In this video, I'll be talking about the newest edition to my video game set up. The Sony PVM 20L5 is a great way to play your retro consoles, like they were intended to be played.
Hey thanks a lot! I do these videos for the sake of simplicity and to make sure all grounds are covered to show people how good retro gaming can look on these monitors. I will say that the camera on my phone does not do the image justice. It's really something you have to see in person to fully appreciate.
I just purchased a monitor like this. It's going to arrive in the mail tomorrow, so I'm watching your video to reduce or increase the level of anxiety,
@tvdetubo240p, IMO, if you could only own one CRT, this is the one. Multiformat, high TVLs, nice design aesthetics, good screen size, easily moveable by one person, less finicky than a BVM...it's easy to gush over. Enjoy it man!
Cool video and thanks for showing. Planning to hunt down a Japanese variant (D20L5J) of this monitor myself, this video just made me more motivated to do so! :D
Super Gangu awesome! I'm glad I've inspired you to get your hands on one of these! Any particular reason why you're looking for the Japanese version rather than the American version?
Great video, watched it all the way through. There’s a PVM for sale about an hour north of me but it’s a pretty big plunge. You’ve got the setup with the SCART and RGB cables. I don’t know too much about that yet. I did get a 36” Trinitron XBR from a co worker for free. You want to talk about size? Lol, took 3 men to move up stairs and into my truck.
If you're considering buying this, I would look out for a few things such as cosmetic conditions, especially with the screen like scratches and cracks. It would also behooves the seller to make sure to have pictures of the PVM turned on, and displaying some sort of test pattern, such as the SMPTE color bars. If you're interested in learning more about SCART and RGB cables, here's a great place to start looking for information: retrorgb.com/rgbguide.html And trust me, I know what lifting a behemoth of a monitor is like. I recently moved and lugged a BVM D24 up three flights of stairs into my new place. The things we do for retro gaming haha!
It would, but the bigger PVMs have a lower line count than the 20L5. Still, the lower line count PVM would probably be sharper than any CRT of its size.
Juan Salazar yeah I was thinking the same thing too. I even went ahead and looked at the manual and saw that it doesn't list 240p as a source it accepts, but as you see here in my video, you know that's not true lol.
So there's a little story behind these. The original seller was located in Australia, but refused to ship internationally. So someone from RetroFixes was nice enough to by the entire lot and sell them at their store. Due to high demand for these, unfortunately they sold out immediately. I believe these are no longer in production either. Whether you were going to ask or not, the one I have in this video is NFS/NFT. :)
The scan lines are directly proportional to TV Lines/monitor size. An high Tv lines specs, provide a more dense horizontal resolution. So low TV lines monitor provide a softer image. A good trade off IMO can be 20” ~500 TV lines.
This depends on how sharp you want your image. A 20L5 displays an 800 line count when in 4:3 aspect ratio. A consumer grade TV with a line count of 500 is fine.
Thats true but if you don’t have enough vertical resolution, like in 240p, the scan lines became to much sharp for me. Off course if you connect a PS3 on SDI you have a nice sharp image.
With regards to your aging ps2, you can calibrate the laser in it to keep playing games, and if it burns out altogether, some companies make replacement lasers since a lot of the world is still using that generation of consoles. What's a decent price for the PVM? How much is too much?
I'll have to give that a try once the laser goes bad. Considering how cheap the consoles are, I might just cave in and buy a good used one. This PVM in today's market goes for around $1,000.00. I think paying anything over $1,000.00 for this monitor is too much.
There's a guy in the US called SuperG. Here's his website: www.gretrostuff.com/store/pre-order-gscartsw_lite/ His stock usually sells out, but you can follow his ordering and shipping progress here: shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=50851&hilit=gscartsw And lastly, you can watch my review on the gscartsw here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Px-WjF1xEgA.html
Good day, was hoping you could send me a pile of your numbers in the service menu/adv. settings. Just got my SCART to BNC cable today and did a factory reset to start from scratch but have just been blown away by the number of settings and numbers to calibrate.
If you can give me a specific list of what settings you need values for, I can try and help. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you're going to need. I'd refer to the PVM manual and get the settings you think you'll need values for from that.
I really like the button locations on this monitor. It's probably my favorite thing about it other than the amazing specs. I'm surprised that my Sony PVM 20M4U matches the 800 TV lines on this.
On this video i'm not sure if it's the video compression but it looks like the sonic 2 background's trees and objects bulge in the middle of the screen kind of like a fun house mirror almost, this happens on my 28 inch widescreen consumer trinitron and I have no idea why 😖 it might just be youtubes poor aspect changing though
It's the video compression and my recording device. At the time, I used an iPhone 7 to record this video. Can't really do much about it lol. Goes without saying that nothing can truly capture the video quality while looking at a 20L5 in person.
