Ultimate monitor for Amiga?

[Pyromania]

What's the ultimate monitor for the Amiga in 15Khz mode? I'm looking to get one and why not hunt down the best one?

[Lord Aga]

CRT or LCD?

[Hewitson]

Sony Trinitron WEGA CRT.

[theq]

This is a pretty subjective question.

Personally I use a BenQ BL912 (19" with DVI and VGA input) and a BenQ BL702A (17" with only VGA input). I find the BenQ BL912 quite awesome. These are obviously both LED monitors.
For CRT, I'm looking for a Commodore 1942 myself (or a black 1084S).
Only reason I see using a CRT would be to get the scanlines. If you don't care about scanlines then choose a LCD/LED.
For TV, a Sony Trinitron.

[dreadnought]

You can get scanlines with shaders. But even the best shaders won't replicate exactly the CRT look, althought they did get quite close in the recent years.
If you don't even use shaders, the gfx on even the best modern panel will look much more inferior to the CRT, at least in games / demos. Then there's the zero-lag factor too.

Problem with CRTs is that these days it's relatively hard to score one which does not have some serious flaws, due to old age or mishandling. So yes, Trinitrons might have been the best, back in the day, but 20-30 years later it's about finding a unit with decent IQ.

[Kin Hell]

LCD does not scroll as smoothly as a more traditional CRT would.

Particularly noticeable when playing games like Pinball Fantasies etc.

CRT all the way if you want the best, but as already mentioned, age of technology makes most of them expired already.

[emuola]

Sony BVM20F1E. If you love scan lines, that's the way to go. Sure, they cost and all that, but worth every penny. Naturally when talking about old CRTs in general, your mileage may vary. With professional broadcast monitors, you can check the number of hours the monitor has been used. Sony's own service instructions tell you to replace the tube after 100000 hours. There are plenty of BVMs out there with as little as ~15000 hours, so you should have *plenty* of time to run that baby still

[dreadnought]

Sorry, but PVM/BVM prices are completely ridiculous at the moment, and will only get worse. They're also not worth it at all, when you look at price vs quality difference, which is not that big compared to a decent consumer set. It's just all thanks to the crazy internet hype factor. Hell, these days even 14" Trinitrons start at 100 quid on UK ebay .

I'd rather just hunt down a non-problematic TV set (might take a few tries but these are mostle dirt cheap/free) or get a Commodore monitor.

Failing that, you can get an OSSC and a VGA monitor, or even rig it to a flat panel so then at least you have the scanlines.

It's a shame that OLED tech is still burn-in prone, combined with scanline solution it could possibly serve as CRT replacement.

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by emuola

Sony BVM20F1E.

Oh, Hell's Bells, what a beast!

[emuola]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

Oh, Hell's Bells, what a beast!

It sure is

[emuola]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Sorry, but PVM/BVM prices are completely ridiculous at the moment, and will only get worse. They're also not worth it at all, when you look at price vs quality difference, which is not that big compared to a decent consumer set. It's just all thanks to the crazy internet hype factor. Hell, these days even 14" Trinitrons start at 100 quid on UK ebay .

I'd rather just hunt down a non-problematic TV set (might take a few tries but these are mostle dirt cheap/free) or get a Commodore monitor.

Failing that, you can get an OSSC and a VGA monitor, or even rig it to a flat panel so then at least you have the scanlines.

It's a shame that OLED tech is still burn-in prone, combined with scanline solution it could possibly serve as CRT replacement.

Yeah, prices have gone up a lot. Still, there's a chance you'd find one without these "extortion prices", but it need some luck Still, it's a really fine piece of hardware, made to last forever. There's a learning curve for using it, but it's highly configurable (and I really mean highly configurable!) if/when you need something like that.

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by emuola

It sure is

I you have one, we wouldn't mind seeing some piccies
Ya know, Workbench and some games...

[dreadnought]

Of course, they are awesome, but probabilty of finding one for a reasonable price is akin to winning a lottery. Scalpers learn fast, they've already rang up your local TV station, etc, etc

The other thing is that their abilities got so puffed up on the net that they appear almost magical, whereas in reality, once you sit back, relax and start playing games, the difference in IQ against a quality consumer set is not all that great.

