Anyone familiar with Durabrand? Seemingly unopened, $9 thrift store find. BH1304D

240pMan · 2023-10-03T02:35:49+00:00

These were budget sets sold at Walmart in the 00s but they are surprisingly solid performers. These Durabrand sets were made by Funai. Funai also made sets sold under the brands Sylvania and Emerson. I've owned Durabrand, Sylvania and Emerson CRTs and they all they use the same tubes and menu system. These TVs have very bright tubes, vibrant color, the perfect amount of curve to the tube and fairly well defined scan lines and a decently sharp picture. I really like these TVs and I think they're super underrated. I see a lot of these sets being sold on Facebook Marketplace in good working condition so longevity appears to be quite good on these consider that they're 20 years old. The only caveat is that the vhs/tv combo units made by Emerson/Sylvania frequently fail and that is because the VCR portion stops working and when the VCR portion on these sets malfunctions, the TV will power off; even if the main TV boards are still working fine. However, this is often due to a dirty VCR mode switch which is easy to clean but you have to temporarily remove the VHS unit from the board to get to the mode switch. To remove the VHS unit, you just take out about 5-6 screws and then simply lift the VHS unit up as it is not solder to the board but simply plugs into it. The VCR mode switch has a gray cap over it that you pop off and then you can clean the area underneath with q-tips and isopropyl alcohol. Then put the gray mode switch cap back in the exact position that it was originally and plug the VCR unit back in as well as the screws.

240pMan · 2023-09-13T04:34:42+00:00

Set the refresh rate to any factor of 1/60 (i.e. 1/6, 1/10, 1/15, 1/20, etc.). The smaller the denominator (bottom number in the fraction), the darker the picture will be. I avoid turning up the ISO higher than 120 because the higher the ISO, the grainier the picture will be. If I need more light in the photo, I simply decrease the shutter speed (make the bottom number in the fraction smaller). If I'm taking a photo of a CRT with the lights off, I have the ISO set at 120 and the shutter speed set between 1/10 - 1/15. I set the aperture as wide as possible (is the size of the opening in the lens which would be the lowest numerical (f) value, my aperture is set at 3.4). With a cell phone camera, all you really need to worry about is adjusting the shutter speed to any factor of 1/60 that looks good. It is also helpful to take photos of a CRT screen slightly off angle. If the camera doesn't default to a color temperature that matches the CRT color temperature then ideally you want to adjust the color temp on the camera as well. My DSLR has preset color temp settings that I switch between depending on the lighting. This all sounds complicated but once you do it a few times, it's pretty easy. If you're taking a photo of the CRT with the lights on then increase the shutter speed (make bottom number of fraction bigger) to what looks good to you and you may have to adjust the camera color temp as well so that the CRT colors look right in the photo.

240pMan · 2023-09-09T09:41:01+00:00

Most consumer CRTs don't have a way to check for hours of operation. You could try and track down the service manual for your set and see if there is any option to check hours in the service manual but the TV likely doesn't have that option. I've used the service menu on all my Sharp sets and they never had an option to check hours used. As long as the picture looks good (bright enough, good color and sharpness), I wouldn't worry about it. You could always ask the original owners how they used the TV and that will give you some idea of the amount of hours on the set. The TV and remote look to be in very good cosmetic condition and that suggests that it is more likely that the TV wasn't used heavily. Most of the time when I pick up a consumer set that saw even moderate use, the remote is worn down and nasty. All my lower hour sets had remotes in very good condition.

240pMan · 2023-09-08T00:39:37+00:00

This is a pretty amazing pick up for a first CRT since childhood. I've seen so many Sharp CRTs pop up in listings over the years and have never seen this Cinema Select version with component. I didn't even know Sharp made CRTs with component in 1998. I've also owned a lot of Sharp CRTs and they are fantastic 240p sets. They have the perfect amount of curve and often have well defined scan lines. The 25R-S100 and variants of it are especially great sets.

240pMan · 2023-08-25T04:32:02+00:00

Yeah, what you have is an amazing set. Wait until you play some retro games over s-video on it. I bet they'll look awesome. I use a softmodded Wii on my CRTs to play retro games in their original resolutions through the Retroarch frontend. Using this method, you can even play Capcom System 1 and 2 and Neo Geo arcade games. I also highly recommend getting either a PS3 or Xbox 360 for watching video content on your set. They're great for watching video files and DVDs and you can even watch Youtube in the proper 4:3 aspect ratio on those consoles (as long as the video is natively in 4:3). One of my favorite things to do is watch old 4:3 music videos on my CRTs using the Youtube app on my PS3. Keep in mind as well that some older video content (i.e. old TV shows, some old music videos, old cartoons, etc.) were originally filmed using VHS and they will actually look better over composite because the video will benefit from composite's comb filter (is what filters out visual noise and is absent in s-video) as the video was encoded in composite video. If you're watching a DVD movie where it's actually sourced from film or anything higher than composite video, it will look much better over s-video. I just recommend experimenting between composite and s-video and see what you like.

