RARE! Barco CVS 51 20" CRT Broadcast Video Monitor w/RGB Inputs Gaming Loc.PU LA

Description

Barco CVS 51 20" CRT Broadcast Monitor 5005614 w/Sony BVU-950 #11836 - Playing a Few Tapes
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Shippingto USA is flat rate 8.50, but if you are in California, please send me a message BEFORE you buy and I will reduce the shipping to 1.25 for you.
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Please see the full test results below and watch the demonstration video. When first powered on after decades in a sealed flight case, it appeared that the picture was a few inches too narrow from side to side, leaving two inches of empty black on the far right and left sides, with a little bit of a trapezoidal shape where the lower screen had the problem more than the top. You can see this in the older video "Sony BVU-950 #11836 - The Best U-Matic VTR Editing Recorder of All Time - With Barco CVS 51 20" CRT" (it has the serial number 11836 right in the title, don't confuse it with my old top ranked BVU-950 video using a deck of a different serial number) on the Synclav com Youtube channel.
I assumed it needed repair, calibration and just turning the adjustment trimmers, but I don't know how and didn't even know where the trimmers were (on every other broadcast monitor I have they are in front below the screen but this one just has the control panel buttons there), and had no time to figure it out and no space to leave it set up to do fairly soon.
Now I have taken the time to check it out, it has a dozen adjustment trimmers on the back side to the left of the AC inlet that I hadn't seen before, and this is a BIG monitor so it is HARD to reach over and turn them while looking at the screen at the same time, at best my nose is almost touching the top edge of the glass and I'm viewing the picture at an 85° angle and can't even see the top edge of the picture for vertical adjustments. The picture was too narrow, so I looked over the names of the adjustment trimmers and figured that HORIZONTAL AMPL OVERSCAN would most likely be the amplification that sets the picture width, and used a small Synhouse screwdriver to try and turn it, it was a little stuck, so I pressed so as not to strip it and turned a little harder, then it turned with a little click and instantly the picture expanded to normal size, I mean it didn't even turn 10° to change the picture width by 40%, so I can assume that over 35 years the contact trimpot (and these are cheap parts, the 180° blue and white plastic type, replacement with a sealed multi-turn trimmer would be a better idea than some lame attempt at cleaning them out) wiper and carbon had stuck together and probably completely lost contact so that was a totally open connection there when I was trying before. From there I just screwed it up playing with all the trimmers, mostly just to exercise them, as NONE of them moved freely until I broke them free with a little initial turn. So now it has the full screen size all day and night today (on at running temperature for about five hours, off an hour to cool, then back on for two more hours as I write this, always the same, full size picture) without the narrow picture problem anymore. In the video/photos you can see that the top and bottom 2" of the left/right side edges of the picture curve in, just as the CRT glass curves in but more so. I adjusted it like this so you can see it there. I can easily adjust the screen width to move that beyond the edges of the screen and you wouldn't see it, though part of your image that you want to see might be off the edge of the screen. The menu has underscan and overscan modes (hit the toggle key after selecting option 3 after pressing menu), but I just tested the underscan setting once and didn't use it after that, it's on overscan mode in all these photos and videos.
At a minimum, it needs adjustment, and/or calibration, and/or repair (new capacitors, etc.) to correct that. I would STRONGLY suggest replacing all electrolytic caps (which are surely dried out and almost can't be good at age 35, though they can be adequate if not really needed in the design) and possibly consider replacing others as well after doing that, as you're not going to be getting good waveforms if the desired capacitors aren't there. I think the video signal to the CRT tube is probably not being amplified correctly or enough because of every electrolytic cap being dried out by now. Seriously no one assembling this in 1987 thought someone would be playing 9 video game consoles through it 30 years later. If they had, they might have used some big tantalum (which sometimes had a failure mode of shorting and were avoided for that reason) and really big film caps instead.
Many Sony PVMs have a problem with the edges of the screens that was fixed with Sony service bulletins telling people to add/change/upgrade capacitors, and people on YouTube have been doing that as well to fix the problem (I never did it, but I've had PVM monitors with service tags on them saying it had been done). The picture you see in the video is the picture you get, assuming you are giving it a composite video from a professional VTR as I have been doing. See the full test results below.
