Saturn/Dreamcast to Sony PVM-20L5: Will this wiring work?

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gabe
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Saturn/Dreamcast to Sony PVM-20L5: Will this wiring work?

Post by gabe »

I currently own this Saturn cable, which I was going to use with a CGA-VGA converter. If I connect said cable (minus the converter, plus a DB15 coupler) to this VGA-4BNC adapter, and then connect the whole mess to a PVM, I should be in business, correct?

I'm fairly confident that the above would work, because it's just sending the Saturn's CGA signal through a series of odd connections... But what would happen if I dumped a VGA signal down that pipe, IE from a Dreamcast's VGA box? Looking at a VGA pinout, and the capabilities of the display, it seems like it should work, but this is where my video knowledge starts to fall apart. Can anyone help me fill in the blanks?

EDIT: Typos
Last edited by gabe on Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Saturn/Dreamcast to Sony PVM-20L5: Will this wiring work?

Post by beatsgo »

Yup, the sega saturn outputs a RGBS signal, so you're good on that. Unfortunately if you're outputting through a vga line from the dreamcast, it probably won't work. The signal outputting from the dreamcast would be RGBHV instead of RGBS. Reference for dreamcast can be seen here from GameSX's Wiki. I remember reading somewhere and elsewhere which by building a simple circuit or buying something, you can get a sync signal out of the HV signals.

EditeD: Ah, here's the circuit to input HV signals and output composite sync:
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Re: Saturn/Dreamcast to Sony PVM-20L5: Will this wiring work?

Post by gabe »

Awesome. Thanks for the reply.

Perhaps I will try building that this weekend.
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Re: Saturn/Dreamcast to Sony PVM-20L5: Will this wiring work?

Post by beatsgo »

gabe wrote:Awesome. Thanks for the reply.

Perhaps I will try building that this weekend.
Probably a easier method to get a RGBS signal is obtaining a SCART cable for the dreamcast, then convert the SCART to BNC connection. Either way should work, only difference is SCART(RGBS) outputs 15KHz while VGA(RGBHV) outputs 31KHz.
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Re: Saturn/Dreamcast to Sony PVM-20L5: Will this wiring work?

Post by gabe »

Yeah. This all started because I was trying to avoid spending the extra cash on SCART cables, and SCART-BNC breakout/converters. All of which are rather pricy.
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