NES on an LCD HDTV, ouch!!!

[the.importer]

My NES 2 is connected with an RF switch on my LCD TV and looks like shit.

Vertical lines are everywhere, I see ghosting of stuff that I wouldn't see on a CRT, the text is very fuzzy and it looks like shit overall. Thinking that it might be an RF thing, I asked my friend to bring over his NES Front Loader so that I may compare RF with Composite. Believe it or not, by trying to improve the resolution, the Composite cables made the resolution worst.

So now I'm left to wonder where can I go from here?

Do I:
-Stick with emulation even if I spent like $150 for all 6 Famicom Rockman game >_> ?
-Do I try one of these recent Famiclones which might solve these HDTV issues since they were made this millennium (my TV is a Samsung 32" LCD BTW) ?
-Or do I simply take it up the ass and endure this resolution?


EDIT: I have no room for anything else including a small CRT!!!!

[QuickSciFi]

Why not just get a separate CRT unit for retro games instead? It can still be compact enough to fit in your gaming room, yet sly enough to pull-off a cool looking retro TV stand with all your retro game consoles on the side of your HDTV. ;)

[the.importer]

Why not just get a separate CRT unit for retro games instead? It can still be compact enough to fit in your gaming room, yet sly enough to pull-off a cool looking retro TV stand with all your retro game consoles on the side of your HDTV. ;)

No more room, seriously.

[QuickSciFi]

^I feel ya'. What about one of the newer handheld famiclones?

[edit] If you still don't like the res, at least you'd have a decent handheld on which to play your NES games.

[the.importer]

^I feel ya'. What about one of the newer handheld famiclones?

I try to avoid handhelds as much as possible since I have DS games for that. I got a GameCube with GB Player just to play GB, GBC and GBA games on my TV (I play my NGC games on my Wii with Component Cables).

[Da_Shocker]

Get an old ass GXTV 13 incher great sound system.

[QuickSciFi]

I know what you mean. I was going to get a GC just to play my GBA games on a big screen. Let us know what you come up with.

P.S.> Don't settle for a shitty resolution, though. ;)

[Christuserloeser]

So now I'm left to wonder where can I go from here?

Get a Dreamcast with VGA adapter and burn yourself a copy of ROM linking that's not allowed.

[Ace]

I once tried using a RetroDuo Famiclone on a big Sony Bravia 50" LCD TV, and, I don't know if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but the video actually looked REALLY good on that TV. You could probably try to pick up a cheap, accurate Famiclone if you can't stand the NES' bad video quality on your TV.

[nathanallan]

There's a scan rate issue, I've tried to hook up several older consoles to newer large LCDs and TFTs. Adjust the rates of the TV set, they'll need some serious tweaking to make it look right. Hope you saved your user manual, you'll need it.

I second the motion of getting a smaller TV that's CRT. Much less headache (cause you have to set it all back to use it for anything else).

[the.importer]

I once tried using a RetroDuo Famiclone on a big Sony Bravia 50" LCD TV, and, I don't know if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but the video actually looked REALLY good on that TV. You could probably try to pick up a cheap, accurate Famiclone if you can't stand the NES' bad video quality on your TV.

And what kind of output did you use, Composite or S-Video?


There's a scan rate issue, I've tried to hook up several older consoles to newer large LCDs and TFTs. Adjust the rates of the TV set, they'll need some serious tweaking to make it look right. Hope you saved your user manual, you'll need it.

I second the motion of getting a smaller TV that's CRT. Much less headache (cause you have to set it all back to use it for anything else).

I fiddled with all of the options of my Samsung, nothing seems to work and the NES is the only one that looks this shitty.

-My Wii (which acts as my GameCube as well) is connected via Components, no problem there
-My PS3 has HDMI, no problem there
-My Dreamcast is hooked via the VGA of my TV, no problem there
-My PS2 slim is hooked via S-Video on a switch box, no problem there
-My GameCube for GBA player is hooked via S-Video on a switch box, no problem there
-My N64 is hooked via S-Video on a switch box, looks a bit dated, but still very acceptable
-My Super Famicom is hooked via S-Video on a switch box, looks better than the N64, so no problem there
-My Genesis his hooked via Composite on the side of my TV, doesn't look as perfect as my Super Famicom, but it's OK, few graphics glitches now and there

[Ace]

I used Composite. Both the NES and Super NES sides looked good, but stretched, since the TV's set up to make the image fill the entire screen.

