The end of my RF adapter worries

[FatCobra]

Since I can't afford a brand-new stereo TV at the moment, I am stuck with this old mono GE TV from 1992 to play my videogames. This TV has no AV outlets, so I have to use RF adapters, which everybody knows, sucks major ass. They ruin your picture and sound, and the only good thing about them is that you can hook multiple adapters together so you don't have to fiddle with the cables everytime you want to switch consoles, but the picture gets worse as you hook more together. Anyway, the import Saturn I bought off of eBay doesn't come with an RF adapter, but comes with the AV cables. Rather than having to buy an RF unit off of eBay, I headed down to Radioshack and picked up an RF Modulator for $30. What does this little gizmo do you ask? Well, it has AV outlets on it, so you can hook up any console or DVD player up to it and then you plug a TV cable from the modulator to the TV set and then you plug the modulator in. The result? A clearer picture and sound and elimination of needing to buy all those adaptors for any new consoles you buy.

For those of you who still have a TV from the Stone Age that has no AV cables but your console has no RF unit, I recommend that you head down to your local Radioshack and pick one of these up. It's even better if you have mulitple systems, since you can save alot of money on those RF units since for the price of two of them, you can get a device that'll give you a better quality picture and sound and let you use those AV cables.

Of course, the best option is to get a new TV, but this is a good quick fix until do you and you can still use it then because it can give you another set of AV outlets.

[Neon]

I should think it worsens the quality, especially if cheap...though not having to buy multiple r/f units is a plus i'm sure

[FatCobra]

I should think it worsens the quality, especially if cheap...though not having to buy multiple r/f units is a plus i'm sure

It doesn't worsen the quality actually, I think it's because an RCA unit, that plug that got to do something to boost the signal. Even if it does worsen the picture, not having to buy all those RF units is a major plus. I hate buying a system only to realize that I have to spend another $50 on silly accessories like memory cards and RF units.

[Specineff]

You could have used a VCR too. I did that with my crappy RCA TV back in 1989. Now I got my Trinitron and RGB monitor. That TV can go rot in hell.

[icepick]

It's a good thing to have if your TV doesn't have AV (or higher) input, but it's only around the same quality of an RF adapter/modulator. The reason that it must be plugged into the mains and most console RF modulators don't, is because the console RF modulators get the power (5 V, usually) from the console itself.

(I realized this in a difficult situation away from home that resulted in my using a couple of twist-ties and a bit of experimentation to hook a DC with an AV cable up to a TV without AV inputs by way of a Playstation and its RF adapter. The PS had to be on the whole time, of course. )

The sad part is that pretty much every color television could have RGB inputs, since that's what's used to feed the CRT (at some point). Unless you built the TV yourself, though, it's more than likely that you'll fry everything in the room (including yourself) if you try to rig something up.

Oh! Specineff, I use a VCR!
I've been thinking about modifying an old Sega Genesis RF unit for my own purposes though, since I've heard that the VCR mucks the signal up even more than usual -- Plus, while this Panaphonic does a fair job of hiding the effects of Macrovision, it's still easy to detect when watching DVDs (in the rare event that I do) in this manner...

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

"Crawl out of one hole and into another".