![]() ![]() PVMs and BVMs are professional-grade monitors intended for broadcast use in a workplace setting, like a hospital or TV studio. ![]() What makes a high-end CRT like a PVM or Trinitron better than your childhood Zenith? As Nutter puts it, it's all about the use-case. But once I started working on them, suddenly everyone wanted them." "When I started, I was sitting in a room surrounded by PVMs, and I thought, 'Who is going to want to buy all these?' I thought I had made a big mistake. That's when he decided to learn how to fix them as best he could, if only to recoup some money for his spur-of-the-moment investment. When Nutter brought the dozens of boxes back to his garage, he quickly realized that most of them had significant issues. When I told him that I wanted to buy them all, as far as he was concerned, I was doing him a big favor." Sony Trinitrons are among the most desirable consumer-grade CRTs. The owner explained to me that they had issues finding enough space to store them. ![]() This was in 2015, back when they were getting recycled from hospitals and medical clinics. "When I went to pick it up, I saw that they had 25 PVMs just sitting in a warehouse. "I found a local seller who was a CRT recycler," Nutter explains. What he found changed his life almost overnight. And one day, his luck changed: a high-end PVM was on sale for a reasonable price only a short drive away. Over time, Nutter's interest in CRTs grew to such an extent that he started scanning Craigslist and bidding on eBay auctions, searching for the truly desirable CRT displays like the Sony PVM and BVMs. He would watch YouTube videos made by hackers and phone "phreakers" who enjoyed playing around with the machines, slowly gathering his base of knowledge. As a trained engineer, he found himself compelled by the intricate machinery of these displays. Luckily, Nutter had an old Toshiba lying around, which he was able to resurrect for his nostalgic purposes. He turned to the internet for advice, where he found out one of the worst-kept secrets in retro gaming-that an old TV is essentially required for any original console setup. His beloved N64 games looked awful on his LCD TV, with washed-out colors, a flickering image, and a tremendous amount of input lag. When CRT enthusiast Steve Nutter plugged in his old consoles to show his young son the games he grew up on, he was utterly dismayed by the results. But are they actually worse than your cheap LED replacement, or do they deserve a second chance at life? According to the enthusiasts who work tirelessly to repair them, they're more than just a relic-they're the best way to play decades of classic games. You can likely find dozens of examples gathering dust at your local thrift store, garbage dump, or perhaps even your grandmother's house. However, while many gamers have kept their old consoles around-or bought them back from garage sales and eBay auctions-CRT (cathode ray tube) TVs are largely an abandoned relic of the past. If you're a gamer of a certain age, you likely have fond memories of playing your favorite retro console in front of a boxy TV. ![]()
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