 Hey, everybody, welcome to a special edition of Retro Tech. And I just wanted to give a little introduction to this next segment. I did invite my friend, Lewis Zezaran from Zez Retro. And many of you know that I do a podcast over there with him weekly. We wanted to do a podcast style discussion about CRT preservation. So in this discussion about CRT preservation, please note that we are focusing on museums and the art world and how CRTs are still important for art pieces and artists all over the world to be able to portray 20th century art pieces that involved the art medium of CRTs. How do they preserve that? How do they maintain CRTs that they already have? And this is just more of an announcement, too, that I have gotten a contract where I will be going and working with museum people over the next couple of weeks here in the United States. And so I wanted to kind of give you a notice of that. I'm really excited. So if you watch this interview and you're wondering why I'm so jacked up and kind of talking fast, it is because I'm really excited to be doing this. And I really wanted to bring you the audience in on it and have you involved. You know, it's kind of a way to follow along and see how CRT preservation restoration and this whole culture of CRTs and needing it, not just for video games, but also for art pieces is really important. So thanks again for joining me today. And I hope you enjoy this special edition of the Cathode Ray podcast. Welcome, everyone. Episode 21 of the Cathode Ray podcast. We are having a special episode for 21. Happy 21. We are on the main RetroTech channel. We've got a shorter episode today because we want to talk specifically and have a chat with Steve about some of the special projects he has coming up. He's got some really exciting new opportunities that are coming up, not to do with video games, but to do with CRT preservation. So we wanted to put this shorter conversation onto the main channel because we know that something that you guys and gals are very interested in. And later on, we're going to put the other sort of rambly fun, not that this is not fun, sort of episode to the Zez Retro channel. So let's get into talking about your current project. Steve, first of all, I haven't seen you for a few weeks. How are you doing, mate? Yeah, it's great to see you too, Lewis. It's been quite a little bit of a break here. We had some things going on behind the scenes and kind of one of the reasons that we wanted to have this special kind of condensed version of the show here today, again, as you said. But if you do really enjoy this, there's a show that's always on over at the Zez Retro channel and we have weekly podcasts there. So you can definitely catch up on anything if you haven't seen anything to this point. But this condensed episode is pretty much primarily about the future of CRT preservation right now and current kind of things that are happening. And this is not, like you said, within the video game world. We're talking about more about the art world and video preservation world and analog video from earlier formats. And this all started from a job that I have been working and negotiating together behind the scenes since, like, right after COVID happened. Yeah, age is even working. Yes, I mean, for like two years, this has been talked behind the scenes. And it was, of course, terrible timing when we first started discussing this plan, at least with the initial museum that we're gonna finally go out and work on this course with. But the plan started where they contacted me and then everything shut down so they had nobody that was willing to come to the presentation. Now, let me just get this straight. This is not like a publicly open presentation. This is a museum that has contracted me to go out to them, develop a preservation and restoration program almost kind of some rules and guidelines and a little bit of like a three-day crash course on training them and getting them up to speed on just how to generally look at a CRT, service it, keep notes on it, get inside some of their specific units that they really use a lot of. And so there was this limitation of what I thought was originally just planned to be one museum, but then this single museum contacted other organizations behind the scenes within the museum industry to see if anybody else was interested. And then he called me back and he's like, there's gonna be five spectators here and three of them are from like the biggest organizations in the museum world and manage thousands of CRTs that are stored away. So I guess there's a few things. Let's try and give some quick backstory for the people. So first of all, just my first point to note out is this presentation, this seminar that you're giving primarily at the start, it's educating museum technicians so that they can do their own preventative maintenance on a day-to-day basis themselves at first. That's what the focus of this one is about. That's what my original thought was on it until like that was the original entire plan here was for me to develop this kind of course, go through. And since it was gonna be three days, it was gonna be a first day of a lot of things going over. Basic safety around a CRT even is down to just handling it properly so you don't injure yourself moving it. And all the way up to breaking them down and servicing them and getting them to where they have the ability to service them in-house with a couple of technicians. That's exactly what I had originally planned on until the conference call I had with the museum curator yesterday and he explained to me that all these new people were coming out and he kind of wanted to alter that to encompass a whole lot more than just the electronics. He's like, that's a big part. We definitely wanna keep that in there but I don't want