Questions that do not deserve a thread

[kamiboy]

Although I did live in Europe I certainly, like most kids, didn't give enough of a toss to notice or even know what a scan line was. I played my 8-bit games via the RF module that came standard with the systems. Sure the Master System had an RGB out, but I bet you would have had a deuce of a time trying to hunt down a SCART cable for it. I do not think SCART sticks were even found in local shops before well into the the 32bit era.

It wasn't until I reached adulthood that the old videophile OCD started kicking in. The first time I ever heard the term scan line must have been in the late 2000's, when I started to look into playing older generation games again.

[Xyga]

Consoles in France were sold with the scart cable actually. It started with the MS and went on although manufacturers stopped systematically including it with the PS1 (could easily be bought in stores though).
Well scart was a French thing to begin but I dunno if that alone explains that we had that luck, I thought it was the same for several other countries (I knew though that the UK still had that RF horror).

[amaradona]

Consoles in France were sold with the scart cable actually. It started with the MS and went on although manufacturers stopped systematically including it with the PS1 (could easily be bought in stores though).
Well scart was a French thing to begin but I dunno if that alone explains that we had that luck, I thought it was the same for several other countries (I knew though that the UK still had that RF horror).

Yeah Good old days when even our pc engine were rgb capable officially!

[FinalBaton]

[quote="Xyga"Well scart was a French thing to begin but I dunno if that alone explains that we had that luck[/quote]
I'm curious to know about this too.

You'd figure that SCART being a French designed format means a wider acceptance of the medium in that area. I had always assumed that SCART RGB was pushed from the get go in the same way in every European country... but it looks like it' wasn't the case.

This is a very interersting bit of AV history IMO...

[Xyga]

I saw a list once detailing the spread of scart in Europe, definitely it wasn't just France, but that doesn't mean sold console packages included the cable in every country that had adopted the format either, France was clearly privileged.
Can't find that list anymore...

[Unseen]

France was clearly privileged.

France had SECAM color encoding instad of PAL, so for the console makers the choice was between providing just a black&white picture, creating a SECAM version of the console (the only case I know is the Atari 2600), adding a PAL-to-SECAM converter to the system (IIRC some french versions of the C64 were modified that way) or providing an RGB output. In some cases that RGB output was native, but in others it was just a PAL-to-RGB decoder integrated into the system (e.g. NES).

[atheistgod1999]

I bought a composite-video-as-sync RGB Scart cable for my Genesis 1 (VA3 to be specific) on Ebay (because it was cheaper than retrogamingcables.co.uk and I didn't know that the different types of sync would yield different results) and got pretty bad jailbars on blue on my BVM. I managed to open up the DIN part, and had my dad desolder the wire connected to the composite video pin and resolder it to the unused csync pin, so now it's a csync cable, but the jailbars haven't gone away at all. I know it's now csync because besides me seeing it now connected to the csync pin before I put it back together, now when I connect the sync BNC to the input I use for composite and switch it to that I just get white flickering, when before I got the whole composite picture which is how I figured out what kind of sync it was using. How can I fix this? Do I have to disable the composite video line altogether?

[Fudoh]

Do I have to disable the composite video line altogether?

you have to lift pin 50 on the VDP. That's the signal causing the interference on the blue channel. If you cut it close to the VDP you get near perfect results using the cable you're using now.

[zakruowrath]

I think I may have found the perfect battery holder for Gameboy and Gameboy Colour batteries. It takes CR2025 coin cells, the tabs are 32mm apart and the height is 3.8mm which is perfect for the limited room of the carts. I'm not sure if it would fit in a Gameboy Advance cart since I haven't measured inside one. I'd rather have a holder from the convenience in the future simply removing the battery and poping in a fresh one rather than having to solder tabs again.

Of course there's a problem, only one company makes these and the minimum quantity is 10000 pieces, so my question is, could I contact a electronics supplier like DigiKey or Mouser and see if they want to add this item to their vast inventory or would I have to get 10000 holders on my own and I guess sell them on eBay or fellow modders?



http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/G ... 59987.html

[werk91]

I am from Bulgaria and it wasn't until PS2 era that I heard of a Scart cable for the first time. Everyone I knew was just using composite for everything before that. There was also those composite to Scart adapters lying around the house and using one made me think that I have Scart now, left me wondering what's all the hype about when it looks the same..
The Scart PS2 cable was well known for its better picture quality and I remember it not being easy to find. Once we figured out its cheaper to import them from Ebay there was no going back to the blurry composite. RF was the standard for Famicom and MegaDrive though.. To be perfectly honest how the consoles looked was the last thing people cared about. After all everyone of my friends had roughly the same quality CRT TV back home and we were all using the same cables.

