24" Widescreen CRT (FW900) From Ebay arrived,Comments.

good luck with your pvm's , havent seen one in my life, but after reading a bit more about those, seems are very good for retro games and consoles specialy from a resolution picture quality perspective.
For retro consoler/computers PVM monitior is must have.
I own two 14E2 and they have what I would call perfect colors - dark EBU phosphors which are almost like sRGB and maximum luminance is crazy high. Also have 16:9 mode and under-scan mode. They support PAL, NTSC and even SECAM. As far as connection go they have Composite, S-Video, RGB and Component 😎
 
EBU/PAL colors are almost identical to Rec.709 with red and blue primaries having the same xy coordinates in xyY space and green being slightly more saturated by 0.01 point in y coordinate in PAL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RGB_color_space
This makes all PAL content intrinsically compatible with Rec.709 displays and by extension sRGB with basically no color/gamut correction required.
PAL was also higher resolution than NTSC. It of course flickered at 50Hz so when someone was used to NTSC TV it could be quite noticeable for a while until brain also started flickering at 50Hz 😅

NTSC on the other hand is based on SMPTE C phosphors and have smaller gamut. GDM-FW900 has SMPTE C gamut and when displaying PAL/Rec.709 colors need to be corrected to be accurate (of course colors outside it's gamut will be clipped)
Actually originally NTSC was defined to have much larger gamut but it was found out that by reducing gamut they can make brighter TV sets and somehow this SMPTE C formula got adopted in broadcast standard.

EDIT://
Olympus OEV-143 looks very similar to my PVM's
They did however make few different models with different tubes eg. 14E2 from what I know had darker phosphors (better contrast) than 14E4 but latter could do more lines. I think EU monitors generally had EBU phosphors while in US and Japan Sony used SMPTE C but I am not 100% sure of that. I also do not know if these monitors do any color correction for Y/C based sources (Composite/S-Video). I only know that normal European TV is not able to display NTSC with color at all. They are pretty much all able to display 240p/480p video, just in black and white with no v-hold adjustment needed.
In Europe we used RGB connection for consoles such as Playstation 1/2 and 240p/480p was preferred because of higher refresh rate and no resolution increase in PAL in games.
 
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Finally got one.
68$, but the black levels are toast.
Basically - the blacker the image, the "whiter" (and greener) the black level is. Does this sound like a G2 drift issue?
I'm obv going to calibrate it via windas, but just wanted to know what can I expect, if this is fixable or not without going as deep as cap swaps.

BTW, the biases are set up to 0 in the custom color preset menu. On another profiles the dark colors are even worse.
 
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Hi guys and so glad to have found this place - I'm the happy owner of a Sony CPD-G500 with a very strong case of G2 and color drift. I have all the required setup, have already been able to connect to the screen and lower the G2 voltage with WinDAS and was able to recover from the greenish black tint, but still I would like to undergo a proper WPB using spacediver's tutorial (got a i1DPro) but got a few questions before doing so:

- I have very limited technical knowledge about CRT and electronics in general, and before I undergo this whole process I'm quite concerned my screen is a ticking bomb with a worse problem. Spacediver says "Follow the instructions, using a tape measure. Be sure to measure carefully to avoid parallax errors. Ideally, you'll have already performed a geometry and convergence adjustment prior to a WPB, so you may not need to adjust anything." and this is where I'm concerned, as my geometry is all off and I feel like the screen is acting really weird. Using the "auto" feature to somewhat have the picture resized after a resolution change, it's stupidly off. Like half of the screen outside of the viewing areas, distorted corners and absolutely 0 parallels. It's like the beam has completely messed up boundaries. Going into higher resolutions and refresh rates, things seems to get worse, with extremely "round" corners/distorted fisheye effects. Playing with the geometry controls I spend a stupid amount of time trying to get it right and can somewhat manage it, but even then I'm starting from such a weird picture that achieving perfectly straight lines at the edges and proper corners is almost impossible. Once it's set, it's looking pretty alright though...but sometimes switching between resolutions it's like my previous settings are lost and I have to adjust again (and here again, not a simple fine-tuning, I mean a "play with all geometry controls for 10 minutes" kind of job).

