25 pin Cable done, onto display tweaks (sony PVM-2530)

[BASS!]

Hello there folks, I have two little questions.

Question 1

I have been working on this little project to get this monitor working possibly for my mame cab, and have hit a little snag. The really cool thing about this monitor is it basically specs just like a arcade monitor with a few little addons. It has 4 inputs, and has an onboard amplifier. In getting this monitor to work with my computer I have found a couple issues. In the manual there is a full pinout for the 25 pin monitor connection that looks a lot like scart, but not quite. From looking at the pinout the manual only shows one pin for audio on the connection. In that case I am guessing that it would be a mono input, but on the back there are 2 stereo inputs attached to the 2 svideo / composite inputs. One of the pins reads as :

(also in pics)

High state ( 5v or open ) Audio inputs from pin 13
Low state ( less then .4v ) Audio inputs from the Line A/Line B or VTR connector

Is there a way to possibly short a pin on this connector to pin 13 to have the monitor default to the line a or line b audio? I have used resistors in projects in the past, but am a little bit on the rusty side to figure out. There are a couple 5v outputs ( with a resistor or cap, would that step down to .4v).


Question 2

What hz does this monitor run at, is this a 15khz or 25khz monitor, I am having a hard time reading through all this technical mumbo jumbo.

So at the point I am at, I have a vga to 4 pin bnc connector I picked up for another monitor, that Ive hacked to this adapter, have gotten the monitor to show a messed up 2 screen blue image. Once I get all this, I'll be ready to see weather it is going to be what I am using.
Thanks so much for reading this, and I'm sorry for my nooby scattered writings, but I can't wait to hear from ya.

*edit changed model number in title to be correct*

[BASS!]

Another question you may be able to answer, what is the difference between a high level / low level. Will I have to get it to do something else to make it take the rgb input that I feed it?

[BASS!]

References ( will edit as I find good ones )

http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=2209.0 (info about wiring a cmptr cable)

[Jack Burton]

I pretty sure it will be 15.75khz only.  Max res is probably 640 x 480. 

I have a PVM-1351Q.  It is very similar to your monitor and I have successfully sent RGB signals over the cmptr input with advancemame.  It was the best looking image I have ever seen for an arcade game, definitely worth the effort.

I'm not sure what you are referring to in the high/low level.  Some monitors have a resistance setting that can change the brightness of the monitor.  Arcade games output at a much higher brightness than regular VGA signals, so it needs to be set for whatever signal your sending. 

For shorting the audio signal, I would not know much about it.  I know I have accidentally done so before with similar monitors to yours using the line in audios, but the result was always pretty bad.

[BASS!]

I pretty sure it will be 15.75khz only.  Max res is probably 640 x 480. 

I'm not sure what you are referring to in the high/low level.  Some monitors have a resistance setting that can change the brightness of the monitor.  Arcade games output at a much higher brightness than regular VGA signals, so it needs to be set for whatever signal your sending. 

I've scoured the net, and found exactly this, it is a 15.75khz monitor. The resolution listed in the manual for vga says 640x200 (doesn't specify that it is the max tho). My only issue right now has been trying to get my graphics card (geforce 8400 gs) to output 15khz. I installed soft 15khz and all I can get is a split screen on the monitor. At this point I am not sure weather I did one of 2 things.

1. set the resolution wrong or
2. wired the sync wires backward.
Or is this graphics card just not going to like soft 15khz?

At this point this has just become another obsession that I must investigate until it is finished. Do you happen to know anyone handy enough to fashion a cable together for me. I am pretty sure its right, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

As far as the high / low question I had, I was refering to all the info in the spec sheet that I attached. It lists "high mode" and "low mode" on the diagram to tell the monitor what mode it should be in. I just don't quite understand enough about electronics to know how to read this, and what I should do to get the monitor to understand what I am trying to get it to do.

I can't wait to see if I can get this to take vga. If that doesn't work, I just picked up a regular old video wall monitor that takes composite as a backup.

[BASS!]

Ok, just about at the end with this monitor. One of my thoughts was that maybe I had the sync wires backward. I checked and wired them the other way. Now the only thing that is weird is that there was no change, the display still poped on like before, and just as wavery. reinstalling my video card drivers over and over again is getting old, and I don't quite know what I should do.

On a more light note, I realized that this is the 2530 not the 2030, so title edit here I go!

If anyone has some info about any special wiring to get this to sync, or just an afirmation as to wiring to the assigned pins, I'm dieing to hear it.

!!Upright Bass!!

[Jack Burton]

The double image could be due to the fact that you are outputting in progressive mode, AKA no scanlines.  My monitor displays a double image whenever I accidentally do this. 