[Fudoh]

I am from Bulgaria and it wasn't until PS2 era that I heard of a Scart cable for the first time.

1988 for me. NES before that was composite only and my C64 was Y/C, but when I bought my first PCE I had to choose between a unit converted for PAL RF output (screw that) and RGB. Got the RGB one along with a Commodore 1084 monitor. Problem solved.

I think RGB became a real necessity for import players when NTSC Playstation 1 games didn't output in color through composite when played on a PAL machine.

[atheistgod1999]

Is it possible to mod a composite-only crt for s-video by connecting a port to right after the composite is separated and comb filtered?

[FinalBaton]

I am from Bulgaria and it wasn't until PS2 era that I heard of a Scart cable for the first time.

1988 for me. NES before that was composite only and my C64 was Y/C, but when I bought my first PCE I had to choose between a unit converted for PAL RF output (screw that) and RGB. Got the RGB one along with a Commodore 1084 monitor. Problem solved.

I think RGB became a real necessity for import players when NTSC Playstation 1 games didn't output in color through composite when played on a PAL machine.

88? That's way cool.

I don't think I gave a crap about signal quality until the ps2, lol.
that aspect just wasn't on my radar at all. I was just happy to get the games and play them.

But now I'm obsessed with the stuff
I just like the idea of pushing older tech to it's limits (especially when said tech gives jaw-dropping results still, wich is the case with CRTs and retro consoles).

I just love CRTs so much, I have a lot of respect for them and I like to see them shine, it just warms my heart (getting romantic now, lol)

[Xyga]

Yeah 1988, about the same for me. I bet at the time Germany (well, West Germany) used most of everything that was best in every field just to piss off the East.

[DejahThoris]

What does the PCE Duo use for sync? Mine is RGB modded (not by me), and it is not syncing with my NEC XM37+. I'd like to somehow correct it, but I'm not even sure what kind of sync it uses.

[CkRtech]

What does the PCE Duo use for sync? Mine is RGB modded (not by me), and it is not syncing with my NEC XM37+. I'd like to somehow correct it, but I'm not even sure what kind of sync it uses.

Depends on what your modder did. I assume it was to just put an amp on the RGB lines and feed those to a replacement DIN-8 connector. If that is the case, then your cable is most likely using the composite video pin for sync.

[bobrocks95]

Gonna bump this because I remain worried about it.

Yesterday I went to turn on my Trinitron, and while it came on, the gun didn't actually fire- sound came out but the screen remained black.
The front LED blinked 5 times, which according to the service manual means:

Diagnostic Item- IK (AKB)

Probable Cause Location

• Video OUT (IC561) is faulty. (A Board)
  IC702 is faulty. (C Board)
  Screen (G2) is improperly adjusted. **

Detected Symptoms

• No raster is generated.
  CRT Cathode current detection reference pulse output is small.

Turning it off and back on happened to fix it, but is this a bad omen of things to come? Is something going bad or did it decide to clear some settings it decided were bad or something?

[DejahThoris]

What does the PCE Duo use for sync? Mine is RGB modded (not by me), and it is not syncing with my NEC XM37+. I'd like to somehow correct it, but I'm not even sure what kind of sync it uses.

Depends on what your modder did. I assume it was to just put an amp on the RGB lines and feed those to a replacement DIN-8 connector. If that is the case, then your cable is most likely using the composite video pin for sync.

Interesting.. I bought mine from doujindance on eBay. Would I be able to tell by opening either the system or the cable?

My setup is PCE Duo -> JP21 RGB cable -> BNC breakout cable w/sync stripper -> XM37+. It's worked great with any other system I plug into it, but this one just rolls diagonally.

[CkRtech]

I don't own your set, but I found a manual for it online. I somewhat crash-coursed it, so my help here might be crude.

What are your dip switch settings in the back for 1 and 2? Sounds like default for them should be:
1: Off/Open
2: On/Short

The manual says "When a composite signal is present, the picture may be distorted. If this happens, set the No. 2 pin to the Off/Open position."

That default position that I mentioned is "automatic" mode and cycles through separate, composite, and sync-on-green in that order.

