Quality of monitor image 70's/80's vs 90's/2000's

[Andykara2003]

Hi,

I'm interested if there tends to be a difference in the quality of the image of 15Khz arcade monitors/TV's from the 1970/80s to the late 90's/early 2000's models.

I don't mean in terms of whether one is higher quality than the other, but in the aesthetic differences - i.e. sharpness, clarity, softness, bleed, bloom, if the mask/scanlines are usually more defined in later models etc.

I'm assuming that they would be in good shape, as sharp as when they were new and have fairly low hours (might have to be theoretical in the case of an 80's TV/arcade monitor as I doubt there are many that are still pin sharp?)

Just curious as I have a few very good low hours late 90's consumer CRTs (Sony, Loewe) which are extremely sharp (due to having hardly ever being used) but as a resuly have very prominent scanlines (especially the Sonys as a resuly of the apperture grille) or a very defined mask (Loewe).

I'm wondering if the older CRTs had a way of being as sharp and 'clean' as these newer CRT's but without the strong scanlines/mask. I'm sure I don't remember old arcade games having such prominent scanlines - although it's a long time ago since I've played one...

[adder]

hmm, to take some guesses i would say, first off i read somewhere that early arcade monitors didnt use particulary high quality components in them but just standard parts, also, you would be looking at the arcade monitor in a cabinet through some thick glass of the cabinet (which might be dirty or tinted etc).. also, the arcade operators would not have spent much time setting up the monitors so the focus or other picture settings might not have been set optimally..   even stuff like cabling, for arcade monitors there would not be any shielded cabling or ferrite rings etc like you saw in newer tv's, plus the newer tvs used newer technology so different and more efficient chassis design, more modern tubes etc
i would say the newer/later crt's probably do have a sharper clearer picture yes.. as for the scanlines, possibly also true but im not sure

[Andykara2003]

Nice one for that I'm sure your points are correct, but it would also be awesome to hear from someone who has extensive experience with 15Khz arcade monitors/consumer TVs through the ages about the more in depth  aspects of how these displays have changed. I'm especially interested in 80's vs 90's displays....

[apfelanni]

first of all i have to admit i m no tv guy , but i ve seen quite a few tv sets and arcade screens . i would like to say the best screens were made by the top tv manufactures of the ninetees. they were rock solid from a technically point of view , some of them keep on running for decades . arcademonitors are nothing but a ripoff of common tvs , combining mass produced tv tubes , ( often b-grade) with a chassis adjusted to arcade pcbs .

90 vs 80 tv-arcadescreens : less curved , sharper image ( often noticable in outer area ) , more or less tinted with higher contrast , less defective ( like some philips esf tubes etc )  and a finer mask . on the other hand the post ninetees screens tend to look artifical ( tvs with processing stuff on chassis , arcadechassis with crappy components ) plus lower qualitiy in tube fabrication . in summery : the newer the tube+chassis , the less authentic look and feel . the prob is to aquire 25 year old monitors in mint condition .

[Andykara2003]

Great to hear from you apfelanni - thanks for chiming in. As I said earlier, I've collected some really nice late 90's 50Hz/60Hz TVs including 2 virtually unused ones: a Loewe E3001 chasis Contur 2063 and a Sony. It's amazing how much difference the low hours make to the image. They're by far the best of my CRTs; quite a bit sharper and with good geometry etc.

The only problem is that on a 25" screen, the fine mask of the Loewe (and prominent scanlines of the Sony) break up the 240p image a bit in a way that I find a bit distracting (25" is the sweet spot for me - any bigger degrades the image and any smaller is too small for me).

Maybe the combination of a really sharp, high quality 25" 15Khz CRT without an obvious mask (possibly needs a larger dot pitch?) doesn't exist......

[MonMotha]

often b-grade

FWIW, I've never seen a B-grade tube in an arcade monitor in the USA (sample size of maybe a hundred or so monitors).  I'm not saying that they were never used, but they can't be particularly common.  Could be different in other parts of the world, of course.

Now, your typical arcade monitor deflection and image amp circuitry is often pretty mediocre at best.  You'll never get the nearly-perfect geometry out of them, especially on the Pureflat/Dynaflat tubes near the end of CRT days, like you could out of high-end PC monitors and TVs.

Maybe the combination of a really sharp, high quality 25" 15Khz CRT without an obvious mask (possibly needs a larger dot pitch?) doesn't exist......

There were some 25" monitors made in the mid-90s that had a comparatively coarse dot pitch on high quality tubes.  They were mostly designed for 24kHz (mid res) operation, and some were in fact single-res at that mode.  The tubes were made for use in large-format PC "presentation monitors", and you may have some luck looking at those monitors, too.  Unfortunately, the majority of them were 27/29", not 25".

There were also some super-high-quality 27/29" arcade monitors, often dual- or tri-res, made mostly in Japan in the late 90s.  If you can find one with low hours on it, you've got yourself a winner with one of these.  They have the comparatively coarse dot pitch needed for good aesthetics at 240p or 384p while having modern improvements like switch-mode power supplies, digital deflection processing, etc.  Most are also of the "flat" (meaning curved but just barely) type, which is a good compromise between the old super-curved tubes and the later totally-flat tubes that often have bum geometry even with hideously complex deflection processing, not to mention those late-model tubes were usually crap made for the few remaining "price point" televisions after the high-end market had adopted LCD and plasma almost exclusively.

[Andykara2003]

Thanks very much for that, very interesting re. the high end arcade monitors.. 

I wonder if anyone would be able to shed any light on how consumer TV sets changed through the 80's & 90's as well? I have some super sharp low use late 90's TVs but would love to know how a high quality mid-80's CRT  stood up in comparison....