aaronmjr | 52 Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 Cool idea for a club! I thought I'd share the story on how I picked up three NEC XM29 presentation monitors with a friend a while back. If you aren't familiar, the XM29 is a 29" RGB CRT that would have been used in conference rooms, or video wall displays among other things. What makes them unique and desirable is that most RGB capable CRTs have a 20" or smaller screen size, while the XM29 is much larger (27" viewable). But wait, there's more. Similar to a PVM-20L5, the XM29 is actually a Multisync monitor meaning it can handle resolutions of 480p and above as well making it an excellent choice for VGA sources like the Dreamcast, or playing PS2 games in progressive mode. All sources look fantastic, and 240p games display correctly complete with scanlines. They also have a fairly high "TV Line" (or TVL) count which also lends itself to a sharper and better looking picture. Some people say they have 600TVL, some people say they have 800TVL. The spec sheet is a little ambiguous with it's wording, but I believe it to be 600TVL. Anyways! Through a series of Google searches back in 2016, I found an artist who had used XM29s in a gallery display years prior and with a little digging I found his contact information. I emailed him and eventually we talked on the phone about him selling me the monitors. We made a deal, and a friend and I were going to drive from Minneapolis, MN all the way to Michigan to pickup three XM29s for $50/each. My friend wanted to hit every game store we could on the way there and back, so we each had something to be excited about! I believe he bought somewhere around 50 games during our trip, and was disappointed that he didn't find more . A winter storm had plagued most of our trip, and we were in an early 2000s Chevy Impala with old tires and bad wipers. Also, my friend is like 6'2 and his driver's seat was broken and stuck in the position he drives in.. I'm 5'10 so this created a little extra stress while driving in white-out conditions in someone else's car. But in any case, lots of great memories were made, we visited TONS of stores and encountered interesting people and situations the entire way there and back. I could go into more detail about some of the shenanigans we got into, but I'll let it at this for now! Here are some pictures of our adventure. First pic is with the seller, very nice guy. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginoscope | 14 Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 Very awesome story thanks for sharing. I recently had the chance to work on a XM29 for a friend and I was blown away at how 480p looked with a dreamcast. It is something that has to be seen. My only negative with his set was a little loud because there are like 3 fans on this set. That being said I would have driven very far to get one ha ha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerBarnes | 184 Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 Wow! What a nice pickup! Those monitors looks great! I love the thin bezel on such a big screen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWunderful | 2,927 Posted November 2, 2019 Share Posted November 2, 2019 Love the NEC monitors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MachineCode | 159 Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 My Holy Grail Monitor right there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts