Dreamcast On A Plasma Nightmare (help?)

[zimbloth]

Hey guys. I recently purchased a XRGB Mini which is amazing for all my RGB consoles, but it does not have a VGA input, so I had to go looking for other solutions for my Dreamcast. I purchased the DC VGA cable, which works fine when plugged into a computer monitor. However in order to have it upscaled to my Samsung Plasma, I needed a converter box. I ended up buying the Atlona AT-HDView. For the life of me I dont understand how people use this product.

First of all, the DC VGA cable has a "male" end. The Atlona has a "male" end. So I had to buy a female-to-female adapter. I get nothing. It says "No Signal" no matter what I do.

Can anyone recommend a reliable solution to use my Dreamcast with VGA through a 1080P tv? It is driving me crazy as everything else looks so amazing with the XRGB (Saturn, Genesis/CD, Jaguar, PSX, 3DOetc). Any help would be appreciated.

[CRTGAMER]

Model number of your Samsung and does it have a direct VGA input?

Try testing a laptop directly plugged into the HDTV VGA port and set the PC resolution to 640x480. Some HDTVS do not support the lower resolution of Dreamcast VGA.

[zimbloth]

Model number of your Samsung and does it have a direct VGA input?

Try testing a laptop directly plugged into the HDTV VGA port and set the PC resolution to 640x480. Some HDTVS do not support the lower resolution of Dreamcast VGA.

Its the Samsung Plasma P59D8000. It does have a direct VGA port as does my receiver, but the TV says it doesnt support that resolution. Thats what I expected it to say, which is why I bought the Atlona converter which is supposed to up-convert it to 720P or 1080P so it can be viewed properly. I figured thats the same way my XRGB Mini Framemeister worked. The results are incredible on my RGB/Scart consoles. I just cant seem to find a solution for the Dreamcast.

When using the converter box it just simply says "no input received". I appreciate your response and I am open minded, I'm open to suggestions. I really dont want to use this with my LCD computer monitor, as the picture cant compare to my TV (I ran my Sega CDX into both and it looked 100x better with my Plasma+XRGB).

PS: I would love to get a high-end CRT TV like the Sony Vega or whatever people suggest, but I have no place to put that beast.

[jay_red]

first thing I would do is try a friends HDTV if possible, try to narrow it down to either the converter or the TV. I am lucky as my Toshiba LCD has VGA and the dreamcast works perfectly on it.

[Original_Name]

It sounds to me like you have a faulty unit -- I would read Atlona's documentation and contact them for support first to make sure. I've gone through an infuriating number of converters and upscalers and nonsense trying to get my current setup, so I know your pain. The product that you have should be perfect for what you're trying to do based on the description that I read, were it functioning properly.

[AppleQueso]

The XRGB-mini accepts 31khz RGB signals and will actually take the Dreamcast VGA signal if you use a sync combiner circuit to mix the Hsync and Vsync signals (and wire it all to a scart socket of course).

[zimbloth]

It sounds to me like you have a faulty unit -- I would read Atlona's documentation and contact them for support first to make sure. I've gone through an infuriating number of converters and upscalers and nonsense trying to get my current setup, so I know your pain. The product that you have should be perfect for what you're trying to do based on the description that I read, were it functioning properly.

Okay so I tried the ATLONA device on the 720P LCD tv in my bedroom and it worked fairly well, although the red and blues seemed inversed (I did notice one of the 15 pins bent/broken which is probably why), but the picture was clean and the tv accepted it. My 1080P Plasma just must hate that converter. I tried it directly into the TV as well as through my receiver (the latter usually yields better results).

I did notice the XRGB-3 does have a VGA input, but the XRGB Mini does not. Though the Mini is HDMI and the RGB-3 is component. I'd rather not have to get ANOTHER one of those just to suit my Dreamcast.

The XRGB-mini accepts 31khz RGB signals and will actually take the Dreamcast VGA signal if you use a sync combiner circuit to mix the Hsync and Vsync signals (and wire it all to a scart socket of course).

I'm not really sure how to do any of that sadly, I'm not quite savvy enough about that. I am used to wiring guitar electronics so I'm sure its not much different than that.

[Original_Name]

Gah, what a pain... sorry to hear that. Like I say, I remember going through this kind of stuff all too well -- the thing that's so frustrating is that often, like in your case, there doesn't seem to be any discernible reason for the problem whatsoever.

A question, though -- when your television is set to your HDMI input "channel", and your Dreamcast isn't powered on, does the Atlona device kick up any sort of graphic onto the screen in its idle state? For instance, I have a Composite/S-Video to HDMI converter that will display a simple menu with the push of a button. Does your device have anything like this? Because I could imagine that the device may have some sort of setting for you to select the proper resolution to input into the television before you run your Dreamcast through it.

I assume you would have already tried that, though... outside of that, I would contact Atlona -- they might be able to give you the proper information, and if not, you may get a refund. Or at the very least, you may find out that their product is known to simply not work with your television. Sorry, man.

[ninjainspandex]

How about buying a d-terminal to component cabel and buying a vga to component adapter? That should work with your xrgb-mini.