Best brand TV for Scart/arcade picture

[Voodoo_Ray]

Hi folks

I intend to go the Scart TV option here in the UK for my Mame monitor, which seems the best option after doing a bit of research. A few quick questions please....

1) Is any brand TV better for synching and picture quality? If it where just down to a TV picture I would be looking for a Sony or Phillips but I am not sure if there are more things to be considered.

2) I suppose that a 4:3 aspect ratio is best. Trouble is that these are quite hard to find. I have been to the local charity shops, dump and looked on eBay and nearly all TVs available around the 25 inch size were widescreen. Any thoughts as to a good location to pick up what I want.

3) Am I correct that I will need the Ultimarc Arcade VGA card for best results?

Thanks in advance

Voodoo

[Jack Burton]

Well, the first thing to consider is the type of tv and image you want.  Do you want to the absolute "best" image?  Or the most "accurate" one?  

Most people in the AV hobby agree that CRT's that feature an aperture grill generally have the brightest, most colorful images.  These were known as Trinitrons in the past, and for a long time the patent on the technology was held by Sony.  Many legendary displays like the Sony XBR960 and FW-900 used trinitron technology.

Those two could display incredibly fine detail, and had extremely good black levels and color reproduction.  However, because of their excellence in these categories, they would also make sort of poor arcade monitors.  

You might want to give these pages a read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_pitch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_grille

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_mask

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromaclear

Most old arcade monitors had a rough dot pitch, and almost all used dot trios in a shadow mask rather than a slot mask or chromaclear.  

The result would mean that they lack the ability to render fine detail in an image.  However this can be considered a good thing when choosing a tv to convert to arcade use.  

Because arcade games use very low resolutions, usually 240 lines or less, they tend to have very thick noticeable scanlines on monitors with a fine dot pitch.  

For this reason you might want to choose an older TV that would have the same sort of technology as an old arcade monitor.  Look for something that was made before 2000 at least.  If you can find a  SCART TV not made by Sony from before 1990 that is in good working condition, then it will be perfect.

As a side note, I've noticed that Grundig tv's get a lot of attention.  I've seen the service menu for them, and they have all the settings arranged in a very nice, easy to use menu.  

[Paradroid]

1) Is any brand TV better for synching and picture quality?

Yep. There are many brands that produce a great quality image but the tricky part is finding a TV that will correctly show all resolutions and refresh rates. Also, you can get artifacts with 100Hz TVs that do fancy image processing. In my experience, 100Hz models are to be avoided.

I haven't had the opportunity to try a Phillips or Sony (except for a KV-HR32M31 but that's a widescreen). I have had varied success with Blaupunkt, Grundig, Loewe and Siemens. Loewes have awesome picture quality and sound but all the chassis models I've tried have issues with the number of vertical lines possible. The Grundigs have been pretty good, the Blaupunkts are excellent and the Siemens is my favorite so far.

There are compromises to be made: the Phillips tubes used in some of the Loewes are mind blowing and their audio systems put the the to shame. However, the other brands are far more compatible with a range of modes.

If all you wanted to do was play CPS1, 2 & 3 plus Neo Geo, a Loewe with the E3000 chassis would be hard to beat. No luck with Mortal Kombat though...

You can see some pics from my Siemens here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=116014.msg1235225#msg1235225

Plus, I'm about to start documenting all my finding here: http://scarthunter.blogspot.com/

2) Any thoughts as to a good location to pick up what I want.

eBay and other online auctions sites have proved best for me. Other methods (hard rubbish, op shops, etc.) are just too time consuming and the results are too mixed. Setup some well defined eBay searches with daily emails... and wait.

3) Am I correct that I will need the Ultimarc Arcade VGA card for best results?

No, you won't need that. Get an ATI card (I have a cheap X300) and Calamity's hacked drivers. Running GroovyMAME with that setup produces exceptionally good results. Perfectly smooth scrolling and animations for me now that I have this combination of hardware and software.

Lastly, check the main SCART thread that is stickied here. Heaps of excellent info there.

[apfelanni]

go for 50-60 hertz tvs from the beginning 90 until around 2000. german premium manufacturers are loewe and metz , some grundig and philips modells are also quite nice for our purpose. sony and toshiba are a good choice , or panasonic and lg ( philips ) . siemens , blaupunkt etc. etc. are all rebranded grundigs. even some lowprice metz are grundigs. they mostly used philips , sometimes toshiba and panasonic tubes . there had been dozens of philips tube factorys all over europe . the 50 hertz philips tubes are a good choice for arcade. they offer a good picture and usually run for decades. there main difference are the chassis . grundig chassis are very commmon , easy to fix in case something goes wrong , very well documented on the internet and easy to handle. metz , loewe and philips use the same tubes , but some chassis are of higher quality , resulting in better picture quality and or less failure. there are thousends of different chassis out there , so u cant say this brand is better than another . it all depends on the tube and the chassis . there isnt a manufacturer without producing some fuckups , philips esf ,erf tubes for example or grundig with solder problems on lots of chassis . modells from 1980 - 199x around are mostly poti based  , newer modells from the end nineties tend to have nice osd for geometry setting.