Keep looking. They will pop up, but be ready to pay a good amount of money for these. Popularity has increased demand, and that demand has increased the price dramatically.
samysnes thanks for the info. I was at a loss as to why it does that. Honestly, as long as it accepts the resolution, I could care less what it says lol
Dyslectric Totally! It's just a little odd that the monitor doesn't tell you when it is "tricking" the image to display 240p. You gotta judge it by eye.
It's called a GSCARTSW. Just type it in Google and you should see them for sale. You should know that the version I have with the VGA output is no longer being made. Only models made are the 2 SCART output ones with SoG support.
619taken That's a good question. Remember how I mentioned that PVMs are made for professional use only? Well, when video games were made back then, they only filled up the video with what the consumer will see. Consumer television would not be able to see the outside borders because their field of vision didn't allow them to. The bars on both sides are called "overscan". These bars will either be colored in black, or some color of the background. Think of overscan as unused pixels. They have to be there in accordance to resolution sizes, but you don't need to use them because the developer doesn't need that extra space.
The 9 pin "VGA" serial port in the back is not for an incoming video signal. Sadly, this port would only be used to control the menu from a computer. In a perfect world, VGA input on a PVM would be nice though lol.
Absolutely! Considering most of the games for PS2 are displayed in 480i, the 4:3 ratio of this monitor fits perfectly for those games. In the case that your set up doesn't have SCART, this monitor will also take in component for you to take advantage of 480p content.
Although I can't give a direct answer as to why my TV shows scan lines in 480i, I can say that in 480p, all the lines are used up. I suppose the amount of blank stripes and colored stripes are the same, alternating back and forth, giving that slight shaky look, which gives the illusion of scan lines.
Not necessarily. Although my iPhone isn't professional grade by any means, it still picks up all the lines seen on a monitor. To prove that, you can see the Gamecube playing Smash Bros. with no scan lines. The game is playing in 480p. When a signal is in 480i, viewing this monitor up close in person you can still see every other line skipped. Remember that there's a flickering happening very fast, so the scan lines appear because of the flickering of solid and blank lines back and forth.
That's what I was talking about, your iphone will see progressive scan fine but will record interlaced kinda wonky but fundamentally the same as our eyes.
240p is 480i with scan lines. no CRT TV ever supported multiple resolutions like your PVM does. they all operate at fixed KHz frequencies that dictate their output resolution which was always 480i (15khz) for standard def or 720p (45khz) for high def. 240p is the video game console developers' way of tricking televisions into seeing a 480i signal while having a solid progressive image. multiformat monitors actually change frequencies to fit the resolution natively, but it still sees the 480i that the console is telling it to see.
That all makes sense. A bit off topic, but I believe the resolution for broadcast standards in the US for a long time was 480i, so seeing how CRT display 480i content regularly is understandable.
its so hard to get PVMs in Germany or in EU in general. Firstly there is the language barrier and the import taxes. Secondly "our native brands" arent on the market anymore but the name's still in use. So there are only Sony PVMs and Olympus. No one talks about other brands because I think most people who talk about these are Americans and Brits + the only way to get these with some trust is ebay :( I think I want a Olympus OEV 143 or Sony 20M2MDE .... can als be the 20 or 14 inch version.
That's true. I think over the past few years PVMs and BVMs have been a bit more accessible. There are Facebook groups and follow Reddit forums to see if you can find one. If you're looking for a European brand of High End CRTs, I think Barco makes some nice monitors. Not sure if they're PVM or BVM quality, but I've only heard good things about them.
Epos! Neat seeing you here! Be warned, these PVMs are quite expensive and while they may look good, they do take up a lot of space and unless you really use them, you will regret your purchase! Other than that though, pretty good stuff. Just, for the love of god, please don't make a video on them or your viewers could eat up what's left of the remaining ones on ebay.
Lol, I have a 24 inch, 27 inch, and a 14 inch regular crt. I have a pvm, a 20 incher and a bvm, a 14 incher. I have always been interested in hd crts but their lack of 480i support is a deal breaker if there ever was one. I'm thinking of selling my pvms because I just don't care enough for the picture. They're just so hard to sell though. You have to wait around a month for someone to buy them and then the packaging is hell. Love your vids btw.
Email some TV studios, post-production businesses, video editing and film studios if you want one of these. I got my 20L5 and 14M2U for free this way :)
Thanks for the heads up! I plan on doing this sometime down the road when I have a bit of extra cash, in case these places want to sell some sort of lot.
The image gets a little darker when it display content at 480p and above. I have no idea why it does this, but a brightness adjustment should fix this issue.
@@RideRedRacer I usually bump the brightness up by +10 when I'm doing 480p content on mine. I'm guessing the faster electron beam scan just means the lower density of electrons hitting the phosphors wasn't taken into account by Sony so they need a little bit of a nudge. Not too mention they have the anti glare film on the glass which cuts down the brightness as well, most people remove the film if it gets scratched
