CRT 14" TV recommendations. Prices rising!

[itsamemario]

Last time I looked (a few years back) people were virtually giving away even Trinitron 14" TVs. Now the Sony's are going for over a £100!

Anyone know of ones of a similar quality (with RGB Scart) that aren't stupid money?

[jb143]

Some people are trying to sell them for quite a bit, but I also see them listed online for free more often than not. It's also fairly straightforward to mod most later model CRTs for Rgb by injecting the signal into the on screen display chip. I did this with a Trinitron and the picture looks amazing.

Now the Sony BVMs and PVMs on the other hand, those have skyrocketed in prices in recent years. But with the mod, you can get a bigger crt for practicality nothing that looks almost as good.

[itsamemario]

It's also fairly straightforward to mod most later model CRTs for Rgb by injecting the signal into the on screen display chip. I did this with a Trinitron and the picture looks amazing.

Now the Sony BVMs and PVMs on the other hand, those have skyrocketed in prices in recent years. But with the mod, you can get a bigger crt for practicality nothing that looks almost as good.

That sounds amazing. I don't suppose you have more info or a recommended link?

[jb143]

There's a huge thread on the shmups forum that sort of walks through the history of people figuring it out.
I think it's this one...
https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=56155

The early version used a big switch to flip to rgb, later on there's a schematic that mixes the rgb signal with the osd signal. There's no one size fits all mod though since all TVs are a bit different but the basic idea is the same.

[jb143]

I have a bit more time to respond now. The mod works by either replacing or mixing the signal from the OSD chip(on screen display) to the video chip. This is the signal that is normally used to put the volume and channel info on the screen. There's another signal used to tell it to actually draw the image on the whole screen(the blanking signal). I believe this can be wired into a SCART connector so it happens automatically but I didn't need to do that. I think you wire in a sync signal as well.

Other than having to work under the hood of a CRT, the mod itself isn't too difficult. It's just a few resistors, capacitors, and diodes. The hard part is all the research. Reading spec sheets, locating points on the board to solder the wires to, etc...

Here's a pic of the PCB I made soldered to various points on the board.

https://vgy.me/zLWn2E.jpg (https://vgy.me/HdqqRj.jpg)


I was having a really hard time taking a picture of the screen that looked good. This is probably the best I got and even it doesn't give justice to the results. The people on the shmups forum seem to have better luck taking pictures of a CRT than I do.

https://vgy.me/PUfpmU.jpg (https://vgy.me/Zd8PTk.jpg)

Edit---
I didn't realize those pics were so huge since it looked fine on my phone. Shrunk them down with links to the originals.

[itsamemario]

That's great. Funnily enough I was watching 8BitGuy on YouTube today do the mod you've discussed on an old Samsung.

Silly question, but I've managed to locate a Sony KV-14LT1U which has an RGB Scart. Presumably the mod is unnecessary if the Scart has RGB support as it's already feeding the RGB signal direct to the tube?

[Niku-Sama]

i wouldn't think it be necessary if it has rgb/scart

[jb143]

I'm no expert on SCART but aren't there some TV's that don't actually have RGB even though they have the connector? Though I wouldn't imagine that a Sony would have that issue.

[itsamemario]

I'm no expert on SCART but aren't there some TV's that don't actually have RGB even though they have the connector? Though I wouldn't imagine that a Sony would have that issue.

Yep, Scart as a connector was designed to be "universal" so it has support for RGB, composite and svideo. What you find on a lot of TVs, even with my very last Trinitron widescreen was that out of the 3 Scart connectors on the back, only one of them supported RGB.

[jb143]

Well, if that was the case and you wanted to do the mod, then you would be able to wire it directly into the scart connector. You would have to look up the details from someone who's done it but I believe you can also wire the blanking signal into the connector as well so it will automatically switch to RGB when there is a signal present.

But more than likely you're good to go. Looking up the manual for that model should tell you for sure.

[itsamemario]

Well, if that was the case and you wanted to do the mod, then you would be able to wire it directly into the scart connector. You would have to look up the details from someone who's done it but I believe you can also wire the blanking signal into the connector as well so it will automatically switch to RGB when there is a signal present.

But more than likely you're good to go. Looking up the manual for that model should tell you for sure.

Cheers. Yep, picked up the TV tonight. Haven't tested it yet but I checked the manual and it supports RGB out the box as well as NTSC & PAL so I'm good to go! Thanks for all the help.