"Pie in the sky" monitor question...


Hi all,

I've been absent from the MAME scene for years, but I'm getting back
into it, and with any luck might actually finish my two remaining MAME
projects (I had about a half-dozen on the drawing board at one point)
some time in the foreseeable future.

My question involves monitor choice for a "cabaret-style" cabinet. I
absolutely love the ability to show a monitor bezel around the game
graphics, but I really want a REAL CRT monitor, which looks more
authentic in terms of game graphics, but not so much when it comes to
including the bezel.

On the other hand, LCD flat-panel displays would be great for
displaying bezel artwork, but not so hot when it comes to the actual
game graphics. They just don't have the slight curvature necessary
for a really authentic look.

My "pie in the sky" idea is to take an LCD display that's large enough
to cover the entire bezel area of my mini-cab, and somehow remove the
backing in an area large enough for my 15" SVGA monitor to show
through. Many monitor bezels are tinted, so the front of the monitor
need not be perfectly clear after the backing is removed.

What I'm going for is a means by which the display circuitry through
the screen itself would remain intact, but the large area in the
middle would have the backing removed so you could see through the LCD
panel to the CRT behind it.

I guess that would require a two-monitor setup, and there'd have to be
some way to tell the machine that bezels would need to be displayed on
one monitor, with background art and game graphics displayed on the
CRT. Depending on how visible the image on the LCD display would be
without the backing, it might even be possible to have color overlays
displayed on the LCD, literally overlaid in front of the game graphics
on the CRT.

So, all you electronics gurus out there -- does this sound possible,
or am I just dreaming? Any input would be greatly appreciated.



As a postscript, I don't suppose having an LCD panel as the sole
display device wouldn't be too much of a compromise, especially since
I'd have to buy one big enough to cover the bezel area anyway. The
only other way I can think to do it would be to tile a bunch of
digital picture frames and have one button wired to all of them so
they could advance in unison, but that would mean scrolling through
bunches of bezels in order to find the right one, a lot of work
separating the artwork files into individual tiles (and it wouldn't
even be a seamless display), and since I've never seen a *cheap*
digital picture frame, it would probably be cost-prohibitive.

Oh well, any ideas, please pass them along. I guess maybe that's
better left to a console project, where I'd probably be playing on a
large LCD monitor, anyway.

.