Hey Euro guys... help an American out.

[lordofduct]

All right, just in case you don't know... here in the USA, RGB is not of the norm. The only format of RGB really supported here are the VGA formats that are of 30hz Hsync and higher. None of the lower 15-17hz HSYNCs like that found in the Sega Genesis.

I have an HDTV, and it too does not support RGB. Only HDMI and component for the high end, and I want me some RGB fun. So I took a look around and went through tons of different choices to decide WHAT I wanted to do to get the best video out of my old consoles... and I decided on a RGB to HDMI converter (I have a marantz A/V receiver that transcodes to digital, that and my TV is digital... so I chose to convert directly to digital instead of going RGB to component and then letting my TV convert to digital... to much conversion there).

Anyways, got the box, it works, I'm using it for my Sega X'Eye and Sega Saturn... but I was wondering...



THE QUESTION! finally...

Which would you suggest for the Dreamcast: RGB Scart lead, OR VGA box?

I have the VGA box and it runs directly into my Television (which supports VGA), it looks amazing... but the downside is that not every title supports it. Some of my all time fav Dreamcast titles (Bangai-O and a lot of other 2D titles) don't support VGA mode.

Having to swap between S-Video and VGA for each game is a bitch and rather tedious... For those who've used both, what do you think?

[Mr Smith]

Although this Euro doesn't really understand such technical things, I have heard that scart connections are one of the few reason why it is worth being born on this side of the Atlantic. For that reason alone I shall go with scart.

The real question here is, why did the cup of coffee I just drank taste like cheap cigarettes?

[evildragon]

There's a trick to get most if not all DC games to work on VGA. My DC uses only VGA.

One of my games doesn't support VGA, and if I boot with no box plugged in and turn on DC, when I hear the "beep" from the GD-ROMs controller, I plug in the box, and the game boots up on VGA, only the 2D capcom games will have trouble though.

It takes practice, I can tell you that.

VGA box vs interlaced video = VGA wins by far

[Joe Redifer]

VGA wins for the Dreamcast. There is no reason to go with RGB on the DC. The only games that don't support VGA run in low resolution.

Also, why not just transcode the Genesis RGB to component and leave it at that? Your TV has component inputs. No need to go to HDMI. Please, at least tell me that you're not stretching the Genesis video to fill the whole 16:9 screen.

[mick_aka]

Playing Dreamcast through VGA makes me do a sex wee, do it!

[lordofduct]

VGA wins for the Dreamcast. There is no reason to go with RGB on the DC. The only games that don't support VGA run in low resolution.

Also, why not just transcode the Genesis RGB to component and leave it at that? Your TV has component inputs. No need to go to HDMI. Please, at least tell me that you're not stretching the Genesis video to fill the whole 16:9 screen.

The reason is simple... my TV may have component, but it is a digital display. No matter WHAT any digital display has to convert analogue inputs into digital. Component is analogue.

So... the conversion steps comparison of the two are as follow (remember all conversions create some sort of distortion in analogue signal):

RGB>Component

RGB out of console and converted in component mixer,
RGB into Video device, converted into digital.

RGB>HDMI
RGB out of console and converted in HDMI converter,

...
No need to convert HDMI once at the display.


And also, I use a marantz A/V receiver to hook all my consoles and stuff, and play sound through my massive surround system (not no all in one box garbage). The receiver is top notch, but it does perform some actions on analogue signals that can introduce more noise. Avoiding the receiver is an inconvenience so I'd prefer to stick with it. The plus side to digital (and the phenomenal video processor in the receiver) is that none of these distortions occur.

...

Oh yeah, one other thing. Digital displays have native resolutions, and all resolutions pumped into it HAVE to be scaled. scaling always adds more distortion to the image, but scaling a digital image is much cleaner then analogue. And seeing as my TV is 1080p, that's a LOT of scaling to do to the meager Genesis resolution.


OH and of course I don't widescreen my Genny games.


[EDIT]
It's not just the TOP NOTCH video I'm looking for. I'm looking for the best video to convenience factor. VGA mode (which is technically an RGB signal... just not the same kind as SCART RGB) may provide clearer picture, but a bigger nuisance with having to switch modes for games that don't support it (which I play a lot of), or having to perform "tricks" to get VGA mode to work for those games.

RGB on the other hand gives a very good picture, but not nearly as good as VGA. The plus side though is it is more convenient for quick pick up a controller and play. In a theatre system where turning on a console requires so many steps, convenience is a mighty thing to be concerned about.

[Joe Redifer]

scaling a digital image is much cleaner then analogue
Not really since all scaling will occur in the analog domain.


OH and of course I don't widescreen my Genny games.
Except Virtua Fighter for the 32X. It has a 16:9 mode.

