My Scart RGB to YUV Component Converter impressions.

[Lucifer]

Edit: Image Host changed. Should be better now without annoying pop-ups.

Hi.

This will be a pretty long post, but I hope you will read it all.

So a few weeks ago i decided to get me one of these. It was selling from "Specialty-AV" on ebay for 44.95 BIN. I choose "Best offer" and got it for $40.00 + 7-8 Shipping here to Canada.

Here is selling link:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/NEW-SCART-RGB-to-YUV-Component-Video-Converter-Scaler_W0QQitemZ220486846073QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item33560a4679&_trksid=p4634.c0.m14.l1262

As you can see from the auction that the power supply that they include is a european model. So i went out and purchased the perfect DC adapter here.

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Sprint-12V-DC-300mA-AC-Adapter-Power-Supply-12VDC_W0QQitemZ300335008388QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item45ed5c8a84&_trksid=p4634.m351.l1262

Then after I aquired these 2 items, next was to get myself some Scart RGB cables. I have a Sega Saturn, RGb Duo-r and a JVC X'eye, all well output a rgb signal. So i found "Pcenginesales" on ebay and bought a Genesis 2 rgb cable as it has the multi AV din that the X'eye / Genesis 2 supports. I am sure everybody here knows about Rachel so I don't think i have to say too much about how friendly and awesome her products are. Top notch stuff.

So...

I already had a rgb cable when I bought the Duo-r so I was set there...The problem was finding a great quality Sega Saturn cable...

The problem with rgb saturn cables is that...the majority of them sold (ebay, Play-asia) are basically...Garbage.
either they are made cheaply and they don't sync properly which means your image is constantly going in and out or they are not rgb at all and are just composite or both.

So i remembered a seller by the name of "choaticjelly" that I have seen on some forums. He makes customs cables as well as provides modding services(region, led, etc) So i contacted him and he sold me an extra rgb saturn cable he uses for testing his machines. for about $20US shipped. I received it in 6 Business days.(fast)

http://www.chaoticjellygames.co.uk/

So I have all the cables, but I dont have a way of getting audio from the RGB because the Component box does not output the audio. I could have modded the converter box for audio but I don't and do not the soldering equipment available. And since i have more than 1 RGB cable i don't feel like plugging and unplugging them everytime I want to play a different system.

So my option? Well a Scart RGB Selector with RCA audio out connectors!

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Professional-Scart-cable-switch-box-Quality-1-4-way_W0QQitemZ350108542008QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_ConsumerElectronics_VideoSwitches_SM?hash=item5184186438&_trksid=p4634.c0.m14.l1262

This item is PERFECT! And allows 4 RGB cables to be connected and by pushing the buttons on the side that determines which system selected will output. But it also outputs the audio from the RGB if your tv does not support a scart connector.

So I am all set. I decided to test the unit out. Everything was tested on my 40" 1080P Samsung LCD.
Here are the results. My tv tells me that these games are running @ 720x240P.

Games tested:

Batsugun(SS), Ghouls N' Ghosts(GEN), Psychic Assassin Taromaru(SS), Snatcher(PCECD)

Ghouls N Ghosts:

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9532/img0062hp.jpg
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/338/img0063doz.jpg

Snatcher + PCE CD Startup Screen:

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/111/img0064ox.jpg
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/600/img0055vn.jpg

Batsugun + Psychic Assassin Taromaru

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/3926/img0079m.jpg
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/4787/img0080ng.jpg
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/1257/97357img0010122131lo.jpg
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/9735/img0067v.jpg



They even look better than these screen shots due to the fact i have not fully figured out everything about the camera I am using.

One thing to note...and this may not happen to everybody, but when i first used the converter with the Duo-R and the X'eye the image would not stay still. It would almost constantly vibrate and be jittery. Eventually it would pretty much calm completely down but there would be some jittering here and there.

It wasn't until I tested my saturn out that it fixed it completely. When i turn on my saturn i would get the jittering. But as soon as a game loaded up my Tv would do a resolution switch and everything would be perfect. By turning off the saturn and then switching over to the Duo-R or X'Eye it would be perfect as well.

