TylerL wrote:I wanted to say thank you for all the tips learned while lurking this thread, and show off my mod
After I was gifted a Sony KV20TR23, I looked up schematics for it online and was surprised to find that it has a (seemingly) rare daughterboard to handle closed captioning. This meant it has an awfully convenient socket on the main board with every necessary pin for analog RGB, fed directly to the Jungle chip. No soldering or board removal necessary!
I spent a good amount of time on eBay and other sites looking for inexpensive SCART parts and accessories for my Genesis, SNES, Wii, and for VGA PC output. It seemed like EuroSCART was the best standard connector to work with.
This surface-mount SCART connector's pins look like they were meant for breadboard connectors...
Here, I've connected RGB along with their separate grounds, as well as the SCART shield ground itself.
Pardon the breadboard mess. I plan to design and solder a nice compact module soon. Then again, I'm very lazy.
Plugged right into the pins on the TV! Couldn't possibly be more convenient (unless, of course, this was a PAL60 TV in the first place...)
I've also tapped into YS and 5V to connect to my breadboard for activating blanking, and chassis ground as well connected to SCART shield ground.
I found a SCART in-line "breakout" adapter that lets me tap into the Composite and Audio signals, which I feed into the traditional inputs on the back of the TV for Sync and Audio. (ignore the cable colors)
Success! And somehow on the first try! Here's a video showing the complete setup, where I toggle the blanking pin high to provide a realtime example of the difference in quality on Sonic 2 through a model 1 Genesis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yQHp0pbHMI
Later, I perfected a Linux-based KMS RetroArch install, which feeds a 3840x240 15KHz signal over VGA. Gorgeous and lag-free. For the first time in over a decade, I can play my favorite old fast-twitch and precision platformer games without an emulation delay driving me nuts. Seriously, I've barely been able to enjoy retro gaming before this setup. In fact, the latency is so low, I don't even feel the need for real hardware in most cases!
I've never been an fan of emulator CRT shaders, but the image quality on these ancient games somehow looks high-def on a good Trinitron.
My only issue with the VGA connection is a strange white fringing around high-contrast lines. The checkerboard pattern in the 240p Test SNES ROM looks nearly solid white, for example. Strangely enough, if I pass the VGA single through my Extron (no processing, just passthrough!), the resulting image is perfect. Am I missing something additional that needs to be done (resistors, etc) to the signal? I'd rather cut the Extron our of the chain, obviously...especially since it doesn't really DO anything.
Again, thanks for the insight! If you have any questions or comments, please let me know!