it to be just focused on the repair stuff now. So I've got kind of a list of things. And so one of the things, one of the things, for example, is he's like, I really like your, and then he sent me some demonstrations that are like private webinar things that are for the museum, they pay for companies to make these webinars and they're parts of these organizations. So they're not anything like I could release the public. Or anything like that. No, sure. So this is all industry stuff. So this is like behind the scenes, industry stuff. And yes, so they're interested in, he said there's a place for your CRT history presentation. Like the one I've done before, that I've done at gaming conferences a few times that's on the channel that's been there for years, the CRT masterclass that I have put up. So that, he's like, that presentation would be great. And I'm like, yeah, it would be great, but then I need to chop out all the video game aspects of it. So I definitely need to go in and clean it up. But that's like, so I'm starting to think, that's probably gonna be the starting point is a good kind of hour clearing out that all the video game stuff and going at a more reduced pace on that presentation through, because it's like an 80 slide presentation. So I could definitely get rid of like 20 of them and clean it up. So I'm gonna start with that presentation. Like I like that presentation. And then he shared a webinar with me with presentations that were similar to that, only different aspects of things, not as like detail focused on the exact, like this was the guy who invented this thing. And this was the reason it was so important. And going all the way back to the first CRTs which had nothing to do with a display in the 1800s. So anyway, they liked that. So he's like, yeah, put that in there. And then they have tons of Sony PVM 2030s, the museums do, they love the 2030. It's one they've always used in older exhibits from the time period of the 90s when these were live going on. So it's very easy for them to recreate that if they just have the same monitor. Whereas sometimes you go use a custom monitor from that time period, it's impossible to get the exact same monitor at the other end. So it's gonna go from that history presentation and into the 2030 class, which is gonna be a really lot of fun. I'm gonna take a bunch of... Potentially, cause it's so common with museums. So common. And he's like, this is one, this is the one that I've got here. And I'm gonna go through for an hour or two. And I'm just going to have every board, I'm taking a spare board of every single board in that monitor that I have here. It's just scrap. And I'll hold up the boards and then I'll show the boards inside the monitor. And I'll have slides. And then we'll do live demonstrations where I'll have power hooked up and I'll do the... I'm gonna bring out a Super Nintendo and pull up the 240P test suite. And then I'm going to show them all. They'll all laugh probably about seeing that. And then I'm just gonna hit... I'm gonna sit there and wonk out the controls and just freak them out, just showing them live there. And so then I can really focus in on a lot of things that 2032, like safety and tips on boards, like how to look for repair issues. And then after that, they've got the Dottronics monitors, which are somewhat a more industrialized, just shadow mask monitor that a lot of them have bought for video walls, very plain metal. And it's the same guy who Bob had on an interview a few years ago, or a couple of years ago about his company still made them and they don't have very many of them left. Like... I remember that. Do you remember this? He's got some new old stock and he's using them to construct something. Yeah, okay, okay. So this gentleman is about... I mean, I think he's about out pretty much of monitors at this point. And he has no new plan for ability, at least right now to get anything consistently in. So we're gonna run through a Dottronics monitor in a similar fashion to the 2030. And then I'm imagining that's gonna take up the full four hour segment of that afternoon is that little section of the course. So truly, I was like, I thought I was gonna be struggling to get through this, but when I started thinking about it, the amount of questions, he's like, be prepared for questions. And that's always my favorite thing anyway. I can't sit there and not... Like I love... I know from a stand-up comedian perspective, you probably, I mean, that's just part of it. You want the audience participation reaction. It all makes it a lot more enjoyable than just sitting there through a nerdy CRT presentation. So the museums came back to you and they said, hey, look, we like to show the maintenance boat. We want you to go deeper on these particular types of monitors because they're common to what we're doing. And is that... Is that the new part that they really want something deep on that? And that's just like half of it. And then they're just like spewing out all more stuff they want me to talk about. So one of the other things is it's like they're not... They struggle to... When they're trying to recreate a lot of these exhibits, you can look up specific exhibits. And I have a name for you. If anybody feels like they wanna Google something, it's Bruce Nauman. And he used to do video with pro monitors like these weird Andy Warhol looking art style and the like 70s and 80s and 90s. And these would include like some weird thing on a video loop on a monitor that was just very kind of disturbing. It's like one was in clown torture. It was just like a lady dressed as a clown in a white room, just like yelling nonstop on a video loop on a PVM as part of this exhibit. But if you go back and look at like how it was done originally they weren't using the PVMs that are exactly