Basically should I be concerned of a hardware failure waiting to happen, and/or are there guides I should follow prior to the WPB?

- Spacediver also says " Make sure your display is running in prime mode (1920x1200 @ 85z) " which obviously applies to the GDM-FW900. My screen is 4:3 and while it supports that resolution it's probably not the most relevant. What does "prime mode" mean in that context and am I right to assume 1600x1200@85 would be it for my screen? As all patterns provided are in the 1920x1200 format, should I just resize them to 1600x1200 with my image editor of choice, or will I break proper ratio for geometry doing so, and I should do differently?

Thank you so much in advance for your help and knowledge, I'm very fond of this screen and truly hope I can give it a new (long) life.

Cheers!
 
Hi guys and so glad to have found this place - I'm the happy owner of a Sony CPD-G500 with a very strong case of G2 and color drift. I have all the required setup, have already been able to connect to the screen and lower the G2 voltage with WinDAS and was able to recover from the greenish black tint, but still I would like to undergo a proper WPB using spacediver's tutorial (got a i1DPro) but got a few questions before doing so:

- I have very limited technical knowledge about CRT and electronics in general, and before I undergo this whole process I'm quite concerned my screen is a ticking bomb with a worse problem. Spacediver says "Follow the instructions, using a tape measure. Be sure to measure carefully to avoid parallax errors. Ideally, you'll have already performed a geometry and convergence adjustment prior to a WPB, so you may not need to adjust anything." and this is where I'm concerned, as my geometry is all off and I feel like the screen is acting really weird. Using the "auto" feature to somewhat have the picture resized after a resolution change, it's stupidly off. Like half of the screen outside of the viewing areas, distorted corners and absolutely 0 parallels. It's like the beam has completely messed up boundaries. Going into higher resolutions and refresh rates, things seems to get worse, with extremely "round" corners/distorted fisheye effects. Playing with the geometry controls I spend a stupid amount of time trying to get it right and can somewhat manage it, but even then I'm starting from such a weird picture that achieving perfectly straight lines at the edges and proper corners is almost impossible. Once it's set, it's looking pretty alright though...but sometimes switching between resolutions it's like my previous settings are lost and I have to adjust again (and here again, not a simple fine-tuning, I mean a "play with all geometry controls for 10 minutes" kind of job).

Basically should I be concerned of a hardware failure waiting to happen, and/or are there guides I should follow prior to the WPB?
What you're describing sounds very similar to the artifacts of an old HDMI to VGA adapter I used a few weeks ago. After getting a newer and simpler HDMI to VGA adapter that doesn't require its own seperate power, the artifacts completely went away. Also, geometry problems seem to be universal among adapters. I could only get my CRT to automatically resize per resolution perfectly with the analog vga output of my old Sony VAIO laptop. I have to manually resize per set resolution dimensions with my converters.
So, are you using a displayport to VGA, HDMI to VGA, or any other digital port to analog port converter?
 
Digital analog adapters shouldn't really cause geometry issues because they are pretty dumb and just convert digital stream directly to analog voltage changes.
What affects CRT geometry however are blanking times or saying differently exact video modes. CRT's need quite a lot blanking. 1920x1080p mode which might be pre-programmed on such converters will have geometry issues as it has too little blanking. 720p is usually fine.
 
The auto size function on the Sony monitors often doesn't work well, there's nothing to worry about as long as it's only the display area being "too small" or "too big".

XoR is right, due to the nature of the signal itself it would be quite surprising to have the geometry of the display modified by an adapter.
 
Thanks for the answers guys! The screen is directly hooked up via VGA to my Voodoo3 in my P3 config, no adapter at play there.

So, no recommended geometry (or other) guide I could do before doing the WPB to get the most out of the screen or make sure nothing is wrong?
Guess I'll just try a WPB and see what happens then. Will build experience this way and I understood it was an iterative process by nature ;)
 
It's definitively a case of G2/color drift. Just perform a white point balance procedure and it'll probably be like new.
I've managed to successfully hook up to the monitor with a CP2102 usb-serial adapter after registering the msflxgrd.ocx file and setting the compartibility to win95 in the windas.exe properties.
I have not managed to get it working through VM with serial port/usb passthrough.

