The Elusive Sega Saturn S-Video Cable

[ninjainspandex]

ignore him zig he's a player hater

[AppleQueso]

Not sure exactly what you mean by that.

An HDTV making composite video, with it's blur, dot crawl, color bleed, and all around 'graininess' look better than RGB?

These days, all of my gaming is on an HDTV, and while Saturn certainly has nicer looking composite video output than most consoles, no way would I ever take composite out from it over RGB.

[Ziggy]

Well you'll notice that I said it has the potential to look better, I never said composite will always looks better. And I was talking specifically about retro gaming, and nothing else.

Take my recent video tinkering for example: I've been hunting for the best video for SNES on my HDTV. It's known that the newer revisions of the SNES with integrated CPU and PPUs have a better picture quality than the older revisions. However, S-Video from this SNES looks worse than composite on my 1080p. RGB converted to YPbPr (with a professional grade transcoder) looks even worse. It looks like, with S-Video and RGB, the image is too sharp/clear for it's own good. When blown up to 1080, it looks too jaggy. The blur of composite helps a great deal. Composite clearly looks the best. Of course, this is my particular TV with it's upscaler. Results will vary.

My N64 is a different story. S-Video looks a little better on my 1080 than composite. These are the only two retro console I use on my HDTV, the rest I use on a CRT. The story was different still with my last TV, a 720. S-Video from my SNES looked better than composite, as one would assume.

But I've learned that composite doesn't automatically mean shit, as I used to think. I was blown away when I got a Sony Wega, I've never seen the NES look so good. And there's been a few times now where I couldn't tell if I had composite or S-Video hooked up for different consoles. Composite looks THAT good on that TV. The Wega just does a much better job than some cheapo Zenith or some off brand.

[AppleQueso]

Well you'll notice that I said it has the potential to look better, I never said composite will always looks better. And I was talking specifically about retro gaming, and nothing else.

What else would I be talking about?

Take my recent video tinkering for example: I've been hunting for the best video for SNES on my HDTV. It's known that the newer revisions of the SNES with integrated CPU and PPUs have a better picture quality than the older revisions. However, S-Video from this SNES looks worse than composite on my 1080p. RGB converted to YPbPr (with a professional grade transcoder) looks even worse. It looks like, with S-Video and RGB, the image is too sharp/clear for it's own good. When blown up to 1080, it looks too jaggy. The blur of composite helps a great deal. Composite clearly looks the best. Of course, this is my particular TV with it's upscaler. Results will vary.

...whatever you say, I guess. RGB through my XRGB is as clear as can be, I don't think I could ever see myself saying it was "too sharp for its own good", even without the scanline emulation turned on:

(heck, I even have one of the SNES's with the crappy encoder)

But I've learned that composite doesn't automatically mean shit, as I used to think. I was blown away when I got a Sony Wega, I've never seen the NES look so good. And there's been a few times now where I couldn't tell if I had composite or S-Video hooked up for different consoles. Composite looks THAT good on that TV. The Wega just does a much better job than some cheapo Zenith or some off brand.

This is just a case of the Wega having a really nice comb filter.

[Cosmonacht]

Well you'll notice that I said it has the potential to look better, I never said composite will always looks better. And I was talking specifically about retro gaming, and nothing else.

Take my recent video tinkering for example: I've been hunting for the best video for SNES on my HDTV. It's known that the newer revisions of the SNES with integrated CPU and PPUs have a better picture quality than the older revisions. However, S-Video from this SNES looks worse than composite on my 1080p. RGB converted to YPbPr (with a professional grade transcoder) looks even worse. It looks like, with S-Video and RGB, the image is too sharp/clear for it's own good. When blown up to 1080, it looks too jaggy. The blur of composite helps a great deal. Composite clearly looks the best. Of course, this is my particular TV with it's upscaler. Results will vary.

My N64 is a different story. S-Video looks a little better on my 1080 than composite. These are the only two retro console I use on my HDTV, the rest I use on a CRT. The story was different still with my last TV, a 720. S-Video from my SNES looked better than composite, as one would assume.

But I've learned that composite doesn't automatically mean shit, as I used to think. I was blown away when I got a Sony Wega, I've never seen the NES look so good. And there's been a few times now where I couldn't tell if I had composite or S-Video hooked up for different consoles. Composite looks THAT good on that TV. The Wega just does a much better job than some cheapo Zenith or some off brand.

Hey! Don't be so mean to Zenith! I did a vast majority of my 90's gaming on an old Zenith T.V. :p, though i'm lucky because various family members store their junk in our garage at our house. One of my uncles has a really nice condition Trinitron that wasn't being used. Still had the sticker in the top left. At any rate, i'd feel better if I had an S-Video through it...