Gotta love the Saturn 

Anyways, to sum it all up. This converter is fantastic and worth every penny. Its awesome just how good these systems actually look with the right cables. I'm playing on my LCD but I can just imagine how nice these would look on a CRT tv with component inputs....

If you have any questions feel free to ask and I will answer them as best as i can.

[SignOfZeta]

This is pretty great info! I assume this thing uses the euro SCART pin-out, and not the JP? Your pictures look great, but I'm not so sure that means anything necessarily. What is your opinion of how much better the image looks with the component/RGB set-up versus composite on that same TV? Low-end signals looking like crap on an LCD usually has more to do with the scaling and digitizing of the signal than than the actual de-muxing of the colors.

BTW, I've never heard of imagevenue.com before, but having now gone there feel like I should reformat my hard drive and burn all my clothing. If I were you I certainly wouldn't want to host any images there if you needed to share them for professional/family reasons.

[Lucifer]

This is pretty great info! I assume this thing uses the euro SCART pin-out, and not the JP? Your pictures look great, but I'm not so sure that means anything necessarily. What is your opinion of how much better the image looks with the component/RGB set-up versus composite on that same TV? Low-end signals looking like crap on an LCD usually has more to do with the scaling and digitizing of the signal than than the actual de-muxing of the colors.

BTW, I've never heard of imagevenue.com before, but having now gone there feel like I should reformat my hard drive and burn all my clothing. If I were you I certainly wouldn't want to host any images there if you needed to share them for professional/family reasons.

Yes, euro scart pinout.

Theres no comparison between this and Composite. This blows composite out of the water. Theres no color bleeding at all. Everything is sharp and extremely detailed. Colors are nice and bright and not washed out.

The only comparison i can give is playing these games on MagicEngine or Gens or SSF with no filter applied on a LCD tv/Monitor. Thats basically the picture quality.

A CRT would look a lil better via composite but it would still be a joke comparing it to this converter.

I'll do a pic comparison between Ghouls N Ghosts via Composite vs Component Converter in a lil while.

Not sure what to say about the imghost i chose. Everything works fine for me. Must be something on your end.

[Joe Redifer]

^^LOL at the imageavenue comments (and agreed).  I got a pop-up for friggin' Adult Friend Finder.

Anyway, I have had bad luck with SCART switchers.  Maybe it was the one I tried, but the image was much blurrier when I had the switcher connected.  I decided that I'd rather plug and unplug when needed, though I have 5 SCART connectors (Genesis/Neo-Geo/SNES/Saturn/TurboGraxx-CD).  Maybe I will try the one that you list.

[SignOfZeta]

The only comparison i can give is playing these games on MagicEngine or Gens or SSF with no filter applied on a LCD tv/Monitor. Thats basically the picture quality.

Well, that's about the best thing you can possibly say about it, IMO. Sounds like I'll be getting one of these suckers!

Not sure what to say about the imghost i chose. Everything works fine for me. Must be something on your end.

Oh, it functions just fine. I can see the image, but first I have to click "ENTER" on a user agreement, and also dismiss a Flash pop up ad for Adult Friend Finder. Even for free image hosting I think less sleazy and pornofantastical solutions exist.

[Lucifer]

^^LOL at the imageavenue comments (and agreed).  I got a pop-up for friggin' Adult Friend Finder.

Anyway, I have had bad luck with SCART switchers.  Maybe it was the one I tried, but the image was much blurrier when I had the switcher connected.  I decided that I'd rather plug and unplug when needed, though I have 5 SCART connectors (Genesis/Neo-Geo/SNES/Saturn/TurboGraxx-CD).  Maybe I will try the one that you list.

Ahhh so popups eh. Ok, they dont show up for me because i have a pop up blocker installed in firefox. I can probably rehost them somewhere if people are having major probs with them

The scart switcher i use is great. All the contacts are gold plated and its a fairly sturdy. It doesnt affect the image i am putting out. It was the same when i went direct. I'd definitely consider it.

The last RGB cable i am gonna get is for the dreamcast because DC via VGA doesnt work for me for some reason.

[Lucifer]

Image host fixed.

