Official USA Gamecube scart cable = Official PAL SNES scart?

[andykara2003]

Hi, quick question if I may:

Is the official USA Gamecube RGB scart cable the equivalent to the official PAL SNES RGB scart cable?

I didn't get an official scart cable with my 1-Chip PAL SNES so I'm using my official US Gamecube one, which I understood to be the exact equivalent.

The picture looks very nice, but the whites look a tad overblown as if the signal is just a fraction overbright. I'm using a very low use Sony consumer 25" TV with the contrast & brightness set in the middle.

The effect is quite slight & I might be being over critical but if the cable isn't the exact equivalet I'll probably buy a PAL SNES cable which might be a little expensive (I only buy official).

Cheers, Andy

[Fudoh]

NTSC Cubes don't output RGB, so to answer your question: NO. So, whatever you're using, it's not an officual "US Cube Scart cable".

What you might be thinking of: US and JP SNES/SFC NTSC can use PAL CUBE RGB cables.

[andykara2003]

Oops sorry I wasn't thinking thanks Fudoh - it's an official Gamecube RGB cable so it must be a PAL one.

I got it to use with my US RGB modded N64.

So in that case, would there be a difference between my PAL Gamecube scart cable and a PAL SNES scart cable?

[blizzz]

Yes, the cables are different. However, another site states that the 1CHIP SNES works with a PAL Gamecube cable.

The PAL SNES was internally revised 4 or more times during its lifetime. Later consoles used a different video encoder chip and supporting circuitry and 'appear' to work fine with an unmodified PAL Gamecube/NTSC SNES Scart cable (with capacitors)

I'm actually not sure what the optimal cable for a 1CHIP PAL SNES is.

[andykara2003]

Thanks again Blizzz! That's good to know for sure. Well the PAL 'cube cable does 'appear' to work fine as av:nintendomultiav says. I'd ideally like to have the real deal though as I don't think the brightness is 100% right.

I'm looking for an official PAL SNES RGB scart cable now but they initially seem to be quite rare. I'm guessing that must be the correct cable for the 1-chip? Does anyone know if that's the case?

[andykara2003]

Well I took the plunge and bought an official PAL cable from the Okatu store in France - knowing them, I feel they're trustworthy.

Thanks again guys - really appreciate the help as always

[kel]

Looks like a third party one from the pic on their store. If you want an official one then scout ebay.fr for a week or so. Last time I looked you could pick them up for as low as £15 including P+P if you checked the listings for a few days or more. Search for SNES or Super Nintendo peritel. It looks identical to the Official GameCube scart except the scart plug is grey instead of black.

The PAL GameCube cable may work with the PAL 1CHIP but you will end up with an impedance mismatch, hence the brightness issue that you mentioned.

[andykara2003]

Looks like a third party one from the pic on their store. If you want an official one then scout ebay.fr for a week or so. Last time I looked you could pick them up for as low as £15 including P+P if you checked the listings for a few days or more. Search for SNES or Super Nintendo peritel. It looks identical to the Official GameCube scart except the scart plug is grey instead of black.

The PAL GameCube cable may work with the PAL 1CHIP but you will end up with an impedance mismatch, hence the brightness issue that you mentioned.

Thanks Kel - does this one look genuine?

http://www.ebay.fr/itm/Cable-Video-Adap ... 486af6981c

[kel]

yes, that's the one.

[andykara2003]

yes, that's the one.

Thanks again Kel

[andykara2003]

Just out of interest, does anyone know if the PAL SNES originally came with an RGB scart cable in the box or was it sold separately?

[blizzz]

No console came with an RGB cable. Most came with composite cables and a SCART adapter.

[andykara2003]

No console came with an RGB cable. Most came with composite cables and a SCART adapter.

Cheers Blizzz

[Xan]

No console came with an RGB cable. Most came with composite cables and a SCART adapter.

Actually I've seen a claim that the Saturn was launched with a bundled RGB cable in Europe, can't find the source now though...

[Fudoh]

Actually I've seen a claim that the Saturn was launched with a bundled RGB cable in Europe

France might be a candidate for that. They even got their NES "RGB-ready" back in the day. Rest of Europe - certainly not.

[speedlolita]

Actually I've seen a claim that the Saturn was launched with a bundled RGB cable in Europe

France might be a candidate for that. They even got their NES "RGB-ready" back in the day. Rest of Europe - certainly not.

This is also true of the UK.

Hence the amount of cheap Saturn bundles that can be had with Official RGB cable.

Multiple times I've got a model 1 bundle for £15 or so with the cable included. Few adjustments on the board and you got a cheap JP Saturn setup.

[Xan]

In that source it was also said that the RGB cables were omitted eventually because most customers demanded regular composite cables anyway, wonder what truth there is to that...

[kel]

Possibly some of the older cheaper TVs still around back then didn't have scart input, only RF and AV.

