Oh Crapola! Did I buy the wrong monitor?

[Boz]

There's this little $540 sinking feeling in my stomach ($716 if you include Watkins shipping to a residential address) that's telling me either I didn't do enough research, was sold the wrong monitor, or am merely ignorant on the topic and don't know what I'm talking about.

I purchased a Billabs BL27CB0P. I've been waiting to get my AVGA card before powering this thing on. Just now I noticed that the monitor actually comes with a 15-pin female VGA "in" mounted to the chassis. Then I began to wonder why they had packaged this other adapter with the box, so I began looking at the instructions a bit further.

It would appear from my admittedly novice-level understanding of arcade monitors that this very expensive monitor will display 15Khz to 50Khz refresh rates ***BUT*** that is does so through the use of two different inputs. I'm no brainiac, but common sense is telling me that if I want to play 15Khz games, I'm gonna need to use a completely different computer or figure out how to pipe both signals into this monitor from a single machine.

Please click on the image with the instructions for a more detailed view.

Things I don't know:
How many games, actually run at a 15Khz refresh.
How many of the games above I will actually play.
Whether or not the dual input is a common concept in other arcade monitors.
How to use two sources for this monitor.
Whether or not Billabs will take this monitor back and how much additional I'm going to have to spend.

Someone PLEASE tell me I'm all wrong on this!

[ZeroPoint]

To your information you have absolutely bought the RIGHT monitor...

You can probably just forget about the 6-pin connector and just use the vga input !

You can run any resolution you want on this if you have a Radeon 9600 or above, including all 15 Khz games and up to 1024x768 - 60Hz. You can also use any other video card, f.ex. Nvidia`s, but these cannot be forced to ouput low resolutions.

There is only one catch: You must stay within the limitations of H and V sync. Remember the relation between H and V sync: H sync equals (the amount of visible lines + blanking lines) * Vertical refresh. An easy solution is to install a standard monitor driver in windows called "Digital Flatscreen 1024x768" or something similar. This will keep the refresh to 60hz or below and limit the resolutions to 1024x768. I recommend that you connect your computer to a regular pc-monitor and change the monitor-driver before plugging it into the arcade monitor. Also do this when reinstalling the graphics card drivers or other monitor/graphics card utilities that could alter your setup.

Just be careful with the high voltage parts and keep children and pets away if you are testing your monitor on your desk. Never lift the monitor alone and make sure you carry it with the face down. Don

[Boz]

To your information you have absolutely bought the RIGHT monitor...

You can probably just forget about the 6-pin connector and just use the vga input !

Ok... so maybe I just looked at the instructions and got it wrong. If I understand what you are saying, the monitor can accept an input from more than one signal strength. Further, the reason they sent me the pig tail would be if I intended on using this monitor as a replacement for some older arcade equipment that outputs at a signal strength that is weaker than that of a computer video card, right? The monitor itself can handle any resolution between 15Khz and 50Khz regardless of the input I use. Do I have this correct?

There is only one catch: You must stay within the limitations of H and V sync. Remember the relation between H and V sync: H sync equals (the amount of visible lines + blanking lines) * Vertical refresh.

Oh Heck! I thought I understood refresh rates with TVs and computer monitors until I got an arcade monitor. Because I'm so worried about turning this monitor into a large doorstop as a result of my "run-n-gun" offense, I'm resorting to the most basic of tutorials to refresh my memory about, well... refresh. This link was the best thing I could find without getting dizzy from all the math.
http://home.howstuffworks.com/tv8.htm

Do I have this right:
Horizontal Refresh: How fast every other Horizontal line is drawn on the screen as it travels from top to bottom.
Vertical Refresh: How fast the electron gun moves from the lower right, to the upper left after it has painted every other line and needs to start over.

Granted, I probably don't need a degree in electronics to hook this thing up and getting it going, but I'm a bit frustrated at the some of the Google links I've been finding to help me with the difference between vertical and horizontal refresh rates. I've been searching for over an hour.

Just be careful with the high voltage parts and keep children and pets away if you are testing your monitor on your desk. Never lift the monitor alone and make sure you carry it with the face down. Don

[ZeroPoint]

The instruction manual actually says that the vga is for >=31Khz. This made be confused too. But no problem running 15-50Khz on this !? 

Don

[tetsu96]

You can also use any other video card, f.ex. Nvidia`s, but these cannot be forced to ouput low resolutions.