[Tom]

This blows composite out of the water. Theres no color bleeding at all. Everything is sharp and extremely detailed. Colors are nice and bright and not washed out.

 Though you're missing the "scanline" effect of a normal RGB monitor. That's what I hate about hooking up to HD sets. Without them, it becomes a nasty blocky mess :/

[Joe Redifer]

I agree.  That is why I have 3 SDTV CRT televisions with component input.  Granted, the biggest is only 20 inches, but it still looks fantastic!  I also prefer to game on a 4:3 set for anything pre-Dreamcast.

[Lucifer]

Though you're missing the "scanline" effect of a normal RGB monitor. That's what I hate about hooking up to HD sets. Without them, it becomes a nasty blocky mess :/

Yes there is no scanline effect...But for Saturn games especially it looks fantastic.

Yes in the end it would be better over a SDTV with component inputs, but theres no way I am going back to crt now. And i can deal how LCD make pixels stand out.

I also dont stretch anything 4:3 on this set..i can set it to widescreen but i just leave it in 4:3

[Zeon]

Do you have very faint ghosty vertical bars through certain expanses of solid colored graphics? I can't tell, but it looks like you do on the ghouls and ghosts title shot pic. From what i understand this is a amplifier quality issue. All pce hardware needs color amps, due to the signal never being made external (and no internal amplification circuitry built in), and when you buy any rgb modded pce console the amp in it varies in quality from seller to seller. Right now I am using the simple transistor method, hooked directly to the red green and blue lines. It's quick and dirty, and it causes the mentioned ghosty lines. I really need to locate a good amp schematic (and get the parts for it)

Though you're missing the "scanline" effect of a normal RGB monitor. That's what I hate about hooking up to HD sets. Without them, it becomes a nasty blocky mess :/

Yes there is no scanline effect...But for Saturn games especially it looks fantastic.

Yes in the end it would be better over a SDTV with component inputs, but theres no way I am going back to crt now. And i can deal how LCD make pixels stand out.

I also dont stretch anything 4:3 on this set..i can set it to widescreen but i just leave it in 4:3

Am I the only one that prefers old games without scanlines?  I'll be honest if you have a good calibrated crt tv (hd or sd), the difference from composite to component isn't that phenomenal, but on a lcd dlp plasma etc? It's like night and day. It makes old games go from a nasty, upscaled, distorted, dot crawly, smudgy, dim colored, artifacty mess, to being sharp, crisp colored, well defined, and playable.

There is one thing to look out for with lcd and hd displays, and that is a problem called "mouse teeth". All signals that requiring deinterlacing may suffer from it, but this is especially true of old games. Mouse teeth usually rear their ugly head in large quickly flashing graphics, and from scrolling images where there are graphics with small details. The affected area will start displaying the even and odd fields separately from two different frames rather than all at once, the end result being a look similar to this (except it may not be the entire screen that is affected):



The reason for this is not all hd tvs are equal on their internal upscaling and deinterlacing hardware. On a tv with high quality deinterlacing hardware, this artifacting may very rarely happen, but on tv's with cheaper internal circuitry it may happen very often. Note I say internal hardware and not model/brand, this is because many/most tv manufacturers outsource the manufacture of tvs, and not every tv of the same model has near the same quality components inside. You may have heard the term "panel lottery", this is referring to what I just described. You can go out and buy a cheapo emerson or whatever off brand tv, and luck out with a very nice lcd panel, just the same as you can buy a panasonic, sony, toshiba, samsung, whatever and your friend's TV of the exact brand and model can run circles around yours.

