Could some one answer why are these so expensive ? Why not get a 2022 top of the line consumer OLED 4K tv or gaming monitor for the same price ? Is there something that this sets it apart from the consumer line (I would think 10 years difference in tv panel advancement would defiantly catch or outperform the professional tvs of the 2011) I just don’t get it and would appreciate someone explaining it to me
It's a fair question. I am not a modern OLED/LCD guy, we have a cheap Samsung 4K on our wall and I dont have a modern gaming monitor. However, I interested in these monitors due to their lineage, that they are the successors to the legendary machines which we love. It's like some nostalgia is transposed onto these machines. I think it also ties into the adrenaline rush we retro gamers have when we find a great deal out in the wild. The days of getting cheap A and D series BVMs are really mostly over, but maybe as flat screen technology evolves, one day these lovely screens will go down in value and maybe I can score a deal too. To me the screens represent some kind of future retro possibility. Taking that sentiment away though, a modern consumer set in 2022 is probably the better way to go overall :D If you don't feel that retro curiosity for this unit then there are definitly better set options.
@@ZezRetro it is true for crt but once you go Oled it is hard to justify it , if you going for up scale then 14 inch TN panel with 3ms delay is way much better
The reason they are so expensive is because they are professional grade, not consumer grade like a LG 4K OLED. Every component, circuit and the panel is better in every way. Professionals use these monitors as reference because the picture quality is supposed to be as close as possible to perfection. The picture quality is completely uniform and that's important so when content is being made the creator can be certain that whites are white and they don't possess some weird artifact that can be picked up by the consumer on their consumer TV later down the track, because that would be unprofessional. Even though the panels are made on the same assembly line that consumer panels are made on - that doesn't mean they are all made equally. Even though the processes and equipment to make the panels is the same, some panels are 'made more equal than others' and when they are graded very few panel pieces are of exceptional quality. OLED panels are made in very large sheets, the uniformity in the panels are smaller in area, those are reserved for professional use and the larger ones are for consumer use. I don't know the reason why consumer OLED TVs are so large but it might be because they susceptible to degradation when they are cut down and there is a lot of wastage.
I’d prefer if this information is not shared yet. Until I am able to cheaply buy one of these oled pvms, then you can go ahead to report about the low lag. Now the world knows.
What makes these monitors extra special is that Sony actually makes the OLED panels that go into these themselves, as opposed to buying them from a supplier such as LG (for OLED) or Sharp (for LCD) like they do for their consumer TVs. I believe these PVMs and BVMs are basically the only modern products that have actual Sony display panels in them, which makes them feel more 'authentic' like the old Trinitrons that always used Sony CRTs.
Although to my understanding they also did some OLED panels by SONY themselves in a number of smartphones and in the PlayStation Vita portable and I do believe also in a number of monitors meant for the medical field. Also from 2007 till 2010 the consumer Sony XEL-1 OLED TV
Nice to see more people trying these out for retro gaming, they have so much potential, you barely scratched the surface. I've owned some of the BVM models that use the same panel as these PVMs (except they are of higher grade, and have better driving engines), and they really are spectacular, especially due to their scan driving (scanning/rolling black bar) that drastically improves sample-and-hold blur in a much better way than black-frame-insertion and with no brightness loss. By the way, everyone should stay away from the MD (medical) models, although they use the same panels and look fantastic, they process signals much differently and are not suited for gaming purposes (though you can coax them to be in some ways).
@@monkeyjam294 Yeah for the CRTs the MD models are good for gaming, in some ways better than the non-MD counterparts since some of the MD models have extra inputs and a dark-tinted tube for better blacks in a brighter room.
I was super curious when you showed a sneak peek of this! Would love to see one of these in person, I've wanted to upgrade to a big OLED for my living room
I think any modern OLED monitor would beat the hell out of this technically speaking, and for far cheaper but this must have been insane for the time it was released in.
