Thread of Upscalers, European Formats, and UNDERSCAN CURSES

[Genesis Knight]

Oh yeah, before anyone says retrogaming-hazardcity.de, I've been there. And expensive upscalers (XRGB3, I'm looking at you) are out.

I'm running a 42" Plasma and for some time I've been putting up with shitty video and undercan. Time to take care of that. All my gear is NTSC, and the three main culprits are the PS2, PS1, and Saturn. The Playstation systems have an ungodly amount of underscan on the HDTV, and the Saturn could use a better quality video signal as well.

I'm looking at these chains, with the appropriate questions:

Will this work on an NTSC television? Anyone have this setup and can tell me what it looks like?
Saturn -> SCART Cable -> SCART to VGA/HDMI -> TV
PS1 -> SCART Cable -> SCART to VGA/HDMI -> TV

Will this get rid of the godawful underscan?
PS2 -> Upscaler? -> TV

[CRTGAMER]

I wrote a huge article at my CRT vs LCD signature link.
Information about inputs and scalers with additional review links.

[Genesis Knight]

Nice guide, but not sure that really addresses the questions I had, mainly SCART->VGA on an NTSC rig and PS2 underscan.

[CRTGAMER]

The XRGB3 is probably what you are looking for. Scroll down to the scalers section, there are also additional review links there for the various adaptors and scalers.

[Genesis Knight]

If you read my OP one of the first things I say is "and expensive upscalers (XRGB3, I'm looking at you) are out."

I'm aware that the XRGB3 is about the best there is but $400 is out of my range and I haven't been able to find out about how it handles underscan anyway.

[ChuChu Flamingo]

Well first of all things, can your tv interpret 240p? A good way to test is to pop in Disgaea on PS2 with component, mega man x collection/mega man, or PS2 playing a PS1 game through component (Megaman X4 is a good test).

Some TVs either display no signal, or too much flickering. In any case, what SCART to HDMI do you plan to use? I don't think it will offer any scaling.

[Genesis Knight]

Well first of all things, can your tv interpret 240p? A good way to test is to pop in Disgaea on PS2 with component, mega man x collection/mega man, or PS2 playing a PS1 game through component (Megaman X4 is a good test).

Some TVs either display no signal, or too much flickering. In any case, what SCART to HDMI do you plan to use? I don't think it will offer any scaling.

It displays ICO rock-solid with no problems over component; which I believe is 240P. I hadn't picked a SCART converter; but I guess I thought that SCART either didn't have underscan or when it was converted to 720p HDMI it would get rid of the underscan.

Something like this, maybe? http://cgi.ebay.com/Scart-HDMI-Upscaler ... 2693wt_902

[ChuChu Flamingo]

your best bet would be to email fudoh at retrogaming-hazardcity.de

He would probably know if it can fix underscan. If not, maybe resort to adjusting via service menu of your TV?

[Genesis Knight]

So here's where I'm at, for anyone with similar questions.

I'm running all NTSC hardware - Saturn, PS1, and television.

Sega Saturn -> SCART Lead (Rob at consolegoods has assured the cable he sells will work) -> Breakout adapter for audio -> RGB to YUV converter -> Component Switch -> HDTV.

If I want to do the same with the PS1, does anyone know if a European SCART cable will work in this setup for an NTSC television/console? I can't find any specifically Japanese SCART ps1 cables.