You could try that option of setting #2 pin to Off/Open and see if that works. Your monitor should be able to handle all sorts of sync.

My back hurts after reading that it weighs 228lbs, though.

[Xan]

Gonna bump this because I remain worried about it.

If you can't get any help here, maybe try Freenode #electronics.

[DejahThoris]

My back hurts after reading that it weighs 228lbs, though.

I'm going to sound really stupid right about now. Couldn't figure out what was wrong with it, so I tried to go back to the order for my PCE Duo to see what information I could glean regarding sync. I had mistakenly thought it came with a JP-21 cable... It actually came with a SCART cable and now that that issues is solved, it really looks quite stunning. I do thoroughly appreciate your taking the time to help though .

You should have seen 3 of us trying to get it up a flight of stairs. It was downright amazing. I can take the Vewlix up the stairs solo with a dolly, which is about the same weight, but this beast cannot be dollied up stairs due to the weird way the base is.

[CkRtech]

It actually came with a SCART cable and now that that issues is solved, it really looks quite stunning.

Excellent. I really love that system.

[FinalBaton]

up a flight of stairs.

Totally worth it though

[atheistgod1999]

I removed the shielding covering the video encoder and output of my model 1 VA3 Genesis to try to see which capacitors I should replace (I want to fix the rainbow banding before the jailbars; I'll just disable the composite with a switch when using RGB) and since then the games have been acting up in crazy ways after it's been powered on for a good amount of time (I managed to capture a good amount of glitches on VHS) and won't stop until powered off for an extended duration and a barely-visible crack formed on it to the right of the vents. I'm guessing that that unlike the RF shielding on top that I removed a long time ago, that shielding was actually there to prevent the system from overheating. I'm guessing that without it there, the heat eventually causes the whole system to get corrupted (I occasionally got text saying illegal instruction errors and memory address errors and cartridge read errors) and the reason it works fine again (at first) after I turn it on again much later is because it cooled down by then. The crack is also barely noticeable and starts just to the right of the vents and goes diagonally right and downward, so I guess it's there because of how much hot air there was in that area. Are my assumptions correct? Can I fix the crack by melting it back together?

[Xan]

How prevalent are issues with GSM? From the videos I've seen it seems like it just messes up the speed in a lot of games.

[antron]

I see a lot of cheap scart to HDMI converters out there. Do they all suck?

[ZellSF]

How prevalent are issues with GSM? From the videos I've seen it seems like it just messes up the speed in a lot of games.

No one maintains a compatibility list, but I think games with issues are in the minority. I've only seen two with speed issues (Persona 3 & 4, there are other 480p workarounds for those), most prevalent problem is field rendering games (which'll just drop half vertical resolution), personally I estimate that's about 20% of the games I've tried.

There's also an aspect ratio issue with some games. They'll have black bars if forced to 480p, but if you set your display to 16:9 mode you'll get close to correct 4:3 AR. Not quite, but no massive distortion either.

If you have a HDTV you definitely want 480p on the games where it is possible though, HDTV deinterlacing is often laggy and sometimes ugly.

[atheistgod1999]

I managed to pick up an incredibly good 27" Toshiba CRT on the sidewalk and it rivals my BVM in sharpness and scanlines (and handles NTSC signals better). There's only one issue with it: it's a flat screen, so it has that issue where it's stretched horizontally on the sides (but not vertically; they calibrated that). Is there a way to fix that via service menu? I looked online and found something called horizontal S correction as well as some other things, but you can look the service options up online yourself (I don't have time to look it up again right now). It's a 27DF46 FYI.

[bobrocks95]

How prevalent are issues with GSM? From the videos I've seen it seems like it just messes up the speed in a lot of games.

The main problem for me is the improper aspect ratio where you have to set your TV to 16:9 to make it close to 4:3. I'm on an old plasma, so I don't want to wear the cells unevenly in the center- it's basically just not an option because of that (I'm normally in 4:3 with the grey bars at the sides).

[FinalBaton]

I see a lot of cheap scart to HDMI converters out there. Do they all suck?

I bought the cheap generic one last year.

It fucking sucks

it looks way worse than when I use a CSY-2100 clone and plug directly into my plasma TV.

If your flat panel HDTV recognizes 240p input and handles it at least decently, I strongly recommend using the method above. it's the same cost as a cheap upscaler and it's way better. Plus in addition you can use the CSY-2100 clone on a CRT with component inputs for a kickass picture