These panels from Sony perform pretty similarly as they are still similar technology. They handle 8-bit banding better than LG's panels in my experience and rarely suffer from Mura effects and don't have the vertical banding in near black content either. The one I own never suffers from any temporary image retention and i've yet to cause any burn in after a few thousand hours of use with my PC to play games with.
@@Ustaleone Good question, I can not say as I don't know much about OLED technology. My interest in this monitor is probably better described as "transposed nostalgia", or just nerd curiosity :)
4:33 No fixed size pixels? That is awkward. If you go the HDMI route, this is nothing better than a salvaged 25€ Pioneer FullHD Plasma from say 2010. The Plasma DOES work pretty good on RGB/S-video SCART input, missing on this screen. I also don't see the benefit of using the Mister here. Emulation will work fine if you are after 1080p HDMI output, at least it is easy to set a fixed pixel size, no idea if that can be done on a Mister.
Awesome review! I just acquired a BVM-L230 recently for free and I believe the HDMI to HD SDI converter just came in today. Can't wait to try it out. I'll definitely be on the lookout for an OLED PVM/BVM to add to the collection.
That monitor has cards for inputs? You only have an SDI input card? What model? I am looking at the Sony website and its unclear which cards that BVM would use
@@ZezRetro Mine came with the BKM-243HS which provides 2 Digital/HD SDI inputs and 1 output - only supports up to 1080i. I believe BKM-250TG card will give you 1080p.
Hello there I own a SONY MODEL NO. PVM-A250 ..to the side of the HDMI I do see ports labeled SDI In & Out curious as to what I can use them for?? Can you connect retro consoles useing it ??
@@spragzpc1 The SDI ports on your Sony PVM-A250 are used for high-definition video and audio connections, primarily in professional broadcasting and video production. To connect retro gaming consoles, which typically use analog outputs like composite, S-Video, or component video, you'll need an analog-to-SDI converter. This converter will transform the analog signal from your retro console into an SDI signal that your monitor can recognize.
I thought the whole point of the PVM/bvm for retro gaming is that it's essentially a high quality CRT. I think this OLED takes away the actual purpose of the PVM...
I have a PVM-2551MD made around the same time. Fantastic display though you have to go into the service menu every time to change a setting on the PixelWorks processor for it to display 4:4:4 properly. Got it with about 7000 hours on it for 800$. Has burn in so minor you can't even see it in 99% of content. (This was used in a medical setting). It has essentially 0 ABL, hits 250 Cd/2 easy (And even retains that brightness in the impulse backlight mode), and has a color gamut coverage nearing Rec2020 (But no HDR support). This variant is DVI only (no big deal) and has some EDID problems when used with a PC as it wants to identify by default as 1920x1200 (Which makes the image look quite a bit worse), which can be fixed with an EDID override. And it has a little bit more latency at around 1-1.5 frames if I recall right when I tested it. The RGB OLED Panels Sony used to make are insanely high quality, and the best part to me is that they almost never suffer the vertical banding all of LG's RGBW Panels have when displaying near dark content. One can only wonder if they could've someone scaled up that production to real TV sizes. Shame I think Sony stopped actually making Professional OLEDs a few years ago.
I enjoy your videos... my thought watching this was hook it up to a PC running Retroarch and apply some high-end CRT shaders. I am happy with how they look on my 4K non-OLED display, I think an OLED even at 1080p would look fantastic with something like DrGuestVenom shaders running.
Yeah those new MiSTer shaders will look dope. I found the topic of this OLED screen to be a huge rabbit hole and this video was stuck in my own version of "production hell" for a few months. I am looking at making a follow up to address these interesting questions like yours
@@ZezRetro Yeah don't get me wrong, I have 3 CRTs in my office. But efforts to achieve the nostalgic CRT look on newer displays have also come a long way. (I find it amusing 99% of my computers horsepower is devoted to applying shaders, and 1% to actually running the underlying retro games.)
