ColorStream(tm-Toshiba). Separates Y (luma + green) signal from color differential Blue and Red signals. Very high quality, almost zero dot crawl, color very very good. Note: This is STILL a 'compressed' stream. Y has a higher level of bandwidth than Pb and Pr do, meaning they're more compressed, but barely noticable by human eye.
5) Pure Analog RGB. Separate R, G, B AND sync signals from each other.
Check out Oscar Controls image comparisons from RGB to S-Video and computer screens to see the difference in picture quality for yourself. Trust me... Pure arcade RGB is LOADS better than using an SVideo input into a television, no matter how good the TV is. If you could find a TV with a scart connector, then, in general, the TV *should* give you the same quality as an arcade monitor, because you'd be feeding it pure RGB, unconverted. If a US TV has scart, it was hiqh quality to begin with since they were only generally used by video production houses, and never the home consumer. But Ken's right... most every TV set is made of the lowest quality components and built to fail and not be repaired. Labor costs more than parts nowdays and consumers don't want to pay $20 more for a more repairable TV that costs them $100 to repair when they can get a new one for $90 anyway.
Here's oscar's links:
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/monitors.shtml (http://www.oscarcontrols.com/monitors.shtml)
Notice on his pics:
#4 is Television via color composite (pure crap)
#8 is Television via S-Video (blurry and still poor)
#7 is arcade monitor. Normally this would look better (more like #6) but I think some adjustments wern't done plus perhaps going through too many converters.
#6 is what you'd really expect to see for "best quality" out of an arcade monitor.
Remember, check out my reviews with TONS of pictures of the 8Liners chassis as compared to an old Wells-Gardner monitor using old arcade picture tubes and newer TV tubes. Oscar has provided web space for that review here:
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/chassis (http://www.oscarcontrols.com/chassis)
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The major difference has been alluded to here but not explicitly spelt out:
A TV (excluding RGB SCART) can only display a fixed-resolution interlaced TV picture, which is unlike an arcade game picture since no games use interlaced displays owing to flicker.
A SCART TV or Arcade monitor can display a native-resolution arcade picture, for example 320 X 240 non-interlaced. To do this, though, you need to use Advanced MAME or an ArcadeVGA card. The reason the picture is so good, in this case, is not only because it's being fed native RGB signals, it's also because it is running at exactly the resolution the VGA card is telling it to, rather than a default TV resolution which the VGA card TV-out makes an attempt to send a reasonable picture to.
Ken is right on his quality points, but I am an advocate of using SCART TVs. The longevity issue is not so great on a home cabinet, and modern TVs have better control over the picture geometry and sizing than arcade monitors, so you can generally get an even better picture. I had a Toshiba 28in SCART in my cab until I recently sold it, driven by an ArcadeVGA card and the picture was fantastic.