Betson 44-4070-RT on sale for 399 this month

[jhabers]

FYI, the betson 44-4070-RT 27" is on sale direct through betson for 399 this month. Just called and will be ordering one in the AM!

[bent98]

Does that monitor do 15khz?

[jhabers]

Does that monitor do 15khz?

yes, here us a review on it

http://www.retroblast.com/Hardware/Betson-Imperial-_-Kortek-KT-2914.php

Jon

[jrmitch]

Does that monitor do 15khz?

yes, here us a review on it

http://www.retroblast.com/Hardware/Betson-Imperial-_-Kortek-KT-2914.php

Jon

As an owner of one of these monitors, I feel that I must clue you into a few things that the retroblast review did not make clear.  I, like many people, used this review as a basis for my purchase decision.

As it stands, this monitor has two major problems that many forum goers have experienced.

Problem #1: A "squishy" side.

For a majority of the games, the image near the side of the tube has a squished or compressed look to it.  From what I've researched, the severity of this can vary depending on your luck.  On my particular unit, it isn't terrible, but it is certainly noticable and it will drive me nuts on certain games.

Problem #2: Geometry memory is shared across "blocks" of resolutions.

This drove me crazy until I dug up some information that explained why it was happening.  Basically, the monitor only has the capacity to remember 6 or 8 (I don't recall the specific number) On Screen Display settings and they are shared across different resolutions.

Thanks to jimj for putting together a list of the groups here:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=28298.msg244690#msg244690

This is particularly troublesome if you what to play both horizontal and vertical games on the monitor.  For example: Donkey Kong (a vertical game) shares a block with Strider (a horizontal game).  If set your monitor to display Strider perfectly, you'll find that when you fire up DK, it's half off the screen.

Had I known these two annoying problems, I would have probably taken my chances with a WG9400.

[jhabers]

Does that monitor do 15khz?

yes, here us a review on it

http://www.retroblast.com/Hardware/Betson-Imperial-_-Kortek-KT-2914.php

Jon

As an owner of one of these monitors, I feel that I must clue you into a few things that the retroblast review did not make clear.  I, like many people, used this review as a basis for my purchase decision.

As it stands, this monitor has two major problems that many forum goers have experienced.

Problem #1: A "squishy" side.

For a majority of the games, the image near the side of the tube has a squished or compressed look to it.  From what I've researched, the severity of this can vary depending on your luck.  On my particular unit, it isn't terrible, but it is certainly noticable and it will drive me nuts on certain games.

Problem #2: Geometry memory is shared across "blocks" of resolutions.

This drove me crazy until I dug up some information that explained why it was happening.  Basically, the monitor only has the capacity to remember 6 or 8 (I don't recall the specific number) On Screen Display settings and they are shared across different resolutions.

Thanks to jimj for putting together a list of the groups here:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=28298.msg244690#msg244690

This is particularly troublesome if you what to play both horizontal and vertical games on the monitor.  For example: Donkey Kong (a vertical game) shares a block with Strider (a horizontal game).  If set your monitor to display Strider perfectly, you'll find that when you fire up DK, it's half off the screen.

Had I known these two annoying problems, I would have probably taken my chances with a WG9400.

Thanks a lot for your review on it. With the WG I read about problems. Are the problems people talk about with the 9200 or are they with the 9400 as well. Thanks

[jrmitch]

I read a lot about the problems with the 9200, but I haven't heard much about the 9400.  Ken doesn't seem to have much of a fondness for WG in general.

It would be interesting to get some opinions on the 9400 if somebody has one in practical use.

[jhabers]

Hmm just got off the phone with Mr Gardner from WG and talked to him about the 9400 monitor. Specifically the WGM2794-U0FS05S (i like the flat look). And he was confident that it is a strong reliable product and all the design flaws that were present in the 9200 and the early 9400's have been corrected. Take that info for what its worth

I'm strongly considering a WG now. He said its 445 plus 70 shipping to a business (and no tax)...not too bad

Any other input?

[RetroACTIVE]

Hmm just got off the phone with Mr Gardner from WG and talked to him about the 9400 monitor. Specifically the WGM2794-U0FS05S (i like the flat look). And he was confident that it is a strong reliable product and all the design flaws that were present in the 9200 and the early 9400's have been corrected. Take that info for what its worth

I'm strongly considering a WG now. He said its 445 plus 70 shipping to a business (and no tax)...not too bad

Any other input?

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=64564.0

Ken Layton can give you a mile long list of reasons why not to purchase a WG monitor.  He is the definitive expert.  I have a KT... and yes it does have the geometry and linearity problems and drives me a bit crazy... however its not failed... and most people tend to compare these arcade monitors with PC monitors which is probably not fair.

[Ken Layton]

Hmm just got off the phone with Mr Gardner from WG and talked to him about the 9400 monitor. Specifically the WGM2794-U0FS05S (i like the flat look). And he was confident that it is a strong reliable product and all the design flaws that were present in the 9200 and the early 9400's have been corrected. Take that info for what its worth

I'm strongly considering a WG now. He said its 445 plus 70 shipping to a business (and no tax)...not too bad

Any other input?

