In Brazil, the system was a 60hz signal called PAL-M, despite the acronym, it was almost NTSC with some differences in color coding or some non-sense like that. In any case, I don't think many people outside of the country knows about this.
personally I think 600TVL is the highest acceptable TVL for 15kHz content (240p and 480i) while anything higher than 600/650TVL I would only consider using if it’s able to accept 31kHz or higher 15kHz content on 800-1000TVL looks absolutely horrible IMO
Were there ever any high end HD CRT displays sold as consumer products which used more or less the same hardware as PVMs or BVMs? I have recently developed a fascination for HD CRTs, especially the earlier ones which started becoming available wayyyy back in the 80's in Japan, as well as the HD CRT broadcasts which started in Japan in the late 80s, and any of the early ways of actually getting 1035i / 1080i (whatever you want to call it) content. Some were 32", but I think some HD CRTs were even larger than that.
I own two PVMs. I hardlly ever use them. Over the summer I picked up a completely free 32" JVC D-Series AC-32D201 from August 2000. This curved apature grill TV has 450 TVL with excellent geomertry and absolutely stunning 240p from adapting RGB to component. Is it as clear as my PVMs? No, not quite. But even my big PVM is 14". This sucker is 32". Playing retro games on it is a treat. If I had to do it all over, I would say for the average person a PVM is not a good buy, especially as prices have soared since COVID started with prices not at all falling. Get a good, solid consumer grade TV. That's all you need. The JVC D-Series is absolutely just as fantastic as the Sony Trinitron. 8-bit Esquire even mentioned this in the video. D-Series was great.
LOVED this vid. But… I can’t help but feel like I’m the only one who is willing to have less than perfect clarity in the corners in exchange for a larger screen. I simply don’t understand people salivating over 8 inch and 14 inch PVMs. Even a 20 inch is simply too small for me. I haven’t played on a TV that small in over 30 years! I’ve seen people argue that the clarity is better on a smaller screen, and they’re right, the same number of TV lines in a smaller space will have better detail and sharpness. But then, you should be applying that same logic to our flat panel TVs as well! Since pixel size is fixed, you should be trying to get the SMALLEST screen size possible with the HIGHEST resolution possible if clarity is your only goal! However, most people don’t shop for tvs that way🤷🏻♂️
Glad to see 480i flicker addressed! I'd add that in addition to higher TVL accentuating the issue, it's also worse on aperture grille than on shadow mask. If possible, I always play GC/Xbox/PS2 games at 480p on a modern display for that reason.
Such a great video! Would be interesting to cover PVMs besides the Sony ones. Recently acquired a JVC TM-H1375SU (>750 TVL, shadow mask) and it looks excellent, with minimal flicker on interlaced content as well. Even though it doesn’t have component inputs, S-video looks great.
I'm really shocked that you don't have like 20k subscribers. What an incredible in-depth analysis of these great pieces of hardware. You got me wanting a PVM now, and this video is the first time I'm hearing about them
Thank you for this deep look into consumer TVs vs PVMs. I really appreciated the technical aspects of this video. Your production quality and style are top notch as well.
Awesome video, worth the wait!🍻 Thanks to retro tax pvms are now beyond my budget, but I love seeing them in action like this, and seeing how close some consumer crts can get
You can still get really nice 1000 TVL 17" PC CRT monitors for anything from £$30 to £$100, people haven't caught on to the fact they are pretty much 480p+ PVM's, you may even fin a 19" for cheap, 21" CRT monitors are very expensive though at the moment, though I did see a really nice one go for only £150 the other day, so you may even find a 21" for a good price still. If people realize CRT PC monitors are basically just 1000 to 1500 TVL PVM/BVM monitors and the hype gets to silly levels like with the FW900 and LaCie Blue IV 22 etcetera, prices will become far too high, so if you want one, now is a good time imo.
id agree pvms are higher quality. but I will take a large consumer set with rgb over a 14-20 inch pvm anyday. My pvm rarely gets used vs my 36 inch rgb modded jvc. thicker scanlines. brighter image, and the obvious... easier to see from the couch.
I paid 50 bucks for my Sony KV32FS320 and SNES over component looks great. It's a consumer TV sure, but I wanted to see what classic games looked like on a budget. PVMs are a bit rich for my blood, but it's fun to learn about.
