MiSTer FPGA Forum

Hi guys, I'm new to all this stuff, so I apologise if I'm asking things that've been covered a million times before. I'm just not sure what problem I should be looking up.

I recently bought a 14" Panasonic PVM (BT-H1490Y), connected it to the MiSTer with a VGA to BNC cable via RGB. The image on most of the console cores (NES, SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, PSX) looks like it's shifted to the left (so a black bar is visible on the right of the screen).

I tried adjusting the H. Position and H. Size in the PVM's settings to as far as they would go, but the image is still visibly off-centre.

Does this sound like there's something wrong with the PVM (do I need to have it calibrated or something)?

Or is this a known incompatibility with some monitors and I'm just unlucky?

Or is there a way to correct this in the MiSTer's settings?

Thank you.

These cores should be centered properly with default MiSTer settings. Please post your mister.ini file to confirm.

About the PVM, I don't know this model myself, maybe somebody else does. Have you read the manual though, or tried tweaking other settings than the two you mention? Eg on Sony's there's also Video Phase which can move the image horizontally.

Have you got any original hardware which you could connect and see how it behaves?

Sounds like it could be an alignment/geometry issue, I don't have any experience with this particular PVM but you'll probably need to adjust pots on the mainboard or the yoke on the neck of the CRT. The service manual is easy to find online, I'd suggest having a read through but with anything high voltage; take the risks seriously. If you don't understand what you're doing it's best to consult a professional.

But yeah, try some other hardware first. Something with a test pattern like the 240p test suite ideally.

I've copied the MiSTer.ini text to a Pastebin page:

https://pastebin.com/GigG78AT

Yeah those two horizontal settings I mentioned above are all you can adjust as far as I understand.

No I don't have any original hardware to test at the moment. I'll try that out when I do.

Yeah I'd have to have a professional look at it, I wouldn't know what to do with the insides.

You config is fine, works on my setup. If you can get hold of some other source to compare, it'd be the best thing to do before you get into the hassle of getting the monitor opened and fixed.

From time to time we in the discord community too have seen some PVMs shifted to the left for various cores. Most of the time the person is using a VGA to BNC cable. This kind of connection on some PVMs appears to consistently shift the image, so it is likely a conversion not dissimilar from the composite --> SCART conversion that causes images to shift to the left too (if the converter doesn't account for the difference). I agree with akeley, i wouldn't jump to the conclusion that it's a flaw in the PVM and it's not a flaw in the core either.

I do have a PS1, and a year before I got this PVM I bought a PS1 to SCART cable (with a lightgun input) from Retro Access (because at the time I didn't know what kind of monitor I was going to end up with). Just this week, I've ordered a female SCART to BNC cable from Retro Upgrades. So once it gets here, I'll be able to connect the two cables and see what RGB out of the PS1 looks like on this PVM.

If it turns out that it's fine, do you think buying a cable like the following VGA to SCART cable from Ultimate MiSTer could possibly fix the problems I'm having now?

https://ultimatemister.com/product/mist ... un-guncon/

The cable I'm using now was from Amazon (so it wasn't specifically made for use with the MiSTer):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UJMGZC

Or do you mean anything coming out of the VGA port has the potential to have this problem with some monitors?

I haven't looked into the Direct Video options yet. But yeah, I agree with you guys, I'd like to try a few more things before paying someone to look at the monitor.

You don't need a "special" MiSTer cable for this particular connection. The one you have should be fine, also if it had a problem then most likely it'd manifest itself in some other way, like not syncing, bad colours, etc - not geometry.