Hooking EVERYTHING up to a modern HDTV - A Guide (Update for the Framemeister coming soon!)

Tech Talk
41

To be fair, a lot of people are ignorant of S-Video, I think it’s worthwhile to mention it. I’ve had people be amazed at seeing a SNES game through Composite then S-video, and I tell them this clarity has been possible for nearly 2 decades. I had a Sega fanboy friend get super excited when he saw the difference my S-Video modded Genesis had versus its Composite output. I had another friend who hooked up her PS3 to her HDTV through Composite, I loaned her a S-Video cable, and she didn’t want to buy a HDMI cable since the quality was THAT much improved.*

As for understanding it, I’ll do my best to simplify it. You can’t use 480p games through the scaler. If you want 480p capability, you’ll have to either have two cables near your PS2 (SCART RGB and Component) and switch them around in the back of your PS2 by hand whenever you play one output mode or the other, or find a way to leave the PS2 hooked up without switching cables around, but still having the capability to use either 240p/480i through the scaler, or 480p through Component. Also whenever you switch modes you will need to change a setting in your PS2 menu.

*Side-note, but I am such a video nerd, I buy any of my friends HDMI cables if they hook up a HD console to a HDTV through a SD input… that makes me so sad inside.

42

So unanimous decision for the oldies is the SCART:f:RGB:f:Scaler method?

As for the PS2… what a troublesome system.

43

you can use 480p games through a scaler and get them to 1080 if your scaler is capable its pretty common
ok mention s-video

44

you have to be specific not just say oldies each system is specific

Ps2 is not troublesome at all compared to anything older it has more options

45

Ok pretty much SNES until PSX excluding unmodded N64.

What I’m asking with PS2 is: what is the easiest way to get the best of both worlds? (480p support and 240p support)

46

way more detail remeber not all snes sytems are rgb so you cant simply use scart
you have opened a can that you dont know much about to be frank

47

I didn’t know whether that cheap Ebay scaler supported a 480p input or not, so I assumed it didn’t to play it safe. If it supports that input, then you could have a different setup… I could write about how, but this is getting really contrived already lol. Maybe later if you want it.

To be fair, most of the PS2’s library isn’t 480p-capable. You could look at the games you’ll play and determine if any of them are 480p, perhaps you don’t play any on it that support 480p, so supporting that in your setup is moot. Or perhaps you don’t care about 480p and don’t mind running 480p-capable games in 480i through the scaler, but if you’re enough of a video nerd to run a scaler then you probably care about that. I know I would want to run stuff like SF Alpha Anthology, Timesplitters series, Thunderforce VI through their native 480p, it really makes a difference.

48

http://www.jammaboards.com/arcade_manuals/GBS-8220_CGA_to_VGA_HD-Converter.pdf

49

Duh! I thought it was implied I’m pretty much learning on the fly here.
I am referring to the default systems here. The ones BY NINTENDO/SEGA/ETC. If there’s a difference between models point it out. I know the Genesis 3 is iffy as hell and I will write that when I gather all my information.

DanAdamKOF: What you’re saying is if the scaler supports 480p, we have our perfect PS2 solution?

And yes, it’s contrived as hell but I SHALL GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS RABBIT HOLE!

50

Firstly, DanAdamKOF, you rock :smiley:

Thankyou for not lumping PS2, XBOX, and Gamecube into this. Drives me batty…

As much as this may be true about the hardware, some games (that are indeed worth playing) do not support VGA mode. DanAdamKOF mentions a plug-unplug trick for this, but AFAIK, even this isn’t 100%.

This statement should satisfy 95% of the populous. Seriously.

Just to keep things clear, SCART does not = RGB. SCART defines many video signal types that MAY be present. SCART also encompasses S-Video, Component, Composite, etc.
-ud

51

I suppose it’s about as “perfect”* as it can get since it does indeed support 480p (“YUV signal auto scan” in the manual), the only catches I see are, assuming you want to leave one cable hooked up and not switch/split the signal, does SCART RGB support 480p (I think it does?? Rosser, a little help?), and if not, are you OK with the slight drop in color quality if you have to use Component (I’m as much of a video nerd as it gets and I’d be OK with it :P)? Does the scaler output in your TV’s exact native resolution, and if not, does that matter? It doesn’t do 1280x720 (720p) but it does do close to the common 720p TV resolution of 1366x768 with its 1360x768 output (it should be 1366px wide… if your TV doesn’t do 1:1 pixlel mapping and it’s such a TV, then you will throw away some clarity). And it doesn’t do 1080p at all.