That's not quite true.  Radeons and NVidia cards (and there's a few others like Trident and Matrox for 2 more) are able to handle low resolution output.  I don't see why people here get so excited about using a AVGA with a monitor that supports high and low resolutions.

The draw of an AVGA is simplifying the process and being able to use the card on a standard resolution monitor without worrying about driving it too hard as can be done with any non-AVGA card running windows or even dos.

But I'm sure the monitor is pretty kickass and I'm betting you'll be happy with it.  To answer your questions:

How many games, actually run at a 15Khz refresh.
How many of the games above I will actually play.
Whether or not the dual input is a common concept in other arcade monitors.
How to use two sources for this monitor.
Whether or not Billabs will take this monitor back and how much additional I'm going to have to spend.

Most arcade / especially MAMEd games are 15KHz.  You'd know better than us what games you play. 

I don't think dual input is common in most arcade monitors and if there are dual games in a cab, they usually have dual JAMMA or are a multi system of some kind (think MVS4 or Playchoice). 

As for taking the monitor back...  give it a shot first and see how you like it.  I don't have that one myself, but I've heard nothing but good things about it (except for the dot pitch which is actually better for the PC side of the world, not as advantageous for lower resolutions).

[Circo]

I have been happy with the billabs all the way around.  After owning the D9200 and the betson (POS) in the past, the billabls it for so many reason, the best one out there.  And worth every penny!

[Czapala]

Did he just say Betson (POS)??

as in piece of 

Noooooo !!!  I just got my Betson 27" multisync delivered !!

why?  I thought it got good reviews all around !

[MonMotha]

The Betson is fine.  The only problems I've had are that the degaussing coil kinda sucks (especially in the upper right corner - this seems to be a known problem, and yes I've reoriented the monitor multiple times), and the composite sync separation needs work.  Playstation signals and MK2 I know cause problems, but TMNT works fine.  In all cases, feeding it separate sync seems to fix the issues.

If you're going to be using it for MAME, you'll have separate sync available since PC video cards are capable of that.  The dot pitch is perfect for standard res and looks fine up through 800x600 (HD 1080i starts to look bad).  It comes with a VGA cable, but also accepts inputs on the standard .156" connector (be warned: the .156" header has different input termination! - use the VGA cable for PC outputs, the on-board connector is a Molex SPOX series if you need to make your own).

The only other thing I seem to have problems with is getting enough brightness (not to be confused with the brightness setting...) out of it on some boards.  It works fine with low level PC signals, but readjusts for higher input levels and sometimes overcompensates.  Again, if you're using it for MAME this won't be a problem at all, and it's usually correctable by properly setting brightness and contrast anyway.

[Boz]

Incidentally, I did eventually power the monitor up using the pre-mounted 15-pin connector. I was all huffy for nothing. I just didn't read it right. Details are on my project thread. Thanks ZeroPoint, All.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=55184.0

[Czapala]

The Betson is fine. 
If you're going to be using it for MAME, you'll have separate sync available since PC video cards are capable of that.  The dot pitch is perfect for standard res and looks fine up through 800x600 (HD 1080i starts to look bad).  It comes with a VGA cable, but also accepts inputs on the standard .156" connector (be warned: the .156" header has different input termination! - use the VGA cable for PC outputs, the on-board connector is a Molex SPOX series if you need to make your own).

The only other thing I seem to have problems with is getting enough brightness (not to be confused with the brightness setting...) out of it on some boards.  It works fine with low level PC signals, but readjusts for higher input levels and sometimes overcompensates.  Again, if you're using it for MAME this won't be a problem at all, and it's usually correctable by properly setting brightness and contrast anyway.

This might be a stupid question but ...

Is this monitor (Betson 27") going to be ok with other emu's such as Chankast and snes9X?  I am going to be using a ArcadeVGA card.

[Vigo]

don't worry about it, if you can run mame properly with an arcageVGA, you can run just about anything there is.

[StephenH]

This betson is a multi-resolution monitor.  It can run anything from

CGA / Standard Res: 200-300 vertical lines (for example, 320x240, 400x300, etc)

EGA / Medium Res: 301-400 vertical lines (For example, 640x350 EGA, etc)

VGA / High Res: Typically 480 vertical lines, for example 640x480

SVGA  Res: 600 Vertical Lines, for example: 800x600

XGA Res: 768 Vertical Lines (for example: 1024x768)