i think the curve would be minimal at best. Using a monitor would definately be an improvement in resolution if the light reflects enough. Which i'd have to see to know for sure. Looking forward to where this project is going. I love p2k and glad to see others share in the love as well.

I said the very same thing when Chuck mentioned it, but he says it looks great. I haven't seen it myself, and will wait to be proven wrong..

ChadTower wrote:

Chuck wrote:ok, WOW...

The brightness and color quality of my 19" junk lcd I'm using for testing was pretty incredible off the mirrored glass. So this definately can be done and after all the smoke clears I WILL be doing it

There is only one real issue. A 19" lcd isn't wide enough to extend the picture like the original monitor. I'm sure a 20" or 21" would work fine.

Is it projecting close enough to the original playfield spots? The curve of the CRT screen has different projection angles than a flat LCD.

My theory says the LCD image would be clearer.

Each pixel on a curved screen would also be slightly curved, causing the light to spread out something like a flashlight beam, getting wider as it gets further from the source.

On an LCD the pixel would be flat, reducing the spread.

It's a theory anyway.

ChadTower wrote:

Chuck wrote:ok, WOW...

The brightness and color quality of my 19" junk lcd I'm using for testing was pretty incredible off the mirrored glass. So this definately can be done and after all the smoke clears I WILL be doing it

There is only one real issue. A 19" lcd isn't wide enough to extend the picture like the original monitor. I'm sure a 20" or 21" would work fine.

Is it projecting close enough to the original playfield spots? The curve of the CRT screen has different projection angles than a flat LCD.

I haven't verified that yet because I want to pull the original monitor and put the lcd in it's place. I don't believe the curve of the monitor vs flatscreen will have any impact on the display. If it does it should be very minimal and I should be able to compensate by adjusting the screen width since I will use a 20 or 21" monitor.

It was a while ago i played rfm, but are there any sign of pixelation, and if it is Ii guess it would be even more noticable when using a lcd display. Maybe somekind of blurring would smooth things out?

JMX wrote:It was a while ago i played rfm, but are there any sign of pixelation, and if it is Ii guess it would be even more noticable when using a lcd display. Maybe somekind of blurring would smooth things out?

Computer monitors do show a fair amount of blockiness and pixelation. But since lcd's that would work as a replacement don't natively support 640x240 they run a smoothing algorythm which actually compensates to a certain degree. The two compelling reasons to run off an lcd are:

1) Vivid color - really makes a huge difference
2) Contrast Ratio - especially important on the pin2k platform.

I think you will see a lot of people who convert to our system switching to lcd. Then again a high quality digital 19" arcade crt would also look very nice. And actually people seem to be throwing away 19" crt's. A 19" trinitron monitor might look really good.

A thing I've been thinking about is if it would be possible to use standard tempered playfield glass when using a brighter lcd. I know a p2k glass is always better, but since the supply of them is limited, this might be something to explore?

Possible but not optimal. I was thinking a piece of tempered glass with some light tinting (like car window tinting) might work.

Is that the monitor bezel? What could it possibly be that can't be duplicated by a glass shop?

pb2k machines have glass that has a graduated tinting on the top of the glass to aid in reflecting the monitor output.

On the playfield glass? Funky, but it makes sense. I still say a good glass shop should be able to reproduce that. It may be spendy, though, to do in small quantities.

This is pretty funny:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... 0876?hl=en#

from RGP

Chuck, did you get the LCD installed? When you do, it would be great if you posted some info on how to do it. I'm rather curious how much of an effort this is and suggested equipment/procedures. Thanks.

My family and I came down with a bad case of the flu which put me out of comission for a few days. I'm hoping to do it soon. I'll shoot lots of pics when I do it.