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

dang i regret throwing two crts "in the garbage" when flat screens got the hype...:( one very similar to this even
 
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Mine is sick: it will flash green for several seconds when I turn it on, and sometimes, it will stay like that, and shut itself off after a few seconds. Looks like I'll be making a trip to the dump, soon.
 
Sanford said:
Hey all
I found an FW900 for 330 I'm not sure if its worth this price or not. It's also a 2 hour drive to get it. I might be able to negotiate a little but probably not much.

My planned usage is just gaming.

Any opinions?
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first and foremost, when you go pick up the monitor, contact the seller in advance that you want to see it while its functioning. Sounds like no brainer, but many "bad buys" come from people that quicksell their fw900 at the first sign of imminent failure of the tube, capacitator or whatnot. And an eager buyer can be quickly fooled. If a seller is reluctant to let it show while working, then back off. Always keep rational look and don't let you get ripped off.

For a good idea, be at the seller for 30 minutes after letting the monitor warm up. Check if monitor is on its standard resolution of 1920x1200 at 85 hertz. Then do a color (image) restore on the monitor using the option under the button on monitor itself.

Then, you can also look at some web pages with CRT tuning images to check for color or convergence issues. If all seems ok, then do it.
With deals like this, use the biggest caution you can get, since you buy second hand product with no warranty or refunding.



p.s. To give you idea: i bought a 27 inch 2560x1440 wqhd monitor that can be overclocked to 120hz.
Nice and fancy 'n all, but i returned to my good old fw900 for gaming pretty fast.
Nottin on market beats CRT image quality yet. So if you find one in good working order, then i'd say do it.

The only thing i see competing with FW900 Pinnacle CRT rechnology in near future would be those stroboscopic LCD monitors. Theres discussion on those couple pages back.

p.p.s: Also, if you want more info on the monitor or how to fine tune it, check the guide on page 438 (or click link on Original post)
 
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Joseph F said:
Mine is sick: it will flash green for several seconds when I turn it on, and sometimes, it will stay like that, and shut itself off after a few seconds. Looks like I'll be making a trip to the dump, soon.
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Mine is on the way out too. Been flashing red on boot up for a year or more. Now it is starting to crash after warm up. It shuts off to a complete black screen with the start button light flashing yellow. I turn it back on and it runs fine for a few more minutes then crashes off again. Hate to toss it, especially if replacing a part would fix it. If anyone knows a CRT repair person in or around Seattle I'll look into it. I can't find anyone even after searching.
 
I finally went ahead and replaced my fw900 with my back up monitor, a Viewsonic P225f. It is a good 21 inch CRT, only not wide screen. Time to recycle the fw900. If I want a wide screen display I will have to move on to some kind of LCD. But wide screen would be the only upgrade because the display of the P225f is gorgeous. Vivid colors, crisp font, very inky deep black and shows all the details. And the frame is black not that ugly beige :cool:
 
Im done with FW900's. Far too heavy and I'm not a gamer or DVD movie viewer on my computer.
Both my 21" NEC FB2111SB monitors suffice - 1 white 1 black (backup monitor)
As good if not better than the FW900 except for the widescreen.
 
Zeos! How did you get 10 bit color working? I know the CRT supports it, but what kind of video card did you use? Share!!
 
spacediver said:
Zeos! How did you get 10 bit color working? I know the CRT supports it, but what kind of video card did you use? Share!!
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Ati 4890. I presume you are confused. 32bit color is what the monitor will reproduce. VIDEOS on the other hand have only recently been able to be encoded in 10-bit color with special H264 codecs.
 
My understanding is this:

10 bit color means 10 bits per channel = 1024 different levels of each of the R G B channel which means billions of colors.

32 bit color is actually 8 bit color (8 per channel = 24 bits + 8 bits for alpha channel = 32 bits).

But in order to get the benefits of 10 bit color, you need to have a vid card that supports this, a video file that's encoded in 10 bit color, a video player that supports 10 bit color, and a monitor that is capable of showing that many colors. CRTs are analogue devices, so they should have no issue supporting higher color depths.

There are also other benefits of 10 bit color from what I understand, even if you have 8 bit display/vid card, one of which is better file sizes.

But are you able to actually get 10 bit color on your vid card?? I know the geforce quadro supports it. Pretty much all other geforces support it in theory, but the drivers have that feature locked, although with linux u can use hacked drivers or something.
 
ZeosPantera said:
Ati 4890. I presume you are confused. 32bit color is what the monitor will reproduce. VIDEOS on the other hand have only recently been able to be encoded in 10-bit color with special H264 codecs.
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24-bit color is what the monitor will produce (3 color channels, 8-bits per channel). That's 16,777,216 colors.

"32-bit color" is a misnomer. The extra 8 bits come from the addition of an alpha channel, which has no effect on the three color channels that are sent to the display. You're still stuck at 16,777,216 colors.

30-bit color is what those videos are encoded in (3 color channels, 10-bits per channel). That's 1,073,000,000 colors.

As far as I know, there is no way to put the FW900 into 30-bit (Deep Color) mode. It maxes out at 24-bit (Tue Color) mode. Playing 30-bit content on a FW900 will result in it being down-sampled to 24-bit by the time you see it.
 