[KalessinDB]

Just got a 36" Wega with component in on it for next to nothing... thing's gorgeous but SO HEAVY. I need to find/buy/make a strong table for it, because right now it lives on my floor.

I also need to get a replacement remote for it since the people I got it from had lost the remote, and I need to get into the service settings to fix the vertical size a little, it definitely goes off the top of the (visible) tube a bit right now.

[Ziggy]

Oh, I see, you just wanted to show off that you have an XRGB! You're an XRGB elitist now, and my comment about composite video infuriated you!

Dude, it's not hard to understand. 240 blown up to 1080, the slight blur from composite can help.

(heck, I even have one of the SNES's with the crappy encoder)

By "crappy encoder" I'm assuming you mean the older revisions with separate PPUs? Those SNESes output a blurry picture. Even if you're outputting RGB, it's blurry RGB!

This is just a case of the Wega having a really nice comb filter.

And it's not the only TV to have a decent comb filter. Point was, composite doesn't have to suck as bad as the internet leaves you to believe. As you seem to believe.

Like, let's say you don't have an XRGB. You have a 1080p HDTV with a decent comb filter but with an upscaler not as good as the XRGB. < A very likely situation. Composite from a SNES has the potential to look better than RGB/YPbPr. I say this based from my own results.

[AppleQueso]

Honestly, I was running out the door when I made that post and didn't get much of a chance to think out what I was typing. Hope I didn't come across as a jerk or something.

Oh, I see, you just wanted to show off that you have an XRGB! You're an XRGB elitist now, and my comment about composite video infuriated you!

Hey man, that XRGB is awesome! Great scaling, and the scanlines and such can help give it a very natural CRT type softness without sacrificing the clarity and sharpness you'd get from an RGB signal. I should dig up this image someone on shmups posted which had the xrgb side by side with a Sony BVM monitor, they looked almost identical.

(heck, I even have one of the SNES's with the crappy encoder)

By "crappy encoder" I'm assuming you mean the older revisions with separate PPUs? Those SNESes output a blurry picture. Even if you're outputting RGB, it's blurry RGB!

Well it's not actually that blurry, the main issues with them you can even see in the image I posted, such as those small trailing 'shadows' to the right of the pixels. It still looks better than composite or s-video from the same system, because those other signals are encoded from the RGB to begin with. I wouldn't mind a 1 chip system, but I'm in no hurry for one.

This is just a case of the Wega having a really nice comb filter.

And it's not the only TV to have a decent comb filter. Point was, composite doesn't have to suck as bad as the internet leaves you to believe. As you seem to believe.

Comb filtered composite video still won't look as good as native s-video, because there's really only so much you can do with it.

Something about "as you seem to believe" rubs me the wrong way though. It's not like I go into a fit over the thing, my NES is still hooked up via composite after all.

Like, let's say you don't have an XRGB. You have a 1080p HDTV with a decent comb filter but with an upscaler not as good as the XRGB. < A very likely situation. Composite from a SNES has the potential to look better than RGB/YPbPr. I say this based from my own results.

Basically in a situation like this, you're choosing the composite signal over better ones to cover up poor scaling/deinterlacing artifacts. Alternatively, your TV might just do different things to the composite video input than it does to the component ones, and maybe what it does looks a little better for low res games. Either way, it shouldn't look better in composite.

I'm guessing your TV is doing something pretty wacky with scaling component signals though. When I used to have my scart to component transcoder straight into the TV, the image I got on my HDTV was about what you'd get running an emulator in fullscreen with bilinear filtering turned on. Basically the scaling itself added a bit of softness to it, and "jaggy" isn't the way I would describe my results at all.

...why do you have your SNES on your HDTV instead of the CRT anyway? Do you just keep those TVs in separate rooms or something?

[Ziggy]

Hey, no worries! I was just busting your balls about being an XRGB elitist.

Either way, it shouldn't look better in composite.

Well I know that! But we don't live in a perfect world.

...why do you have your SNES on your HDTV instead of the CRT anyway? Do you just keep those TVs in separate rooms or something?

Years ago I had to split my setup because of too many retro consoles. So with my HDTV I have my Wii, PS3 (slim) and PS2. In my basement "man cave" I have the Wega CRT with all the retro consoles. But I like the SNES and N64 so much that I want them in the upstairs room as well.

It's gonna work out perfectly for me though. Since a slight blur really helps with my TV, I can use the older SNES on my HDTV and the 1chip on the CRT. No contest, the 1chip blows the older SNES away on the CRT. And honestly, you should see how good the older SNES looks on my HDTV. I added component output (the older S-ENC encoders were found to output a usable component signal) to it, I just have to fine tune the colors a little. So I'm getting the best of both worlds: The component signal is a much better source than composite, but it still has a slight blur to it, which helps a great deal on my TV.

[TheRev]

Glad I bought one from the store here while they still had them.