in use now cause it was maybe before that, before they existed. So they're trying to either contemporary like to make that switch up to something that is as close as to the original as possible or get the original set up. So I worked with the Bruce Nauman project with the Philadelphia Museum of Art a couple of years ago. And specifically the Bruce Nauman project there, they loved the 20 M2 MDUs to be used in the white room because it was an all white monitor. And like I helped them design that. You're not designed this actual thing but I helped them get two perfect 20 M2 white monitors and they were just ecstatic about that. So they use those monitors so you can look at like, you can look at like old pictures of these and how it varies cause it's going from art museum to art museum and it's all in like a plain white room and the room is the art. It's like you, the whole ambiance of the room there'll be a couple of weird things on the wall and reflections of the floor as the lights go down. And so it's all, that's all part of the art experience. So they have, yeah, good. For a second, let's, and I realize we should have got to this already. Sort of maybe going where you, right now you've explained sort of one exhibition but to just more, let's take a step back and like why, and let's explain to people why museums are interested in CRTs. And why, so okay, we might have all been to a museum and we've seen some piece there and there's a TV and it displays something or we get the idea that we might walk in and there's a bit of a TV wall and there's a couple of TVs and you know, there's something playing there, right? And there's some nuance, as you say there's some nuance to explain to this because while you might think, ah, just stick a TV in there and it works. The artists often, and I think mostly created these installations with particular TVs in mind looking for a particular set. Some of these artists knew just as much about CRTs as many of us who are listening right now, the way they look, the masks, the screen, you know, reflections and so forth. And so it's extremely important to the art, I think to the integrity of the art in many cases, that it is exactly the monitor that the artists designed this for. And you might say, well, what's the friggin difference? Well, true, what is art, you know, then what is any of this? What does any of this shit mean then? Well, why would you go look at the Mona Lisa in person if you could just Google a picture of it on the phone? You know, it's the same thing. Sure, why does any of it matter? What's the difference between a print and original? It's like, well, here's the thing, you brought it up perfectly and sometimes I can get, you know, lost on a detail. If something else, it doesn't matter. Yeah, they are completely concerned always with the closest to recreation. And then another example is like, you have a Korean artist that in the 90s made an exhibit and they could only get a cheap, crappy Korean tube from their area and they fed it composite. And part of the art was the fact that it was made on that composite medium that it was always gonna be limited to the composite look of that television. So you can't just say, oh, a PVM's the best thing for this. And that's specifically what this art or this museum curator told me. He's like, they have a hard time understanding that they can't just use the PVMs for everything. And it's like, yes, sometimes the artist had never had access to the PVMs so the art was designed around the limitations of those sets. And so that part of interference is part of this. So you have, they have problems using, you know, so that's another whole aspect of this is I have to go through and explain how original artists were intending with this stuff and you need to sometimes think about your art medium as like, not only was it, what kind of tube was it on? Was it on a Trinitron? Was it on a shadow mask? Was it on a shadow mask from this time period that would have been looking like this? Or, and was the format composite video, was it a higher resolution? So it would look better on this other video format monitor. And that's a whole aspect of what the next day of probably classroom will be after we get done with this first day is kind of going through those projects and kind of helping people understand. And this is all just gonna be meant to be enough to entice these guys to hire me each themselves, you know, to come out and expand upon this even more. I think talking about that is gonna be very important. And he also had mentioned that they are all over the place when it comes to HDMI or HD, SDI downscaling to like, how are they getting it onto these monitors? Cause they're not, so here's the thing that's happening. They sat on all their video equipment and a lot of these places just stored it, the video equipment, any of the analog video tapes and things that were from the 80s and 90s, they just stored this stuff in warehouses. And it's to the point now where we've proven you can open up brand new tapes from the 1990s and they'll have mildew growing on them. And so they've realized this is the point now, they've kind of like let it just sit back there for 20 years, maybe longer, and done nothing besides sit it in cold storage. So now it's like we need to bring this stuff out and preserve it or there will be a repeat of what has happened before in history where you go back and this stuff's degraded, you lose it and it's gone forever. And it could be just some artists' video of something that, who knows? I mean, we don't know what we're tapping here into this art world. So there's an element of preservation because okay, you've tapped into it, an interesting idea here. Okay, I think we got the idea that the TV matters. The TV matters and maybe if our listeners are coming from