I managed to get in a little testing time this morning, switching back and forth rapidly between a BVM and an HD-Wega in RGB using multiple consoles. Here are a few observations:
-- While every consumer-level SD set I have ever seen, including a nice one from 2004 with an RGB input, had serious convergence and geometry problems, HD-CRTs are basically just as good at these two things as BVMs. Neither is perfect. The BVM is
slightly better at convergence in the corners, but you practically need a magnifying glass to see it.
-- The biggest advantage that the BVM has is the pretty shape of its pixels. On an HD set, pixels look blocky and harsh, and probably because of how they are scaled, their sizes are not perfectly consistent. Dark outlines and single-pixel eyeball dots stand out more than they should, and similar colors that are supposed to blend, like in wood grain, don't do that as nicely. BVM pixels, on the other hand, are still neatly contained little units that don't look blocky, and they generally feel softer and better balanced with each other.
The
checkerboard pattern from the 240p test suite looks undeniably better on the BVM even though the pixels aren't quite as square. It's simply more consistent. Also, note that every consumer SD set I've given this to displays it so poorly, you wonder if the TV is broken.
-- Color, on the other hand, I'm going to say the HD-CRT wins by a hair. I know that sounds crazy, because the primary purpose of BVMs in the first place was color mastering, but that's just it: the BVM looks a bit sterile. Even if it's not quite as accurate to what the digital color values say it should be, I
like being able to turn up the "warmth" a just a little on my HD set, and that option doesn't exist on pro monitors. You've only got brightness and contrast, which aren't the same.
And if you do want the same colors as a BVM, you can get quite close.
-- Here are three other minor disadvantages of a BVM that I don't think come up very often:
1. It emits a high-pitched hum that's louder than that of a typical consumer set.
2. The colors are only really good in a dimly lit room. When the set is off, the screen itself is a
very light grey; if you use the BVM in a well-lit room, the light reflecting off of this will make
the image seem a bit more washed out.
3. The display hardware will not do as much to adapt images from different consoles to fit the
screen. You either have to live with imperfect fitting, or you have to re-calibrate every time
you change systems. Consumer sets have this problem, too, but it's significantly more
pronounced on the BVM.
-- Input lag is the same. I did a proper test with a camera as well as the manual method (
see these) and they were both excellent.
-- Finally, I have another HD-CRT made by Toshiba, and it does strange things with a 240p signal. The Wega does it, too, but only on certain settings. I'm not completely sure, but I
think it's converting it to 1080i. It's not as messy a conversion as what LCD TVs do, and I don't think any lines are actually lost, but I do think they are being interlaced on an HD level. This causes a slight blurriness during scrolling. It's definitely something to avoid if you're looking for a good HD set.
So, which one will I actually wind up using? It's a tough call. I'm going to spend a while with the BVM and see if the nice pixel shape is really worth the loss of size (20" vs. 29") and whether I get used to un-warmed colors.
Your gaming-room setup is really important to the set you choose. If you want to be able to sit on a couch far away from the screen, next to friends and with lights on, the larger and darker screens of consumer sets are truly nice. However, if you can put a TV at desk-height and sit near it in a chair with low lighting, the BVM is probably the objectively better choice.
Perhaps a 29" PVM maintains the quality of a 20" BVM and is the all-around best solution. If they weren't so expensive in Japan, I might try to get one.