100 hertz tvs and 16:x are a nogo for retro arcade. i m using 100 hertz tvs only with the vga input , where all the picture enhancer ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- is off and the machine is running in 60 hertz progressive mode. so check for a european quality brand or japan , korean like sony trinitron or toshiba . i dont consider any other tubes than philips , toshiba , sony , ( lg which is philips tech ) or orion for arcade replacement. forget about the supermarket stuff like beko , dumbo , kendo or whatever. if ure lucky its contains samsung , thomson tubes combined with lowcost chassis , sometimes its worse.

when u have decided which screensize it should be i guess someone could give a hint which modell should be on your watchlist. i never thought it would be so hard to find some old tvs in the uk. here in central germany u can pickup any crt tv , no matter if it was a 5k bucks highend in working condition for not more than an euro. they are all gonna be trashed in the next years.

[lettuce]

If using ebay to find a TV a good tip on how old a UK TV set is is the colour of the casing. A Silver casing would indicate a very late 90's early 2000.....so you might want to stay away from these and so a black case would be anything before 1998 time

[Voodoo_Ray]

Thanks guys, lots of useful information.

Have managed to source a potential match. Any views on a SONY TRINITRON 24" TV ( KV-X2582U)? I have gone with the black casing idea suggested by lettuce. I am just a bit worried that a 15 year old tv might be approaching the end of its life. Will this really offer better results that a slightly less antique model?

I imagine the size of screen is subjective to the project but I am thinking 24 inch will give a nice balance between not having a monster cab whilst still having a decent size playing area. Any words of wisdom here?

Paradroid - Shame I am nowhere near Melbourne otherwise I would have had one of your 17 cast offs. Will keep an eye on the blog though.

[Blanka]

And remember that under 32 inch, TV's are utter crap. That segment is only built for bedrooms and kitchens, and lacks all the essentials of a good TV. They use the cheapest of the cheapest trash-quality TN no-gamut-LED backlit with high input lack cause it is 18-bit colour and needs some PWM panels for anything under 32 inch nowadays. If you want smaller, buy a 2007-2008 1366x768 resolution wide gamut CCFL TV. At least they had VA or IPS panels with good angles, fast response and nice colours.
Under 32 inch, go for a computer monitor any time. At least there are some decent PC panels in the 24-30 inch range (even though 2007-2008 was also better for PC screens). LED kills all the fun at the moment. Stupid cost reductions that are nice to lick the arse of Greenpeace at the same time......

[apfelanni]

hehe .. hes talking about crt tvs. its true that during the nineties the most common tv color was black , but very often u can find the same ingredients in lots of different casings . after 2k the silver stuff became more popular .

there are many different 50 / 60 hertz sonys on the used market with lots of different chassis . grab one for a few bucks and check it out. just be aware that trinitrons are heavy and the curvature of the screen is sony specific.  

my humble opinion concerning screen size and lowres arcade : the smaller the screen the better the picture . usually the quality impression on a 20 or 21 inch is 1 class better than on a 25-29 inch . and if u ever experience retrogaming on a 13 or 14 inch multisync like microvitec or eizo build em u may be amazed . so its a matter of size , tube and chassis quality and aging of the parts. sometimes u ll find tvs nearly mint taken from grandmas guestroom with maybe 100 operating hours and sometimes u ebay a tv with 50 000 hours and a mm thick patina of nicotine.  

[Jack Burton]

Thanks guys, lots of useful information.

Have managed to source a potential match. Any views on a SONY TRINITRON 24" TV ( KV-X2582U)? I have gone with the black casing idea suggested by lettuce. I am just a bit worried that a 15 year old tv might be approaching the end of its life. Will this really offer better results that a slightly less antique model?

I imagine the size of screen is subjective to the project but I am thinking 24 inch will give a nice balance between not having a monster cab whilst still having a decent size playing area. Any words of wisdom here?

Paradroid - Shame I am nowhere near Melbourne otherwise I would have had one of your 17 cast offs. Will keep an eye on the blog though.

15 years is nothing for a quality CRT.  That Sony looks to be about perfect for your purposes.  The size is exactly right, the case is nice and slim, and the screen even has a bit of a curve to it.  The colors on that thing should be incredible.  
 

[Paradroid]

my humble opinion concerning screen size and lowres arcade : the smaller the screen the better the picture

Hmm... interesting. I'm gonna have to test out this theory. All the TVs I've used so far have been between 26 and 32 inches. I do like quality though... might have to keep an eye out for something smaller.

[apfelanni]

try a 14 or 21 inch trinitron.

