Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor

As I understand it, the full stack needs to be HDR aware and currently none of it is lol. So it’s going to be a while.

And yes, those Mac Studio monitors were from the iMac era, but they were intended for use with the Power Mac tower line. They were essentially a high-end Sony Trinitron PC monitor wrapped in Apple’s plastic and fitted with Apple’s close-but-not-quite-standard video connectors.

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Yeah, the G3 was released in the same style as the iMacs. Not my favorite design. I have that G3 in my collection, along with a G4 /DP 450 (Digital Audio). The color design of the G4 is a bit more conservative.

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QD-OLED has arrived!

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So these tvs are the ones that’s suppose to bring us closer to crt shader accuracy to a real crt huh? I’m interested in seeing the guest advanced shader running on these things

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I’m interested in seeing the Sony Megatron CVM shader running on these things

:wink:

GDV is pretty much designed for SDR displays and looks great on SDR displays.

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Likewise, I want to see what that shader you mentioned produces as well. We’re in for some interesting times

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I sooo want a A95K! The only problem is the wife. Hmm :thinking:. I’ll hide it behind a picture - she’ll never notice.

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@nfp0 although you want a low TVL slot mask on guest and I’m sure guest will get you one for his excellent shader, you can also get that low TVL slot mask on this shader by choosing Sammy Atomiswave preset in /HDR folder and setting it to 8K in the shader parameters. The option is there at least.

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I’d like something closer to the clarity of motion in CRT’s. My QLED is good but most I can’t even do BFI unless I turn of the gaming features which in turn makes lag time between inputs to slow. (I think I’m going to test a LG C1 OLED just to see if there are improvements.)

I have the Same_CDi core up and running and found it won’t load unless I toggle off HDR features. CDi is terrible so I don’t care but maybe that has possible implications for other cores.

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So my Eve Spectrum has backlight strobing which Blur Busters say reaches Plasma level of motion blur reduction. Not sure where Plasma sets sit in the hierarchy of blurryness display technologies but sounds quite good.

I’ve tested it and it does feel not that far off my CRT albeit much darker. I’ll get some videos to see if I can show what I’m seeing.

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Thanks for the heads-up!

I wish I could use your amazing shader right away, but even though I have an HDR TV, Linux does not yet support HDR, unfortunately. But I might start using Retroarch on Windows for this reason alone! I’ll give it a try later.

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It works in SDR - just switch it to SDR in the shader parameters. You do need a bright display though. My laptop display (Dell XPS) doesn’t support HDR but has a really bright screen so it can work well on non HDR displays (I’ve got another monitor that is HDR capable but is incredibly dull, so there’s that too)

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I have a question for @hunterk @nesguy and anybody else who wants to chip in. Is there any noise transferred between scanlines? So my mental image of how these systems work says there isn’t.

My mental image of how they works is so: when a console converts the frame buffer into a signal it linearly traverses the frame buffer line by converting it into a long analogue string that it then sends down the cable to the CRT. The CRT then reads this signal and adjusts the three beams according to what is sent. Those beams traverse the screen from top to bottom tracing out the analogue signal again as a single long linear signal as if all the pixels/phosphors had been lined up next to each other on a single row.

At no point is there any noise that can be transferred from one scanline to the next or previous scanline. The only time this can happen is if the two scanlines are wide enough/close enough to overlap on the screen itself (but no interference can happen before that point).

Am I right in thinking this?

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Yeah, that’s my understanding.

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Here are some videos of the Sony Megatron in SDR mode on my Dell XPS laptop:

Using these settings (turn on SDR above):

I think they are plenty bright! :man_shrugging:

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I have a plasma and I can attest that it handles motion better than the vast majority of LCDs. Still not as good as a CRT though.

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Thank you! I’ll give it a try.

Unfortunately the LG C1 can only reach about 350 cd/m2 in SDR mode.

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@MajorPainTheCactus

It would be great to see some side-be-sides with a standard 15kHz arcade monitor, if possible. Medium TVL slotmask is the holy grail for many people.

Acquiring a sample probably wouldn’t be too hard; they’re the most common CRT available.

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I’m way ahead of you! :wink: But I only have so much time - boo! I’m back to recreating CRT’s now!

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I’ve been meaning to do a simulation of this display for quite some time after seeing these amazing pictures. This is a Sony PVM 1910 - a 300TVL display from around '89. I love the chunkyness on the phosphors on this.

First pass, CRT first and Sony Megatron CVM second, sadly my phone isn’t quite as good as taking side on pictures as the person who took the originals - sorry about cropping!

CRT Photos: No idea pictures sourced off the internet

LCD Photos: OnePlus 8 Pro Camera: Pro Mode, ISO 200, WB 6500K, Aperture Speed 1/60, Auto Focus, 48MPixel JPEG.

I’ll put the video’s up tomorrow.

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