You can buy and use (often very pricey for one of any quality) an external deinterlacing/upscaling box (you might have heard of the xrgb line of deinterlacing/ upscalers) often at the expense of an small amount of extra lag. However, because the external equipment is outputting a signal that is already an hd signal, it essentially bypasses the tv's built in hardware for accomplishing the same thing. In some cases this may mean less lag than your tv normally experiences. Check out more info on this here: http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/

[Lucifer]

Do you have very faint ghosty vertical bars through certain expanses of solid colored graphics? I can't tell, but it looks like you do on the ghouls and ghosts title shot pic. From what i understand this is a amplifier quality issue. All pce hardware needs color amps, due to the signal never being made external (and no internal amplification circuitry built in), and when you buy any rgb modded pce console the amp in it varies in quality from seller to seller. Right now I am using the simple transistor method, hooked directly to the red green and blue lines. It's quick and dirty, and it causes the mentioned ghosty lines. I really need to locate a good amp schematic (and get the parts for it)

Ghouls N Ghosts is running from the X'eye(Wondermega 2). If they do show up(which i haven't really seen) it may be limited to a certain color. Because i had a pic i shot of the opening to snatcher where it is a complete red background and there are no ghostly vertical bars.

I would have to test all my games with this box and see...All i can say is that they is a major step up from playing these systems via composite on a LCD. Its like night and day. I'd say its even a leap from s-video. I think when i said its like playing a emulator is basically the best way to describe it.

Am I the only one that prefers old games without scanlines?  I'll be honest if you have a good calibrated crt tv (hd or sd), the difference from composite to component isn't that phenomenal, but on a lcd dlp plasma etc? It's like night and day. It makes old games go from a nasty, upscaled, distorted, dot crawly, smudgy, dim colored, artifacty mess, to being sharp, crisp colored, well defined, and playable.

I agree.

There is one thing to look out for with lcd and hd displays, and that is a problem called "mouse teeth". All signals that requiring deinterlacing may suffer from it, but this is especially true of old games. Mouse teeth usually rear their ugly head in large quickly flashing graphics, and from scrolling images where there are graphics with small details. The affected area will start displaying the even and odd fields separately from two different frames rather than all at once, the end result being a look similar to this (except it may not be the entire screen that is affected):

I noticed this when i was using composite on my tv...when i started using this converter i dont see it.

The reason for this is not all hd tvs are equal on their internal upscaling and deinterlacing hardware. On a tv with high quality deinterlacing hardware, this artifacting may very rarely happen, but on tv's with cheaper internal circuitry it may happen very often. Note I say internal hardware and not model/brand, this is because many/most tv manufacturers outsource the manufacture of tvs, and not every tv of the same model has near the same quality components inside. You may have heard the term "panel lottery", this is referring to what I just described. You can go out and buy a cheapo emerson or whatever off brand tv, and luck out with a very nice lcd panel, just the same as you can buy a panasonic, sony, toshiba, samsung, whatever and your friend's TV of the exact brand and model can run circles around yours.

You can buy and use (often very pricey for one of any quality) an external deinterlacing/upscaling box (you might have heard of the xrgb line of deinterlacing/ upscalers) often at the expense of an small amount of extra lag. However, because the external equipment is outputting a signal that is already an hd signal, it essentially bypasses the tv's built in hardware for accomplishing the same thing. In some cases this may mean less lag than your tv normally experiences. Check out more info on this here: http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/

I'm pretty happy with my tv. HD content looks fantastic and now after using this converter even these old systems look great now instead of blurry and just a pain to look at. It makes me wanna play everything all over again. Sure i can play these all on emulators but it isnt the same as owning the console and game itself.

[Zeon]

Yeah mouseteeth can happen on any sd signal, being in component does help it a bit It really boils down to how good the hardware in your display is as well as the the quality of your encoder is.

[Joe Redifer]

That's not called "mouseteeth", it is called "combing".  LOL @ mouseteeth!  Anyway, if you are seeing that on an LCD TV or whatever, that means that your particular model has an extremely poor scaler/deinterlacer.

[Tom]

Yeah mouseteeth can happen on any sd signal, being in component does help it a bit It really boils down to how good the hardware in your display is as well as the the quality of your encoder is.

Mouseteeth - hehe But that's only on interlaced video (and like Joe said, it's called 'combing'). PCE and other old consoles don't put out interlaced signals. And that's definitely NOT what I mean be scanlines. Scanlines for 240p on old 8/16bit consoles means every other scanline of a 480 res output is not displayed. And IMO, Saturn looks like ass too with los res blocky output - without 'scanlines'. Especially on a large set. All that old stuff gets played on a 20" SDTV because I can't as of yet figure out how to get my HD set to do said effect.