CRT FW900 Do you own one?

[3dfan]

thank for your reply, i see there is a lot of info about the fw900, which is good since i am a new lucky fw900 owner (which some one was unexpectedly selling in my country colombia at a cheap price), unfortunatelly, i did not notice anything diferent when using that image restoration setting, i guess it is because the monitor age. The service manual claims itself about the unability to use that feature as the monitor tube ages.

that 30 min warmup wait time really dissapoited me about this monitor and the seller never warned about it, so it seems i will have to live with it and lower the brightness level to 0 while the monitor warms up. or is there a workarround about this?

i also have to learn to proper calibrate brightness levels, i have not been able to achieve the brightness i used on my previous crt compaq 17 inch 4.3 monitor which at the moment has better black - brightness levels.

from what i read there is a way to improve this monitor brightness via a hardware port through windas sofware.......i see a lot of research, patience, and practice will be needed for this monitor, but defrinitely seems to be worth it.

[aeliusg]

thank for your reply, i see there is a lot of info about the fw900, which is good since i am a new lucky fw900 owner (which some one was unexpectedly selling in my country colombia at a cheap price), unfortunatelly, i did not notice anything diferent when using that image restoration setting, i guess it is because the monitor age. The service manual claims itself about the unability to use that feature as the monitor tube ages.

that 30 min warmup wait time really dissapoited me about this monitor and the seller never warned about it, so it seems i will have to live with it and lower the brightness level to 0 while the monitor warms up. or is there a workarround about this?

i also have to learn to proper calibrate brightness levels, i have not been able to achieve the brightness i used on my previous crt compaq 17 inch 4.3 monitor which at the moment has better black - brightness levels.

from what i read there is a way to improve this monitor brightness via a hardware port through windas sofware.......i see a lot of research, patience, and practice will be needed for this monitor, but defrinitely seems to be worth it.

The need to warm up large physical devices such as these is unavoidable. What your monitor probably needs is an adjustment of the G2 voltage to attain proper black levels, this can be done with the WinDAS utility. You will need to a USB to TTL converter cable. Note that the 5V voltage on the ECS pins is unnecessary for a USB to TTL converter: http://www.piclist.com/images/com/geoci ... /cable.htm

[3dfan]

thanks for your help, i am learing to tweak this monitor better with some time and now when the monitor warms up, i am being able to achieve decent bright and black levels, specially notable in the night, im using the brightness level at 35 and100 contrast, and some other expert color settings, however i would like to be able to rise the brightness more during the day, but then the blacks start to be affected getting overbright. from what i understand the windas trick helps when the monitor has permanent overbright, but would it also be able to help to improve brightness without affecting black levels with higher brightness levels? if so, can you please tell me if any of the following converters i will link you would work? the link is in spanish to the "ebay" of colombia, however, if you dont understand spanish dont worry, only watching the picture and entering the correspondig link you can tell me which converter you may consider usefull for this purpose.

http://listado.mercadolibre.com.co/usb-to-ttl#D[A:usb-to-ttl]

i saw your link but it refers to build the converter by yourself, but since it seems to be cheap, i would rather prefer to buy it,

many thanks for your valuable help.

[spacediver]

yep, the cathode takes a while to warm up, and I suspect the increased brightness is due to the circuitry zealously compensating for the reduced emission by increasing the beam current.

The fact that the tube has to warm up is actually a beautiful thing when you think about what's actually happening.


As for WinDAS, if you want a quick fix for the black level, follow this tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpbveKhYfn4

If you want to do it properly, follow my guide that aeliusg linked to:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1830788

[aeliusg]

^ There you go. The man himself. Using his white point calibration process, I was able to achieve the near-infinite black levels that are possible with CRT.

http://articulo.mercadolibre.com.co/MCO ... no-pic-_JM

That one is the kind I have. The link I gave you before was just to show that you don't need or want the 5V output on the 4 pins in the back, so you wouldn't connect the red wire in the picture.

The G2 adjustment will make it so that the monitor's perceived black levels are not as affected as they are now, so it will do what you want. Note that contrast adjusts the maximum white level, however, and also that the problem with glass screens is that during the day or in bright light their contrast is overall lower than an LCD screen or such with matte, anti-glare coating due to the internal and external reflections of the screen. I would advise that you use this monitor in dim or dark lighting conditions for the best picture.

You should also know that the white point calibration process as spacediver's guide on hardforum puts it requires a color calibration device to be done properly. A common and cheap one is the discontinued DTP 94. The G2 adjustment can be done simply by eye in the software though, as shown in the Youtube video spacediver has linked.

