Review of SVideo TV Purchase !!! : ) :) :)


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Posted by Xiaou2 on 22, 2001 at 11:45 PM:

Hello All,

I wanted to share with you some news. I decided to purchase an Svideo TV for my project.

Being that I currently did not have a tv of my own... and that there are limitations ( and the high expense of a 9200 with shipping ) on the disply, Ive made my mind up.

I went to Best Buy (www.bestbuy.com), and was specifically looking for a Toshiba like Oscars. After looking at them, and all the others... I found that they didnt have enough contrast. The brightness was turned way up, and it was still a little bland.

A guy told me that the best TVs are the ones with the darkest tube (when turned off)... and it was true.

I found that the best Picture was from the Panasonic (Model CT-27D11) Its Pureblack tube made the picture Crisp even with high contrast. Cost = $320+Tax (US) on sale.

It was pretty tough to get that thing in the car. I would not fit in the trunk or the doors. I was lucky to have my ropedart handy... and used it to tie it in the trunk (was hanging half out!)

Getting the thing im my small room... I realized just how HUGE a 27" tv was. Its a little overkill... but still... there isnt much I could do. There arnt many good 25 or less inch svideo tvs :(

I bought a Monster 3 Svideo cable, for the clearest picture and no signal loss. The 6.6ft cable was 50$.

Im using an ATI rage card. (The 128 chipset) As soon as I booted the pc up... I got really scarred cause my pc monitor picture was odd. The picture was a little gibberd and had smearry like graphics. This was cleared up after I moved a window arround a bit. It hasnt happend since... and I dont know what caused it.. (maybe because it was the first time use?!)

The PC's resolution was 1024*768... but the TV out was only capable of 800*600... so what it does... is to make your PC's monitor only show 800*600... but you can scroll arround to view the rest!

I decided to just drop down to 800*600 (when using a tv connected) so I didnt have to keep scrolling arround.

Now... you wont even believe this... The picture is SO CLEAR that I can read all the text with nearly no trouble at all! Im using it to type this in to ya :)
The Picture is a little sharper than the toshiba... but not by much. Its 600lines of res.

Mame games look great with it. Its nearly identical to a real arcade monitor. I will not lie... some games seem a little 'too clean'... but thats the price you pay for clairity and no little bleeding of color)

You will not need scanlines... the TVs lines are good enough. In fact, scanlines do not show up... as they are too small. If someone on the mame dev team hears this... It may be cool to add an option to 'thicken' and darken the scanlines. Would make a cool test.

I tested several games. One I found cool was the Darius 2 and 3 screen games. Now you can actually see them! The huge 27" tv is able to display 2 screen games great... but to do the 3 screen games, I had to tell the frontend (arcade at home) to use ony 800*600. That made the picture a bit smaller, but was still bigger than my PC monitor's pic!!! :)

The some of the Vector games needed a bit of tweaking. I Adding some width to the beam, and increased the intensity... for good results.

Capcom games blew me away! (ghouls and ghost) And playing Sega games was pretty amazing... You felt like you were moving becuase of the shear size of the screen!

Im having some windows issues, so havnt had much time to try other applications besides mame and general windows display (which is great). If you dont hear from me in a while... its cause Im reloading again :(

Anyway, a few of the downs...

1) Huge screen means that you would probably want to stand back about 4-7ft from it!
I suggest a Pedestal like control panel. This will easily take up half or more of a room!

2) When switching from mame to say... a VCR... the picture will need adjusting. Colors and brightness will vary between platforms. Not too bad.. but repetiously annoying at times.

3) Vector games will have a bit of bleeding... and lines arnt as crisp. Still, its very good.

4) Games that are vertcal look great at full size rotated... unfortunately... the shear size of creating a rotation mechanism for such a large monitor is insane! I WOULD place the monitor facing the ceiling - using mirros to project forward IF I could... but I just dont have the room for it now. (plus I would have to Re-Build the cab (glorified AV stand) from scratch.


There are many more Plus'es than Minus'es. Overall, Im very happy with it. (I smile gleefully everytime I turn it on !!! :) Cant wait to finish the final stages of my panel... :)

Pics Soon to follow...

Sincerely
Xiaou2

http://www.homestead.com/xiaou2s/xiaou2s.html




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