Anybody Used Dreamcast VGA and Convert to Component?

Post by **racketboy** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 10:13 pm

Has anybody taken a Dreamcast VGA cable and then connected that to a VGA-to-Component Cable before hooking it up to an HDTV?

If so, it it worth a $15 investment in a converting cable over a normal RCA/Composite?

Post by **Clockwork** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 10:15 pm

why not just an adaptor from vga to hdmi???

Post by **racketboy** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 10:30 pm

Clockwork wrote:why not just an adaptor from vga to hdmi???

well for one, I'm not sure if you can do VGA to HDMI (DVI to HDMI, yes)
Also, I only have one HDMI port on my TV. Plenty of Component.

Post by **Clockwork** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 10:43 pm

should be worth a try (one or two adaptors in difference to a signal conversion oddyssey with an expensive black box)

Post by **Mozgus** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 10:43 pm

VGA to Component is supposedly a simple deal. They are extremely similar in structure, so there is no real form of conversion going on. Mostly just re-routing of wires.

VGA to HDMI? Not only would that be retarded, but any stand-alone device that does it would be super expensive.

Anyways I believe someone I know online did it when he got his HDTV recently. I will ask him next time he's on. I am curious as to how it would work as well. I have been told that SOME vga to component adaptors, like the common one from ATI, will not work, but the people failed to explain why. I mean, all sorts of video cards have component adaptors sold with them, like my own.

Sorry but I don't own an HDTV to test this all on.

Post by **Clockwork** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 10:47 pm

Mozgus wrote:VGA to Component is supposedly a simple deal. They are extremely similar in structure, so there is no real form of conversion going on. Mostly just re-routing of wires.

VGA to HDMI? Not only would that be retarded, but any stand-alone device that does it would be super expensive.

Anyways I believe someone I know online did it when he got his HDTV recently. I will ask him next time he's on. I am curious as to how it would work as well. I have been told that SOME vga to component adaptors, like the common one from ATI, will not work, but the people failed to explain why.

thats not soooo right. afaik vga runs on rgb (+h+v-signals) and not on component, right? the question is, why are converters from rgb to YPrPb so fucking expensive, if you were able to build one easy on the road for yourself?

Post by **Mozgus** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 10:54 pm

Clockwork wrote:thats not soooo right. afaik vga runs on rgb (+h+v-signals) and not on component, right? the question is, why are converters from rgb to YPrPb so fucking expensive, if you were able to build one easy on the road for yourself?

Wiki it, dude. What was I "not soooo right" about? Where are they expensive? $20-$30 isn't that expensive, considering build quality, brand name, supply and demand. It's not the most commonly requested adaptor, and so they aren't exactly the cheapest adaptor.

Post by **Clockwork** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 11:04 pm

just did it. they`re not the same signals. and everytime you do something with the signal it looses quality...

Post by **Mozgus** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 11:48 pm

Clockwork wrote:just did it. they`re not the same signals. and everytime you do something with the signal it looses quality...

Is your strategy here to remain as vague as possible? Signal loss on every conversion? Generally yes, but not in every instance, and this is not even relevant here. If done properly, the loss would only be noticible on a 52 inch plasma, if you were looking at it under a lens. We're talking about 640x480 resolution here, dude. Dreamcast was not an HDTV machine. Standard VGA's capabilities are PLENTY for this system, and one carefully performed conversion to component is not going to make a difference to the human eye. Racketboy doesn't care about things only a cyborg will notice.

"Not the same signals" in your lingo, means not the same type of physical connection. Thanks for noticing that. But still, converting VGA to component, and vice versa, is not rocket science. It is done easily. There might be some slight technical differences, like perhaps 59.94fps compared to pure 60fps, but it's not that big of a hurdle.

I don't even know what you're trying to argue about at this point. Racketboy doesn't want to convert to HDMI. So back to the subject at hand.

Post by **Clockwork** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:58 am

sorry, i didn`t want to be that vague tonight, i just nearly bent over my keyboard tonight and was too lazy/tired to get all the specs in.
you`re right, i lost the point on racketboys question. i just wanted to suggest another possibility, because i know how much space is lost with junk like converters behind the tv ( thats the point, where i built an extra console-board near my pc...). the next point was i really made bad experiences on quality of 20-30bucks-converters. are your experiences better?