33:10 I dont know why people continue to lie to themselves The PVM looks horrible compared to the Haier 240p games were not meant to be played on high res tubes The Genesis outputs around 292/293 horizontal lines after PAR adjustment(320 x (32/35) or 256 x (8/7)) Devs used higher res professional monitors to edit the graphics easier obviously but 240p games do not look good Memelines are an artifact and have always been The image was not meant to be oversharpened and blocky You will see this one day when we get +10000PPI displays and people start integer scaling these games to those kind of pixel densities. It will look all smooth with barely any aliasing like the low res consumer tube/240p handheld LCD screens but without the screendoor effect and everybody who thought that blocky mess that is integer scaling in todays low PPI screens was "raw pixels" will eat crow and realize how stupid they have been all along
Even as a kid I knew RF was inferior to the component AV. But if you had to use it because the TV you were on didn't have another option, pick channel 4 instead of 3. For some reason channel 4 always delivered a stronger clearer signal.
Anyone watching here in the New England Area that knows where to get a CRT serviced? I have a 27" Flat Sony Trintron. It looks great with component but the geometry is bad enough to annoy me . I only know of one place but they might not be able to help with this issue (been to them before and all they did was try to degauss it and that didn't resolve the issue).
Cool video. There was a brief window in the early-mid 2010s where PVMs were a cheap ($0 to $100) way to get RGB. I missed the boat on that. Wouldn't bother with prices these days. Oh well! I ended up getting a few brand new security monitors with 13 to 15 inch curved tubes + s-video a few years ago for shockingly cheap when everyone was ignoring them. Personally I prefer the low end slot-mask look.The 480i issue... one of my monitors is 750TVL and it is eye bleeding for interlaced content. It's mostly unused because of that! A super low end 350TVL scamsung tube looks perfect for 480i and is the look I remember for 240p.
Great video! The technical summary was concise and easy to follow and your CRT photography is ::chef's kiss:: "Things like geometry, and convergence, and color accuracy, and TV line count, aperture grills, shadow masks, RGB - we didn't know what any of that crap was and none of it mattered." This right here perfectly captures the difference between gaming in the 80's/90's and now. Today we are so focused on the technical specs of everything that it's easy to lose sight of what was actually important to us about the games and game systems of our youth. I had someone try and convince me that my PVM was no good for playing classic games because of its black levels - like we even knew or cared about that at all back then! It's weird how well-defined scanlines have become the most important measure of the retro gaming experience. At the time, I honestly don't remember caring about that at all. I guess as adults we're just chasing the best possible retro experience because we can. "The best CRT is the one that you own and the one that works." 👍🙏
I can't totally agree, because back in the day we had game magazines, that, for me at least, were a big part of the hobby because you couldn't hope to own all these games at the time, but you could drool over pictures, and although scanlines weren't specifically mentioned, they did appear in close up photography and form part of the imagery and beauty of games, specifically in magazines.
30:37 It's not a fair comparison between a bad TV and a PVM. My 21" Sony Wega from 2006 has great geometry and produces a clear image on the entire screen
A sick episode. PVMs are so rare where I live in rural Canada thst my experience is limited to consumer sets. My favorite tube is my 27" Panasonic Gaoo (SuperFlat in the USA (*cue the guitar solo American anthem.*)) I like it so much, I got rid of my 36" FV300 to make space. I've also had 2 D-series, AF series, and a curved Trinitron. The Gaoo doesn't have the same sharpness as the FV300 or the curved Trinitron, but the colors on it absolutely pop. The Gaoo vs other Panasonic tubes I've had is clearly a higher quality so I sold them too. If you can, take a looksy at a low-hour Gaoo/SuperFlat, I know you won't be disappointed.
If the Retrotink 5X had existed when I got back into retro gaming almost 10 years ago, I never would have gotten a BVM. I do love my BVM-D24, but I rarely use it now. The Tink 5X on my 77" OLED is glorious. I cannot wait for the Tink 4K.
@@8bitesquire On a LG CX OLED with BFI @high and a HDR flag on the RetroTink 5X Pro negates most strenghts of the D24/32. With RetroTink 4K things will be even better. Only thing better on the BVM is no input lag compared to 26ms @60Hz BFI on the OLED. However OLED has much better black levels in all enviroments thus contrast especially in a room with lights or sun light, no anoying 15kHz noise, no interlaced flicker as you yourself pointed out is especially anoying on 800-1000 TVL monitors, size difference is not even funny 77" vs 24/32" and motion is about the same and most important it's the cheaper option. On top of that you can play current gen games with HDR and everything in between. Love my 2 PVM 20L4s but it's not all sunshine and rainbows.
