First cabinet, monitor questions.

[DeathZan]

Hi,

I'm about to build my first mame cabinet and about to post my first topic here
I read a reasonable amount of topics on monitors already and I know some of these questions have been asked yet but mine have a 'twist'..

First of all, my most importent one:
I live in Belgium and here we don't use inches, we use centimeters instead, but! monitor sizes are given in inches, this leads to the fact I find it hard to 'imagine' a 27" or 25" inch television, so a simple product ( 25*2.45 ) tells me a 25" television has a diagonal of +-61 centimeters,... isn't this huge? Most people seem to use this size but my pc monitor ( 17" ) has a +- 41cm diagonal, I'm about 40cm away from it when I work at my computer and this is already big enough! Do I understand the whole tv-size-notation wrong or are you people really playing at screens of 61cm diagonal about 40? 50? cm away?

Second question:
I play to add lightguns later ( the lcd-ones with strips, I'v seen people mentioning them here ) and I wonder, will it work when I place smoked plexi in front of my television? And if my screen is under a slight angle? ( not much 11% or something like that )

Third and last question for now:
I know already I best try to find a television with power return and input remember functions, are there other things I need to watch out for? Frequency-things, or will every television I find witch I can connect ( s-video or other way ) work?

I hope you guys are willing to answer my questions eventough they might have been asked already..

Thx in advance,
Dz

( Don't be too hard on my English, it's not what I'm used to write :p )

[qrz]

your usage of english is ok !

with most crt 's, the tube number begins with the tube size   a63 = 25" ( 64cm)  a68=27" (68cm)   etc...

cm X .3937008 = inche(s)   68 cm X .3937008 = 26.7716544"  with the crt industry "rules", that becomes 27 inches

with optical devices, anything that reduces the light transmission is usually undesired .
excepting band filtering  (IR/UV , etc...)  . suggest using a minimal shading level on the plexi....

qrz

[DeathZan]

Noone knows something more about the lightguns or the frenquency thing?

And... You really play 40cm from a 63cm screen? Is this what people mean by the "in your face"-feeling? Or are those even more larger?

[metahacker]

yes we use 27" screens.  they're wonderful.  some people use 36" or whatever those 33" monitor width cabs are.

its the 'right' size.  arcade machine is supposed to be somewhat immersive.


and yes ive used the ems top gun w/ the nintendo wii-bar style UV emitters.

they worked fine through smoked plexi.  i switched to dark grey tempered glass.  that worked as well.

the monitor was tilted a bit back as well.

"playing with" the UV LED bar angle and placement (very slightly) did seem to have some noticeable effects.
once you get the gun plugged up and you check when the laser sight cuts on and off (i.e. it tells u when it sees the bars).. you can 'tune' your placement.

my bars were placed on the horizontal TV surfaces (top/bottom, near very front edge).