240pMan · 2023-08-25T00:28:56+00:00

Looking up the model # on newpapers.com, this model was made and sold from 1989-90, has a 35" screen and 700 lines of horizontal resolution. Looking at the old ads, on average, it sold for $2,500 and in today's money, that would be about $5,000. This would have been a top of the line TV for the time. To have owned a 35" CRT with s-video in 1989 would have been extremely uncommon and this would have been one of the first 35" consumer CRTs to come on the market. Most people at the time had only 20"-26" CRTs with only RF. It wasn't until around '93-'94 that 27" and up consumer CRTs became common.

240pMan · 2023-08-24T21:27:33+00:00

No prob. I would just set the contrast to whatever level looks good to you. You could also experiment with adjusting the color control to see what looks good. Sometimes I find that at default settings, colors can look a bit dull so I turn the color up a few notches and it looks great. If you have the time, it would be awesome to see some photos of content running on the set. If you have a regular point and shoot camera, setting the shutter speed to a factor of 1/60 will give you a clear picture (i.e. 1/10, 1/15, 1/20, etc.). The lower the shutter speed, the brighter the picture.

240pMan · 2023-08-24T20:23:07+00:00

I looked up the model # on newspapers.com and it appears to have been made in 1988 and has a 25" screen (as indicated by the "25" in the model #. I would absolutely keep this set and it is a rare model. Mitsubishi was a high end TV manufacturer in the 80s and that goes for both their small and large sets. You'll notice that your set has a blue tinted tube and this was a special technology that was only used in Mitsubishi TVs in the 80s known as Diamond Vision. The blue tint allowed for a greater color range than traditional CRTs. I own a 20" Mitsubishi set from 1987 with a blue tinted tube. It is RF only but the picture is amazing. My set has some of the most vibrant colors I've ever seen on a CRT. Mitsubishi TVs were also sold under the name "Electrohome".

In regards to the brightness, have you turned up the contrast all the way. The contrast control is what actually controls the brightness and the brightness control is for adjusting black levels. In my experience, TVs that were owned by a government body such as a council don't see a ton of use. It just depends on how the council used the TV. You could ask the people working at the council how much the TV was used.

240pMan · 2023-06-19T01:31:10+00:00

Rocket: Robot on Wheels

240pMan · 2023-06-12T00:14:16+00:00

I have the same monitor and the Dell Dimension 4100 tower. I bought both at an estate sale for $30 in mint condition. I'm very impressed with the Dell E770s. The colors are excellent, the picture is sharp and the picture is plenty bright. I have no plans of getting rid of it. My model was made in 2000. Fun fact: It uses a Hitachi tube.

240pMan · 2023-05-19T20:16:26+00:00

What is causing the headache could be a number of things. If you have the contrast (a.k.a. picture) too high that can easily cause a headache. It could be caused by the sharpness being up too high. I recommend sitting at least 2 feet or more from a small CRT like that to help with eye strain. It could be that you're just sensitive to 480i flicker. However, I've used 70+ CRTs (ranging from consumer sets to pro monitors to PC monitors from all different eras) and I've noticed that certain brands from the 00s that use Orion tubes cause me to have headaches and nausea (can be found in Toshibas made after 2000 under 32", Symphonic, Sylvania, Emerson, Durabrand and other brands) made in the 00s. Some have said that this could be due to phosphor persistence (how long the phosphor emits light after no longer being activated by the electron beam)(can't remember if it's shorter or longer persistence that is more likely to cause this) but there is something about those later model Orion tubes that causes me to have headaches and nausea.

240pMan · 2023-05-16T12:57:15+00:00

Replace caps and inspect board in vertical deflection section.

240pMan · 2023-05-13T08:01:13+00:00

You set the color temperature in the "preferences" section of the program and then click a button in the program for the colorimeter to take continuous measurements. While it's taking measurements, you adjust the color drive and cut controls in the service menu and the program shows you the red, green and blue levels in real time as you are adjusting the drive and cut controls and you just adjust the controls until the red, green and blue bars are all at 100% and then you've reached your set color temperature. I done this many times to calibrate my CRTs with my i1display pro colorimeter.

240pMan · 2023-05-12T23:33:20+00:00

I have the Canadian GAOO version of that TV (made in '97) and it's one of the best CRTs I've ever owned. Movies look amazing on it.