G2 hex edit did the trick, but it still needs a lot of white point adjustments. Will try today.
 
XoR is right, due to the nature of the signal itself it would be quite surprising to have the geometry of the display modified by an adapter.
Well, I guess I have more incentive to work on a video previously planned to be about adapter artifacts P:
I feel like it could be handy for a lot of people with bad adapters- I definitely didn't expect the artifacts I saw to be from the adapter and not something wrong with the CRT itself.
 
I've managed to successfully hook up to the monitor with a CP2102 usb-serial adapter after registering the msflxgrd.ocx file and setting the compartibility to win95 in the windas.exe properties.
I have not managed to get it working through VM with serial port/usb passthrough.

G2 hex edit did the trick, but it still needs a lot of white point adjustments. Will try today.
G2 Hex edit is rubbish, don't use that ugly trick. There are other values related to brightness limitations set in background according to the G2 when the procedure is followed correctly. You DON'T have them properly set when done manually.

What you need to do is the full white point balance procedure, with a colorimeter. That'll fix color drift at the same time.
 
I tried to follow the full set of windas calibration tools but I'm getting regular errors and disconnections making the whole process tedious...I'm using a Prolific serial adapter directly connected to a HP laptop running WinXP SP3 (tried several OSes and that was by far the most stable) but still, following the full set of calibration tools in windas is a real pain. In the middle of a calibration job it will start reporting not being able to connect to the monitor, which is easily fixed by disconnecting and reconnecting the USB adapter, but the process is still fubar and you have to start it over. Extremely annoying. What is you guys experience with that and any tips to make it more stable? Cheers
 
I tried to follow the full set of windas calibration tools but I'm getting regular errors and disconnections making the whole process tedious...I'm using a Prolific serial adapter directly connected to a HP laptop running WinXP SP3 (tried several OSes and that was by far the most stable) but still, following the full set of calibration tools in windas is a real pain. In the middle of a calibration job it will start reporting not being able to connect to the monitor, which is easily fixed by disconnecting and reconnecting the USB adapter, but the process is still fubar and you have to start it over. Extremely annoying. What is you guys experience with that and any tips to make it more stable? Cheers

I've never experienced that issue. Wonder if you've got a botched copy of WinDAS, or whether the connection is loose.
 
Or the adapter is garbage or has bad drivers. Anyway this is not a normal behaviour.

By the way I use Windas with Windows 7, I've never had any issue. XP isn't mandatory at all. ;)
 
G2 Hex edit is rubbish, don't use that ugly trick. There are other values related to brightness limitations set in background according to the G2 when the procedure is followed correctly. You DON'T have them properly set when done manually.

What you need to do is the full white point balance procedure, with a colorimeter. That'll fix color drift at the same time.
So.. I'm trying to to the WPB adjustment right now, and the damn thing keeps shutting down with two-times blinking LED. The "failure" menu in the windas says it's an OVP - overvoltage protection?
Seems like something is bad either on the monitor boards (caps?), or the tube is just so badly worn out. I could hardly believe it's the tube as it has no scratches at all, does not seem like the monitor had a lot of hours

The monitor shuts down on the next step after the cutoff max adjustment, the minumum brightness I could get there is 22 cd/m2.
 
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never said XP is mandatory, just that after trying several computers that's the only OS where I could steadily get a connection with WinDAS and therefore used it :) Just my experience and I have no problem installing/trying anything else!

Saving or loading a .dat file will usually take 2-3 tries to complete. Today I went into the "Procedure" menu in WinDAS and started following the different config jobs, and at some point the program started complaining about the connection, so I had to cancel it as once it happens it seems to be impossible to properly recover.
My USB-Serial adapter looks like PL2303 and uses its drivers. As for WinDAS, I got the usual "windas (XP ONLY).zip" we can find in many places, it reports v1.690.126 when I run it.

I'll probably have to try another computer as next step, but happy to get any advice/experience, and will take some pictures tomorrow. Thanks for the help!
 
