shmups.system11.org

What is the best practice solution these days? (price + quality)

Cheers

I use the RetroTink RGB2COMP.
https://www.retrotink.com/product-page/rgb2comp

I don't have any complaints about the quality; it doesn't add lag, and I don't see any quality degradation. There may be less-expensive or more elegant solutions out there, though.

These old tried and true boxes still work well, never had one fail on me, but did have to adjust colors before. I have one with modified with RCA stereo audio out if you are interested. $48 shipped.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-SCART-RGB- ... SwgzFbavNX

RGB2COMP works perfectly out of the box, is compact, and is powered by a micro USB cable.

I have two of these I use (which I'm surprised is up on eBay as they're usually SUPER hard to find), which are supposed to be the best:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Kramer-FC-14-R ... SwAVldUMrj


The Kramer FC-15 model is the SCART one though - the above uses BNC's which I prefer.

linuxbot3000 on ebay makes good adapters but he's sold out of RGB>YPbPr right now

Shinybow makes a good one too. https://www.ani-av.com/shop/product_inf ... cts_id=220

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Retrotink all the way on this one. I got one a year or two ago and it's been great.

Another vote right here for the Retrotink RGB2COMP. Picked one up a couple of months back and have been pretty happy with it.

I've owned the CSY-2100 clone, the linuxbot3000, the RetroTink RGB2COMP, and they all pale in comparison to the FC-14... frickin' awesome. A shame it's so hard to come by!

How is the FC-14 any better than the RGB2COMP? Do you have any examples/screenshots of any differences?

You opened the can of worms now!

My completely subjective opinion:

shinybow = crap. color bleeding and softer picture than the others
Specialty av csy clone= crap. same as the shinybow basically.

Kramer Fc-14/Retrotink/Linuxbot3000 = you can't go wrong with any of these. they are virtually indistinguishable from one another.

The difference is not SUPER drastic, suppose “pale in comparison” was exaggerating, but it’s there - it’s high end broadcast gear with some beefy analog circuitry that is most likely rare/expensive to gather up nowadays. It will accept RGBHV, RGBS, RGsB and the elusive RsGsBs, up to around 1280x1024 @ 60Hz. However! You can’t feed it sync on composite video or sync on luma. I can dig up some old pics later, I only have one or two pics of my RGB2COMP in action on my old WEGA but luckily my FC-14 pics are on the same TV. It was one of the very first runs of the RGB2COMP, stellar unit but the FC-14 is super impressive to behold. I’ll grab pics when I get a chance! It’s not worth seeking out and spending over $100 btw, but if you found one for ~$75 I’d say get it. ldeveraux, your FC-4 is unfortunately a completely different piece - that one is a CSY-2100 rebrand

Def go with Linuxbot’s HD15 input transcoder if you use MAME/VGA666, makes life nice and simple. Go with him AND Mike Chi they’re both dopeee, I just think FC-14 has an edge. Fudoh has time and time again called it “reference quality” and I agree

The FC-14 is known for its all analog design.

Shinybow is still the best when going from Scart to Component imo. I've had CSY clones and they were terrible in comparison. The Shinybow gives a night and day difference in quality.

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/100500134 ... _2671215.0

Sorry about the sketchy mobile link, but I have been curious about this one on TimeHarvest’s store on Aliexpress - RGB to component, but also has S-Video out!

The one problem with Kramer or any old ex-broadcast gear is that they were probably used for long periods of time and may have failing components now. Should be fixable, but it's something to note. Didn't have any luck with a Kramer unit when I had one.

That's cool as hell. I took off the "m" for desktop link, was fine. Takes RGBS, RGB JP-21 and SCART inputs for YCbCr and S-Video output + audio. And I use JP-21 -> BNC. Only suggestion would be to use BNC for RGBS since I assume that to be far more common in retro gaming and I don't like RCA plugs coming loose.

So would YCbCr not be expected to work on CRT since is digital video but fine for early LCD TVs with YPbPr RCA inputs? I've seen DVD players with stated YCbCr outputs during early HDMI days / pre-HDMI only era. Curious how SNES native S-Video compares to native RGB -> S-Video and PS2 native YPbPr versus RGB -> YCbCr.

I don't want to pay $42 for a science experiment when I could upscale 240p/480i RGB to 480p for VGA inputs but it is tempting.

+1 for the RetroTink. It works flawlessly for me and I can't tell the difference between its output and my consoles' native component. It's as though my American TV has a built-in SCART jack. Plus I feel that Mr. Chi understands the retro gaming community, has contributed a lot, and therefore deserves my money.

To be fair, I only use it with SD consoles and I have no idea how well it works at higher resolutions.

Appreciate the replies. I do know that with any high-end audio/video-phile stuff that real world difference between "good" and "best" is often almost unnoticable to the untrained eye/ear. That said, I have compared the Audio Authority 9A60 RGBHV>Component converter to my trusty run-of-the-mill $59 CSY clone using my Dreamcast and SF3 Double Impact on my Samsung plasma and I have to say, on that display, assuming you have the color dialed in correctly on the clone (which its adjustability is definitely its biggest downfall ), there was literally no visible difference in the two. Sharpness/color bleed, etc appeared identical.

Its why I asked. I have yet to see a good test of different converters on the net showing differences. I'd like to give Mike Chi's box a try but Im really not confident I'll see any difference on my 36" Wega vs the cheap modded clone Im running now.