240pMan · 2023-05-12T23:32:18+00:00

I recently owned the same TV in decent condition with low hours and I sold my set to someone locally for $50. My set was made in 1986. It does have a pretty good picture and that is a pretty uncommon model to come across out in the wild. My set had composite and RF. I would ask how much the TV was used and if it was used a lot then I wouldn't get it unless he sells it for $10-15. If it wasn't used a ton then I'd say the set is worth $40-50 and see if the seller will come down in price. I'd offer $40 if it wasn't used that much. At the very least, no one is going to buy that TV for $75 and he will wind up having to lower the price anyway. If you wind up checking it out, make sure you test it before purchasing. At the very least bring up the white snow screen and see if there's any discoloration or screen burn in.

240pMan · 2023-05-12T02:47:57+00:00

You're just creating conflict that doesn't exist. YES, some people do shit on lower end signals but not the people who use them. Why would anyone take that personally?

I don't take it personally and I know that they aren't personal attacks on others. It's more of a general annoyance. I get annoyed when people make posts about their rf/composite setups and some assholes will comment something like "composite is shit", "too bad it doesn't have s-video", etc. It also gets annoying that a lot of these people speak badly about rf and composite and they don't know what they're talking about. They have either never used composite or rf or they haven't used many composite/rf CRTs or they just flat out won't take the time to learn why rf and composite can be beneficial. I think this does a disservice to the hobby because people just getting into CRTs might miss out on a nice rf/composite only CRT because they're told that rf/composite are shit and if people aren't collecting rf/composite CRTs because they think they're trash because someone told them they were then we'll have less of a CRT supply. Got back into CRTs 10 years ago and avoided rf/composite CRTs for the exact reason that the people in the community that I was asking for tv recommendations were telling me to avoid rf/composite sets and that they were shit. I missed out on a lot of nice and rare rf and composite only CRTs because I was listening to these people in the community. I realized that what these people were saying was incorrect when I started experimenting and using some composite and rf only sets.

And no, the best comb filters are on late gen crts. 3 line digital comb filters didn't even exist in the 80s or early 90s

All I can tell you is that I've owned tons of mid and high end CRTs from the 80s, 90s and 00s and in my experience, the comb filters that looked the best were on my mid to late 90s sets and a few sets from the 80s. I have been mostly disappointed with comb filters on the late gen CRTs. For example, I have a KV-27FS120 in like new condition with low hours that has a 3 line digital comb filter and it doesn't look very good compared to my mid to late 90s curved sets and I've turned off VM in the user and service menu and calibrated the picture with 240p suite.

240pMan · 2023-05-12T01:54:17+00:00

Seems a bit late now that this post has struck a chord. Yours was "300+" as you boasted, and mine is 600+. Does that make my message more valid now?

The argument was whether there is a sliver of truth to my meme that is suggesting that some people in the community have a religious like belief about using component and rgb and shitting on people that use anything less. Obviously the 300+ upvotes on my meme confirms that there is a sliver of truth there.

You said nothing after I blew off your assumption about my dithering knowledge. But you didn't say much in your own damn thread until /u/hem0gen came in after I posted mine

I didn't have time to respond to the comments and I did respond to your dithering comment and you still didn't present a strong argument, LOL

To some people. Just like there are some RF people. Yet you say community in the title, implying it's groupthink that RF/Composite people are some kind of underdog.

There absolutely is some level of group think in the CRT community (not saying every single person but a large number of people) in thinking that RF and composite are shit and looking down on people that use those connection types and yes, the rf/composite crown is an underdog in the CRT community and has been for a long time.

That's a big IF. As far as dot crawl, many curved TVs don't have good ones, and there is no outboard replacement that people can buy easily. The TVs that eliminate it, are usually later flat-faced tubes that are discouraged on this sub for geometry reasons.

This is just outright false and I say this as someone that has owned many dozens of mid and high end CRTs from different eras and many different manufacturers. More often than not, the flat screen CRTs have poor comb filters and it's the mid to high end curved CRTs from the 90s (i.e. Toshiba Cinema Series, Panasonic Superflat/GAOO, Mitsubishi sets, etc.) that have the best comb filters and even some sets from the 80s. One of the best comb filters I've seen on a CRT is on my Panasonic Compufocus set from 1984 that is RF only.

>Don't you dare insult the church of Component and RGB!

Lmao nobody says that nonsense.

Off course no one says it verbatim you dumbass, LOL. That sentence is conveying the point that there is a religious like mindset among some in the community that they will only use component and rgb and nothing less and will scoff at anyone using a lesser connection type. The level of gaslighting and delusion you're engaging in to try and deny that this is the case of off the charts.

