racketboy.com

Hello all, I've been a shady lurker on this site for awhile, and decided it was time to throw my two cents in. I researched quite a bit on getting the best possible video out of my old school systems, and for awhile I was content with just s-video. I did the S-Video mod on my Genesis (HD Model 1- Of course) and although the picture had some heinous vertical lines, I thought it was forgivable due to the increased clarity. Also I tried to resize the pictures so they wouldn't be so huge but I don't know if it worked or not...

Fast forward a couple months, and I bought a Non-TMSS Model 1 at my favorite locally owned game store on the cheap. Since I modded my other Genesis I had to open this one up and mod it... Bad idea. I screwed it up royally, to the point where I got no video from the mod whatsoever. This is when I decided to go RGB.

EQUIPMENT-
SCART to YUV converter- $52 shipped
SCART Selector Box- $20 shipped
Genesis SCART Cable $20
SCART to SCART cable $6
N64/SNES SCART cable $11

Total - $109

The Genesis is fairly clear-cut as far as RGB goes. I was able to find a lot of opinions and documentation throughout the internet for this. I bought my cable from some dude in the UK on eBay. Its of fairly good quality and came promptly. Now, the only issue with the Model 1, and I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere yet- is that the RGB cable outputs Mono audio. This is no good for me, the whole reason I have a HD Model 1 is for the superior stereo sound. Mod time.



This was a really easy mod (The RCA Inputs), and an absolutely necessary one at that. All I did was check the pin out for SCART and solder the leads of an old mini-jack to RCA adapter I had laying around. I use the RCA outs on the SEGA CD for my audio, but if you don't have a Sega CD just use the headphone jack. There is more to this mod, as far as what pins and things that need to be done to the cable itself- so if you want more info just let me know.

As far as picture quality- I couldn't be happier with it. It truly is great. I tried to shoot some video, but it isn't high enough quality to really see the difference. Plus, there is plenty of stuff out there already showing the difference. I will post two picture though just in case you haven't seen the difference. Again, the pictures really don't do it justice, but are a decent way to see some details. Also, I don't have a Composite cable for my Genesis so this is RF vs RGB... a little unfair I know but it's all I got.

RF


RGB

RGB

RGB

These are pictures of my TV (50 in Plasma) so its not as good as it should be!

SNES- I bought a "N64" SCART cable from the GOAT Store on a whim. With SNES SCART it really depends on what cable you get. European SNES SCART cables have resistors on them where as North American SNES's dont have the same hardware so they need capacitors instead. Apparently the N64 is the same as the NA SNES so the cable works fine. It seems that with SNES SCART cables you just have to hope they work. I can confirm the ones from the Goat Store work- I'm not trying to promote them- its just that they do function correctly. Again, the picture quality is great - I was using S-Video through monster cables made for the Gamecube and honestly the jump isn't as noticeable as the Genesis.

ISSUES
Okay so it wasnt all smooth sailing... I talked briefly about the audio issue with the Genesis, that was a simple fix. The thing that really had me worried was this wierd video problem that happens with both the Genesis and the SNES. I uploaded a video on youtube showing it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ejg2J_w0u0
If you cant see what is wrong... there is a red horizontal line in the middle of the screen that comes and goes when it wants. Also the top half of the picture is distorted and difficult to look at without wanting to vomit. I'm not sure if its my TV or the box I got or what but I was very angry when I saw this was happening.
Solution- I have a receiver that takes component inputs and can upscale if desired. So I hooked the Converter to the Receiver and presto no more line and no more distortion. I'm not sure why this fixed the problem- but i don't care. I have it set to PURE resolution so it doesn't upscale, because when it does the picture becomes softer and doesn't look quite as good.


In conclusion, I hope I helped someone out that maybe wanted to do this but had some questions about it before hand. If you want any more information about this junk let me know, I am very much into getting the best possible video and sound for all my systems...

Oh wow! I've always been interested to do something like this, but I assumed that since I didn't have a TV with RGB SCART that I would have to import an XRGB-3 or something to get it looking satisfactory on my big TV. This is very, very interesting. You've certainly inspired me!

So you converted RGB to Component? I heard you had to do a mod to get RGB out of a Nintendo 64, so did you do that mod to do so? Also, I didn't quite understand the mod you had to preform on your Genesis. And do you consider this RGB setup worthwhile if I'm going to end up playing these all on my HDTV?

Very nice quality. SNES, in my opinion, has always had a very clean S-video output.

I plan in the future to get RGB on my systems, but first I need to get a DVDO Edge. The reason being is that most if not all HDTV's misinterpret 240p, which is what RGB is. I believe your upscaler correctly identified that the resolution was 240p and not 480i, which is what most HDTV's do with a 240p image.

On some peoples screen it comes up as a black screen, or for others like me it looks like someone set the refresh rate to below 60hz and flickers like crazy.

I was going to do the RGB mod to the N64, but apparently I have one of the newer revisions to the motherboard, so the chip that you need to tap isn't there. I don't play it very often anyway so I think I'm going to go with the Saturn or Dreamcast.

The Genesis Mod (more a mod to the selector box) is kind of hard to describe.
The AV Out on a Model 1 Genesis only outputs Mono Audio. So in order to get stereo I had to solder a cable on to the pins of the connector inside the selector box. Also I cut the audio leads on the Genesis cable itself to prevent any audio from coming into the box from the cable itself. Also, you need the selector box for the Component converter I used, because it only outputs video- no audio.

The AV out on a Model 2 genesis outputs stereo so you would not need to do anything weird to get the audio from that. However, its widely known that the audio on a Model 2 Genesis (Generally) is poorer than a Model 1 (High Definition Graphics model).

I hope this cleared up your question...