And how do you know they won't ship you an "early" model 9400? I've seen it happen to other people. Did you ask about the quality of the soldering job? Will it come with a real service manual and schematics? Does it have a crappy ZENITH picture tube?

[jhabers]

Hmm just got off the phone with Mr Gardner from WG and talked to him about the 9400 monitor. Specifically the WGM2794-U0FS05S (i like the flat look). And he was confident that it is a strong reliable product and all the design flaws that were present in the 9200 and the early 9400's have been corrected. Take that info for what its worth

I'm strongly considering a WG now. He said its 445 plus 70 shipping to a business (and no tax)...not too bad

Any other input?

And how do you know they won't ship you an "early" model 9400? I've seen it happen to other people. Did you ask about the quality of the soldering job? Will it come with a real service manual and schematics? Does it have a crappy ZENITH picture tube?

Hi Ken, thanks for your input. I hear you are the GOD about this kind of stuff. I ended up ordering a betson 27", 399 plus 45 shipping. Thanks so much

Jon

[RetroACTIVE]

... I ended up ordering a betson 27", 399 plus 45 shipping. Thanks so much

Jon

Just a quick note about "squished" pic... its a linearity issue... and mine is fine at the higher scan rates... its only a real problem for the 15Khz mode.  I don't have any major focus, purity or convergence issues with my Betson... I think 399 is a real good price for what you are getting.  The other option... BillLabs may be a better monitor but its also more expensive... also with the Betson... it has a very difficult time with the ActLabs light guns... it cannot recover so well from the white flash, so those are out.

[XtraSmiley]

Dude I would have sold you my Betson cheaper than that.  It's new, but the dang Horizontal non-linearity probem is killing me on some games.

Ken is there a fix for this?  I don't mind sending it out for repair.

[MonMotha]

My experience has been that you can mostly correct the squished side via the OSD adjustments, but NOT just the H. Lin. adjustment.  Use the Parallelogram control to skew it slightly in one way or the other, fix the skew with trapezoid, then adjust out the resulting pincushion/pinbalance.  You may need to THEN tweak H. Lin. and possibly iterate the same procedure again.  When you finally get it done, adjust the corners using the corner controls.  The challenge is doing this without screwing up the edge geometry on the other side.

Part of the problem with these is that the default settings tend to absolutely suck (the first thing you will need to do is turn down both brightness and contrast as they are pretty much guaranteed to be way too high).  Complicating this is that there are so many settings that it can be tough to figure out what exactly needs to be done to fix a problem.  Go into service mode, write all the settings down (so you can get back to where you started), and play with the geometry adjustments.  Sometimes the control you have to adjust isn't the immediately obvious one.

I still think there may be a build/design issue that results in the squishy right edge.  Probably a cap or something not quite up to snuff.  That may also explain the differing behavior depending on "era" as they substitute whatever is cheap when they build them.  Somebody who knows more about CRT monitors than I should probably look over the schematic and see if there's anything obvious (Ken or qrz?).

Is Betson now shipping the KT-2914DF or do they still have KT-2914Fs?  I've heard conflicting reports.  The DF uses a *very* flat tube (at least if it's like the KT-3414DF that I've seen), and those tend to exhibit poorer geometry behavior than the slightly curvy tubes the F uses.  I have an older one, and while it does exhibit a little edge squishing on the right hand side, I was able to mostly adjust it out without sacrificing edge behavior on the other side.

[XtraSmiley]

My experience has been that you can mostly correct the squished side via the OSD adjustments, but NOT just the H. Lin. adjustment.  Use the Parallelogram control to skew it slightly in one way or the other, fix the skew with trapezoid, then adjust out the resulting pincushion/pinbalance.  You may need to THEN tweak H. Lin. and possibly iterate the same procedure again.  When you finally get it done, adjust the corners using the corner controls.  The challenge is doing this without screwing up the edge geometry on the other side.

Part of the problem with these is that the default settings tend to absolutely suck (the first thing you will need to do is turn down both brightness and contrast as they are pretty much guaranteed to be way too high).  Complicating this is that there are so many settings that it can be tough to figure out what exactly needs to be done to fix a problem.  Go into service mode, write all the settings down (so you can get back to where you started), and play with the geometry adjustments.  Sometimes the control you have to adjust isn't the immediately obvious one.

I still think there may be a build/design issue that results in the squishy right edge.  Probably a cap or something not quite up to snuff.  That may also explain the differing behavior depending on "era" as they substitute whatever is cheap when they build them.  Somebody who knows more about CRT monitors than I should probably look over the schematic and see if there's anything obvious (Ken or qrz?).

Is Betson now shipping the KT-2914DF or do they still have KT-2914Fs?  I've heard conflicting reports.  The DF uses a *very* flat tube (at least if it's like the KT-3414DF that I've seen), and those tend to exhibit poorer geometry behavior than the slightly curvy tubes the F uses.  I have an older one, and while it does exhibit a little edge squishing on the right hand side, I was able to mostly adjust it out without sacrificing edge behavior on the other side.

Well, if it's a cap that sounds easy to fix/change.  Can someone who has knowledge about this pipe in?