Not trying to derail this thread but I've been looking to get s video of it an rpi4/Mister. Are you saying this will convert rgbs to s video?

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Isn't there also a question of whether or not the transcoders take the analog signal, convert it to digital, perform the transcoding, and then convert back to analog? I recall reading somewhere that the Koryuu does this when transcoding composite to component and that it could cause problems with optimized sample rates with upscalers. Curious to know which of these solutions go the analog-digital-analog route, including that Time Harvest one.

In my ideal setup everything starts as RGB and then is converted to Composite/S-Video/Component, then fed into my consumer Trinitron. Composite/S-Video are there mostly as a novelty to handle dithering artifacts. I'm tired of chasing the upscaler dragon. 480p and higher content can be run on a VGA monitor natively as appropriate, maybe line double menus as appropriate using GBS-Control.

I've never seen a high quality analog composite to component transcoder that could produce a signal that would look good on a modern display. I doubt one exists. The comb filter step is a major problem.

My rather unscientific test of the RGB2Comp was to compare the native component output of my PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox 360 to the same consoles in RGB through the converter using the same TV. I can't see a difference, which is good enough for me.

Hello from Reddit from RPi4 thread!

Yes, that device will convert rgbs to s video, I have no doubt. Catch is, you should assume it's NTSC only. I've read the datasheets of the 3 chips that can be used for this. All support s video and composite but output NTSC or PAL based on high or low voltage sent to a certain pin. Price is good though and you get ycbcr too.

I've heard the linuxbot3000 eBay converter from New Zealand is legit but I've never seen it in stock: https://www.ebay.com/usr/linuxbot3000

Another option that has NTSC and PAL switch for 35,00€ + shipping from Spain: https://www.antoniovillena.es/store/product/vga-composite-s-video-adapter/

Yet another option with all 4 rgb inputs is the most expensive at $90 + shipping with NTSC and PAL switch. Has 2 simultaneous outputs to avoid buying an active splitter: http://www.axunworks.com/RGB-to-Composite-S-Video-p341706.html

edit: Sorry I didn't think about it but you need to be careful with the resolution. All 3 rgb to composite and s video chips I know of accept 15kHz (240p/480i + 288p/576i) only. The Spanish one uses AD723 so is capped at 15kHz and Axum states it's 15kHz only. Reason is the $10-12 AD72X series has a fully built circuit diagram in the datasheet that everyone copies lol. Commercial vga to s video device would surely take 480p+ but probably not 240p/480i. Downscaling RGB to 480i is another matter.

What's going on with the NTSC/PAL switch on those?

You must have a better ability to tinker the dials on the CSY clone than I do. I could never get the CSY clone to reproduce the colors as cleanly as the Shinybow. Also the CSY clones that I've had had a tendency to get very hot, the Shinybow tends to stay much cooler, which is another advantage.

CSY clone- don't know why you'd buy one when there are so many options that don't involve guesswork on trim pots.

Linuxbot3000- the one converter I purchased had a purple streak on certain color transitions. Possibly a faulty unit, possibly a power supply problem, though I tried 2 or 3. I didn't like that it used microUSB for power anyways. Return was fairly straightforward though, so it's not like he didn't offer any customer service.

Shinybow- what I am currently using- the build quality is nice, and it looks good on a consumer CRT, but I've seen some comparisons on this forum before and there looked to be a pretty bad sharpness loss. I probably would have still recommended it if Retrotink didn't have an offering now.

Audio Authority 9A60- this used to be recommended a lot on here and is kind of hard to find. I got ahold of a used one at one point and could not get CSync to work with it since it expects H+V. Other users claimed to have had luck with it, so who knows.

Kramer- I've had a saved search up for the FC-14 for years and gotten very few hits on ebay. A little too expensive/rare to casually recommend.

Sounds like the Retrotink to me, though some digital captures would be much appreciated, in the same way that everyone thought the Shinybow was top tier until pics were shown.

Since NTSC and PAL have different subcarrier frequencies for color, among other differences, the chip has to know which frequency to modulate on. Every rgb to composite + s video chip out there solves this by having a pin that takes +5V supply voltage for NTSC and 0V (ground) for PAL. Very easy to set with a toggle switch. Mismatching NTSC or PAL to the TV gives classic black & white image because TV can't find color information where it expects. RGB doesn't have different NTSC and PAL encoding, just 50 or 60 Hz.



Is a very good question about transcoders converting to then from digital versus keeping in analog. Would absolutely degrade video quality. I found two analog solutions with a little searching:

Chip-free NTSC DIY rgb to component design Mike Chi found on page 8 of a 1994 technical journal that he then verified under oscilloscope: https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=63338
Expects csync injected on the Y output. Not the design used in RGB2COMP, judging from picture but you could wire on a breadboard for $10, not including connectors. Page 9 shows another op amp circuit setup and reversing to go component to rgb. Smart I guess of Analog to publish the document since it uses their op amps.

Another NTSC DIY (sorry PAL) solution using BA7230 chip that would also cost around $10: https://easyeda.com/dekkit/rgb-to-component-transcoder
Chip datasheet is not as descriptive as I'd like but I don't think it's converting back and forth with digital for analog input.

Way to tell is which region a circuit or chip is if it doesn't say, is looking for 3.579545 (3.58) MHz for NTSC, whereas 4.433618 (4.43) MHz is PAL color frequency.