If the console came bundled only with a scart lead then some people may have complained or even returned the console because they couldn't plug it into their old portable bedroom TV with no scart input.

[Joelepain]

Actually I've seen a claim that the Saturn was launched with a bundled RGB cable in Europe

France might be a candidate for that. They even got their NES "RGB-ready" back in the day. Rest of Europe - certainly not.

I remember when we had our french SNES back then, it was a bundle with Super mario world and two controllers. And it came with a scart cable. I don't remember if it was wired for RGB because I was really young and I didn't know about all this stuff, but I remember clearly that it looked like a plain official RGB cable, and not like 3RCA (yellow, white, red) with a SCART adapter.

Like you said, France might be a candidate for that because the television norm was SECAM and not PAL, and Nintendo France prefered to bundle RGB scart cable than modify the video encoder to output SECAM.
That's the reason why we almost had a RGB ready N64 too.

[speedlolita]

The Official SNES RGB SCART cable looks like the Official GameCube SCART lead. Just with grey moulds and the SCART plug has no Nintendo branding.

There is actually one on eBay right now at a ridiculous price.

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221392277263

And yes, it looks the same as the SuFami JP21 cable. My friend has the French variant so I can confirm it exists. If it was bundled with a SNES though, I cannot say.

Again though, Saturn definitely came with SCART as standard to begin with in the UK.

[Xan]

There was apparently this Sony cable (SCPH-1140): http://i17.servimg.com/u/f17/14/51/83/51/dsc_0010.jpg

Any info on whether it's wired for RGB? Perhaps not, I really was under the impression that SCPH-1050 is the only official Sony RGB cable. Assuming that it's just an SCPH-1050 with SCART wiring it would be rather bad for PAL consoles anyway, as they need sync on luma.

[speedlolita]

There was apparently this Sony cable (SCPH-1140): http://i17.servimg.com/u/f17/14/51/83/51/dsc_0010.jpg

Any info on whether it's wired for RGB? Perhaps not, I really was under the impression that SCPH-1050 is the only official Sony RGB cable. Assuming that it's just an SCPH-1050 with SCART wiring it would be rather bad for PAL consoles anyway, as they need sync on luma.

Wrong.

Also that cable is a SCPH-1052, I have three and I also have a SCPH-10142 which is the same but black and more rigid.

http://i.imgur.com/hGRVhgZ.jpg

Sync on luma is a solution that retro_console_accessories seems to use, but it isn't required. I'd quite like to buy one of her cables to compare to these.

[Xan]

My wording was a bit unclear there. Of course it works with composite video, but you get very noticeable checkerboard patterns on solid colors when using it with PAL consoles. I believe at least the SNES has this issue as well.

Thanks for the correction on that model number, never seen those cables before. According to users on this forum SCPH-1050 uses composite video for sync, did they change it for SCPH-1052?

[speedlolita]

Same for the SCPH-1052, composite video.

[brownvim]

Is there a way to mod the black playstation RGB cable for luma as sync?

I tried the retro console accessories RGB cable and it has ghosting, not as good quality picture as the original Sony cable but then u get that check board effect.

I opened the scart plug end on the Sony cable and there is a PCB attached to it, interesting, doesn't look simple.

[Fudoh]

The PCB just includes the capacitors for the RGB lines and a 12V to 5V (or 3V) converter board to supply the right blanking voltage for RGB.

Switching composite for luma is much more easily accomplished within the console.

[brownvim]

I will have to open up my PS2 then, was disappointed with the ghosting on the retro gaming accessories cable.

[andykara2003]

Just to let you guys know that the cable was the culprit. The official SNES RGB cable is less bright than the PAL gamecube one so although the GC PAL cable 'seems' to work with the 1-Chip PAL SNES, it does't really and is fractionally too bright.

[Thomago]

I can confirm this! "Normal" RGB sources need an A/D-Level of about 153 to show for full contrast range on the XRGB Mini Framemeister; my 1-CHIP-SNES in conjunction with the Nintendo GC RGB cable however just needs an A/D-Level of about 133. Needlessly to say anything more than that makes bright screen elements "drown" in pure white.

[Unseen]

The official SNES RGB cable is less bright than the PAL gamecube one so although the GC PAL cable 'seems' to work with the 1-Chip PAL SNES, it does't really and is fractionally too bright.

Some time ago I was looking into exactly that issue and found that the PAL 1-Chip SNES seems to use 37.5 Ohm resistors on its RGB lines (the nominal impedance is 75 Ohm), resulting in slightly too high signal levels if you connect them directly. The official RGB cable most likely has 37.5 Ohm resistors in series with the RGB signals which brings the signal levels down to the standard 0.7Vpp.

Another option is to swap three the three 37.5 Ohm SMD resistors on the SNES board with 75 Ohm ones, then you should be able to use a standard PAL GC RGB cable without blowing out the upper end of the color scale. I did that on my console, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures which show the modification.