Personally I choose not to play anything below Dreamcast level on my HDTV simply because it looks like shit. I like to play in the native 240p resolution of those games, so I use a 4:3 SDTV with component inputs. That will look way better than any HDTV could ever hope to do with those same game systems.

By the way, what is the model of your Marantz? It sounds similar to a Pioneer Elite I am eyeballing. I like Pioneer because I can tell it not so send the lows from every other channels to the subwoofer (which is great unless you have pussy speakers which can't handle lows).

[lordofduct]

The TV thing is not an option for me... my living room isn't that big.

I used to use a Pioneer Elite VSX-52TX
http://www.hometheatermag.com/receivers/1204pioneer/

It was nice for my old set up, but it lacked certain features I wanted, and seemed to have a bunch of bells and whistles that I had no use for. Everything also sounded really flat in my opinion.

I then went on a search for something that had everything I wanted: HDMI support, for my digital components; 1080p support, again for those components as well. -- just because a receiver has HDMI does NOT mean it supports 1080p--; a lot of power under the hood so I don't need a separate amplifier; 7.1 support just because; enough connections for all my stuff; and a lot of audio tweaking, like you want for you sub-woofer.

I came across the Marantz SR7001
http://us.marantz.com/Products/1881.asp

I really liked it and the price. I bought that, a bunch of speakers and took my cousins Denon 5.1 receiver and built to systems between my living room and bedroom for only $3000 US... and they shake the walls like no other!


[Edit]
Just to let you know; My Pioneer Elite popped on me after 3 years of use. I picked it up for only 200 bones as a floor model, but it gave me a few issues through out its life and then one day just wouldn't turn on (I replaced it before it blew... but I was using it in the garage for my studio out there). I haven't taken the time to open it up and fix it as I'm to busy right now to be fiddling around with that stuff... once I start working with electronics I start all these projects that take months to get out of my system. And with my deadline for this game being feb. 1st, well I can't afford that.

[Joe Redifer]

What version of HDMI is the Marantz? 1.3a?

EDIT: Nevermind, it's only 1.2.

Here (http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/HomeEntertainment/AV-Receivers/EliteReceivers/ci.VSX-94TXH.Kuro?tab=B) is the Pioneer I am eyeballing.

[Rusty Venture]

Also, why not just transcode the Genesis RGB to component and leave it at that?

How do you do this?

[Joe Redifer]

You buy a SCART RGB to YUV transcoder along with a Mega Drive RGB SCART cable. Then you go to Radio Shack and buy a proper AC Adaptor and tip to power the thing. Then you open the transcoder up and solder sound cables to it if have a Genesis 2 or whatever. This will give you pretty much perfect video and you won't have to adjust anything unless you need sound coming from the SCART cable.

[lordofduct]

I bought the Marantz a while ago... they've updated it to the SR7002 which is HDMI1.3a now.
http://us.marantz.com/Products/2205.asp

As for the component thing... see component is in the YUV scale. YUV is colour frame stored in the Luminance and Chrominance formats (brightness and colour information). RGB on the other hand is just the colour depth with no brightness... the brightness is just R+G+B.

Component on the other hand is YUV expanded... takes the colour information and breaks it apart into smaller parts to reduce the amount of cross talk between information. Component is composed of three plugs:

Y - Luminance (Brightness of the Image)
B-Y - The blue value with respect to luminance
R-Y - The Red value with respect to luminance

Each B-Y and R-Y represent the V and U of the colour space respectively, in which with luminance creates a large quantity of natural colours.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e9/YUVanim.gif
here is the YUV colour space in a time lapse gif

[some edits for more descpription on YUV, I'm stealing these images from wikipedia... kek]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/YUV_UV_plane.png
this image is the UV scale with a Y value of 0.5
Notice here, V or the B-Y carries values from top to bottom from Red at top to green at bottom (RGB minus the B leaves RG)
and U or the R-Y carries values left to right from green to blue (RGB minus the R leaves GB)

Any ways you can convert RGB to the YUV scale by performing a simple task.

Add up all the Red Green and Blue information to get luminance.
Then invert that signal and add it to both the Red and Blue signals.

Pretty simple task, but by spreading the values over so many adders causes the luminance information to loose power, so you have to put a multiplier on it to increase it's power so you don't lose any luma information on the end of the whole process, which creates some noise in the luma signal. Luma is black and white, so the colour information doesn't receive the same noise as the luma... when they get displayed to gether colours will look like they bleed out of the edges of brightness information (looks like weird darkening of colours around the edges). Of course better components and more precise steps in the algorithm will reduce this... but will never eliminate it.