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This is possibly the biggest and grandest broadcast CRT I've ever seen.
Modular construction with an entirely aluminum chassis, card cage in the back holding all card modules, massive fully recessed die cast metal handles, hybrid tactile/membrane switch panel (like the famous 7 Moog Source panel w/62 mechanical switches as sold by this eBay account the last four years), and 1988 Emmy award winning automatic electronic calibration by microprocessor.
By comparison, a Sony PVM broadcast monitor is a Sony Trinitron consumer TV with some extra circuits to calibrate color and take different inputs, the entire rear side is molded plastic, usually the bottom, too, and any metal is thin cheap painted steel, with the handles being little molded plastic things snapped into the side that crack in if they get hit. This is night and day different construction from, say, the Sony 20" PVM-20N1U I sold for 5 last year, which was just an expensive Sony TV, all steel and plastic, molded control panel, inserted plastic handles (which feel like they are going to crack or pop out when you use them because it's over 60 pounds).
This is a very rare Belgian Barco CVS (Color Video Scope) 51 20" high-grade color broadcast video monitor with quad decoder, serial number 5005614.
This is a multi-standard monitor with NTSC 3.58, NTSC 4.43, etc. in the software selectable menus if set to manual, but it's usually set by the computer automatically. This is a highly sophisticated software/microprocessor controlled monitor.
Barco in Belgium came out with the Color Video Scope (CVS) broadcast video monitor line in 1985, and it was the first monitor to use a microprocessor to produce a uniform image via automatic calibration.
This CVS 51 was made in May 1992 and was used by a studio in Hollywood and taken offline before the switch to high definition, probably in the early 2000s, Synhouse got it in a BIG buyout (probably the biggest single purchase in the history of this company, it was a 36 foot liftgate truck nearly full, including six shock racks I brought and loaded with gear) and has been sealed in a flight case in the Synhouse warehouse for 16 years. Before this week, it hadn't been plugged in for 16 years.
This is a very, very heavy duty monitor with a rear card cage design, over 68 pounds bare (and that's a lot considering it's made purely of riveted aluminum with a front plastic bezel to block light from the screen, a magnet will not stick to the top, sides, back, or bottom because there is no steel here, if it looks like it has a lot of little dents in it and bends on the edges of the top shroud, this is why, it's soft aluminum) and completely square, and it has three option boards installed in the card cage. One is the quad decoder board that you see removed for a photo in the photo gallery, it is a dual syncable composite video input board, the other is the syncable RGB component input board (but I think that one's standard for this CVS model because RGB is central to European use), and it also has the 9-pin remote board (which I think is the main 6809 processor board).
This broadcast monitor has overscan and underscan modes (press the SIZE button on the control panel to get overscan back when it goes off it due to going into the menus, etc.).
Synhouse most often gets gear from audio post production facilities that use some video gear for scoring or spotting sound effects to picture, via the Synhouse Synclavier business, but some large lots are obtained from straight video post production companies as well, this unit is from a local post production room here in L.A., until I powered it on this week to test it to list it, it hadn't been powered on in at least 16 years since I tested it while moving it into a big flight case in the warehouse, before that, it probably wasn't powered up for at least a few years.
I have so much gear it's hard to remember all the details of it all, but I keep pretty good inventory, serial number, etc. notes and accompanying photos, though sometimes I can't locate all of it, as there are a few databases used for this 150,000 pounds of musical instruments, audio equipment, and video equipment I have here (mostly digital audio workstations, actually), and some big buyouts take days to stock and aren't properly noted when doing so. So occasionally I find a Sony VO-9850 or Sony PVM CRT broadcast monitor that I forgot I had.