[spacediver]

This one's cheaper (Assuming the previous link was in US dollars!):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-To-RS232-TT ... 1847253057

you'll need the driver for this to work. Depending on whether the chipset is rev A or rev D, you might only be able to run this in Win 7 and Win XP. the newer chipset (rev D) works in Windows 8, according to the documents in the driver package (you'll likely need the driver to get it to work):

http://www.prolific.com.tw/US/ShowProdu ... 25&pcid=41

also, the dtp-94 also goes under the name monacooptix xr.

If you can afford it, I recommend the i1 display pro, as that can read lower black levels (which can be important in the un-crushing phase using ArgyllCMS in the guide), and is a more versatile instrument overall. But the DTP-94 will serve you well.

[3dfan]

i got the usb to ttl device and lowered the G2 value, which was at 142, tested with values at 130 and then 120, but what i noticed was that the overall brightness range was lowered after the G2 adjustement. is like when i rised the brightness level at 70 before, after the G2 adjust that same result is but when i reach 100 and is darker than before at 100, but sadly, overall picture gets darker, not only the black levels.

i see those people that make the same procedure wityh the G2 settting on the internet have manage to achieve high brightness levels without affecting the blacks. doing the same still get blacks overbrighted when getting high bright value on the osd, tested with the image restoration setting again after the G2 lowering, but nothing positive. I just hope there is something wrong im doing?? really hope.

thats correct and i am aware that crts needs darker enviroments, in fact thats how i was using my previous crt, on a semi light room, but with the fw900 its worse at day

as for the color tutorial, seems very complex and usefull but i think im ok with the current colors, just need to fix that black level issue (i hope)

anyone know if there are other values with windas i should try that may help improving the black levels?
thanks again

[aeliusg]

i got the usb to ttl device and lowered the G2 value, which was at 142, tested with values at 130 and then 120, but what i noticed was that the overall brightness range was lowered after the G2 adjustement. is like when i rised the brightness level at 70 before, after the G2 adjust that same result is but when i reach 100 and is darker than before at 100, but sadly, overall picture gets darker, not only the black levels.

i see those people that make the same procedure wityh the G2 settting on the internet have manage to achieve high brightness levels without affecting the blacks. doing the same still get blacks overbrighted when getting high bright value on the osd, tested with the image restoration setting again after the G2 lowering, but nothing positive. I just hope there is something wrong im doing?? really hope.

thats correct and i am aware that crts needs darker enviroments, in fact thats how i was using my previous crt, on a semi light room, but with the fw900 its worse at day

as for the color tutorial, seems very complex and usefull but i think im ok with the current colors, just need to fix that black level issue (i hope)

anyone know if there are other values with windas i should try that may help improving the black levels?
thanks again

In the calibration process, there are values to adjust in conjunction with G2 that will ensure that light output meets specifications. You may want to go through that when you have the time. One of these values is c_max_b_max as I recall, but in any case you may want to go through the rest of the steps rather than changing it directly, as I don't think anyone is familiar with the results of the latter. (You will need a display calibration device to do this correctly, though it may be possible to adjust according to eye once again. Be careful as these settings may increase wear on your monitor. It is likely more than a decade old after all.)

[3dfan]

thanks for those suggestions, taking a break with windas and the monitor since there is too much to work to improve it about it, i was reading this topic and found something interesting: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=952788&page=334

they are highly recommending to remove the anti glare layer, they say white and blacks are better without that, which is something i am seeking, as a matter of fact, i miss the moderated bloom my previous crt monitor had, and in the pictures posted on that topic really seems that layer darkens everything on the screen.

at the beggining of this topic i read spacediver did it and say it looks good in controlled environments, how it looks at the day? and also my fw900 display has scratches, so im very tempted to remove that layer, what do you think? would i need some special tools, liquids to do it?

[aeliusg]

thanks for those suggestions, taking a break with windas and the monitor since there is too much to work to improve it about it, i was reading this topic and found something interesting: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=952788&page=334

they are highly recommending to remove the anti glare layer, they say white and blacks are better without that, which is something i am seeking, as a matter of fact, i miss the moderated bloom my previous crt monitor had, and in the pictures posted on that topic really seems that layer darkens everything on the screen.

at the beggining of this topic i read spacediver did it and say it looks good in controlled environments, how it looks at the day? and also my fw900 display has scratches, so im very tempted to remove that layer, what do you think? would i need some special tools, liquids to do it?

I don't know about how to do it, but if you were to, the monitor would be almost impossible to use during the daytime and contrast would be reduced around any kind of light sources at all (even the reflected light off your face).