a video game's perspective, I would say the analogy in the video games world may be the old argument, oh, did the designers design it on composite and did they mean to have the composite shading effect on Sonic with the waterfall? You know, is that what they meant or did they mean hard RGB with hard pixels? This level of artistic intent is, that would be the analogy into the video game sphere and we both know that that's an endless argument that'll never be settled. Also because they're not, often our video games are not made by one person. A team or something like that. Where here, I could imagine that a video artist going to a museum may be more clear and maybe like, look, this is my installation. It's gonna go from museum to museum and I need this TV and I need this and I need this look and they may have been more upfront about it. That's exactly. And he said that more or, because a lot of these artists are still alive that originally created this and they obviously own their copyright to their works so they still get paid by these private museums for their installations. Just like any copyrighted material to be used publicly because the museum then charges money to have the event, gets money from it. So that's, he said that there's some guys that are just like, no, I was designed specifically for this. It has to be, I'll allow for these three monitors or the other people are like, I don't know, whatever. Use whatever, because they were like, I got whatever CRT I got and like I said, this Korean guy, he was like, it was a beautiful exhibit. So he didn't really care. And I think the reason he brought that up was he was giving them the leeway to use PVMs. So they use PVMs, but it didn't have that same effect. Of course, because they've then increased the line count from a 150 to 200 line generic terrible CRT to, at the time, $3,000 machine that was the best in the world at displaying composite video. And then you have an expert come in and calibrate them. So it's like, it's very fun. It's very challenging because it's like way more than I thought I was gonna have to be covering and like lists of other things. And that's kind of- And also the quickly on that same matter. So the TV matters or it doesn't matter, apparently, or it matters to the artist. Maybe it doesn't matter to the artist, but then the museum might, as you say, stick a PVM there and just go, nah, nah, this isn't, you know. I'm not the artist, but I can tell like, nah, this isn't it. They themselves are so passionate about their stuff and they wanna bring this there and they get it there. It's just like if you, you know, if you had anything, any show, you're like, oh, this just doesn't turn out as, I've just had this. Yeah, they're the biggest judges because they're like, my job depends on how many people come to actually see this. And then they turn around and talk about it. And it ends up on social media and it ends up in, I have an article written about it and then, you know, enough of a draw, right? It's just like anything, I'm sure. So- I would imagine that's like when I watch like if I watch some online thing and it's like a movie that was in 24 frames a second, but they've upscaled it to 60 and you can tell it looks like dog shit because 24 doesn't divide into 60. But before, just quickly, another point that you said that was very interesting was, okay, so it's about TVs, but something has to play that. Something has to play that signal. Yeah, that's a big problem. And so then the, is the unit, the maybe a VCR, I imagine a lot of these dudes were literally a friggin' VCR with a VHS tape. So how's that VCR unit playing? How's that going? And then preservation of the VCR tape, do we to preserve it then? Then you have choices. Do we try to dub that to another tape? Is that gonna have degradation? Do you then, and then as you kind of alluded, do you digitize that? And oy vey, then you're in a whole other world. Well, that's the route they're doing, is they're going to digitize as much of this as possible to save it in a different format. So that's what I have to, and that's, I have like this, this is gonna be exactly what we're talking about here. This is gonna be an open discussion with these guys because I have no idea what they're doing. I wanna have kind of like open discussion, pick their brains on what they're doing and seeing if they can maybe see that some of that's the right approach, some of it might not be the right approach, but at the same time, like yeah, how are you digitizing that original film and what are you digitizing it to? What is the format you're digitizing it to? I believe most of the time they're digitizing it to some type of 480p, and then they're sending that 480p signal and then they are all downscaling that 480p out of HDMI most of the time, right into composite, into a CRT. So then it's like, he told me this, and I'm like, oh my goodness, so they're having all kinds of issues where they're just like, what's the weakest link? Just like any of us gamers, what's the weakest link in your setup? It's like you spent thousands on every piece and it all comes down to this little HDMI to S, or S video or HDMI to composite video and decoder, descaler, that's a piece of junk that we all get from Amazon because we just under-appreciate it. Now, and they're gonna under-appreciate it more because they have no care for lag. So latency, the only way latency matters if the audio doesn't match up, right? I mean, lag will have no effect on just watching video. So, because there's no input reaction. So that's like, their biggest thing is going to be, so that's almost like, what are you using for this? And then talk about some good options that are from downscalers that are high-end options, probably ones that I can't even get. I'm gonna have to email Bob or DM Bob