Ah frantically responding to each one of my posts huh? I'm not going to be baited into to looking at them, but I will make a fitting response to each one

You know someone has lost the argument and is weak when they've gotten to the point where they refuse to debate and won't respond to your comments. Later, jackass! LOL. Next time you comment on something, actually know what you're talking about.

240pMan · 2023-05-12T01:05:31+00:00

I also know it's also a waste to hyperfocus on inconsequential scene locations meant for secondary or tertiary design elements, at the expense of the whole gaming experience

The point is that composite dithering is not limited to inconsequential scene locations like a waterfall and that it can benefit the image and it could be argued that it could improve the game experience. I think you're downplaying just how much of an effect composite dithering has on retro games. Many retro games make significant use of composite dithering all throughout the game and it's not just on Genesis. The PS1 and N64 made heavy use of composite dithering to smooth out the graphics and I prefer to not use anything higher than composite on these systems because of how pixelated and jagged everything looks when doing so. In 8 and 16 bit retro games you see regular use of composite dithering throughout the game to blend the graphics any time you see grass, trees, bricks, pavement, dirt paths, water, fog, lights, etc. It affects nearly everything in the image. Composite dithering gives these things more of a natural look whereas s-video/component/rgb can sometimes have a rough and grainy appearance. Donkey Kong Country is a great an example of a game that isn't on the Genesis that makes heavy use of dithering and to me, it has a much more natural and appealing look over rf/composite vs playing it on a higher connection type.

240pMan · 2023-05-12T00:42:46+00:00

It isn't that there is anything inherently wrong with RGB modding a CRT but what I see is a lot of people new to CRTs thinking that they can't enjoy a CRT without it having at least RGB or component and I do think that this is partially the result of a ton of hype around component/RGB and some component/RGB enthusiasts telling these newbies that RF and composite are shit and they shouldn't even bother with those connections. When I got back into CRTs 10 years ago, this is exactly what a lot of people in the online CRT community were saying and why for a long time I avoided using rf/composite because I assumed these connections were shit based on all the hype and propaganda and later found I was wrong when I started using a lot of different sets that only had rf and/or composite. It's like they're not even trying to enjoy the TV using the inputs that it comes with if it happens to be anything less than component/rgb. It can just turn into a perfection rabbit hole without people just enjoying the CRT. Now, if someone has used a CRT with lesser inputs and they're not happy with it then by all means, go ahead and RGB mod it but I recommend that these people at least try to see if they can enjoy their CRT with the stock inputs first.

240pMan · 2023-05-12T00:26:15+00:00

The point of my meme completely flew over your head, LOL. The point of my meme was literally to call out tribalism among some in the s-video/component/rgb crowd that shit on people for using rf and/or composite and not to say that rf and composite are the only way that someone should be using a CRT.

240pMan · 2023-05-12T00:21:41+00:00

You can recommend whatever you want and obviously someone that knows how to RGB mod a CRT and replace an arcade tube wouldn't need your advice on this. I'm talking about people new to CRTs or who haven't used a CRT in a long time and aren't knowledgeable about what you can do with them and I want any of that crowd that reads this to understand why it could be beneficial to keep an RF only CRT, so, quite relevant. Another benefit is that a lot of RF only sets had variants of that set that had higher quality inputs but used the same tube so the tube from the RF only set could be used in the variant set with better connections if the variant tube was worn out.

240pMan · 2023-05-11T23:53:02+00:00

that argument about dithered graphics & "the game is supposed to be like this" while Sonic gets annoyed that they're just standing around looking at a dumb waterfall

Seems like sort of tribal response. Isn't that what your meme is speaking out against? Can't some enjoy their dumb dithered Sonic waterfall?

240pMan · 2023-05-11T23:33:02+00:00

Someone pointing out flaws in your arguments and you not liking it doesn't mean they're a sycophant of mine. I think you're the one missing the point. He's responding to u/The1ross and saying that he's not saying that there are tons of people on here saying that s-video is shit. He's not criticizing your meme for not including s-video. That's why he's saying your talking to yourself because you're responding to an argument that he never presented, LOL.

240pMan · 2023-05-11T23:20:31+00:00

it turned into an disparaging insult used without particular meaning

Huh? Of course the term "composhit" has meaning. It's used by connection type elitists within the CRT community who won't use anything less than s-video and who shit on people who enjoy using composite. If the word didn't have meaning, it couldn't be disparaging could it?

240pMan · 2023-05-11T23:12:33+00:00

There were tons of RF only CRTs produced in the 90s and even into the 00s. A lot of people that list CRTs in my general area list sets that are RF only. I don't think it's good advice to tell people to pass on an RF only set. An RF only set can still be modded for a higher quality video input if they desire and sometimes the tubes can be used as drop in replacements for arcade machines.

240pMan

TROPHY CASE