My recollection was that this was purchased, flight cased, and put wayyyy back in the warehouse when it came in in 2006 without testing or even plugging it in, it was from a working room so I didn't think about it (standard definition gear was pissing from companies for nothing, I mean sometimes just carry it away please, I've bought VO-9850s for a dollar, passed on them for twenty, and passed on CRTs because they were just too big for the truck to carry). But by the time I got it back here to sell, I checked the serial number 5005614, and found these inventory notes in a file from 2006:
Barco CVS 51 20" high-grade color video monitor with Quad decoder, s.n. 5005614, three option boards, has 9-pin remote board, dual syncable composite input board, syncable RGB component input board, overscan and underscan modes, tested, works perfectly, some of the setup screens ask for an unknown password
So I guess I must have tested it the minute it came in back in 2006. I don't remember bringing it home and up over three flights of stairs and down again, and at over 68 pounds, I'd likely remember it, so I probably tested in the warehouse with some broadcast tapes and a perfectly working Sony VP-7040 I had there.
So it was 100% working in 2006, and was probably in professional use a little earlier, until 2003 or 2004 or so. At the time, Ascent Media was the owner of Todd-AO (one of my main suppliers) and dozens of other audio and video post production companies from L.A. to New York, and was aggressively tearing down rooms, consolidating, and putting a lot of money into the latest surround and high def equipment, the upgrade to surround sound being the single stupidest financial expenditure L.A. studios ever made, nobody ever saw any use for it, and it pitted previously good music studios against post houses with up to 200 rooms (like Soundstorm in Burbank, if you remember that dump, it was 200 rooms in rows like Alcatraz) that crushed them. So this was working perfectly in 2006 according to my notes.
So except for 12 hours this year and a few minutes in 2006, I don't think it was used since 2004 or earlier. This is the case with almost all my video gear I'll be selling. I was super excited to buy so, so, so, much video gear as the prices were suddenly falling because of the switch to high definition after years of all prices staying the same (like someone thinking they were doing you a favor by offering you a Digibeta deck for ,000, I've since gotten DVW-500s for just a few years after paying over 0 for them), and I was doing all that from 2005-2006 (95% of what I have), then a little bit more through 2011 (5% of what I have).
So unlike all the other video gear on eBay, what's from my personal collection has not been flipped again and again (and shipped by eBay sellers that don't know how to pack) over the last 14 years, or used or even POWERED UP in the last 14 years in most cases. So a lot of my stuff is unusually clean. And since I have 300-400 flight cases and most of this gear is sealed airtight in them, the surfaces aren't dull and oxidized because they haven't been exposed to air in 10-15 years or more. Also note that 100% of it was purchased in Los Angeles with cartage by me personally, so it wasn't shipped when I bought it. I think a whole room including an Avid Meridien trucked from Colorado in 2006 was the only video post gear I ever purchased from outside California.
This Barco CVS 51 20" CRT broadcast monitor has front panel selectable coded line A, coded line B, etc. inputs, with the software menu showing you the options you change with the up and down buttons, and each has BNC jacks for composite video and RGB video inputs. All I had on hand to test it with was color composite NTSC video and audio from a highly professional video deck, the Sony BVU-950 U-Matic, and for the demonstration video on YouTube I was running the audio from an XLR cable to a Hafler PRO2400 and Tannoy Reveal 6.5, so it's plenty loud and clear in the video.
This has a lot of interesting functions I've never seen on my other monitors, as far as I recall. It has R G B buttons on the front, and touching one of those will just give you THAT color. Another button discards all color and shows you monochrome. Another button SIZE changes it from underscan to overscan, which fills up the screen. With my U-matic test tapes, the underscan is a smaller image that has a few tiny red/green stripes at the top of the screen. The software menus and displays are VAST. No idea how to use them except for a few functions I could see how to change.
This was sealed in an airtight flight case from 2006 until late December 2021, so it is clean and was untouched for over 15 years.
I am not a video engineer and can't do calibration and critical tests for specific performance attributes, but I can tell you how I have tested it today and what the results were. All I can guarantee is that I got these results, beyond that, I don't guarantee it.
My test results from today:
The basics: Powers up. All controls work as far as I can tell (I don't have a manual). The plastic over the INPUT membrane tactile switch is nicked as you see in the photo, but that works well like all the other buttons, so all buttons respond instantly to the lightest touch. Menus work. Some settings ask for a password, I press "1" and it goes to the next screen without saying wrong, but I don't know if that's right. As you can see very, very clearly in the video and photos, the upper right/left sides of the picture is half an inch undersized in the corners.