I own 2 cvm 1250s, one 1979, the other 1981. They have rf and composite. The guy I got them from seemed to have got them from an old local television station. I never hear anyone talk about these, and I dont know much myself, but they are really nice and seem professional. Thanks for the great video, i will be listening throughout delivering pizza tonight (i do have a pvm 2030 also, can certainly appreciate the S and RGB) 😎
I just watched this start to end, I actually watched the whole thing, thats rare for me, so that tell's you waht I think of the video, this will be reference go to now for undisputable proof of PVM's superior nature to consumer CRTs, cheers for the video, it was fun to watch.
Very entertaining video, however I would like to appeal this case, and I bring two new importent pieces of evidence: - Artistic intent: many games of the era utilise dithering patterns or vertical lines to simulate transparent shadows, instead of flickering sprites, or blend colours together. On consumer CRTs these vertical lines or dithering patters will be blurred out along the lines, making it look like a transparent image or half-tone. PVMs will completely remove this intended effect, and reveal the original pattern that was intended to simulate the effect. Not only does this look very distracting once you start to notice it, it also diverges from the artistic intent, which is the whole reason most of us use CRTs on the first place. The RetrTINK 5x can realistically simulate this effect using post processing. - Most commercial European CRTs have supported RGB since the 70s through the SCART connector. I played most of my childhood games on two TVs: a 21” Trinitron from the early 2000s, and a ~32” Erres from the 70s. Both supported RGB over SCART, and both looked amazing. Although these obviously are designed to operate at 50Hz and require 220v power, most European higher-end consumer CRTs produced since the late 90s can accept NTSC 60Hz signals without any issues. (I used to own a 1996 Sony WEGA widescreen CRT that could handle NTSC perfectly.) So for most Europeans such a regular ass CRT would probably be a better option, because they will all support RGB over SCART, probably support 60Hz, and more accurately reproduce the artistic intent.
The only PVM I've ever seen in person is my PVM14N6U which is only 500TVL, so maybe I'm missing out on the high end of the PVM spectrum. I don't use it much because it has geometry issues (probably needs a re-cap), but it looks very nice otherwise. I do most of my gaming on a 27" JVC D series, it's definitely not perfect but it gets the job done. I own an OSSC and have tried my best to appease the wife by getting rid of my "fish tank TVs", but like you I see lots of valid reason to keep this aging technology around. This was a great video, entertaining and lots of good info. Subscribed!
Great video! A few years ago I was planning on just getting a good CRT due to the PVM prices when a Panasonic BT-H1450Y which has 750TVL came up for sale down my street. Let's just say I payed what I would have for a Sony CRT =)
Stellar video-learned a ton I didn't know about PVMs. I typically go after the VGA monitors and it would be interesting to see how they mix in with some of the modern rescalers for practical gaming. Criminally crushed by YT's algorithm for the level of value this video has.
You've got a lot of content in this that could be edited down to YT shorts. I personally hate the shorts format but they are really trying to slice attention spans down that algorithmic direction. I bet you could get more traction with that format and vector in folks to the main channel@@8bitesquire
@@8bitesquirewas the TVL actually measured on the Sony vs JVC? I don’t trust these consumer TVs. The Mario method of measuring seems legit. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zrP3OacGpbg.htmlsi=ZW_8y1X5Mqeoto_O . I disagree that the reason of geometry issues is the size of the tube(partially), then why didn’t the earlier Trinitrons even from 80’s have so many issues? I would say it’s mainly because after the late 90’s, Sony skimped out on the quality of the yoke. LCDs were on the march and Sony didn’t give a f about the quality anymore. Philips, even on their 32” inches FLAT tubes, didn’t have geometry problems, atleast very few, much better yoke.
Oh man... the funniest part for me is knowing Mike Chi will watch this and think, "My segment followed _that?!"_ 🤣 Also this is the first time in a long while your vids haven't cost me any money, unless you can convince me that I should buy a non-launch RT5X capable of gen lock and TBC...
I have a 20M2MDU, 14M2U, the same Haier 13", 27" FV310 and a 20" JVC D-Series. I was lucky enough to get into CRTs 4 years ago and got the 310 free, JVC free off the curb!, Haier $20 OfferUp, and the two PVMs on Ebay were $222 for the 20" and $125 for the 14". I don't think of it as a competition and "perfect" image quality is not the be-all end-all. I find myself using the 310 the most, I made some adjustments and compare back and forth with the PVM and it's pretty close. The huge screen 27" vs 20" is a big difference and the built in sub woofer and stereo audio and a remote control for little adjustments make it my most used set. The JVC and Haier I rotate with the PVMs in and out of the setup I really like the shadow mask style as well cuz it just looks different especially with those bubble shaped screens. Also my Compaq 16" FS7600 (my family's last CRT monitor) is my most used CRT right now as an extra windows screen along with 480p Dreamcast and OG Xbox gaming.