@@4h0w1e6 The shader updates from the MiSTer team lately have been nuts. When I made my previous videos about "ah come on, dont be a prude and just use a LCD monitor on a mister", back then I loved sharp pixels so much I had never used a scanline or overlay filter. Now suddenly I am in the mood, I dont know why. I think because those sharp pixels for hours playing dodonpachi were hurting my eye balls and now I like just a little smoothness in there.
@@ZezRetro Dodonpachi is phenomenal. Yes, some of the CRT effects may not be truly "authentic" but they still pleasing to the eyes. I even found one that was like a "old film" shader, with certain games it would look cool (I tried it with Carnevil and it was spot on).
It actually does look pretty amazing. Especially with the impulse backlight mode on my 1080p OLED. My particular variant's impulse backlight mode doesn't quite reach CRT levels of motion blur but it's still pretty damn good.
Wait what.I have 3 of these monitors in my basement i took them after the company I was working for shut down during COVID-19.. I know their BVM will post the model number as soon as I get to them ... excited to retro game on them ..
@ZezRetro so what I have are not a BVM there PVM ... SONY MODEL NO. PVM-A250 After watching your video I decided to install one in my arcade cabinet that had an LCD TV in it & OMG😲...that cabinet came to LIFE..Rich colors with true blacks..😍..your video was a lifesaver had no idea what I had tucked away. I own a 32inch sony kv series CRT I use for retro gaming but intend to get a Mister one day as you did. 🙏
There true RGB panel and happy wih my f250a, but your is with CIE 1931 and not Offset Judd color matching correction. This offset "Judd modified correction colour matching function" was applied from 2012 autumn shipping PVM/BVM model. For more recent you can make a custom 15.6 screen with ATNA56YX03-0
Thank you for making this video. I wished you wouldn’t report about this. The prices will remain high for these monitors. I think it’s better not to share this information right now until I have one of these monitors.
Haha, I think you over estimate the power of the "zez retro bump" I get the joke though :D I had a section on the current price of this monitor which I cut at the last minute because I realized I hadn't researched that enough. It's hard to determine because there are not that many of these monitors for sale and I reckon you would be a fool to try and buy one on ebay in the current market. This is the sort of tech you would be buying from second hand tech supplier. However, this monitor wont come down in price because it is still a very relevant monitor for production companies today, this isn't retro.
i considerd buying an oled bvm but the burn in is what keeps me away. Long gametime on a 4:3 image will deff result in burn in. There are many examples of burned-in BVM's.
All flat-screen monitors suck for retro gaming. CRTs can switch resolutions (upto their bandwidth limit). So... old low resolution games can be displayed without upscaling. All flat-screen screen monitors have to upscale the image to their native 1080p or 4k etc resolution. Upscaling degrades the image quality, losing detail, creating unsightly jaggies, lag and tearing. Even with a top external scaler old games look horrible on flat-screen displays. The best OLED looks worse than the worst CRT (in RGB).
@sonyx4500 in some ways CRTs look better for modern content too. The motion resolution on my CRT projector is significantly better than my OLED TVs. And games have a different look that's smoother and more natural.
@@Zebra66 What i also don't like on Oled is Shadow Detail. On Oled black are true blacks. But it can't display all the Gradiations from Black to Grey. Some Details are lost. Plasma and CRT have no Problem with that.
@sonyx4500 I haven't noticed that as much. I'll have to compare. I'm curious now. I did have to mess with the settings a lot though. The factory gamma was too dark for most movies. I also had to turn off the dynamic black and power saving and then turn up the oled power in movie mode. The thing that causes issues I notice is the upscaling from 1080p to 4k. It produces too much detail. Like looking at everything through a magnifying glass. You can clearly see craters on people's noses that you wouldn't even be able to see in real life. It looks unnatural. I've never seen a 4k plasma or 1080p oled in person so I don't know if they'd have the same problem.
Nah sorry, I only rented the screen for a few nights 😀 I work in live event production so I know the crews at various tech rental companies near yo where I live