...
this description is a basic layman's description of the whole process. I didn't want it to get to confusing and start posting diagrams and other stuff. I have built these before from scratch and they do the job... but as I said I preferred jumping right to HDMI. This takes it a completely different way.

HDMI accepts a couple different colour scales: RGB 4:4:4, YCbCr 4:4:4, YCbCr 4:2:2.

YCbCr is just the digital equivalent of YPbPr, which is the analogue form and the format of Component cables. The conversion process basically scans the analogue signal with it's sync and creates the YCbCr. No conversion to RGB needed, it's nearly the same exact thing just in digital form... kinda like how CDs are the digital representation of an analogue sound wave.

It also can just convert RGB into the Digital RGB of HDMI (which is NOT like RGB in respect to signal... but is in what it represents. Also is not like RGB on a DVI cable; DVI cables carry both digital and analogue information unless you use the kind that lack the analogue pins). This means the conversion of RGB or Component over to HDMI requires a less intrusive process... it doesn't have to change colour space to perform the task.

Yet another reason why I chose SCART to HDMI conversion over to component... though component would have been cheaper (seeing as I even had a few already built laying around... though they are very low quality parts).

[TmEE]

I use RGB since it looks nice and most games support it (but there's some that use ONLY composite and S-video, Bust a Move 4 coming to mind). But when I'm near a PC monitor, I'll use VGA, but I prefer RGB on TV since 640x480 doesn't look too good on PC monitor.

[lordofduct]

I use RGB since it looks nice and most games support it (but there's some that use ONLY composite and S-video, Bust a Move 4 coming to mind). But when I'm near a PC monitor, I'll use VGA, but I prefer RGB on TV since 640x480 doesn't look too good on PC monitor.

Really? There are games that don't even support RGB let alone VGA? weird...

Luckily the converter I have recognizes if composite or RGB is coming in and will adapt on the fly for it.

[evildragon]

interlaced video on DC has a flicker filter, so it has a slight vertical blur.

VGA non-interlaced does NOT and all pixel is accounted for.

[Joe Redifer]

I prefer RGB on TV since 640x480 doesn't look too good on PC monitor.
It does if you have a CRT multiscan monitor. It's quite beautiful, perhaps some of the best video I've seen from a game system! Those LCD computer monitors are still stuck with a native resolution, so anything not at that resolution will look like hairy unwiped ass just like many HDTVs.

[TmEE]

It does look good on my old CRT monitor... but 14inch is not comparable to 21 inch when there isn't too much quality difference. And LCD is not very good option when you plan to play Sonic Adventure... man it gets blurry.... my 4ms black to white response time LCD can't handle it well, and my brothers 2ms one either.... nothing beats a CRT !!!

[lordofduct]

It does look good on my old CRT monitor... but 14inch is not comparable to 21 inch when there isn't too much quality difference. And LCD is not very good option when you plan to play Sonic Adventure... man it gets blurry.... my 4ms black to white response time LCD can't handle it well, and my brothers 2ms one either.... nothing beats a CRT !!!

I have to agree with this... but large screen CRT usually are projection and even smaller ones are just to large and heavy.

Nothing beats the picture, black quality, and ability to display multiple resolutions. That and it is a very old proven technology. The life span of your CRT is much more dependable then the hypothetical life spans of some of these newer technologies like Plasma. I hate Plasma...

[TmEE]

One CRT in our family is 25 years old, still works and looks nice... AFAIK, plasmas tend to burn in and have very low lifetime... LCD is just slow but its lifetime seems to be long enough.... and, in here, they don't sell CRTs anymore :( Only these crap small wide screens that are very very slow and definitely not worth their price and not suitable for gaming of any kind (maybe tetris...).

[lordofduct]

Yeah it upsets me how they are nearly phasing all CRTs out. They still serve a good purpose. Alas, there is nothing I can do about it and I still use these other formats (DLP and LCD through out the house... though I do like the quality of DLP).

So I'm not clear on your comment about RGB. Hrmmm, I think I'll just grab the Dreamcast cable (it's only 7 quid) and try it out. Probably take some pics for comparison (I need a camera soooo bad).

[TmEE]

I have a pic of SA2 done from my TV using RGB... but my hand moved a little so there's some blur...

http://www.hot.ee/tmeeco/PICS/SONIC2.JPG

That spot in the corner is this electric shield... nothings wrong with my TV

[Joe Redifer]

Back on the receiver subject, I think I will wait to buy one until they advertise that they pass through 1080p 24 via HDMI (and preferably do not fuck with the video data in any way). I have heard a lot of bad stories about receivers botching the 1080p 24 connection between a Blu-Ray player and a TV, and in order to get the 24 you have to connect the player to the TV directly which will not be an option if I want the higher resolution sound.