Help me with Nintendo SCART issues (for AV Famicom owners)

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Fri May 13, 2005 10:42 pm

Well, the story goes like this.

I own an EUR NGC and I've bought an original Nintendo scart for it. (edit, my mistake, the serial code for this is DOL 013 EUR)

I also own some Sneses, around five of them, one for each region. To play US Snes and JPN Super Famicom I bought some unofficial scart (these cables work just fine).

Here comes the big question: I have an AV Famicom (HVC-NFF) and NONE of these scart work with it. Not official ones nor original ones. So far I've been forced to play the AV Famicon with those much hated rca jacks (white-red-yellow, you know).

WHY in the heavens, since the scart plug is the same for all these Nintendo system, why AV Famicom doesn't work with my cables?

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Fri May 13, 2005 10:47 pm

Wait... Don't tell me the AV Famicom doesn't come with RGB signal output. Please don't tell me this, it would suck so big.

Tychom · Post by **Tychom** » Sat May 14, 2005 12:31 am

I've never heard of it outputting anything but composite..

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Sat May 14, 2005 1:14 am

Damn...

What about the PAL Snes then? My NGC scart does work on a Super Famicom, but oddly not on a PAL Snes. Same for non official scart.

OmegaFlareX · Post by **OmegaFlareX** » Sat May 14, 2005 4:20 am

Turrican wrote:Wait... Don't tell me the AV Famicom doesn't come with RGB signal output. Please don't tell me this, it would suck so big.

Sorry, it's true. The NES/Famicom PPU has built-in composite encoding. There's no way to get an RGB signal from it. If you want RGB, you'll have to swap the regular PPU with one from the Famicom Titler, which is super-rare and costs like, a million bucks.

I've heard of people getting RGB by putting the graphics chip from the Playchoice 10 arcade board in there, but apparently it's not fully compatible with all games (graphics glitches and whatnot).

Last year, someone at TNL was selling off his entire massive collection. Among the systems was an RGB-modified NES toploader equipped with the Titler PPU. I would've paid A LOT of money for it, but the guy absolutely refused to break up the sale. I think the whole lot sold for over $100,000 US.

matt · Post by **matt** » Sat May 14, 2005 4:32 am

Turrican wrote:Damn...

What about the PAL Snes then? My NGC scart does work on a Super Famicom, but oddly not on a PAL Snes. Same for non official scart.

The RGB outputs on NTSC and PAL consoles are different; RGB cables for those require 100uF capacitors on the RGB lines (same with the Gamecube). Oddly enough, the PAL SNES only works without these capacitors.

So, you can get a GC scart lead to work with a PAL snes by removing the capacitors (and vice versa, of course).

I've heard of people getting RGB by putting the graphics chip from the Playchoice 10 arcade board in there, but apparently it's not fully compatible with all games (graphics glitches and whatnot).

I did that once. It worked pretty good, although there were a couple of graphical quirks. I never noticed incompatabilities with any games.

I wasn't aware that the Famicom Titler PPU was any different from the one the PC10 uses. I do know that the PC10 PPU is identical to the chip used in the Sharp Famicom/TV combo, which is another source of Famicom RGB hacking.

IIRC there are a couple of vs boards with compatible PPUs, also.

Then, of course, I managed to bake my Famicom doing something stupid with it (unrelated to RGB). Doh! One of these days I'll get another one and try it again.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Sat May 14, 2005 6:16 am

I haven't bothered RGB modding my Fami a/v. There are supposedly a lot of graphics glitches, and the colors are off, and some other stuff. Don't remember all the details, I've sort of filed it in my mind under 'not worth trying' though. I think I read about it at gamesx.com.

A/V's good enough for now though when I get an emulation graphics card for RGB I might see how NES stuff works there. Might be better than the real thing...wait, am I allowed to say that? Nothing beats the fami a/v for cuteness and dogbone controllers for 2 player though...

matt · Post by **matt** » Sat May 14, 2005 7:00 am

I didn't notice any problems with the colours on my system. Some of the graphics would have light "shadows", though. Nothing to be overly concerned about.

The Famicom RGB mod definitely qualifies as "extremely difficult". You shouldn't even bother attempting it unless you are a complete master of soldering skills (desoldering skills, more appropriately). There are a finite number of PC10 boards in existence, and sacrificing them for their PPUs shouldn't be taken lightly.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Sat May 14, 2005 10:00 am

matt wrote:The RGB outputs on NTSC and PAL consoles are different; RGB cables for those require 100uF capacitors on the RGB lines (same with the Gamecube). Oddly enough, the PAL SNES only works without these capacitors.

Hey, thanks. I might try this as I have a scart to spare and I'd definitely like to see my PAL library via RGB.

So, is removing these capacitors a task that a mere mortal can accomplish?

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Sat May 14, 2005 10:02 am

OmegaFlareX wrote:Sorry, it's true. The NES/Famicom PPU has built-in composite encoding. There's no way to get an RGB signal from it. If you want RGB, you'll have to swap the regular PPU with one from the Famicom Titler, which is super-rare and costs like, a million bucks.

So, instead of swapping the PPU, all is needed is to buy a Famicom Titler, right? Not to say I have a million bucks to spend on a famicom, just to know if the Titler supports RGB output from default. I suppose it doesn't have the nintendo scart plug, as that one was introduced with Super Famicom... Do you know what kind of plug does that have?

But, Titler aside, isn't out there for sale, like, a gadget of sort where you plug composite and it converts the signal to rgb?

matt · Post by **matt** » Sat May 14, 2005 4:11 pm

Turrican wrote:So, is removing these capacitors a task that a mere mortal can accomplish?

It's really easy. Provided, of course, that you already know the extreme basics of how to use a soldering iron. Even if you don't you might stand a chance.

So, instead of swapping the PPU, all is needed is to buy a Famicom Titler, right?

The FC Titler has S-Video output, but not RGB. The RGB from the PPU is converted into composite & S-Vid inside the console.

But, Titler aside, isn't out there for sale, like, a gadget of sort where you plug composite and it converts the signal to rgb?

Yes, but the picture quality is bad. You will get better results from just using the composite input on your TV.

The French NES does have RGB output, but it uses a composite/RGB converter and looks like junk.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Mon May 16, 2005 11:16 am

matt wrote:
Turrican wrote:So, is removing these capacitors a task that a mere mortal can accomplish?
It's really easy. Provided, of course, that you already know the extreme basics of how to use a soldering iron. Even if you don't you might stand a chance.

Wow. I'm definitely going to try this. I opened the scart and I see three capacitors, each to a wire. Am I positive that I must remove them all? Any other advice you can give me? Wish me luck! ^_^

Yes, but the picture quality is bad. You will get better results from just using the composite input on your TV.

The French NES does have RGB output, but it uses a composite/RGB converter and looks like junk.

Hmm... you're talking about those two rca plugs on the NES' side, right? The one for the red jack and the other white one. One should be video and the other L audio or mono.

I own an italian NES and it has that kind of plug. I actually use that instead of RF and I must say, it's quite a good signal. not the best quality, but definitely better than composite signal in my AV Famicom...