*Let’s not get into things like the Theoretical Best Scaler Ever that has hq2x filtering onboard (for those that hate pixels), 0f of lag, and has a HEPA air filter built in :slight_smile: or get into more expensive scalers like the XRGB series

Other than that, this scaler does have a little lag (they all do unless they line-double through entirely analog means or something, though some are less than a frame or something like that and are basically perfect, again I’ve never dealt with them directly so this is all me going off of random stuff I (think I) know). If you are really lucky and the GSModeSelector PS2 scaler program is perfect for you, it is lagless and would be an alternative solution (though it’s not a fun program to set up).

I do also agree that while you’re not 100% in over your head, you’re seeming like you’re about to jump head-first into something you don’t know much about (sorry, no offense). Perhaps do some reading to familiarize yourself with what you’re dealing with:
http://nfggames.com/games/ntsc/
http://nfggames.com/atarilabs/meat/2000/1201_rgbprimer.shtml (if you want, but the above covers most of this info)
http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=av:av_mods
http://www.chrismcovell.com/gotRGB/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-Video (optional)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_video
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_video
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YCbCr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_scan

(etc… This is just to start you off…)

IMO if you were OK with S-video being your top quality input for some consoles, and your TV had an S-video input, and supported 240p, and had an acceptable amount of lag for SD sources, and produced an acceptable image from SD sources, you could save a lot of money and trouble…

edit: Thanks UD, this comes from years of being a video nerd… I learned basically everything from the Neo-Geo.com forums and the gamers there. Most of us over there know all this stuff lol.

52

I know undamed this just for connecting sync strike
oh and thanks for joining the thread just try to keep your statements laymen like the OP is having trouble grasping the concept

53

No offense taken! But all I’m trying to do is come up with a plan to hook everything into a modern HDTV with as few inputs as possible (if any TV has less than mine they better not have payed for that TV) and we got some great stuff!

So far what I’m hearing is a large majority of the older (SNES/PSX era) consoles are covered either by the method Rosser put up or the RGB to component method you put up (I’m leaning towards Rosser’s because it seems a lot cheaper and from what I gather there is no loss in quality but I really need an expert to confirm that if I’m gonna write it as definitive).

The newer stuff is all covered, the only real issues are the newer versions of old consoles (Genesis 3), the PS2 (but we’re REALLY close!) and everything NES and back.

As for me grasping the concept, I understand a lot more now and it’s all thanks to your patience! Doesn’t that make you feel fuzzy inside?

54

I dunno about cheaper, you can get a JROK encoder with Component outputs for a relatively cheap price (dunno how much exactly but no one mentions it being expensive.) Link: http://www.jrok.com/hardware/RGB.html

Again though, if your TV won’t support 240p at all, this on its own is no good, you’ll need a scaler.

Realized I misunderstood an older post:

Any RGB to Component transcoder will need power.

BTW, I don’t mean to open up a can of worms, but are you particularly opposed to hooking up a PC or modded Xbox and running ROMs on it? It’s completely inauthentic and loses a ton of retro nerd points (who cares lol) but lots of people do it and are happy with it.

55

no scart does not support 480p but it does not really matter the scart cable is only used to get red,green,blue and comp sync to use in a scaler in the states most dont have scart ports on our tv

56

So Rosser, if you used a 480p PS2 game with the SCART cable hooked up, with the PS2 running in either RGB or YPbPr mode, this would work through the scaler?

57

I could. It’d be simple really but that would destroy the idea for this guide and I’d have a LOT of unused shelf space. I really hate using computers too, I enjoy my plastic boxes.

Just to clarify what I’m looking for with PS2 ideally: 480p support with working PSX BC.

58

you can use YPbPr on most scalers
480p depends on the scaler

59

Forgot to comment on this. You can do 1080i via Component. My modded XBOX displays 1080i via Component running XBOX Media Center.
-ud

60

I don’t see how this is the best method or even equal to HDMI.