I know that websites have this monitor listed as 640 x 200, but it can easily do 640 x 480, as I have run a Sony Playstation through the CMPTR input.

What sort of video hardware and software are you using?

[BASS!]

The double image could be due to the fact that you are outputting in progressive mode, AKA no scanlines.  My monitor displays a double image whenever I accidentally do this. 

I know that websites have this monitor listed as 640 x 200, but it can easily do 640 x 480, as I have run a Sony Playstation through the CMPTR input.

What sort of video hardware and software are you using?

K, my first error is trying to get the soft 15khz app to run on a geforce 8400. I just got back that it doesnt look like the 8 series works at all. Now on to try and get a card that will. My soldering skills are pretty good, and I think that I may just have been getting down on myself because I was trying to get something to work that wont work in the first place. I'm ordering a arcadevga soon, so that will solve one problem. Thanks so much mega, and this thread will get picked back up when I get my card in the mail.

[Jack Burton]

A little correction:

I have both a 1351Q and a 1390.  The 1390 is the one I have been talking about. 

The 1351 has RGBHV and is a lot easier to work with.

[BASS!]

Yeah this one does have rgbhv but its all tied in to that stupid proprietary 25 pin connector. I am ordering a avga now.

[BASS!]

       Had the day off today ("sick"), so I decided I'd put some more time into this project, and man did I! Went back to frys and got a pack of 25 pin connectors, some odds and ends and shrink tubing, came home, and set to it. Today my girlfriend decided that her computer was too slow for an animation she was working on, and needed something to speed it up. I got a lightbulb, she has a geforce 6600 le, which I know works with soft 15khz. I figured I would do the swap for my 8400 gs (an upgrade for her)and see if I could get this monitor going, killing two birds:-).

     I sat back down at my soldering iron, and made the cable again a little bit better and quite a bit sturdier and ran back to the machine to test it out. First I got my bios screen, and it was rolling and rolling and split into two screens, got my windows load (which did the same), then snaped into windows. Luckily this monitor has a vhold knob right on the back otherwise I think I would have punched something. I sat here for about 1hr trying various resolutions and each time I would check a new one, I would have to play with the v-hold for like 5 min to get the picture to hold. I still feel like my monitor is scrolling down and down.

At this point I jumped back on here and did some reading to find out what this means. I checked and it turns out that the H sync and V sync should be tied together. I ripped the cable apart again and rewired a patch, and threw it all back together.  I just loaded the machine up and VOILA!!! Display!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok so this has probably been about the biggest pain in the butt that I've so far worked around, but man this is rewarding.

Where I am now, well I think I've finished with this project. Now I just need to decided weather I'm going to get rid of it or not.

[Jack Burton]

No!

You now are the owner of a very high quality arcade monitor.  Soft 15khz is good for just getting a usable image on this monitor, but the real beauty will be if you try advancemame out.  Basically you are going to have to use advcfg to set up advancemame to these settings

Pixel clock 5-150
Vertical clock 15.75
Horizontal clock 50-60

You can download advmenu to set up a GUI for you to select games with.  Set windows to automatically load advmenu, start you computer, wait a while for it to load up, turn on your monitor, and you will be all set.

Games running under their native res look lightyears better than games being scaled in Mame32.  You will not be getting the most out of this monitor unless you play a video game in it's native resolution.

[BASS!]

Thanks for the quick no:-D.
K now on to further tweaking to get this ready for my arcade cabinet. I am having some issues with the geometry on the right side, in the corner and out about 4 inches from there. I have read just about every post and bit of available info on this monitor and preceeded to pull the casing off the monitor and dive into the pots on the boards at the side of the monitor.

The one main issue I have is: This monitor does not remember geometry setting across different resolutions. I am trying to figure out if it is worth it to set it up for advancemame when each time it switches to a new resolution I have to tweak with the convergence and geometry settings. I am going to try now to see if I can set the monitor to its posted "native resolution" to apply all of the adjustments and see if that will help across all resolutions.

Does anyone know of a tool for nvidia graphics cards that will allow you to adjust overscan settings for each resolution?

