Pentranic 29" FST Triple Sync monitor

[Mr-Megalo]

just got myself a new monitor for my Sega Naomi Universal and thought I'd share it with you all.

its a Tri Sync 29" Flat Screen Tube - purchased from Pentranic, now while I am normally a fan of Nanao monitors and have heard mixed reports about Pentranic/RodoTron monitors I thought it only fair to judge one by actually having one to have a look over.

heres a picture from Pentranics site - mine is more or less identical


currently my monitor is say on my kitchen floor running Atomiswave King Of Fighters XI, but over the weekend I will be swapping the tube and chassis into a Nanao frame so I can literally just pop it into my Naomi cabinet plug it in and use it.

if anyones interested, I can post some pictures of the process of swapping it into the Nanao frame and fitting into the Naomi

first impressions, really nice picture quality in VGA, as yet I haven't tried it in 15k.

[Ken Layton]

Pentranic and Makvision are the same now too. They merged well over a year ago. Two crappy brands are now one giant crappy brand. 

[Cornchip]

I just drool when I think of large monitors. I have a question before I inevitably dive in myself. As I slowly gather all the pieces together to build my first cabinet....I am torn by the vertical vs. horizontal question. Would using such a large and capable monitor solve this to an acceptable extent? Building more than one machine is the real answer...would a giant display show well with the older vertical 15k games. I'd love to see a screen capture of a vertical game while the monitor is in a horizontal mount. One more question (I have lots)...is a special graphics card such as the AVGA required to drive 15k on this style monitor? Would any PC graphics card do 15k if the monitor auto syncs to 15k?


 Clint.

[grantspain]

I always found pentranics to be a good monitor,we get good back up in the u.k with these,thay had some silly faults but nothing major.be good to see how you get on with this monitor-if you buy it please post some pics so i can see the quality.

[Ken Layton]

Pentranic closed their USA office two years ago. Parts & tech support in the USA are impossible to get.

[Silver]

whats the cost of the tri-sync?

[Mr-Megalo]

cost was

[grantspain]

at my last company we had loads of megatouch counter tops,most had very old ducksan monitors and the tubes were dying,we bought 14" monitors from pentranic that dropped straight in to the cabs(with very little adjustment) and the picture quality was fantastic and the price was about 120 quid,not bad.

[Mr-Megalo]

just bumping this back up.
its been mounted on a new monitor frame and installed in my Naomi Uni for over a week now, and I must say, i'm dissapointed.

these FST monitors are either Rodotron or Wei Ya chassis (although I'm not sure which yet) but whats dissapointed me is no apparent extrenal degauss button function, only a degauss on a cold circuit on initial powerup, as a consequence I have some rather persistant magnetic build up in the corners which was not there when I was testing the monitor initially and does no discipate when the monitor first powers up.

I'm going to give it a going over with a degauss wand and see if that helps for the time being, but long term i'm not putting up with it.

I have been informed that it is possible to have the external degauss button function, which bring me nicely to my question for the monitor guys in here . . .

do any of you have any idea/info how I would have to rig up the degauss button ? I have been told it may require some modification to the chassis,  I was wondering exactly what would need to be done.

t.i.a

[krick]

I just drool when I think of large monitors. I have a question before I inevitably dive in myself. As I slowly gather all the pieces together to build my first cabinet....I am torn by the vertical vs. horizontal question. Would using such a large and capable monitor solve this to an acceptable extent? Building more than one machine is the real answer...would a giant display show well with the older vertical 15k games. I'd love to see a screen capture of a vertical game while the monitor is in a horizontal mount. One more question (I have lots)...is a special graphics card such as the AVGA required to drive 15k on this style monitor? Would any PC graphics card do 15k if the monitor auto syncs to 15k?

If you want to run games at their native 15KHz refresh rate on an arcade monitor (tri-sync or not), you neet to either use an ArcadeVGA, or certain "standard" video cards combined with AdvanceMAME and/or special drivers.  See this page for more info...
http://easymamecab.mameworld.net/html/hardware.htm

In my opinion, a 25" monitor is plenty large enough for an arcade cabinet.  You're only standing about 2 feet from the screen.  A 27" monitor is pretty much required if you want a "tri-sync" model since I don't know of anyone that makes a tri-sync 25".  29" and larger monitors are best for "showcase" cabinets...
http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/underpass/24/photos/arcstuff/a33snap.jpg
...as it's hard to see the whole screen at once unless you're about 3 feet from the screen.

The other consideration with large monitors is that they're really frickin heavy.

I have a 25" standard resolution (15KHz) arcade monitor mounted horizontally in my cabinet and I have it connected to an ArcadeVGA.

It will display vertical games just fine and they are about the same size as they would be if displayed on a vertical 19" monitor...

25" horizontal monitor is roughly 20 inches wide and 15 inches high
19" vertical monitor is roughly 11.4 inches wide and 15.2 inches high.

In order to be able to display both horizontal and vertical games correctly, you have to adjust the vertical height on your horizontal monitor so that vertical games like Pac-Man aren't cut off at the top and bottom.  This of course, will result in horizontal games like Street Fighter being slightly squashed vertically, almost like a letterbox effect, but not as bad.  I think this is completely acceptable and I don't even notice it.  It's totally worth it to be able to play both vertical and horizontal games.

Note that there are other solutions to viewing vertical games on a horizontal monitor but they all involve hardware stretching and/or higher resolution monitors and they don't look "pixel perfect" in my opinion.