- I think you are right about the 240p thing, that would certainly explain why I was getting the distortion on half the screen.

I have my genesis and saturn connected via scart through an XRGB-2. I use a VGA->HDMI converter and picture quality is phenomenal on my HDTV. The XRGB also has VGA pass-through which is perfect for Dreamcast.

That's really nice. I'm european so I have easy access to RGB inputs on my TV's that said I have so many consoles that need to be plugged in through that method for the best image quality possible that I'm considering some ingenious wiring down to the furniture (complete with wall sockets mounted onto them).

Might not seem like it has a lot to do with common, but I'm taking notes; audio RCA out seems really sweet in this case.

One question though, I think Genesis 1 only gives stereo from the front audio out, not through back cable? or you modded that also?

I used the Audio out on the sega cd. You use the front input of the Genesis and plug that into the back of the Sega CD. Here's some pics:

Front

Back


Of course if you don't have a Sega cd (I don't blame you) just use a minjack to RCA cable for stereo out.

garbagejuicer wrote:I used the Audio out on the sega cd. You use the front input of the Genesis and plug that into the back of the Sega CD.

Oh, sweet! nevermind what I said then.

I don't have one, but it's on my future plans.

Hi, I am having a few problems with my consoles and getting a decent video output...

First up is my PAL NES. I have not and will not use the RF output. It's composite output is horrid. Basically I am more interested in my NTSC NES output to be bothered about doing anything about the PAL NES.

Next up is my NTSC USA early serial number (model NES001) front loader NES. I can't use the RF output since I am in England and my equipment has only PAL-I tuners, but then again I wouldn't want to use it's RF output anyway.
My NTSC NES's Composite output is HUGELY better than my PAL NES and looks pretty darn great. However I want to go one better so I will be modding it to RGB. I have the PlayChoice10 PPU chip and parts ready to go, just need the desoldering iron now.

Third is my USA NTSC SNES. It's a late serial number later version SNES with the smaller motherboard PCB but it's NOT the model 2, so it's not the redesigned small cased one. Again I can't use the RF output since I am in England and my equipment has only PAL-I tuners, but then again I wouldn't want to use it's RF output anyway.

My USA SNES's composite output is horrid and it's S-Video output has horrible diagonal lines on it on areas of solid color. I think it's because of the cheap and nasty thin wired 3rd party S-Video cable that I got for it. But then again the RGB output has the same problem! At least it seems so. I say this because my Infocus IN76 projector won't lock onto the SCART RGB signal coming from the SNES's multipin connector SNES to RGB SCART cable, which sucks. Also BTW my IN76 won't lock onto my PAL PS1's output via my cheap 3rd party RGB SCART PS1 cable. But when I feed the RGB signal from my USA SNES through my Pioneer DVR-LX60D DVD / HDD, the IN76 locks on perfectly but I get the dreaded diagonal lines.

Today I got an RGB to S video converter from JS Technologies (second hand for 3 GBP) and it works great with my Pioneer LX60, on both NTSC and PAL signals (i.e. 525 / 60 / 3.58MHz and 625 / 50 / 4.43MHz) but it won't lock onto the RGB signal coming from my USA SNES unless it's displaying a mostly dark picture and then I can still see the obvious horrid diagonal dither / herringbone pattern lines on some coloured text, and when the screen gets brighter it just clips straight to a white screen and it's corrupted and distorted and also when used with my PS1 the screen wobbles on dull screens and some of the colors look bad with lines on them. Yet the output looks fine when I put the Pioneer through it, colors are solid and great, quality is great.

So looks like I am sorted for the Composite (and maybe RGB ) side of things on my NES, and I am screwed with the USA SNES, I just can't seem to get rid of the diagonal lines, (and I think I'll have to try a new S-Video cable with it with better shielding) but I think the diagonal lines are actually being generated from inside the SNES as it's just as bad via RGB (albeit going through my Pioneer or JS tech box to convert to S video first).

I think there's something amiss about my USA SNES and PAL PS1's RGB outputs as my pj won't lock onto them directly. Funny though how my pj is perfectly fine with my CLD-D925 laserdisc via S-Video (looks great) or my Pioneer LX60D DVD / HDD via Component (looks fabulous) or PS3 via HDMI (looks amazing).

Also both my USA SNES and PAL PS1 work perfectly with my Sony 29" Trinitron TV model KV29K5U when both are in RGB mode. But I can still see faint diagonal lines problems with the SNES in S-Video connection, it's just my TV is incredibly blurred compared to my pj even though I have the TV on maximum sharpness, so that's why the diagonal lines don't hardly bother me at all on the TV but I mostly use my pj and they DO bother me then. I don't like to use the RGB connection to my Sony TV as in that mode you can't alter the colour saturation at all (but you can on the pj in RGB SCART mode).

If anyone has any experience or insight with the above problems then I'd love to hear it.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

ChuChu Flamingo wrote:I plan in the future to get RGB on my systems, but first I need to get a DVDO Edge. The reason being is that most if not all HDTV's misinterpret 240p, which is what RGB is. I believe your upscaler correctly identified that the resolution was 240p and not 480i, which is what most HDTV's do with a 240p image.

On some peoples screen it comes up as a black screen, or for others like me it looks like someone set the refresh rate to below 60hz and flickers like crazy.

You don't need a DVDO edge, you can get an iScan pro linedoubler for under $50 on ebay. It'll output RGB or component over 15-pin VGA. You'll need the SCART to component converter. You could use a HD Box Pro or a GBS-8220 transcoder/upscaler. These output VGA also. The edge will probably look better, though. Check out this RGB NES through the GBS-8220 viewtopic.php?f=25&t=24645

And, if you want scanlines the upcoming SLG3000 will work with any of the boards I mentioned. http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=33454