Hi everyone! This is my first post on the forum. It's great to see so many people dedicated to retro gaming and specially so much love for the Dreamcast! Anyway, I recently got one and have been having a blast with some excellent 2D fighting games.
So, the Dreamcast I bought is a Japanese model and after doing some research I figured a SCART cable would be a good way to connect it to my Samsung HDTV (at the moment I live in Finland). Everything works great except that I got no sound from the right channel (checked with headphones). I tried with two SCART cables and got the same issue. Since they are from the same vendor, I e-mailed them about it, but they insist the problem is on my end. Now, I did check the issue with the standard RCA/composite cable straight to the TV and also through an RCA-to-SCART adapter, and the sound is fine. So it seems the TV SCART socket and the Dreamcast AV-output socket are in good condition.
I even opened the cables and checked for loose wires or bad soldering but everything seems in place. Is the European SCART wiring different from the Japanese one? is this the problem? is the guy I bought the cables from bullshitting me? is it possible to fix/modify the cable myself?
Hope somebody can shed some light on this matter, as I don't want to buy more SCART cables and the whole VGA thing is too expensive for me right now (and doesn't work with some 2D fighting games, which I play the most).
Any help is appreciated!
Dreamcast RGB SCART audio problem
Re: Dreamcast RGB SCART audio problem
hi caam...........
yes thats right , there are diagrams on google images if you want to see how it differs
Is the European SCART wiring different from the Japanese one?
yes thats right , there are diagrams on google images if you want to see how it differs
Re: Dreamcast RGB SCART audio problem
Hey thanks for the reply! So the problem was that simple...I could swear I read somewhere that there are no differences between EU and JP SCART. Guess I might need to rewire it.
Re: Dreamcast RGB SCART audio problem
caam_imt wrote:Hey thanks for the reply! So the problem was that simple...I could swear I read somewhere that there are no differences between EU and JP SCART. Guess I might need to rewire it.
Good thing you discovered this before owning an XRGB-3 and blowing up your $300 investment with the wrong pin out.
Re: Dreamcast RGB SCART audio problem
Well, this is not over yet...
Now I'm more confused. I continued to send e-mails to the people I got the cable from and they said that there is indeed a different wiring on the AV port of the Japanese Dreamcast, but that this concerns only video, not audio. So they suggest that problem is my Dreamcast and not their cable.
I just don't understand why I get then full audio with the composite cable. There should be only 2 audio pins on the AV port no matter whether I use composite or SCART. So what's the problem? could anybody help? on other forums people say that european SCART cables work fine on any Dreamcast...so I'm at a loss here.
Now I'm more confused. I continued to send e-mails to the people I got the cable from and they said that there is indeed a different wiring on the AV port of the Japanese Dreamcast, but that this concerns only video, not audio. So they suggest that problem is my Dreamcast and not their cable.
I just don't understand why I get then full audio with the composite cable. There should be only 2 audio pins on the AV port no matter whether I use composite or SCART. So what's the problem? could anybody help? on other forums people say that european SCART cables work fine on any Dreamcast...so I'm at a loss here.
Re: Dreamcast RGB SCART audio problem
The problem is solved. I bought a multimeter to check continuity from different points in the cable. I opened the SCART cable's head and everything was fine there, except that there was no continuity in the right audio wire (as expected), measuring from input to output.
Since there is small box that outputs both audio channels and composite video in the middle of the cable, I decided to check its insides instead of cutting open the whole cable. It was there that the audio wire was not soldered properly. So I soldered it back and that was it, perfect audio and amazing picture!
So, for those in doubt (like me) the european SCART cable (designed for Dreamcasts, not whatever SCART of course) works with Japanese machines. Most likely it also works with NTSC/UC machines.
If your TV supports RGB SCART (watch out, some SCART cables produce only composite, check with the vendor before buying!) I cannot recommend it enough for those that don't want to invest in the VGA cable/box.
Since there is small box that outputs both audio channels and composite video in the middle of the cable, I decided to check its insides instead of cutting open the whole cable. It was there that the audio wire was not soldered properly. So I soldered it back and that was it, perfect audio and amazing picture!
So, for those in doubt (like me) the european SCART cable (designed for Dreamcasts, not whatever SCART of course) works with Japanese machines. Most likely it also works with NTSC/UC machines.
If your TV supports RGB SCART (watch out, some SCART cables produce only composite, check with the vendor before buying!) I cannot recommend it enough for those that don't want to invest in the VGA cable/box.