@mdawson-net:
Displaying a light gray image for long periods of time will reduce the burn somewhat. I do it on my 50" monitors to help reduce the burn when I get them from location. My Alpine Racer 2 only has slight Insert Coin burn now. My Wave Runner only has slight burn from the scoring at the top of the screen. I'm working on reducing the burn on my SW Trilogy now, but it's not that bad to begin with since it is the newer slimline TV. Basically what you are doing is uniformly burning the tubes to a darker point than some of the burn-in that is already there. So strong burn-in won't go away, and you will have to adjust the white brightness otherwise the whites will eventually start appearing grayish. I find that once you have it in the home arcade, the burn-in just doesn't ever get any worse than it is unless you leave it on 8-16 hours a day like a business does.
FYI-Plasma's burn-in quicker than the 50" tv's and LCD's ....even the new ones suck. I returned several 60" Plasma's for GT/SS that were only weeks old and already suffering from burn. They were switched for a LED which is way better (but expensive). Also, If you can get your hands on a DLP, that is the best way to go. I have 4 Samsung DLP's running games including my "The ACT" and have only had to replace the bulb once in each of them at $89ea in about a 6 year period of using the TV's. None of them have burn in and 3 of them are on constantly. My Samsung's also remember the input setting when you turn it on so no remote required.
Dimness and bluing can usually be fixed by cleaning the mirrors and lenses inside. Nicotine is horrible on these in just a few weeks time on location or even a home. Convergence will require access to the TV menu and may require the remote. The Sega TV parts are still serviceable/available through Sega Service as far as I know. Also, I believe the brightness and contrast can be adjusted through the game service menu and is where I would start first before messing with the TV itself other than the cleaning.
@Alaskanzen:
Even if you are getting juice to the monitor, it could be turned off. A $6 generic programmable remote from Wal-Mart can be used to verify it's turned off. Then just return the remote. I had a Top Skater that had that problem. Someone turned off the monitor using the remote, then stole the remote from the operator. He thought it was dead and sold me the game cheap (was only 6 months old at the time). It was an easy fix in that instance. It could also be that the TV chassis is bad. I have a very nice Toshiba 50" monitor available with mild Top Skater burn for $200, but I'm sure it would be expensive for you to ship it.
Also, on the large monitor games.............. They usually use a RGB board within the game for multiple monitor outputs. Earlier Star Wars Trilogy, Top Skater, & Nascar for instance had output for RGB-S Coaxial, HD15(SVGA with proper cable) and std. Arcade connect. Namco's Alpine Racer/2, Propcycle, Time Crisis & Crisis Zone had outputs for HD15(SVGA with proper cable), S-Video and std. Arcade output. I am not sure on my newer Slimline TV Star Wars Trilogy though since I haven't opened up the cab, but it seems to be the same setup as Nascar 2. I have a customer that we connected ceiling mounted projectors for his 2 Sega Nascar 2's and for his MAME setup. Galaga is hard to play when the screen is 10 feet high. Nascar 2 was the more difficult to do since the boards and power were housed in the monitor cab which meant we had to remove all the wiring and build discrete custom consoles for them, but once done, the hook-up to the projectors were just a couple of custom 30ft. cables.
Most widescreen TV's can also be set to a 4:3 aspect ratio leaving bars on the sides of the screen even in PC mode (SVGA cable)... at least my Samsung's and the few Sony's I've used do it.
