SONY PVM-1354Q as Test Bench Monitor - 5 Stars!!

[SNESNESCUBE64]

Interesting. What's the Nintendo sync frequency? Is it regular negative going sync or is it part of the whole Nintendo inverted video thing?
I've never looked at it.

I never had issues with my 8041 and nintendo boards. Only thing I ever had to do was add inline resistors because the signals were too hot. I never had a problem servicing donkey kong, mario bros, and punchout boardsets. I often used the mikes arcade jamma adapters.

I will say that PVMs are a lot pickier with frequencies, if you gave it some real oddball stuff it wouldn't play nice. Best thing I did for my setup was get a little 10" hantarex. That thing takes anything I throw at it.

 

[pat9000]

PVMs are mostly okay for the bench; more of a compromise. An arcade monitor would probably be better in most cases, but if the PVM is going to fall into the scan range of whatever you're working on it should at least lock H&V just fine by itself, where most arcade monitors will need some manual tweaking. Geometry isn't instantly accessible on them, but if you just need a quick picture, they work pretty well.

I use one on the bench just since it's sort of a "clean" rig that works with most standard res stuff, but if I'm working on something out of scan or sync range my test harness can also just be stretched a couple feet to the left to plug directly into a couple test monitors I use for rebuilding chassis.

The best accessory for a PVM is one of the Sega level shifter boards normally found in 50" games. Feed it RGBS and 5v and it'll knock the video levels down to ~0.7v p-p on it's BNC outs, so you can just plug a PVM directly into it and it solves a few minor issues at once.

 

[KaBoom1701]

Where did u find that board? All the one I see don't have the POS / NEG sync switch?

PVMs are mostly okay for the bench; more of a compromise. An arcade monitor would probably be better in most cases, but if the PVM is going to fall into the scan range of whatever you're working on it should at least lock H&V just fine by itself, where most arcade monitors will need some manual tweaking. Geometry isn't instantly accessible on them, but if you just need a quick picture, they work pretty well.

I use one on the bench just since it's sort of a "clean" rig that works with most standard res stuff, but if I'm working on something out of scan or sync range my test harness can also just be stretched a couple feet to the left to plug directly into a couple test monitors I use for rebuilding chassis.

The best accessory for a PVM is one of the Sega level shifter boards normally found in 50" games. Feed it RGBS and 5v and it'll knock the video levels down to ~0.7v p-p on it's BNC outs, so you can just plug a PVM directly into it and it solves a few minor issues at once.

View attachment 793364

 

[pat9000]

Where did u find that board? All the one I see don't have the POS / NEG sync switch?

I added that in for a couple specific applications, but you don't really need to have +comp sync since it's not even really a "thing". The way the holes & traces on the board laid out made it easy to hack the inverter onto it. I wouldn't worry about it unless you actually need it since nearly everything out there is already -comp. The board otherwise passes sync straight through as there is no need to level-shift it.

If you want to cut down your video levels to a PVM you can also just use 3 500R pots on the video lines (GBS converters do it this way), and pass the sync straight through. The Sega boards are a cleaner way to do it though.

In my rig, the signal actually loops through the PVM and into an Extron scaler/multiviewer so I can also just feed it to the main bench LCD screen as well, but about the only time I ever actually use this is if I want to pass medium res through to the LCD, as the scaler will display most things thrown at it.

 

[KaBoom1701]

Got it. Thx for the explanation.

So what is the deal as to why these are even needed? Is the raw RBG from arcade board to hot or high for a PVM? I did notice that the screen is a big brighter so is that coming from the higher voltage arcade RBG?

I added that in for a couple specific applications, but you don't really need to have +comp sync since it's not even really a "thing". The way the holes & traces on the board laid out made it easy to hack the inverter onto it. I wouldn't worry about it unless you actually need it since nearly everything out there is already -comp. The board otherwise passes sync straight through as there is no need to level-shift it.

If you want to cut down your video levels to a PVM you can also just use 3 500R pots on the video lines (GBS converters do it this way), and pass the sync straight through. The Sega boards are a cleaner way to do it though.

In my rig, the signal actually loops through the PVM and into an Extron scaler/multiviewer so I can also just feed it to the main bench LCD screen as well, but about the only time I ever actually use this is if I want to pass medium res through to the LCD, as the scaler will display most things thrown at it.

 

[pat9000]

So what is the deal as to why these are even needed? Is the raw RBG from arcade board to hot or high for a PVM? I did notice that the screen is a big brighter so is that coming from the higher voltage arcade RBG?

Most boards put out 3.5Vp-p video level (some boards as low as 2.5V and [very rarely] 4V+) and 5V sync. Professional video equipment is designed to work with 0.7Vp-p and maybe up to 1V max video level, and sync level is fine at 5V. PVMs probably don't have much of a problem with hot video, but it'll play much nicer if you give it what it expects.

The contrast knob on your arcade monitor is just a video input level control, but the one on the PVM isn't made for this sort of range.

 

[KaBoom1701]

Ah makes since now. Figured it was a little bright on the RBG feed.

Thx for the info.

Appreciate it

 

[KaBoom1701]

Good call.

I grabbed that board and made a new connector for my test bench. Order some professional BNC to BNC male connectors as well.

Made a big difference. The color brightness is toned down a lot. Was way oversaturated before. Thx for the help.

I added that in for a couple specific applications, but you don't really need to have +comp sync since it's not even really a "thing". The way the holes & traces on the board laid out made it easy to hack the inverter onto it. I wouldn't worry about it unless you actually need it since nearly everything out there is already -comp. The board otherwise passes sync straight through as there is no need to level-shift it.

If you want to cut down your video levels to a PVM you can also just use 3 500R pots on the video lines (GBS converters do it this way), and pass the sync straight through. The Sega boards are a cleaner way to do it though.

In my rig, the signal actually loops through the PVM and into an Extron scaler/multiviewer so I can also just feed it to the main bench LCD screen as well, but about the only time I ever actually use this is if I want to pass medium res through to the LCD, as the scaler will display most things thrown at it.

Most boards put out 3.5Vp-p video level (some boards as low as 2.5V and [very rarely] 4V+) and 5V sync. Professional video equipment is designed to work with 0.7Vp-p and maybe up to 1V max video level, and sync level is fine at 5V. PVMs probably don't have much of a problem with hot video, but it'll play much nicer if you give it what it expects.

The contrast knob on your arcade monitor is just a video input level control, but the one on the PVM isn't made for this sort of range.