In fact, the funny thing is that I probably wouldn't even use one for games because their sharpness and scanline separation is just too much. One of my FD Trinitrons is like that, and in 240p it doesn't look all that great - you need a bit of softness, that's one of teh great things about CRT look, and who wants to view their games via window blinds?

[emuola]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

I you have one, we wouldn't mind seeing some piccies

Ya know, Workbench and some games...

Yeah, will post piccies as soon as I get the A600 keyboard ribbon cable connector cleaned. During the weekend latest

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

YSo yes, Trinitrons might have been the best, back in the day, but 20-30 years later it's about finding a unit with decent IQ.

They're still the best. Some things never change.

Most Trinitron WEGA's are still functioning absolutely perfectly, including the lovely 68cm model sitting right next to me. Remember that these were manufactured right at the end of the CRT's lifetime, so they're not nearly as old as some of the other sets. Many would not be "20-30 years old".

You'd have to be mad to pay good money for a tiny, clapped out Commodore monitor when people are literally giving these beautiful big modern flat screen TV's away on Gumtree, Facebook, side of the road, etc.

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by emuola

Yeah, will post piccies as soon as I get the A600 keyboard ribbon cable connector cleaned. During the weekend latest

Damn that dirty A600 keyboard ribbon cable connector

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

They're still the best. Some things never change.

Most Trinitron WEGA's are still functioning absolutely perfectly, including the lovely 68cm model sitting right next to me. Remember that these were manufactured right at the end of the CRT's lifetime, so they're not nearly as old as some of the other sets. Many would not be "20-30 years old".

You'd have to be mad to pay good money for a tiny, clapped out Commodore monitor when people are literally giving these beautiful big modern flat screen TV's away on Gumtree, Facebook, side of the road, etc.

Ah, the power of anecdotal evidence My TV works fine so most of the others must do as well. Ok then

How old a set is isn't even an ultimate factor, I only brought this up because there's a bigger chance of it getting more use. Nevertheless, you can have a 25 yo set which stood in a guest room and been switched on once a month, and a 10 year old which served as a a main living room unit and was on 16 hrs a day. Then there are possible mechanical faults, which you will not know about unless you actually test it with a 240p source.

The whole Trinitron=best!!!1! is also similar to the PVM craze. Yeah, they are pretty good, and it's consistent across wide range of models but that does not mean other brands are rubbish. I'm pretty sure you'd struggle to tell the difference in a blind test vs some decent sets from Toshiba, JVC, Panasonic, or even some no-name brands.

They are also not flaw-free, eg 2 out of my 4 Trinitrons suffer from the IQ-ruining and uncurable jitter curse, which renders them unusable for any microcomputer action.

Finally, the days of free & awesome CRT bonanza are over. That largerly depends on where you live too, but in most places people either wised up to their retro-value, or the resellers/collectors got to them already. If you think Commodore monitors are pricey, plz check UK ebay for Trinitrons

And their pool is of course finite too. I scan my local sources daily and have only seen 1 Trinitron (or any other decent set) in well over a year - and I live in a fairly big city. I bought it and it's in a rather poor shape (just like several other sets which went straight to the curb).


source: CRT hoarder who went through ~25 sets in the last few years.

[Valken]

I would think a modern OLED monitor with a CRT filter would be best?

[rcpamiga]

I Use a Philips 272p7vptkeb for my Amiga and PC, it is a 27' 4K monitor with PBP/PIP and all the inputs, plus it syncs down to normal amiga resolutions out the box.


I use this only for my main machines (PC and Amiga 3000 plugged into it)


For all my other Amigas and Commodores / ZX Spectrum machines I use my old Philips 19B LCD with upscaler, or my Thompson 4121 CRT / OR Commodore 1084S. I prefer the Thompson monitor as a CRT, it has a good picture and all the commodore / scart inputs.

[aeberbach]

If you are after a Trinitron don't forget that Sony supplied a wide range of manufacturers including Apple and Dell. I personally use a 21" Apple Studio Display CRT, mine is Blueberry accents but they came in Grapite also. Dell made a lot of very good CRTs and many included Trinitron branding above the top right of the screen. Nor are Sony the only ones that made a good shadow mask flat CRT, some of the LG screens are excellent, there are others too.

CRT filters on a LCD look somewhat like a CRT but not completely. Most importantly they don't scale properly.