Genesis in Component (or RGB)

[David J.]

Well, I got my RGB -> Component Transcoder today, and while it looks very, very good, the image is very bright. Is this normal, or how it is suposed to look?

[InternalPrimate]

What is RGB? Will it allow me to play my Genesis in component? I'm only asking because everything using composite or S-video looks terrible on my hdtv.

[David J.]

http://www.sega-16.com/Seeing%20is%20Believing-%20Video%20Connections.php

[Zebbe]

RGB is brighter than composite. I had a few dark months of composite some time ago, I'll never return to that. Maybe you can configurate your TV to make it darker. I don't have a transcoder, since my RGB SCART goes directly to the TV, and I'm perfectly pleased with my picture. I'd guess it's either your TV or transcoder making it brighter (but it should be a little bit brighter than composite anyway).

[David J.]

It's more than a little brighter.

[Zebbe]

Show pics.

[David J.]

Actually, I'm going to try something first...

[David J.]

I know what it is. I haven't played Genesis in a while, so that's why it looks funny. OK, I played Revenge of Shinobi, and the picture flickered while facing Spiderman and Batman. Normal?

[Joe Redifer]

Sounds like a bad SCART cable to me. SCART cables for the Genesis/Mega Drive should have resistors in the cable itself on the SCART connector end. This will help reduce the brightness down to normal levels. I'll post pictures in a bit. The screen flickering sounds like the cable itself is bad (wires too thin) or a bad connection of the cable to the transcoder.

[Joe Redifer]

Here is the cable opened up:

http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/genscart.jpg

There are four resistors in line. Any SCART cable can be opened up pretty easily. The large side has the hinge. Unscrew the thingy and slide it down and pry the small side open with a tiny flat head screwdriver or something.

Internal Primate, using component won't help how your Genesis looks on an HDTV very much. HDTVs have a very difficult time handling 240p, which the Genesis runs in. No matter what you do, it's gonna look like crap unless you play it on an SDTV. You really should get an SDTV for your older systems anyway. High Definition TVs are good for only one thing.... high definition.

[David J.]

OK, I hooked the SCART cable in more firmly, and no flicker.

[David J.]

And I opened my cable up, and there's only one resistor on the cable.

[Joe Redifer]

That's odd. I bet it's for the sync. But now you have a cable that would work great with the original Sega Master System.

[David J.]

Well, it's a lot better than composite. I can tell you that the Sonic 2 title screen is bright as heck, but games like Batman look great.

[Joe Redifer]

Ah, you can read the "Don't Walk" sign in Batman clearly now. I demand you buy Midnight Resistance so you can read the weapon names between rounds, and then after a week of enjoying this game, play it in composite.

[David J.]

Hey, when I play games like World of Illusion, you know the game with Mickey Mouse. OK, when you are in the cave, with the spiders, when there's black on the rocks, I see a few "bands" of black. Normal?

[Joe Redifer]

Need picture.

But I know "black" is not used anywhere in World of Illusion, just dark, dark grey.

[evildragon]

um, joe, that's no resistor.. it's a capacitor..

[David J.]

I'll take pix tommorow when my batteries recharge. Another thing is, the screens with the pages, the white has a redish tint to it, and the text on the pages, is well, red.

[Joe Redifer]

They are clearly resistors.

These are capacitors:

http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/capacitor.jpg

[evildragon]

it looks like a resistor, but those are capacitors, you can tell by their greenish color.. resistors are beige-ish...

(it's a small electrolytic i believe)

[Joe Redifer]

It's a resistor. See those bands of color around them (black stripes, brown stripes, red stripes, etc)? That's how you can identify the OHMs of a resistor at a glance, if you really know your stuff. The SNES SCART cable has capacitors in it, and they look like what I posted above, though not green.

[Joe Redifer]

Oh, mine has the red tint, too. It is very, very slight, though. I adjusted the red bias in my TV's service menu.

[evildragon]

It's a resistor. See those bands of color around them (black stripes, brown stripes, red stripes, etc)? That's how you can identify the OHMs of a resistor at a glance, if you really know your stuff. The SNES SCART cable has capacitors in it, and they look like what I posted above, though not green.
Small Electrolytic Capacitors have bands too...

I'll find a circuit board that has one.. I'll show you that it's marked "Cxx", instead of "Rxx", that proves it's a cap, and not a resistor..

For a small cap like that, the bands tell you the uF pF rating..

[David J.]

I can't adjust the individual color bias, and changing the brightness fucks with everything else. Well, in the menu acessable by the remote, if there was another menu...

Also, some of the image is cropped. Like playing Revenge of Shinobi, I can't make out the L, and barely any of the I, in Life on the top status bar. It's like the overscan is on the right.

[evildragon]

The TV just has different memory registers for screen positioning when in Component vs NTSC/PAL inputs... That's normal.. But you'd need the "service menu" code to mess with it...

[David J.]

I found one, but it doesn't work, i press the buttons on the remote, but no dice.