So.. I'm trying to to the WPB adjustment right now, and the damn thing keeps shutting down with two-times blinking LED. The "failure" menu in the windas says it's an OVP - overvoltage protection?
Seems like something is bad either on the monitor boards (caps?), or the tube is just so badly worn out. I could hardly believe it's the tube as it has no scratches at all, does not seem like the monitor had a lot of hours

The monitor shuts down on the next step after the cutoff max adjustment, the minumum brightness I could get there is 22 cd/m2.

So what you're saying is, you're starting ABOVE what the target is and are trying to LOWER your cutoff to match, and on the way it says "nope!" And shuts down? Just trying to get an understanding of what's going on.
 
So what you're saying is, you're starting ABOVE what the target is and are trying to LOWER your cutoff to match, and on the way it says "nope!" And shuts down? Just trying to get an understanding of what's going on.
Basically B_BKG_B_MAX is so high by default that I need to turn it all the way down to 0 and turn the R and C to ~200. I'm using the full black test pattern for that step.
Doing so makes the monitor too bright at the next step so it loses focus and after like 3-5 seconds it turns off.
The problem lies in the fact that the green level is very high.

Edit. The green G_BKG_B_MAX slider does not affect anything at all until its set to 180. Lower than that - color balance is still too green, but the green level does not lower if I lower the slider.
 
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Basacally B_BKG_B_MAX is so high by default that I need to turn it all the way down to 0 and turn the R and C to ~200. I'm using the full black test pattern for that step.
Doing to makes the monitor too bright at the next step so it loses focus and after like 3-5 seconds it turns off.
The problem lies in the fact that the green level is very high.

The green G_BKG_B_MAX slider doe not affect anything at all until its set to 180. Lower than that - color balance is still too green, but the green level does not lower if I lower the slider.
I had something like this happen when I tried to do another WPB on Windows 10 recently. Decided not to mess with it and reverted to the previous .dat backup, and did image restoration instead. Picture is still excellent. The times I did do it successfully were on Windows 7 using whatever .dll you needed to register and compatibility mode for Windows XP SP2. I also had the room super dark like spacediver recommended in the guide. So a few variables were off there along with the difference of maybe a few hundred hours on the set. No solution for ya but there's some more info. This was an FW900 by the way, not sure which one you're using. If the G2 fix works for now I would hold off until you can find a decent solution where your monitor isn't shutting down. Mine never did but it hit the ABL and was overbright. So I don't know what the issue is exactly here.
 
If the G2 fix works for now I would hold off until you can find a decent solution where your monitor isn't shutting down. Mine never did but it hit the ABL and was overbright. So I don't know what the issue is exactly here.
It's an FW900.
About the colors - it's just a bit less bad looking with G2 hex edit. Not really usable, especially when compared to my calibrated 22b4's.
I've just found a couple of ideas I think I should check on this FW900. 1 and 2.
I'll give it a couple of days to discharge. Hopefully I will try to check on that board mentioned in the first link on the weekend.
 
It's an FW900.
About the colors - it's just a bit less bad looking with G2 hex edit. Not really usable, especially when compared to my calibrated 22b4's.
I've just found a couple of ideas I think I should check on this FW900. 1 and 2.
I'll give it a couple of days to discharge. Hopefully I will try to check on that board mentioned in the first link on the weekend.
Looking for bad solders can't do any harm and it might be the issue indeed. Regarding shorting Q401, it won't fix anything unless the transistor failed (not impossible but very unlikely).

Things to check first though:
1°) when you used Windas, did you make sure to select the profile matching exactly your screen model ?
2°) Try to reset the settings of the monitor to defaults before getting into Windas for WPB (of course, if you didn't do it previously save your original settings with Windas before doing anything). This reset can be done holding the reset button of the monitor for several seconds. That will erase every resolution profile and anything possibly weird stored in the monitor's memory.
3°) You might have a messed up version of Windas (that may be true for Boohyaka as well). Here is mine: https://1fichier.com/?mdshjk98vghjmoqgge9n
It's a bit of a mess as the guy who sent it to me duplicated everything several times and didn't bother to clean this up but it works perfectly.
Just unzip somewhere, execute the .bat in the activeX folder, copy MSFLXGRD.OCX to windows/system32 AND windows/sysWOW64 if you're on a 64bit system. Then execute Windas.exe, set the Config (SG Name -> Manual, select the correct COM port) and Model Sel.
 