[karnov64]

1) Is any brand TV better for synching and picture quality? If it where just down to a TV picture I would be looking for a Sony or Phillips but I am not sure if there are more things to be considered.

if you want a more retro authentic arcade looking picture, go for an older tv and dont worry too much about brand name. eg. my first arcade tv was a high quality samsung one, but it was so good a picture u couldnt even see scanlines. so i then got an older unbranded lithuanian cheap tube which has really strong scanlines and makes games look killer. oh and buy the way i tried a trinitron. what i would say is the picture looks very clear, sharp, amazing colours, bright, no scanlines, etc. unfortunately let's face it, that's the opposite of what the video games we used to play in the old days at the fairground looked like (ie. they were blurry, smooth, strong scanlines, etc) so i would only go for trinitron if u dont give a sh!t about games looking like they used to when u were young... (assuming u are an older gamer )

2) I suppose that a 4:3 aspect ratio is best. Trouble is that these are quite hard to find. I have been to the local charity shops, dump and looked on eBay and nearly all TVs available around the 25 inch size were widescreen. Any thoughts as to a good location to pick up what I want.

4:3 only. dont get widescreen. if u want free tv's living in the uk, just go down to your local recycling/rubbish tip. every time i go to mine they have a shed full of old tv's, literally stacked up high. i asked nicely and they let me take as many as i want. failing that, google 'freecycle' and find this service in your local area. there should be lots of free tv's on there.

3) Am I correct that I will need the Ultimarc Arcade VGA card for best results?

consider using cabmame instead of regular mame. this way you dont need any arcadevga card or special software like soft15khz etc. cabmame works by forcing all games to run in 60hz. ok, so some might argue this is hardly authentic gaming (eg. mortal kombat and r-type should run at 55hz), but trust me they are still awesome when bumped up to 60hz. and smooth. oh so smooth    and you have the added bonus of being able to use pretty much any video card to achieve this and any tv (as long as it supports 60hz)

[Voodoo_Ray]

Thanks guys. i am going to go for the Sony. I do want that authentic look but within reason. To be honest, my memory has faded somewhat since the 80s so I might be able to kid myself that what I am looking at in my cab is the real deal.

Interesting idea about 60hz. Will my untrained eye notice much difference between this and 15hz? If there is only minimal difference I will happily save myself the cash on the video card and the arse ache.

[Jack Burton]

There's a little bit of confusion going on here.

With any display there are going to be two values involved.  The scan rate and the refresh rate.

NTSC displays generally use a refresh rate of 60 frames per second, or 60 hz.  This means that sixty times a second one completely new image is drawn on the screen.  

PAL displays use a rate of 50 frames per second.  However, some of them can also do 60 fps to be compatible with NTSC devices.  

Separate from this the scan rate.  This measures how many lines are being drawn on the screen per pass.  If the scan rate is around 15 khz (note the k) then about 240 lines will be drawn each pass.  This is independent of the refresh rate.  

Now, this is a simplification of things, but it's enough for the discussion here.  

So, if you want to look for a tv that will make a good classic arcade monitor you want:

- CRT
- 15khz capability
- able to sync to somewhere between 50-60 hz.
- 4:3 aspect ratio

There are many other lesser factors to consider, but the ones listed above should be set in stone.  

[Voodoo_Ray]

Jack - Thanks for clearing up my confusion. It seems to be a complex subject indeed and I am happy to have just enough info to steer me the right way. The TV seems to fit the criteria you list but I am uncertain if it has 15khz capability. Do you or anyone else know?

The good news is I just won it on eBay for the princely sum of £3.29. So, subject to the above, I am well happy.

Cheers
Steve

[apfelanni]

chassis be-3b . try google if its a 50/60 or a 100 hertz model.

[Jack Burton]

Jack - Thanks for clearing up my confusion. It seems to be a complex subject indeed and I am happy to have just enough info to steer me the right way. The TV seems to fit the criteria you list but I am uncertain if it has 15khz capability. Do you or anyone else know?

The good news is I just won it on eBay for the princely sum of £3.29. So, subject to the above, I am well happy.

Cheers
Steve

Going by the age of the monitor and the inputs on the back I'd say it is 15khz only. 

[Andykara2003]

Hi - this is to Jack (or anyone who knows about this sort of thing) - I tried without success to contact Jack about this

I was really pleased to find this post as I'm looking for a monitor that can display a 240p image without prominent scanlines. I have a PVM2730QM at the moment and I love it, but I'm looking for something that can smooth the scanlines out a bit. I'm using an RGB modded US N64. As the N64 graphics are a bit blurry anyway, this dot triad or chromaclear method might work better with the image a a whole anyway..

What I would love to find is a 25 -27 inch monitor (or close - 29 inch is too big, anything smaller is too small) which is based on this dot triad or chromaclear technology (or anything else?) that is not so old and used that it's nearing the end of it's life.

I am set on using a genuine CRT and not newer tech that simulates it

Jack says that old soly trinitrons aren't so good for this? Is my PVM a bad choice & if so, can you reccomend some alternatives?

Thanks v. much, Andrew