Tell me about Japanese RGB in the 80s and 90s.

[WelshMegalodon]

Back with another newbie question. I get the feeling I'll frustrate more than a few knowledgeable folks with this post, which is probably full of incorrect assumptions, half-baked knowledge, and overall confusion, but I am interested in getting my facts straight.

About a week and a half ago I innocently asked why it was that the Master System, Mega Drive, and Super Famicom all output RGB natively in a time when RGB displays were (to my understanding) out of reach for most consumers. it290 and FinalBaton mentioned RGB computer monitors, Japanese "prosumers", and RGB displays for workstations, yet most people trying to get RGB video from their consoles in this day and age appear to opt for PVMs and BVMs or upscalers rather than computer monitors. I see some talk of a Japanese 21-pin standard; another, seemingly unrelated, 15-pin standard; yet another 8-pin standard; some computers using digital RGB while others used analog...

I guess what my question essentially boils down to is this:"what kinds of non-SCART RGB displays would have been available in the late 80s and early- to mid-90s for use with a Master System, Super Famicom, or Mega Drive"?

[SuperDeadite]

RGB was mostly a computer thing. Most monitors marketed towards MSX users had jp21. Multisyncs also existed, but very expensive. Most MSX users were happy with composite. Only the hardcore wanted RGB. In Japan the computer world was all about pushing resolutions for kanji word processing.

While Sega systems did output RGB, Sega never sold cables as they knew it wasn't worth it. Back then the hardcore fans often used pinout changers like XMD so they could use msx cables.

Nintendo didnt even bother with rgb on n64 as the sfc cables sold so poorly.

Japan went with the USA model and pushed S-video. Even later MSX computers have s-vid output.

[Fudoh]

I would indeed be interested to learn how common the JP21 connector on japanese consumer TVs actually was back in the day.

This said. While there was a plentitude of connectors and signals around in the mid to late 80s, it's also correct that RGB wasn't this uncommon. Computer systems in Japan, Europe and the US all used various kinds of RGB signals, most in the 15khz range in the 80s. And while Japan and Europe carried RGB over to consumer TVs, the USA simply didn't.

99% of all consumer TVs built for Europe starting in the mid 80s did have RGB Scart inputs. I assume a certain portion of japanese consumer TVs did have JP21 connections. Europe did push Scart as a universal connector on the source side as well. VCRs, LD players and DVD Players all had scart connectors - thought not all of them capable of RGB. In Japan JP21 was only used on the monitor side. Sources used various connectors and in the 90s (when MUSE and DVD came along), Japan had moved on to component through RCA or D-Terminal (for it's 31khz+ capabilities), so JP21 wasn't around as long as Scart in Europe was.

Americans go for PVMs and BVM today, because the consumer TVs there didn't have RGB inputs and only a tiny minority was aware of the concept of transcoding (RGB to YUV) back in the 90s (and because PVMs and BVMs are great displays of course).

Computer monitors from that age hardly exceeded 14" and the differences in sync and RGB signals still require use of adapters or converters, so it's not easy as it was in Europe or Japan with the consumer TVs available there.

During the heydays of home computing in the late 80s dozens of manufacturers were on the market with 14" Color RGB monitors. All those Atari ST machines and Amigas required those. As you mentioned connection standards were all over the place though. Only few of those monitors adopted RGB Scart (like SOME Commodore 1081/84 models), most required custom made adapters to run with RGB consoles from that era.

Availability of JP21 displays in Japan was certainly way behind availability of RGB Scart displays in Europe. This is certainly one reason why s-video was popular in Japan, while basically unknown over here. You either used composite or you used RGB and cables (like RGB for Mega Drive) were easily available in Europe. The vanishing of JP21 (with the rise of 31khz component) in Japan is certainly reason why not all mid 90s systems continued to offer RGB (PC-FX or N64) and why Sony stood by it's Playstation RGB capabilties and introduced new RGB connectors on their own consumer CRTs (with the Playstation AV connector on both ends of the cable).

[Bassa-Bassa]

What was again the factual reasons of the USA not getting RGB TVs at all thing? Something to do with the video rentals?

[fernan1234]

and why Sony stood by it's Playstation RGB capabilties and introduced new RGB connectors on their own consumer CRTs (with the Playstation AV connector on both ends of the cable).

Thanks to those cables Sony kept RGB around even for the PS2, unlike XBOX and Gamecube (except for PAL regions). Probably wouldn't have happened otherwise.

It's really intriguing that RGB output was made available for so many earlier systems even though it was unlikely to be used at all in the American and Japanese markets. Sega was pretty consistent at keeping it around for all regions from Master System all the way to the Dreamcast. I guess they just figured that RGB was what the system was outputting in the first place, so might as well wire it to the connector for the heck of it. What's actually more of an oddity is that Nintendo did this too, though only for the SFC/SNES, reversing that decision not much later with the Jr./Mini revision and all systems that came after. N64's video is originally in RGB, so it was a deliberate decision to not include it, whereas Gamecube and Wii were YCbCr.