I don't know exactly what causes this, but you can expand the screen size to move that offscreen, at the risk of losing the outer edge of your image that you may want to see. I don't really know how to adjust it (screen size, screen position, etc.), I was just twiddling the trimmers to fix the big problem of the narrow screen image, but it might be more than that, it might need new capacitors, or other repair. This isn't a CRT problem, it's electronic. It is WAYYY out of adjustment being unplugged for 16 years.
The picture it does display, in the area it is being displayed, is absolutely flawless, it displays good and clear video coming from playing a tape (and the picture is very, very clear with good contrast and color, truly excellent to my eyes, I'm playing a SMPTE bars video/SMPTE LTC time code/audio test tone test tapes I got from audio post houses, you can see some of both in the photos).
More critically: Professional video broadcast monitors need regular maintenance and periodic service (whether used or not), including calibration or alignment, as does this one, and it hasn't had maintenance or service since, well, I don't know, maybe 20 years, I'd say some time a long time before I got it (in 2006 and even then it hadn't been used in a long time). If you buy professional gear, you pay for maintenance and upkeep like a professional. It's not like "Oh, we used to clean the heads and align and calibrate the Otari MTR-10 before every session in 1982, but now that the machine is clapped out and 40 years old, you can be the fourth eBay hobby owner in ten years who doesn't need to do any maintenance on it at all, it just works permanently now...".
I played four different tapes a few times over 12 hours day and night, letting it come up to temperature and stay there for 12 hours, it's stable, always the same. If you see the screenshots here in the photos and videos there are no defects in the screen image aside from the narrowing in the corners described above.
There are NO scratches on the screen whatsoever.
Additional notes (and note to self): This was slow to turn on after 15+ years unplugged. Someone else might have had a variac and spent a few hours bringing the AC up to 115v in order to charge up the capacitors slowly, but I don't have a variac, I just plug them in. And that's a bit of internet lore anyway, I assure you that only affects electrolytic caps, it's not like tantalums, ceramic, or film caps need that, and any electrolytic capacitor made 30 years ago was toast 10-20 years ago (and some newer ones since 2008 or so have failed or blown their tops off in under a year [think digital TV converter boxes]), so there's nothing there to protect, they are cheap and lose capacitance over time in all cases. When I first powered it for just a few seconds, not long enough to heat up the screen, I heard the fan but it acted like it wasn't coming on right away, and turning it on a few times, the OVERLOAD light was coming on (left of panel near power switch). I have no idea what that is, I have more gear than anyone who ever stepped on the Earth and none of it has an overload light. After two minutes, that stopped happening, and hasn't happened since, and the screen came on saying "NO SYNC", so I connected the U-matic video deck and it had the good video with proper sync. I don't know if it had the too-narrow screen problem then, at least I don't remember it, but two hours later when I started to film the 4K video, I saw it for the first time, but it might have been like that from the start, I just think I would have noticed it. And I left it powered up for 12 hours, powered on and off a few dozen times, it always stayed the same, same picture, good color, and never had the overload light since the first minute or two 12 hours before.
This doesn't mean much as Barco is another brand, but Sony PVMs are known for having a problem with capacitors (because they are old and/or the capacitor values were too small in the design) that are known to cause the small red and green (and sometimes blue) lines that are supposed to be offscreen on top but end up coming down into the picture area (slightly, or more later). This is probably seen eventually on ALL Sony PVM monitors, and has been solved on many with the increased value capacitors that Sony recommended in engineering change orders to solve that problem, I don't know for sure. That could also be an issue with this one. I don't know what company made the picture tube inside this, but it was probably made in Europe by Phillips (like all but the very oldest Fairlight CMIs) or in Japan by one of the majors.
I might mention this other option to rack mount this. This is the exact biggest monitor that can be rack mounted. Notice in the photos how big it is, but how the CRT edges really come right to the edge, so all the space used is for CRT display.
This monitor is a 20" diagonally measured size, and easily fits between the rack rails of a standard 19" equipment rack.
This is totally square on all edges and measures 21.75" deep x 17.62" wide x 15.75" high (which is exactly 9U tall).
