H/T to SP95 for the news
About two years ago, I reported on the creation of a 4:3 LCD monitor product that was created to replace the old CRT tubes in arcade cabinets. Due to the shipping out of Australia, I didn’t jump on those yet but today there’s a new contender in the space with the launch of the Unico Arcade CRT Replacement LCD.
If you are unfamiliar with this company, they were behind the Neo Geo MVSX home cabinets, so they have a track record in the space from that, and a few other products.
Like the Arcooda displays, this is an “open frame” monitor, meaning that it is made to drop into an existing arcade cabinet and take it from there. One major difference is that these are 26″ in size (well, 25.7″ active screen space), making them 6″ larger than Arcooda’s main design; If you need something smaller though, they do have 19″ models. The 26″ size though should be perfect for the many games in the 90s that used larger 25-27″ CRTs.
Another difference is that these are only available in the USA at the moment – no international shipping at this time. I also checked and the page is not letting you pre-order/purchase them at the moment as the first lot sold out almost immediately; The company is promising to open up another round of orders “soon.” Initial orders should ship by next month and the next round is anticipated to ship by August.
For more tech notes on this one(per the product page):
- Units work in CGA, EGA, HDMI, VGA, SVGA or XGA resolutions.
- Ideal for use in most Arcade & Amusement cabinets.
- Replace your old outdated or burn-in CRT monitors with a Unico Phoenix Series LCD monitor and give your games life again with our easy to install CRT replacement LCD.
- Manufactured with high-grade components with a superior LCD panel, that offer better picture quality, balanced picture image, viewing angles and a longer life span with no burn-in (which is typical with traditional CRT monitors).
- All units have a unique frame design that allows you ease of installation of our LCD panel to most arcade & amusement cabinets.
- Built in connectors on back of LCD for CGA/EGA, HDMI, and DB15 VGA signal.
- Pre-programmed to automatically sync with popular CGA/EGA games may require manual adjustment via OSD settings controller.
- LCD’s can be adjusted via our OSD settings for other CGA/EGA/HDMI/VGA games via included OSD settings controller.
- +12v Power Supply
- Mounting Bracket pre-installed on monitor for easy installation.
These are selling for $299 and judging from posts on their Facebook page, work quite well with a number of JAMMA titles, although I’m not sure what kind of input lag they might have.
As an operator, having a 4:3 solution is quite welcome, as that avoids the stretching of pixels that you get with store-bought LCDs…and it just looks more natural inside the cabinet.
If your CRTs have given up the ghost, would you invest in one or would you rather see new CRTs get made?