I feel fortunate to have had most of the best CRTs out there (although like you I haven't had a BVM, don't really want one). I've bought and sold Toshiba AF, D-Series, and Tau's, but I've settled with my collection and likely won't be selling it or adding to it. I've got my PVM-20M2U, PVM-20L5, 27FV310, MS-2930 (Sega Blast City), and MS-9 (Sega New Astro City). They have all been recapped and professionally serviced and are all in excellent condition, and my favorites are the MS2930 and the 20M2U. The 27FV310 is great, but it just doesn't compare to either the PVMs or the Nanao arcade monitors. For your average gamer, yeah consumer sets are awesome, but for those who want the best, yeah PVM, gotta do it. Gotta pay to play.
If I was billing clients at $400/hr I would also find PVR's not guilty. I'm looking forward to that day because man do I want one. I'm also looking forward to when the kids move out of the house so I can find time to play games again. LOL
Amazing video! BTW, today's commercial flat panels continue to be miles away in quality from the very best professional monitors. Even an old LCD PVM from before 2010 will look better than most commercial TVs you can buy today, and even today's best OLEDs and miniLEDs can touch the OLED models except for modern niceties like 4K resolution and higher/variable refresh rate. And then if you look at the current and upcoming BVM... not sure we'll ever see that kind of quality in commercial TVs, even after microLED becomes affordable.
Man, I find the first photographs technology fascinanting, CRTs are wayyyy more impressive than that, I think anything can be fascinating depending on how we look at them, I mean, can we say 90s PCs were cooler than today'sPCs and consoles?
This video is amazing you are so underrated! And I think you defended PVM’s pretty good in this video. But nothing will make me drop my KV-32FS1000 with bad bowing and geometry, sorry 😅 but I wish I had a PVM I mean who doesn’t.
I've really considered adding tint to my 20L5 like John Linneman did. Sitting next to my 20M2U which has dark phosphors it is just so washed out in comparison. Unless the room is absolutely pitch black, the 20M2U looks better, and that's why I use it more often than not. Sitting in total darkness isn't really what I want to do. I've got the tint sitting here and have tested it and it looks pretty good even with the lights off.
@8bitesquire they def make the image look sharper, but I definitely notice them haha, maybe just cus I gamed for so long on my shitty 80s Zenith with RF that I'm used to a softer, crappier image 😂 almost smoothed over. It does give the dithering a nice look on Genesis games though 👍
@@8bitesquire amen! I already sent your vid to like 3 of my friends. You deserve a million + subs. Though you don’t scream and you give intelligent opinions. Probably working against you! 😂
fucking hell i just bought a Sony PVM20M4U for £550 and this video dropped both educating me and giving me the greatest smug feeling any man has ever had.
This video is a gem! Very informative and entertaining. The question is, HOW were you able to take crisp footage of PVM screens? I have a BVM 20F1U and can’t even take a photo without those big black bars and distortion all over the screen 😅
Finally understand what all those scanline filters actually mean. Very informative. Would I like a PVM? Sure, they're ace. But right now I can't find anyone to look at my main Bang n' O unit, that has developed a fault, and herein lies the problem with CRTs, they break.
Good lord, thanks for triggering all my repressed Catholic school memories with the hymn at beginning at 43:59 🤣 (and no… thankfully I was never involved in any inappropriate priest behavior… I someone out will or wants to type that joke)
@@8bitesquire while I totally agree, I do prefer the sega megacd version not only because of the music, but it's way easier and I'm a casual shmup fan at best 😂
Great video, very informative! I knew the technical stuff for the most part, but I really enjoyed the discussion, and it was interesting seeing the comparison of all those specific TVs you found. 🤔 I only need 5 CRTs in my life; the 25" in my MVS-4-25 'Big Red' NEO GEO cabinet.... The 29" tri-sync of a generic 'candy cab'. A nice big consumer TV I can play console lightgun games on. A small PVM for my repair bench. And a 19 or 20 inch PVM for playing games at my desk... So far I'm one for five...and having a hell of a time even getting my hands on a used TV where I am... 😭 Edit: 49:17 Totally gonna like this vid on my alt account as well, just for Donna. 😁👍 Edit2: 1:06:47 HELL YES BATTLECLASH. One of the favorites of my childhood SNES collection. Now I've got a complete-in-box copy of the Japanese version; SPACE BAZOOKA.