[evildragon]

I wouldn't recommend messing with Service Menus.. If you don't know what you're doing, and most of them are Cryptic.. It is one way to totally kill your TV...

[David J.]

Well, I'm going to take pix tommorow so you can see the insane shit going on. I don't know why some of the image is cropped on the left, or why it's so damned bright, and why there's some bands at certian times.

It isn't that bad, but it's not worth going blind over.

[evildragon]

I think the Genesis NTSC is always NTSC-J, which has a different black level than NTSC-M... So, when using Component, youre seeing how it SHOULD look like..

the cropping thing, I told you...

[David J.]

I see. Oh, well... at least it looks better and I didn't pay for it out of pocket. :)

[Joe Redifer]

Resistors.

http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/resistor.jpg

Notice that the multimeter is set for Ohms.

[David J.]

Well, I may take pics sometime tommorow, but I can attempt to live with this.

[Joe Redifer]

Take pictures, please. I've never seen an overscan difference between composite and component, but then again your TV is different from the ones I have used. I'd also like to see your transcoder.

[evildragon]

some TVs share settings between inputs.. but some don't..

my HDTV doesn't share settings with anything.. it sucks, NTSC and PAL have seperate settings, Component has their own, for EACH scan rate.. it's a pain..

my fathers KLH TV, SDTV, does the same with Component.. it gets seperate vertical/horizantle delay...

[David J.]

It'll be tommorow evening. I am off from work for the next two days, but I have tons of crap to do, and takes a few hours to charge.

What I will take pix of:

transcoder (it is not a CYP one, has a different voltage than yours!)
The overscan
the black bands
the brightness

[David J.]

I wish my TV didn't share settings between inputs and whatnot. I can kind of live with the brightness and the red tint, but the overscan kills me. Good night.

[evildragon]

well the red tint can be controlled via adding a resistor on the red line... bring the level down (i'd use a POT for complete control)..

use a game like Columns, which has a color bar generator...

your TV may NOT share the settings on component, hence why you have overscan differences.. but it could also just be timing differences (delay)

[David J.]

Here's the best I can describe the overscan. In revenge of Shinobi, the screen is cropped, that you can't make out the L, an part of the I in Life on the status bar, thus most of the left is cropped off. Why that is is beyond me. And in Sonic 1, the Rings, Score and Time are literally right next to the left of the screen.

[evildragon]

it's the horizontal delay... it's not long enough..

[Joe Redifer]

KLH made TVs? Hell yeah! Does it kick ass?

Also, I can't be 100% sure, but the image being too far to the left might be the fault of the transcoder. There may be internal adjustments. A great place to ask about all of this would be over at www.hdtvarcade.com in their forums. They mostly talk about current systems with HDTV capabilities, but they also have a forum dedicated to older systems. Member D2s or Ds2 or whatever would probably have some good insight. I bought my transcoder for my Dreamcast from him.

[evildragon]

yea, KLH made TVs..

though, it sucks ass.. It's Component input is horribly dark.. Overscan is hell on it, and if you adjust it, then it has a pincushion nightmare, which CANT be fixed... In other words, their circuitry is horrible.. (video driver)

[Joe Redifer]

How old is it? It's probably newer than 7 years or so. KLH's older speakers (older than 7 or 8 years) kicked ass. Incredible sound for the price. My $130 per speaker KLH's sound waaaaay better than anything Infinity or Klipsch has in the same physical size range or even a bit bigger (these are floor standing speakers). Plus Infinity and Klipsch cost a hell of a lot more. I have several other KLH models that sound amazing as well. They are all 3-way speakers with a tuned port. I rarely even see speakers with that any more, much less a freakin' woofer. Instead the goal is to make the speakers as thin as possible, even for floor-standing stuff the biggest driver isn't more than 4 or 5 inches. I hate Infinity and Klipch.

Oh well. Yeah. Component video rocks.

[evildragon]

The TV is from 02-03... (possibly 02)...

It's a nightmare honestly.. But what's weird, it's component input, on some devices, DOES have dark bands also.. It happens when something gets close to the edge of the screen, it becomes dark bands across the whole screen...

I wonder..............

[David J.]

I have to work tonight, because I was called in, and I will do some sorting around trying to see what I can do. Pix will come later.

[David J.]

OK, took pix!

Here's the image being cropped off:
http://ourworld.cs.com/airbikecop/DCP00453.JPG

Shows off the red tint:
http://ourworld.cs.com/airbikecop/DCP00455.JPG

Shows off bands of black (think it's the SCART cable):
http://ourworld.cs.com/airbikecop/DCP00454.JPG

This looks a LOT brighter in real life, and drives me nuts:
http://ourworld.cs.com/airbikecop/DCP00456.JPG

The transcoder:
http://ourworld.cs.com/airbikecop/DCP00457.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/airbikecop/DCP00458.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/airbikecop/DCP00459.JPG

Oh yeah.... see the pink bar on the right... that shouldn't BE there, or happening:
http://ourworld.cs.com/airbikecop/DCP00452.JPG

[Joe Redifer]

The pink bar on the right is always there, it's just usually in the overscan area. But since your image is too far to the left, the pink bar shows. Why is the image too far to the left? Either the TV sucks with component inputs or the transcoder itself is doing something funky. You don't have an overscan issue.