BTW, this didn't have rubber feet on it, but I added four high quality brand new rubber feet to the bottom of it so the screws on the underside wouldn't scratch up the sanded plywood boards I set it on for testing and videos. I will include those, but may remove and bag them for the shipment to pack better. And I'd suggest removing them to set it on a rack shelf.
That 17.62" wide dimension, 17-5/8", means it will sit down into a rack shelf that is wide enough, or on top of one upside down if it isn't wide enough. So you could put it on top of a very strong rack shelf. If you need a black steel rack shelf, I have have many, including some very big ones, and I could find one that is a perfect fit, and make a special eBay listing for it for (plus separate shipping cost, I may NOT make this package heavier, it will be at the FedEx limit and is already being surcharged twice for size and weight). It mounts securely to the front rails of the rack and the back rails of the rack (this is crucial, this is VERY heavy). Tell me your location and I'll figure out shipping cost, they are long and heavy. A local pickup buyer could save a lot just picking up the shelf.
One last possibility, I have a few suitable flight cases for this if needed. The most normal choice would be a standard pullover flight case for a professional broadcast monitor, I have both black (2 or 3, 1 with a dolly base and casters on it) and red (1) of the exact same case, an Anvil cube CRT case, O.D.: 24" x 26" x 24", I.D.: 21.5 x 19.25" x 18.75"H, I have some foam I could trim that out for. I could list it separately on eBay for you. But the more practical choice for some users would be a more compact, easier to carry flight case, see the two ATA trunks I have listed here on eBay now, "Reasonable Rax Black Anvil Case Type Trunks 24.5"L x 20.5"W x 21.125"H", I think this 20" CRT monitor would fit nicely in there if the dividers were removed, it would be super easy to carry with the trunk handles it has, and it has plywood skids on the bottom where casters could be mounted easily without having to add a dolly base (to prevent pushing the wood in away from the metal edges).
If this one does not get the money I need for it, it might end up being one of the two or three broadcast monitors that I keep. I had three times as many as I need, so I'm selling most to clear up warehouse space and pay for warehouse space and projects. So I might keep this one.
Shipping
This will be very safely packed for shipment. This is a very, very, very heavy item (over 68 pounds bare), valuable and delicate. I will pack it into a cardboard carton lined with solid polystyrene foam, then double-box it into a second outer carton, with solid polystyrene foam/corrugated honeycomb between the layers. I will spend four to six hours packing this and I don't get paid for that. So local pickup would be nice...
Shipping to USA is flat rate 8.50, but if you are in California, please send me a message BEFORE you buy and I will reduce the shipping to 1.25 for you.
Free local pickup in the Los Feliz district of L.A. is okay if you can
work around my busy schedule.
Please see my other listings for other Sony video players, recorders, and broadcast monitors might be of interest.
I will be listing at least a few of my Sony video decks soon, maybe several, some are already listed, possibly including (1) Sony BVU-950, (1) Sony VO-5600 U-Matic, probably (1)
VO-9800 U-Matic SP recorder (I have two but will probably keep one to replace my personal VO-5600),
(1)
VP-9000 U-Matic SP player, (1 or 2) DMR-4000 (this is a U-Matic deck optimized for digital PCM audio recording with the Sony PCM-1630), (1) UVW-1800 Betacam SP recorder w/Michael Sellman LTD 4-channel audio extender mod, (1)
BVW-22 Betacam SP player, (1) BVW-65 Betacam SP player, (3) BVW-75 Betacam SP recorder, (1) DVW-500 Digital Betacam SP recorder, (2) DVW-A500 Digital Betacam SP recorder.
All I really need is one of each format, but I have so many.
I also have a ton of absolutely mint condition BNC cables, including some Belden Brilliance RGB sets. Also BNC patch bays and everything for older analog video. At least 10-15 Avid Media Composers. One of the first Chyrons ever made, a Super Scribe in beautiful cosmetic condition with external control panel but untested. Lots of broadcast monitors, not even sure how many but for sure this Barco CVS 51, Ikegami TM14-16R, (2) Ikegami TM20-16R, and Panasonic WV-5200BU triples in rack mount. I can't easily tell because all are in flight cases that are stacked in the warehouse, most I haven't even seen in 14 years.