John's Arcade Forum - Classic Arcade and Pinball Collecting and Restoring Discussion Forum - RETRO MAME - Nintendo Vs Forum

I am getting inspired by all these vids to try and find all these different videos. But with a limited budget the main obstacle is still a real cga 15k hz arcade monitor. But I did find these cga to tv rgb converters.. This would be ideal since crt tv's are dirt cheap..

http://www.uniarcade.com/video_converters/rgb_to_video_converter.htm

Since they still are both a 15k hz signal. Does this preserve the actual scanlines and give as a authentic screen as an actual arcade monitor?

I will probably still have to go this route regardless..

Im not sure what you mean by preserve scanlines as that isn't part of the signal but more a function of the monitor it is displayed on. I do believe you can select the resolution that is outputted from the converters so you might be able to get it to show scanlines but I dont think it will look the same as you are expecting. I am not an expert with the converters available so I am sure there is a high end converter that will add blanking lines to emulate scanlines but the cheap ones dont do that.

"Scan lines" are caused because s 240 pixel tall image is displayed on a 600 line tall CRT.

And on most arcade CRTs that are standard resolution the shadow mask isn't fine enough to distinguish scan lines, it is more apparent on a monitor with a fiber shadow mask (or aperture grille) like a  medium resolution or tri-res tube.

On a 19" G07 or 19" K7000 I have never been able to see scan lines even when the monitor is completely dialed in.

this thread on arcade controls seem to confirm for me, that a cheap old tv with the proper cabling to accept a arcade screen signal will be authentic and cost efficient.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=120798.0

In case anyone else looking for the same answer finds this thread, i found this link which pretty much answers all my questions.

http://www.ultimarc.com/monfaq.html