after this and be like, Bob, what do you have that's ridiculous? Do you have the GBS control? Do you have the GBS control? Take that with you. That sounds like something that maybe they want to use. I think that I probably will. So that's another thing that, an idea right there. So there you go, GBS control, that's what I was thinking. I was like, the GBS control, but I don't know how like museums feel about open source stuff. So I'm gonna test those waters too and see what their even opinion is of that. Cause you know, a lot of those guys like to get in with these companies and like, oh, we only work at Decay, you know, so you don't know. But yeah, so I know we got 25 minutes into this and I wanted to make sure, it's okay. Yeah, but everybody just understand the discussion here today, I wanted everybody to understand that there's a whole new world of preservation. A lot of times I get wondering like, where's the real CRT? How much more can it really grow within gaming? And like, how many, I mean, there's a lot of people, most people know about it. A lot of people have gone through the full cycle. I've watched them of really wanting a CRT, loving it, having it, falling out of love with it, jumping out of gaming. And then I see their CRT for sale and who knows what else hobby they've jumped into, which is cool. That's what we all do. But this is like, it's more exciting to me cause it's like a whole industry now is empowering this. They have a lot of money behind them. And this is like, I was looking at the funding for these people. It's like Carnegie Mellon funding. So it's like, you know, this is the most funded stuff. And he's like, there's a fire under them and it's only getting hotter. Like, and they know it. So I want everybody to know that like, I am dedicating a lot of time to this program over the next couple of weeks. I do plan to have a lot more information coming about this trip. I've even got some special stuff set up to hopefully film. They've allowed me access to like these Panasonic 4K cameras. They just got in this week. Two of them to like film whatever I want at the museum for a day. So I'm gonna have something there, but I wanted everybody to know that so that, you know, if there's like a, not as much content as normally this time, that's why. So we will, Lewis and I will continue to update and talk through his normal channel on Zez Retro. We will be there with this podcast. We normally do it weekly when we can. So if you wanna know more, just continue to jump over there. But I think as far as like the vast majority of the important things here is at least from my meeting yesterday, that's it. And it's, I'm super excited about it. I think it's a big deal, especially for me to be able to get like some, we've been talking about trying to get some more like legitimate, steady business stuff. And this is like, this could be the opportunity of a lifetime, pretty much. It is, it's good for everyone. I mean, don't get us wrong, that the patrons and the customers that you have very appreciative. Absolutely. Always continue doing that work, has provided a steady stream of work. But you know, like think about it. This guy here, this other guy I'm talking to, he fixes old TVs and that's supposed to be his job support, he's family to everything. You know, you gotta find the ways to diversify and this is a way to diversify that can grow your business. And I know we've talked about this already at the podcast before. How does Retro Tech grow? Well, boom, this is it right here. This is a good chance. Like more than I thought that I'm not, I'm always the kind of the pessimist on this stuff cause I've been in like businesses and run my own business for 12 years. And like, I don't even like to say anything about a business deal till the check is in my hand and I can walk away with it, you know? And like, then I have the money. That's what I consider a deal like sealed. I don't consider even like a signed contract to be meaningful sometimes. Money baby, show me the money baby. Yeah, that's it. But at the end of the day, it's like, what's your pay? Then you're like, yeah, this is real. This is happening. So that's what's going on with me. It's tremendous. And, but I was, I was, I was also blown away because I thought that you had an awesome project, which I mean, you know, it's not going to the museum or anything, but I still thought that your last project with S video and composite was just awesome. And I really enjoyed it when I was away on my trip. So I mean, what do you want to say about maybe that one a little bit? Okay, well, I think what we'll do right now is we'll wrap up this one here. It's a tight 30 minutes for the main retro tech channel. You've heard about what Steve is doing. If you don't hear as much out of him recently or if there's not as many of these, it's because he's fighting the good fight, doing the good work out there and doing something really, you know, the next level up for preserving CRTs. And yeah, so what we encourage you to do now, come over to my channel, Zez Retro. If you haven't already been there, we've got the Cathode Ray podcast. We do it every week. We do it a little more casual. We're going to talk about Steve's holiday. We're going to talk about this video that I made recently on the new S video cause for the Mista that have been produced by Mike Simone. You can get native S video out of the Mista. I think it's a tremendous step up. There's so many things that are a step up for Mista. It's a tremendous step up. And I wanted to just explain how the cabling works. It's not that difficult to understand, but I just wanted to put all that information in one spot. So we'll see you over on the Zez Retro channel for Cathode Ray podcast, number 22. Thanks very much for your time today. That's right. Go now. Ciao.