Best cable for Japanese Saturn on British LCD TV?

[GagaMan]

Just got me a white Japanese Saturn today, but it doesn't seem to output the same quality of picture via my saturn scart cable as the PAL system can. With the Japanese system scart looks just like RGB quality (which is alright, but leaves mess around the pixels and cuts off the top and bottom of the screen). I could take photos of the differences if that helps.

Is there some kind of scart cable made specifically for the Japanese Saturn, or do they not use scart over there? I'm pretty sure they don't in America, so it's possible. This is a shame as on my LCD TV the British Saturn via scart looks amazing, but that same scart doesn't emit the same quality with the Japanese system. =(

[Niode]

UM..

SCART IS RGB quality (in most cases). Well at least in this country.

RGB is the best quality you can get for an interlaced signal (like the one that the Saturn outputs at). Upto 480i.

Now, here's the dilemma. Some people say the Japanese Saturn SCART Cable is wired differently to the UK Saturn SCART cable. It may or it may not, who knows, i've known people get RGB straight out of a white saturn, I've known people not get RGB out of a white saturn. Using the same cables.

Personally. I think it's the TV.

Is the SCART cable going into the same input that the UK Saturn is going into? IF it isn't, then it's probably that your other SCART socket isn't RGB compatible. (some TVs only have one RGB socket for cost/compatibility reasons).

IF that's not the problem. You need to get one of those RGB SCART switchers. Argos sell them for about £10. What these little beauties do is force the signal to be RGB. So no matter which pin isn't sending the correct voltage over to tell the TV to display in RGB mode this box will do that for you. Plus you're getting an RGB splitter box anyway which I'm sure you have more than one console and at least a DVD player/sky/freeview/cable box or something.

[GagaMan]

Well my TV defiantly seems to prefer Scart over RGB, it seems.

Oh, and here's some photo comparisons:

UK System Via Scart:







Japanese system via same Scart (RGB looks like this too):

[CantStrafeRight]

Scart is just a conector that can be used for rgb, svideo or composite

To me it looks like your jap saturn is defaulting to composite.

This means that either the jap saturn doesnt do rgb or its pinout is different to the uk one so you would need a jap saturn scart cable.

[GagaMan]

If it helps give you a better idea, the scart cable only has about five pins in it rather than all of them. Do I need one with all of the pins in it? If I looked for a Japanese scart how would I be able to tell it apart? Thanks.

[CantStrafeRight]

I done a little research for you and it turns out that the japanese saturn only outputs 3v in the av cable and 5v is needed to activate RGB mode.

From what Ive read some 3rd party scart cables compensate for this but theres no garentees on what ones do and what ones dont.

Its possible to make your own with a bit of research if your not up for that i would be willing to try and make it..

[GagaMan]

Thanks for that, mate. =)
Someone on another forum told me that a Saturn scart cable with a full set of pins in both ends would do the trick, and there's one ebay seller that appaers to have one just like that: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0014624222
Do you think that might be trustworthy? Thanks again.

[GagaMan]

Well I got my scart cable of that ebay guy today but it appaers to be broken. The picture is perfect every other secound but flickers all over the place constantly, gah! Gonna have to ask for a replacement or refund, I guess. =E

[GagaMan]

One last bump: the scart cable I received only works in one of the sockets of one of my parents CRT TV, with no luck on any LCDs I have, which is odd as I have never had scart problems with LCD TVs before (my Mega Drive for example works perfectly), is there maybe a difference between NTSC and PAL scart's that the CRT TV is aware of but the LCDs are not? Baffling.

[corn619]

I like S-video, it looks clean without making the sprites to blocky looking. Sometimes beer goggles make old things look better.