3°) You might have a messed up version of Windas (that may be true for Boohyaka as well). Here is mine: https://1fichier.com/?mdshjk98vghjmoqgge9n

well, I must admit I was really doubtful it would make a difference but downloaded your WinDAS archive and ran the windas.exe at the root (it's pretty messy, there are like 4 different installs in different folders and subfolders :D) and to my surprise it's been super stable, didn't have a single occurrence of the connection issues I used to have all the time! Looking good, thank you very much :)

what's you guys experience and/or opinion with the various calibration procedures? Would it be worth to try and do them all, does it even make sense? I'm asking for example in regards to the different alignment procedures...

- Alignment at VDC Mode
- Alignment at Max Frequency
- Alignment at Mid Frequency
- Alignment at Min Frequency
- Prime mode Adjustment

Alignment at VDC Mode and Max Frequency I've been through, and it's pretty easy as the "Manual SG Parameters" timings and resolution it requests are perfectly correct out of the box when I set my screen to 1600x1200@85 and check timings with PowerStrip.
Mid Frequency it requests a 1600x900 resolution that my Voodoo3 doesn't support. So I switched to a GeForce4 I had laying around, and it does support it, but the timings requested by WinDAS are different than those reported by PowerStrip...I am not sure how important it is. Does it have to be 100% perfect or is "close enough" good enough? Does it even make sense to calibrate the screen on that weird resolution I'll never use?

Also I have a convergence issue in the top right and bottom right corners, but my CPD-G500 apparently doesn't support DCnv (greyed out), and the convergence controls are only horizontal, vertical, top, bottom. Problem is that with those controls, I can only "fix" the convergence by making it worse on the other side, or make it average on both sides...not ideal.
As usual thanks for any help or insight :)
 
well, I must admit I was really doubtful it would make a difference but downloaded your WinDAS archive and ran the windas.exe at the root (it's pretty messy, there are like 4 different installs in different folders and subfolders :D) and to my surprise it's been super stable, didn't have a single occurrence of the connection issues I used to have all the time! Looking good, thank you very much :)
Glad this helped ! :)
what's you guys experience and/or opinion with the various calibration procedures? Would it be worth to try and do them all, does it even make sense? I'm asking for example in regards to the different alignment procedures...

- Alignment at VDC Mode
- Alignment at Max Frequency
- Alignment at Mid Frequency
- Alignment at Min Frequency
- Prime mode Adjustment

Alignment at VDC Mode and Max Frequency I've been through, and it's pretty easy as the "Manual SG Parameters" timings and resolution it requests are perfectly correct out of the box when I set my screen to 1600x1200@85 and check timings with PowerStrip.
Mid Frequency it requests a 1600x900 resolution that my Voodoo3 doesn't support. So I switched to a GeForce4 I had laying around, and it does support it, but the timings requested by WinDAS are different than those reported by PowerStrip...I am not sure how important it is. Does it have to be 100% perfect or is "close enough" good enough? Does it even make sense to calibrate the screen on that weird resolution I'll never use?
If you do one of these, you have to do all of them, and in the correct order. You also have to display the exact resolution requested.

This is intended to set the geometry when the monitor is brand new or after any change regarding the tube/electronics that may affect geometry. If there is no obvious geometry issue you can't fix with the OSD, it's not worth doing it, especially as it's a real pain in the ass to make properly.

Also I have a convergence issue in the top right and bottom right corners, but my CPD-G500 apparently doesn't support DCnv (greyed out), and the convergence controls are only horizontal, vertical, top, bottom. Problem is that with those controls, I can only "fix" the convergence by making it worse on the other side, or make it average on both sides...not ideal.
As usual thanks for any help or insight :)
I'm not completely sure of what your convergence issue is (a picture would make things much clearer), but if this is what I think this is, that might be fixed only by moving the deflection yoke (the big coil which is the closest to the front of the tube, it is held in place by 4 rubber wedges stuck with silicone) or moving/adding magnetic strips. IF this can be fixed. Are all these still properly attached ?
I wouldn't advise to touch that unless you know exactly what you're doing, that can become quite a nightmare to set. And you're likely to have to perform all the geometry/convergence procedures in Windas after that.
 
