There is a new company...
https://www.arcooda.com/buy/Arcade-Parts/monitors
https://www.arcooda.com/buy/Arcade-Parts/monitors
Unico phoenix monitors - Opinions?
- Thread starter Chelnov
- Start date
mathewbeall
Champion
I am going to be keeping an eye on them. I am *still* waiting (from Unico) for replacement, replacement driver boards. I got an initial batch in September (a year after getting the monitor) and these didn't work as expected either, so am now still waiting for a set of driver boards that works well.
erizzle2022
Beginner
I plan on using it as a Temp solution and keep it as a backup in case any of my other monitors go bad. Will get my Chassis fixed on my CRT and then hopefully it works again. Thank you guys for the input.
Temp solution or not, buy from Unico at your own risk. They have atrocious customer service and show a terrible pattern of behaviors. There are problems with this monitors that are not fixed to this day, and the performance of the monitor in terms of pixel response time, color, gamma, and resolution handling are all not good.
With the benefit of hindsight, I would avoid the ULM26 and at the very least see what Arccoda has to offer over the coming months. The ULM26 will likely be cheaper, but the company as a whole is enough of a pain to deal with that the higher price (and likely superior product) is probably worth it. Just go through their social media and you'll see no shortage of unhappy customers.
With the benefit of hindsight, I would avoid the ULM26 and at the very least see what Arccoda has to offer over the coming months. The ULM26 will likely be cheaper, but the company as a whole is enough of a pain to deal with that the higher price (and likely superior product) is probably worth it. Just go through their social media and you'll see no shortage of unhappy customers.
mattsoft
Professional
I bought a ULM26 last month for shits and giggles just to see for myself. Meh, it's OK. 1024x768 native resolution is not super ideal, but running Batocera on a PC at 1024x768 over HDMI, emulated Naomi games look splendid, as do emulated Model 2 & 3 games. Emulated PS2 and GameCube games look pretty good too. Older stuff looks like you'd expect it too on an LCD made worse without integer scaling. So my ULM26 does not sit in a cab, but sits on my work desk with some speakers and a gamepad for a quick game or 2 when I'm taking a break. If I had limited cabinet choices and really wanted an LCD for whatever reason, I would just by a Vewlix/Chewlix and put a nice LCD in there and play my Neo Geo with black bars. If the CRT in my Astro gives me grief, I can swap the ULM26 in a pinch, but would be hot on the lookout for another CRT. The ULM26 Pro in their Nova Blast cabinets is supposed to be better than the ULM26, but since you can't buy those outside the Nova Blast cabinet I dunno. The Arcooda having 1600x1200 could be nice for scaled RGB stuff and I would buy one just to put on my desk and replace the ULM26. 
streetfighterken
Grand Master
My fear is Arcooda won’t be able to meet demand in a timely matter.
It wont since you will be relying on VGA/Dub15.
Compared to HDMI, the ULM26 has major gamma issues when using VGA. You can easily tell when using an arcade color calibration screen in Test mode. Colors will look blown out, as I noted in a post last October:
You will also need to avoid 15khz/interlaced video, since the updated display board broke compatibility with all interlaced signals.
I guess you can use a video line doubler or scaler like an OSSC in order to use the ULM26's HDMI port to avoid this issue.
I was going to run in 31k VGA out on either. Is the only fix to change it to HDMI out?
As far as I know and have personally experienced so far, yes changing to HDMI is the only way. VGA simply does not handle color well no matter the resolution. HDMI always looks significantly better and does not have a major loss in gamma. I don't have a photo on hand, but I can show how degraded the color performance is this next time I have a reason to drag my monitor out (don't expect any time soon).
The only problems with HDMI that I can remember are mostly scaling related. Since the panel resolution is pretty low, you will have to deal with non integer scaling/pixel shimmer issues, and it will be apparent to a distracting degree with certain games like vertical scrolling shmups. However, that shouldn't be a big issue with 31khz signals, only low res.
The only problems with HDMI that I can remember are mostly scaling related. Since the panel resolution is pretty low, you will have to deal with non integer scaling/pixel shimmer issues, and it will be apparent to a distracting degree with certain games like vertical scrolling shmups. However, that shouldn't be a big issue with 31khz signals, only low res.
The only shmups I would play it on at Cannon Spike , Zero Gunner 2 , Gigawing 2 and Radirgy Noa. I doubt I will be playing anything vertically. Hopefully they look alright.
streetfighterken
Grand Master
The pixel refresh rate sucks. Noticeable ghosting on motion. That would be annoying on shmups but it's also subjective.
It is Australian. Their head office is in New South Wales. It's on the website.
The monitors are of course manufactured in China, just like 99.9% of all electronics.
I wish to share my experience with the ULM26 monitor bought 2 weeks ago.
I built a vertical bartop for fun to play arcade games like shoot’em up, Arkanoïd style and Pacmania…
Video out from my supergun is RGBS to VGA with cable I made. I got very nice experience with Arkanoïd : very nice color and good refresh rate with smooth animation.
I tried without issue : Arkanoïd Revenge of Doh, Tournament Arkanoïd, Ghox, Raiden I and II, ST-V Shienryu, Namco System 1 Pacmania, Taito F3.
For testing purpose I plug Cruis’n USA PCB and I got test screen.
But with CPS1 and CPS2, I got no video at all (tested upscaler HDMI with XRGB Framemeister too - nothing on screen).
For now I'm pretty happy with it so far.
I built a vertical bartop for fun to play arcade games like shoot’em up, Arkanoïd style and Pacmania…
Video out from my supergun is RGBS to VGA with cable I made. I got very nice experience with Arkanoïd : very nice color and good refresh rate with smooth animation.
I tried without issue : Arkanoïd Revenge of Doh, Tournament Arkanoïd, Ghox, Raiden I and II, ST-V Shienryu, Namco System 1 Pacmania, Taito F3.
For testing purpose I plug Cruis’n USA PCB and I got test screen.
But with CPS1 and CPS2, I got no video at all (tested upscaler HDMI with XRGB Framemeister too - nothing on screen).
For now I'm pretty happy with it so far.