Now on to my next part. I just tried loading up advancemame, and am having a terrible time getting it to work. When I load advcfg and I try to set it to all the available 15khz test modes I just get a black screen, and I have to hold esc until it resets back to my windows resolution. If I just set it in either mame for the individual game it works great, or if I set my resolution via quickres that works as well.  I tried your posted setting for advancemame and I can't figure out how to get it to apply, the enter key doesn't work. Thanks for reading all this garble, and I'm sure I will have more soon ;-)

[computarmann]

I have this same monitor and it is a good monitor. I have used advmame with it and it works very well. You said you got a black screen and hit the esc key until you were back to windows resolution. Advmame works best in pure dos and can be quite tricky to set up in windows. I think it requires precisely the right video card in order to work in windows. Advmame works very well once you get it set up right and you also have to work to get a sound card that has dos compatibility. I had the best luck with advmame using a soundblaster awe64 and an old voodoo video card. My laptop has a geforce go5200 in it and it allows for dual monitor so I use soft15khz. I keep a backup image of my advmame configuration and sound drivers because it was a real bear setting everything up. Without being able to use both the laptop screen and the pvm2530 it is a real mess trying to see things on a normal desktop using soft15khz and just an arcade monitor.
    If you are serious about using this monitor I suggest a dedicated computer running advmame in pure dos. One way of getting pure dos is to install windows 98. It takes some work to get it configured but once you have it set up it's just a matter of turning on the computer and advmame boots and works perfectly every single time. I never could get advmame to recognize usb joysticks so I used a parallel port to ps2 adapter.

[Jack Burton]

I wouldn't say it's quite that hard.

I run windows xp and a geforce fx 5200 and here's how I did it. 

First, you are going to need two monitors to start this.  One monitor to do your configuration and one to play games on.  Later on you can set up your computer to automatically enter advancemame. 

First, enter advcfg.  I know why you are having problems with the enter key, I forgot to tell you the exact steps.  If you choose to set up a custom resolution from the first menu then advcfg will ask you for a lot more information than just the pixel and h/v clock.  You can just scroll down and choose the "pc monitor > 31khz" option and then choose to program a custom resolution from there.  Then you will be able to enter the information I supplied.  After inputting the information choosing low centering only and hit enter.  At this point you will disconnect your pc monitor and connect your arcade monitor.   After that you will either see a grid pattern and information about the current resolution.  From here you can also center and resize the image.  If you don't see that then either your graphics card doesn't properly support that resolution or your monitor doesn't. 

If it works hit enter and you will be returned to advcfg.  You will be able to save your resolution.



If you are able to do all of this then please reply back and I will continue


I don't know if running soft 15khz would interfere with any of these tests, since it wasn't around when I  originally did them, but I think it would.  I know that it essentially simplifies what powerstrip used to do, and I know that powerstrip will interfere with advancemame.  So I would definitely turn off soft 15khz for the purpose of this test.

[c0dehunter]

I have the PVM-2030 model, and I asked a person to make me a custom cable 25pin (Sony) to 15pin (VGA) in order for me to connect it to my modern PC for game emulation (MAME, etc.). We ended up making a small custom circuit built-in right into the 25pin housing connector (to separate H and V signals for negative polarity).


I ended up using this diagram:




At the following http://www.geocities.ws/podernixie/htpc/cables-en.html

It looks great and all but the screen is a bit off, and there is no knobs to adjust the position or the shape of the picture. How do I open this monitor up for fine tuning?

Thanks!

[c0dehunter]

Here are the screenshots:


Geometry is OFF 01 by c0dehunter, on Flickr
As you can see, the red markers on top, right and bottom are missing, so the geometry needs to be adjusted.


Geometry is OFF 02 by c0dehunter, on Flickr
Again it needs adjustment.


Geometry is OFF 03 by c0dehunter, on Flickr

I would like to adjust the "bent" screen on the edges.

Are there images of a PVM opened? I can only see 4 screws connecting the back panel. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[c0dehunter]

To be honest, I am not 100% satisfied with the image quality of my SONY PVM-2030.

1) Compared to my 13" Commodore 1084S-D1, the scan-lines (which I love to have, don't get me wrong) are STRONGLY pronounced, and the actual R, G, B pixels standout prominently: Maybe this phenomenon is a feature of the Trinotron tube, but the image quality of my 1084S-D1 is much sharper/smoother. (Maybe it is the size of the 1084S-D1, but everything seems sharper.)

2) I managed to open my PVM-2030 and adjusted many settings, but I still could not get to produce the image that I came to love and adore with my 1084S-D1.

3) Using my SONY PVM-2030, when I launch different emulators, the image is completely off, so I have to spend time and manually adjust for each individual emulator. On my 1084S-D1, amazingly they stay pretty much centered and the way I like, (not to mention that 1084S-D1 features the adjusting knobs in the back for easy access, unlike the PVM-2030, which force me to leave it opened all the times for constant fine tuning.) 

Obviously, this is a very subjective matter, but in my opinion, my 1084S-D1 is capable of producing a more sharper image. I will post some images to prove my observations.

After all the time and money spent, I guess I am back to my trusty Commodore 1084S-D1 for retro gaming emulation, but I think it was worth the try.