Allright, that's kinda the answer I expected and I don't think the effort/risk/benefit ratio is favorable, when you take in account I only have a very basic idea of what I'm doing anyway. I'll leave that stuff as it is and will focus on a proper WPB :)
 
Flybye , also mine, feeling nostalgic right now, reminds me my similar first gaming pc: pentium 3 733mhz, voodoo 5 5500 agp 64mb, 256bm ram......on a (dont remember its brand) about 14 inch 800x600 60hz crt, playing half life1 at constant 60fps with life like motion clarity was simply magic and inmersive, its the first 3d game i remember being played that way on a home system (before that, daytona usa arcade was the first 3d game i remember i saw running at 60fps crt which motion felt as real as real life, was an amazing experience for me and was the game that sucked me in on the amazing crt life like, bright vivid color motion quality love.)
 
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My first PC gaming experiences were not that vivid in color. IBM XT with monochrome graphics playing such games as PT-109, Falcon, etc. Yes, things eventually got more colorful! If we started listing all of our gaming rigs, this thread will seriously derail itself into another continent. :woot:

So a few things:
I picked up a used version of this:
Atlona AT-HD420
https://atlona.com/product/at-hd420/

It looks beefy and industrial! Maybe the insides are such as great. Big fat nope and an even larger disappointment. The thing barely even pushes 245Mhz pixel clock. It pretty much stays true to its specs.
I cracked it open to view the chipset:
Nuvoton W78E065A40PL. It also has Silicon Image SIL9013CLU.


Why would BNC cables be advertised with a resolution limit? I purchased what looks like a quality cable advertised as "Maximum Resolution 1080P." My last cable lost signal on one of the colors. I thought it was silly to only put 1080P on the packaging. Tested for a few hours, and of course it works fine at 2304 x 1440.
 
1°) when you used Windas, did you make sure to select the profile matching exactly your screen model ?
2°) Try to reset the settings of the monitor to defaults before getting into Windas for WPB (of course, if you didn't do it previously save your original settings with Windas before doing anything). This reset can be done holding the reset button of the monitor for several seconds. That will erase every resolution profile and anything possibly weird stored in the monitor's memory.
Thanks again for the tips, but none worked.

Close inspectation of the A-board revealed some missing components and some kind of a hack job.
IMG_20200806_174036.jpgIMG_20200806_174334.jpgIMG_20200806_174329.jpg
 
Looks as if this is somewhat on topic: I have a fw900 im running directly DVI-I -> BNC via a gtx 970. I also have a 1080 and will be upgrading again soon to RTX, but currently the 1080 sits in closet as it didnt output to my fw900.

my question is if getting an adapter is worth using coupled w a more powerful modern gpu, or if I should look for a 980ti for my fw900 as its the last nvidia that supported dvi-i analog. I get around 120-150 fps stable running at 160hz, but sacrifice a lot of gfx options to do so.

Are there adapters which support analog refresh rates up to 160hz and if so, do they introduce input lag? Thanks!
 
Thanks again for the tips, but none worked.

Close inspectation of the A-board revealed some missing components and some kind of a hack job.
The only missing component is R463 and seems to have been replaced by that red resistor. Given the ugly job I'd be more worried about tracks broken in the vicinity of the pads meant for R463, or C436 being cracked . Who is seriously stupid enough to solder a through-hole component on a fragile populated SMD pad, when there is an unused hole connected to the very same track right next ?! :wtf:

What's the value of that red resistor ? 100 kOhm or something different ?
 
It's a 120kOhm resistor, the manual says 100kOhm, so that could be a part of the issue
Indeed, that and the SMD capacitor C436, on the picture it looks like it's soldered on one end but lost its metal coating on the other end (in other words, if this is really the case it's dead).
 
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