I'm not sure why the World of Illusion screen is so horribly tinted red but the Revenge of Shinobi text is perfectly white as are the whites in all of your other pictures. This doesn't make sense.

The "banding" you see in the blacks there looks like either the TV's fault or an unshielded cable. Probably the TV's fault. If there were more information (detail) on the screen, this wouldn't likely happen, but since it is such a high contrast, the TV has issues.

I can't comment on the brightness since you say the picture doesn't really show what it's like, but I can say that it's caused by the lack of resistors in the cable.

Did you order the same transcoder I have but they sent you this instead?

[David J.]

I wonder if I can MOD the transcoder, well to fix it. The brightness may be fixable too then. My cable doesn't work anymore. :(

I see someone out there called chatoicjelly who makes cables. I sent him a PM on another forum to see if he can make me one... according to your post at HDTV Arcade, you made a post, ages ago about this setup, and you linked to his MD2 SCART Cable. Who knows, you may have bought one from him, so if yours is good, and you got it from him, I'll see if I can do the same.

The auction didn't say. The pic looked like yours, but I got something "different".

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=011&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&viewitem=&item=320042526098&rd=1&rd=1

See?

[Joe Redifer]

Yeah that's where I usually get all of my SCART cables, come to think of it.

Yeah that eBay auction is definitely my transcoder. Send me your trancoder and I'll look at it and test it. Don't worry, I won't charge you for anything, not even shipping.

[David J.]

I can tell you that my cable died... I'm very suspect here.

[evildragon]

that band is the SAME I see on my fathers KLH...

the problem is unidentified..

[David J.]

Nope, Cable not dead, I didn't have the conversion cable hooked up! oops.

[David J.]

I'm going to talk to a TV repair man or something.

[evildragon]

just a thought.. you using the RIGHT power supply? does it have enough amps? just thought of that!

[David J.]

Yup. I have a radio shack one down stairs that'll work -- dunno about the tip, but the one I bought at big lots for a song is the right voltage and enough amps.

My dad is a electrican by trade, and knows his stuff, and he helped me get it running.

[David J.]

I am going to try something, that is a BAD idea to some, but it may be DUMB enough to work.... *deep breath* I am going to try it on my fathers HDTV.

Yeah, I don't mind the pixel-doubled look, or the emulator look, but a part of me wants to be let down, and usually, a dumb and bad idea for me, helps the situtation.

[evildragon]

well this will tell where the problem is ;)

[David J.]

oh boy, it's going to be hooking it up -- my dad's HDTV is in an old TV cabinet that's right infront of a wall, and there's tons of crap on top. I'll just steal the DVD's component.

[David J.]

I fixed everything but the banding. Looks great now!

[evildragon]

what were the results on the HDTV? and what did you do to fix it?

[David J.]

I didn't bother with the HDTV. For my TV, I went in the service menu, and adjusted it horizontaly, fixed the red bias, and a few other things.

[evildragon]

I have a feeling though now that other Component devices might now be lacking red a tad now...

I also saw some "tearing" in the signal in one of your pictures, that looks like a transcoder issue..

[David J.]

I don't use any thing else in component. So no worries.

[David J.]

However, there's a new problem.

If I plug my scart cable into the 32X conversion cable, like if I wanted to use the PBC or Virtua Racing, the image moves around like crazy. But when its running from the 32X like I always do, it works FINE. Or hell, the Genesis 2 even! But if it's in the 32X, it works fine.

[evildragon]

the transcoder is weak.. the 32X is almost like a video amp... (obviously not, but because it overlays video, it can "act" as one)..

i still think theres something about the power supply..

what are the specs on power for the transcoder, and what are the specs you are using? just state them please, something sounds out of whack in this area.. because if my genesis is amperage deprived, i get bands, buzzing, and shaky image.. (but it plays)

[Joe Redifer]

That's weird, the screen shouldn't move around like that. Make sure the cables are firmly connected to each other.

[David J.]

I plugged it in to the Genesis 2, the brightness was crazy, but it worked. No sound for obivous reasons. But with the Model 1, with the conversion cable, I didn't have any brightness problems, but the video moved around. But when I have the 32X plugged in, it's perfect.

I'm going to buy a MD1 SCART Cable in the future anyway. Just incase if I want to go back to my "old" setup with both a Genesis 1 + Model 1 SCD and a Genesis 2 + 32X + Model 2 SCD.

[Joe Redifer]

I think you got shafted with the SCART cable, and maybe the transcoder, too.

[David J.]

Oh, I'm not complaning... It is a lot better than composite. I think it's the cable that's bunk the most.

Well, I didn't pay for it, so *I* didn't get shafted, per se.