Now this makes me wonder, is the PS2 like the PS1 also generating the video source in RGB? That would be interesting, since most people use it with Component rather than RGB cables.

[Bratwurst]

It should be noted that things like the Sega 32X and the CD-ROM add-on for the PC-Engine relied on incorporating the RGB output of the host system, so from the perspective of supporting anticipated 'upgrades' or however you want to refer to them, it made sense to make the cleanest video output available out of the box. Gratifying videophiles of the time was probably a secondary consideration.

[azmun]

I guess what my question essentially boils down to is this:"what kinds of non-SCART RGB displays would have been available in the late 80s and early- to mid-90s for use with a Master System, Super Famicom, or Mega Drive"?

I would speculate that developers had in mind to future proofing their hardware by upgrading from RF (the standard) to composite, s-video and RGB. They had to rely on television and other third-party hardware manufacturers to push certain standards since that was not their line. Europe had RGB via SCART on consumer level televisions. US and Japan back in the day could most only rely on s-video as the best signal.

That said, I'm not aware of sets that had jp-21 ports on their televisions but they must have existed for Nintendo (and subsequently Sega and Sony) to have supplied and sold them. These probably did not sell so well as future revisions of Nintendo's console stripped down their multi-av port. I would also guess Japanese would have connected their Mega Drive consoles to PC CRTs via Micomsoft's XMD adapters. Playstation would follow suit with the Waka Upscan converter.

[jd213]

RGB was mostly a computer thing. Most monitors marketed towards MSX users had jp21. Multisyncs also existed, but very expensive. Most MSX users were happy with composite. Only the hardcore wanted RGB. In Japan the computer world was all about pushing resolutions for kanji word processing.

While Sega systems did output RGB, Sega never sold cables as they knew it wasn't worth it.

There was an official Saturn JP21 cable, looks pretty cheaply made though: https://hkjunk0.com/game/game-other/sat ... epair.html

[Konsolkongen]

It looks pretty much exactly the same as the one that was bundled with my Saturn back in the day. Image quality is fine, no visual difference between this and one from RGC, not that I would expect any.

[tongshadow]

2 words: Sony ProFeel.

[SamIAm]

A previous discussion on the subject:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=60751

I would estimate that for any given console with official JP21 cables available, only around 1% of users were actually connecting in RGB in Japan.

[FinalBaton]

Well, goes to show I guess that even tho a standard exists (JP21), that doesn't mean it was used much, or even implemented on TV sets in the first place....

But although it apparently wasn't used that much ; it was still there on some people's sets/monitors. So why not support it?

And as a bonus : I guess it doesn't hurt to give game devs and reviewers who take screeshot of your games, access to RGB. just wire a couple more pin to your connector and all of a sudden you've offered that and future proofing. and helps give you cutting-edge status, which is something Sega seems to have always focused on.

[Einzelherz]

I would speculate that it's partially for better photos a la game magazines and partly because the European market had RGB. There's not much sense in developing two different outputs for different regions.

[fernan1234]

There's not much sense in developing two different outputs for different regions.

Well that's exactly what Nintendo in particular started doing. Both GC and Wii were YCbCr video source, and offered YPbPr only on NTSC/J consoles and RGB on PAL consoles.

For the Dreamcast there was some variation at the software level, with several games offering different output options and not others depending on the region (for example, RGB 15khz for PAL version only, but no 31khz, and vice versa for NTSC/J versions).

Sony seems to have been consistent worldwide.

[6t8k]

Both GC and Wii were YCbCr video source, and offered YPbPr only on NTSC/J consoles and RGB on PAL consoles.

GC and Wii hardware supports Composite, S-Video, RGB and YPbPr "Component" (in the GC's case via a separately sold Y′CbCr -> YPbPr converter*) output independent of the console's region.
Without the help of unofficial software, S-Video was unavailable on PAL consoles and RGB was unavailable on NTSC consoles.

* With GCVideo you can now also use the GC's and Wii's Y′CbCr directly.

[gray117]

What was again the factual reasons of the USA not getting RGB TVs at all thing? Something to do with the video rentals?

No ... that it was european... I joke, but that's a part of it.

Plus s-video was argued to be simpler and more robust. And there is a certain logic in that... in theory... the scart plug head in particular got easy criticism for size, fragility and opportunity for a customer to damage the socket on the tv set... or simply have it come loose...

Whilst everyone was pretty ok with rgbs as separate wires on bnc for professional environments, but that was too much to go wrong for consumer too many plugs to mix up. And even in professional environments it got bulky quickly.

And when done well svideo gave very good results.

However... of course the truth is that svideo was often not done well for the consumer, plagued by interference and cables which proved to be fairly easily damaged after all.

The silver lining for the market is that it spawned the 'pro' cable sellers who made cheap (even if premium quality) cables and got to sell them at a massive mark up.... imho the silly price cable craze really did kick off with svideo... and that was universally loved in retail; a lovely pack-in/add on opportunity; an easy tip.