CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Fujifrontier]

What kind of projection units were used in arcade games that have RP screens? Anyone know about those? Reason I ask is because I saw a Time Crisis 3 with severe burns, but the picture was still sharp and bright.

[Nashou66]

I think Barco and and maybe electrohome ECP series.

Athanasios

[Joust]

I think they simply use a CRT and mirrors. I'm not familiar with the newest machines though.
Those old Arcade monitors can have very bad burnin and you could not even notice it when the machine is on and displaying a surprisingly bright picture. Some of teh ones I have are original equipment on circa 1980 machines. The picture is sharp and bright.

[Fujifrontier]

Yeah, that's what threw me... severe text and graphic burns along most of the top and bottom when I guess it froze some time in the past, but the picture was still extremely bright and clear, no defocusing or anything. :hmm:

[perisoft]

Of course, it's pretty easy to make 480i look bright and clear.

Also, Joust - he's talking about true RP, not just the mirrored direct-view stuff that got used sometimes. Like this:

http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=alpine-racer&page=detail&id=71

I always assumed they were modified consumer RPTVs, but maybe not? That one's from 1995 or so, so it'd be interesting to know what that vintage RP arcade machines were running, projector-wise, if not consumer RPTV stuff. I'm assuming everything's DLP/LCD in the past few years.

[Nashou66]

I do remember some RPTV like the alpine racer that had Barco sticers on it , just cant rememebr the exact game.

Athanasios

[perisoft]

[banzairun]

Most Namco arcade games sold in the USA (like Time Crisis) use off-the-shelf Mitsubishi 50" consumer sets. The machines even came with the regular remote control to adjust the volume. All arcade boards have RGBHV outputs, so Namco used a RGBHV to S-video converter.

Nearly all Sega games that use RP CRT monitors operate at 24KHz ("Medium Resolution" in arcade-speak) and most of these are custom 50" chassis made by Mitsubishi that will only operate at 24KHz, and interface using 5-BNC. A couple Sega games (like Indy 500) use Hitachi-sourced 40" widescreen 24KHz sets.

Konami games used custom 50" Hitachi 15KHz sets, and one game (Racing Jam) used an LCD projector on a curved screen.

The entire arcade industry died in the past few years, so not many games are being made.. but machines with RP monitors made in the past couple years use DLP projectors at 31.5Khz, unfortunately.. so they're going to be a bit more disposable than their CRT RP cousins (most of which were junked.. 5-yr old games don't make enough money to offset the cost of a retube).

The only game that used an off-the-shelf CRT PJ that was fairly common in the USA was Namco's Galaxian3 (1991 or so) that used two Sony VPH-1031's edged together for a 16' screen... That game was $168k when new. Average cost of a deluxe RP arcade game is around $16k new, the manufacturers would never think of using a PJ as nice as an Electrohome ECP