Nintendo 64 on HD TV - Color Problem

[SwedenTH]

Hey there! This is my first time on these forums, because I really need help with a problem that I have with my gaming setup.
I couldn't see an older post on this so I decided to make my own.

Anyway, here's the situation:
I have a new LG TV (the OLED55B6V, if it matters), and I'm trying to hook up all my consoles to it. When I bought the TV I also decided to get the best video quality out of all of them. I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to all the technical details, but I found out that most consoles have RGB output (and I live in Sweden, so that's fine) and then I put it all through an RGB SCART-switch and then a HDMI converter, and it works perfectly!

The N64 (PAL, by the way) however does of course not have RGB, so I bought a special S-Video cable from ConsoleGoods and an S-Video to HDMI converter (this one: http://www.lightinthebox.com/hd-cvbs-3r ... 87080.html? )

Basically everything that is bright red on screen turns into a dark, almost brownish, green.

I have no idea what is causing this; and I know for a fact that it's not the console itself, as the composite (pulled through the same converter I might add, as it has both S-Video and Composite via a switch) works perfectly color wise. But of course, that means that the quality upgrade was all for nothing...

(Some additional information, which I'm not sure if it is relevant or not, but when I use this PAL S-Video with my SNES it gives me a black & white picture.
And; I'm not interested in modding my hardware!)

I'd be eternally grateful for some insight in this problem!

[Hoagtech]

I would guess your svideo converter does not work properly.

If you can't get either source to display a proper picture (snes/n64). I would test the s video scaler on another tv to make sure.

[yxkalle]

Most S-video cables with Nintendo connector doesn't have the necessary components inside it to give a good picture on a PAL N64.

In other words: You need a special S-video cable for PAL N64's.

[SwedenTH]

Yes YxKalle, you're absolutely right!

However, I already bought the specially tweaked S-Video cable from ConsoleGoods, which is made for PAL N64s. It is apparently fixing the brightness issue that people experience, and it seems like it's doing its job in that department!

The only problem I have is the miscoloring of (bright) red, which turns into dark green.

Men tack ändå!

[yxkalle]

I'm not sure, but the cable could still be the culprit.
I found this post on assemblergames forum.
Seems like they are not offering the complete set of resistors and capacitors inside their cables, at least not back in 2014. Please correct me on this if I'm wrong.
Glad om man är till nytta!

[SwedenTH]

Huh would you look at that.. Thanks for that, that's really interesting. I guess I'll have to screw mine apart and check if it corresponds with the above diagram or not!

I am no tech-savvy (as might be obvious, haha) so I might be wrong now; but the thing that makes me curious about what the AssemblerGames guy wrote; that there just being the 75ohm resistor. When compared to the diagram that would mean (if it's true for my cable as well) that the ground is working correctly, but that the brightness would be unchanged, or am I wrong?

Although I have no idea what a ground-problem would look like, my brightness is perfect...
But oh well, I'll check it regardless I guess!

Another way I could try this is with one of those "AV & S-Video --> SCART Adaptors" (like this one: https://www.kjell.com/se/sortiment/ljud ... ter-p39598 ) and put it through my SCART --> HDMI Adaptor, and see what the result is that way!

The only thing I'm unsure about is if I will actually get the S-Video output with one of these things? I've seen some people warning about it automatically using the/turning it into Composite output regardless.
Do you know if this is true?

Du hjälper mer än du anar min vän! Alla nya små sätt att bena ut detta är en stor hjälp för mig!!

[SwedenTH]

I just wanted to give a little update on that I tried one of those S-Video <---> SCART Blocks, and I just ended up with a black & white picture this time...
I pulled it through the aforementioned SCART --> HDMI Converter, which has been working perfectly otherwise, so that just confused me further.

Only good thing that came out of it was that I found out that my SCART Switch is low quality and that I should get a better one..

Still no solution on the topic problem though, so for anyone reading this who's got a suggestion; I'm all ears!

[Guspaz]

That S-Video to SCART adapter block isn't converting any signals, it's just taking the luma and chroma and shoving them over the SCART connector. S-Video is carried over SCART using luma (brightness) on the composite video pin, and chroma (colour) on the red video pin. Your SCART-to-HDMI converter doesn't support S-Video, so it thinks it's being sent composite video (S-Video and Component's luma signal is, AFAIK, indistinguishable from a black and white composite video signal), and so it's only converting luma.

[SwedenTH]

Oh yeah, that makes total sense actually!
Thank you for clearing that up Guspaz.



Just as a further side-note on this whole thing, I decided to order a female-female SCART adapter today, which I will use to tell once and for all if it's the Modded PAL Cable or the S-Video Converter that is at fault here.
The plan is to take another console with a SCART output, but it through the female-female SCART adapter, through the SCART <-> S-Video adapter, through a male-male S-Video Cable, and finally thought that S-Video ---> HDMI Converter.

I'll post whatever I find, but I hope that'll at least be the last of it!