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Vectorfire

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I recieved a new Makvision 27 Tri Mode CRT yesterday and have 4 days to test that It works before my right to make a claim expires.

I ordered a 15-25khz VGA pattern tester, but its evidently coming by slow boat and wont be here within the window.

I do however have a VGA cable for my Dreamcast. Can I safely connect this to the monitor without blowing something in order to make sure everything is ship shape?

https://www.amazon.com/eJiasu-SEGA-...=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B01N67GOSS
 
Your gonna want one with a 240p switch. or even better a sync combiner for scart use and a scan line generator.

This is the one you want and its on sale for $75.

I know its cheaper but throw away $15 either.
 
So it's a no go then? Damn. I dont want to send a bad signal and smoke the thing.
Looks like I'm down 20$ for a useless cable and own this monitor come hell or high water.

Thanks. 20$ is cheaper than 500$ for a blown monitor.
 
You wouldn't harm the monitor in any way. It has VGA and will display "a" picture. You could even burn Arduino's test suite on dreamcast and use it on 480p and 240i.

The cable doesnt have as many features as a Toro and may give you a poor quality signal and possibly break sooner than you would like.
 
Excellent. I'm not looking for high fidelity at the moment, just functionality.

I really need to find a resource to help me wrap my head around the nomenclature and process of how resolutions and refresh rates are calculated as well as sync and voltage.
 
I think this particular monitor popped up locally on FBMP for me, for cheap too. I looked into what I could do with it and apparently it was a fussy monitor on what it accepts, if it's the same one. Eager to hear your report back on it.
 
According to the manual, it auto syncs between between 15 and 25khz. You however need to physically throw a switch to go up to 31hkz. I'll have to desolder it and extend it to somewhere accessible outside the enclosure..

This is not ideal, but in the current arcade monitor market, choices are few and far between.
Hopefully I can score a tri mode that autosync somewhere down the road.

This project is to hold me over till I can find a net city in good shape.

Manual
https://drive.google.com/open?id=17wRU647MoLnJFUsQx_rN_hz2pjity7oX
 
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Is this the 3129? If so it will auto switch to 480p. At least mine does. Used dreamcast with it for some time. Switched to a pc crt because the geometry was so bad.
 
I'm genuinely unsure. The manual only states M31 series. So perhaps. It's a flat screen so it's likely the D (dyna flat) so MS3129D perhaps. Betson doesnt use the manufacturer's product code.

I too read nothing but bad things about the monitor leading up to my purchase. But the way I figure it, even a bad CRT is better than a good LCD.

I feel like we've moved backwards in display technology over the last 25 years.

480p is 31khz, you didnt need to move the switch?
 
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My chassis is auto switching so I didn’t have to to manually switch res. It is definitely better than using a LCD. In 31khz the geometry issues were more apparent and it has a weird stretching along the edges of the tube.

Also, I used a cheap vga dreamcast cable with a female to female coupler and it worked fine with the makvision. I’m using it on a pc crt and it looks great.
 
The SVGA autosync version is now disontinued.
Only these trimodes remain..
 
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looking that the specs they appear to be the same.
Glad I didn't purchase through Happ, their charging an extra 138$ over Betson.

I went back into the manual and It appears I was confusing the impedance matching switch for something that was required to switched to 31khz. It's just impedance matching nothing more. That's what I get for speed reading :)

So mine is autosync as well, which is a relief.

Looking that the specs provided to me by someone on Reddit the Dreamcast outputs 0.7vpp, whereas the monitor is expecting 1vpp at 75ohms. That's 30% undervolted which would likely account for that lackluster appearance.
 
That’s interesting, it does have an impedance switch on the remote board to 1k as well if I remember right.
 
Monitor has what appears like a dead pixel dead center.
It looks like there's either an imperfection blocking green aperture of the shadow mask, or there an imperfection in the vertical phosphor stripe itself.
If it were off to the side, one might be able to overlook it, but its literally right in your face

Hoping that its just the cheap ass dreamcast vga cable.
 
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I have one of those Makvision monitors. The switch on the remote board is to go between consumer RGB (like your dreamcast or vga arcade PCBs) and higher voltage ttl CGA/EGA pcbs.

If you are getting a dull image from consumer sources like a console, first try flicking the switch (with the monitor off). It's labeled backwards on mine. If it's still dull, it's an issue with the rgb cable. Some of the cheaper or semi diy console rgb cables over-do it with the resistors.

Try sending it a 480p signal direct from a PC gpu with a regular vga cable and you'll see it's noticeably brighter. just don't expect your Windows desktop to look good in 480p on that monitor. 480p games will look good though. I had the same issue with my PS2 tri-sync cable from Ultimarc. It's easily solved with a cheap VGA booster (also from Ultimarc).

They sell them to boost their arcade vga card signal for CGA arcade monitors. It works for this too though.
 
Between the non-phosphorescing pixel triad that's dead center of the tube and the abysmal color saturation and purity I'm left with little choice but to see if I can get a replacement.

Betson charges a hefty 30% restock fee on returns so that's not an option and I've yet to determine who the responsible party is for shipping on an exchange. I feel bent over and reamed because of this absolute drek of a monitor.

look at the red in this screenshot of my monitor.
This is with the brightness at 8 and contrast at 10.

https://imgur.com/nuGiH97

nuGiH97


This is what it should look like

https://imgur.com/WecUzjo

WecUzjo
 
Why don’t you turn the gain and bias on red up first. Captures never look like a CRT tube anyways.

I’m not sure if its digital or pots on the chassis or neck board. But I’m sure their there.

Your making me not want to open up my Makvision crates.
 
The color balance and saturation is adjustable. It has pots for it on the neck and the main board (not the remote board).

They get knocked about during shipping and it messes up all the settings. I had to spend a good 30 minutes adjusting mine. There was a laundry list of pots that got knocked out of place or were never set right to begin with.

Just put some color bars on screen from any game and adjust the color balance, color gain, brightness and contrast until red is red and black is black etc.

If they sent you a broken monitor, that's different. A reputable company should take care of return shipping for stuff that's their fault. Hopefully Betson will behave honorably.

As a side note, I can't see what you are comparing it to for color in the pics but if it's an LCD then you should expect the color to look different. LCDs often display incorrect color for old arcade games without extra help. I'm not saying that's what's happening here.
 
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