Unknown-One said:
As far as I know, there is no way to put the FW900 into 30-bit (Deep Color) mode. It maxes out at 24-bit (Tue Color) mode. Playing 30-bit content on a FW900 will result in it being down-sampled to 24-bit by the time you see it.
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my understanding was that so long as the video card and cable support 10 bit, the crt should be able to do it. The crt simply takes in analog signals and changes the voltage on the guns accordingly. There's no reason why, for example, the RED gun should only be able to fire 256 distinct voltages.
 
spacediver said:
There's no reason why, for example, the RED gun should only be able to fire 256 distinct voltages.
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It's not the guns or the phosphor I'm concerned with, it's the internal signal processing and mode-setting hardware within the CRT.

A straight up "dumb" analog device will work as you described. A "smarter" CRT with some actual brains in it will likely have a tendency to throw an "out of range" error if you attempt to feed it a mode it doesn't recognize.
 
Can we hold a moment of silence for my FW900? I took it down to the PC recycle today and dropped it off. I thought they would charge me a recycling fee, but they didn't. I did have to unload the monster from my truck myself and carry it inside. End of an era for me, I won't be getting another one. Still sticking with CRT however with this Viewsonic P225f. I got it off craigslist for free a few years ago. The guy couldn't sell it, not even for cheap, so I came by his place and picked it up. Except for being 4:3 I think it displays as well as the fw900. Not a thing wrong with it, looks and performs like brand new.
 
Unknown-One said:
It's not the guns or the phosphor I'm concerned with, it's the internal signal processing and mode-setting hardware within the CRT.

A straight up "dumb" analog device will work as you described. A "smarter" CRT with some actual brains in it will likely have a tendency to throw an "out of range" error if you attempt to feed it a mode it doesn't recognize.
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interesting. I've posted a question here:

http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/357262-question-about-10-bit-color

hopefully get some good responses!
 
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Why does everyone complain about the weight? I am pretty much the only crazy bastard that swaps them out every 3 months.. Unless you can't clean your desk it with out moving it, it should just sit there.. Not being heavy for you.
 
Yea I don't get the weight issue either. It's like someone with a large potted plant in their home complaining, I love my beautiful plant sitting in the living room, but it is so heavy!

It's not like you need to move them around all the time. Set it and forget it. Sometimes I would slide my 900 across the table to clean and dust but usually I just cleaned around it. But the times you do have to pick them up and move them, they are heavy!
 
PC and Monitor should not be moved all the time. Thats not the idea behind it. Thats what Notebooks are for.
 
Hi everyone! Maybee I am crazy, but I am also from the central europe (czech republic) and my only possibility was buy this baby for approx. $720,- (EUR 575,- ) after it spends many months in some dirty cellar. The guy didn´t believed that I want this huge and oldschool monster to buy from him ;-) Thanks to you guys I have removed the anti-glare film and picture is now much more sharp and clean. Wish a long life to all your babies and hope the LCD tech will die soon :D Ave S.P.Q.R. !
 
Wow 575€, has to be in good condition (i hope for you). Wish that your tube will make your eyes happy for many years.
 
Hey Myramond, thank you! I hope too, but today it is four months since I have turn it on first time and it is better and better. And now after the anti-glare film is removed, the Picture condition, sharpness, colors and lines are amaizing, very nice and clean, without any signs of any sneaking trouble...hopefully ;)
And I have to say again, it is the BEST viewing device for computers at all!!!
Take care mates!
 
I have a working HP A7217A to get rid of in San Francisco Bay Area. I am in San Francisco actually and only available for local pick up. Please PM me if interested..
 
Hi everyone, long time reader of this thread first time poster. I have 3 FW900's two of which work flawlessly.

The issue I have that finally changed me from an unregistered lurker to a poster, is newer video cards, and lack thereof analog output options. I built a new PC a few months back and overlooked the need to check the display outputs on the card. I bought a Sapphire 7970 Ghz edition; It has a standard DVI-I dual link output (which at the moment drives my primary FW900), a DVI-D output, 2xMiniDisplay ports, and an HDMI output.

I don't think its possible to connect a second FW900, considering all of the outputs are digital. The only solutions seems to be the lousy "active adapters", which are limited to 1920*1200@60HZ at the max from my understanding. I miss running multiple FW900s. Does anyone have any idea of how to get an FW900 working with digital outputs?
 
To A7217A - sorry, there is no other way, than use some active device. The problem with the DVI-D is, that this connector is not sending any of the analog signal, so your analog monitor getting no signal from your video card. I would recommend you to buy another video card, where you will be able to connect these two babies, because the only other thing is to buy some fu*kin LCD crap...and it´s really not the right way, don´t you think?? :)
 
You could buy an graphicscard with two DVI-I, which i think doesent exist. Or you could make an Crossfire/SLI system. Or active adapters.
Maybe there are some who can provide more than 60hz. I never searched for it because i dont need one.
 
Thanks for the replies. Damn, it looks like I'll be stuck running a single monitor until I find a cheaper 7970 to crossfire with. And maarty.88, of course its not the right way, LCDs are people who don't own FW900s.

If anyone has any luck at all with active adapters running @85hz, be sure to post about it.
 
Something weird going on with my SGI FW900. Since I took it out of storage every other day of use, every other 2 minutes for 30 seconds or so the screen image goes into a subtle but noticeable shaking across the whole screen.

It is kind of like the effect you get running a fan too close to the screen. The rapid warping of the image 1/64 of an inch horizontally. Since I don't have any fans near-by and the setup hasn't changed much what could cause this internally? Could it be video card related? Is my power cable near something? Why is it random?
 
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