The only thing is that the RetroDuo has really dirty video output that's LOADED with interference. It's not the line noise problem that the Top-Loader NES suffers from, but while playing NES games, there's a series of diagonal bars that scrolls from left to right via Composite, and in S-Video, it's like playing an NES through a faulty RF box. The Super NES side isn't any better; its S-Video is very dark and you can clearly see 2 strips of static that scroll from top to bottom on both Composite and S-Video).

I just remembered that I also used an FC Twin on that exact same TV. Looked just as good, but with slightly more saturated colors(the RetroDuo's video output is quite washed out in comparison to the FC Twin) and no interference(Composite only - you need to modify the FC Twin to use S-Video, and even then, there wouldn't be any NES S-Video).

EDIT: Another word of note on the RetroDuo: the sound on the NES side is absolute GARBAGE unless you solder some extra components. Without them, the sound will strain like crazy, sometimes to the point where the only thing you'll hear is the Triangle wave sound channel mixed in with a bunch of garbled, staticky sounds. The FC Twin doesn't suffer from this problem.

[tomaitheous]

Your LCD doesn't have "game" mode? But yeah, LCD's are a gamble when it comes to old console systems. You never know which LCD has which kind of conversion algorithms. My advice would have been to take your NES to the store (best buy, whatever) and try it out on such LCD sets. You might think this is crazy, but I know of people that have done just this. But you've already purchase the set, so the advice is moot.

[the.importer]

Your LCD doesn't have "game" mode? But yeah, LCD's are a gamble when it comes to old console systems. You never know which LCD has which kind of conversion algorithms. My advice would have been to take your NES to the store (best buy, whatever) and try it out on such LCD sets. You might think this is crazy, but I know of people that have done just this. But you've already purchase the set, so the advice is moot.

Yes, Game Mode is activate, but this feature was never meant to remove garbage from the screen. I'll keep your idea in mind the next time I go TV shopping.

[Christuserloeser]

-My Dreamcast is hooked via the VGA of my TV, no problem there
in that case:


burn yourself a copy of ROM Linking that's not allowed

[Flygon]

At least you don't have an LCD that doesn't support 240p...

Let me put it this way, one of my friends TV's literally threw up a 'Mode not supported message' when I fed it some of that 240p goodness from a Wii connected via Component (We used an emulator).

The exact same setup worked relatively well on a Plasma TV.

But yeah, I'd say use something with cleaner video output or get it modded for some (If NES2's can even do that, do they only output raw Composite too?).

[Devil N]

Let me put it this way, one of my friends TV's literally threw up a 'Mode not supported message' when I fed it some of that 240p goodness from a Wii connected via Component (We used an emulator).
That's really bizarre. I mean, if a TV doesn't support 240p, I would assume it just interprets it as a normal 480i signal (which is almost the same), and display it as such. This is of course not as good as actual 240p support, since it will deinterlace the image and whatnot, but the TV should at least be able to display it.

[Christuserloeser]

Many HDTVs don't support 240p via component.

[Genesis Knight]

The Nester for DC recommendation really is the best one. Sometimes it's better to emulate!

[kool kitty89]

NES and other older systems (including Atari) look fine in my SD CRT, it's a little 15" Phillips that's ~4/5 years old though. Not sure if 240p is expressly supported (scan doubling), but anything above 480i cannot be displayed at all.

[Deo]

My advice would have been to take your NES to the store (best buy, whatever) and try it out on such LCD sets. You might think this is crazy, but I know of people that have done just this.
When I go to get my fancy shmancy LCD tv next month I will definitely bring my Genesis along with me. Thanks for the idea!

[the.importer]

Guys, I've spent close to $500 in Famicom and NES games, if I wanted to stick with emulation, I would have.

[Christuserloeser]

Well, if you just want to play NES on your LCD, Dreamcast via VGA is the way to go.

But if you want to play on original hardware I'd definitely recommend to buy a CRT.



When I go to get my fancy shmancy LCD tv next month I will definitely bring my Genesis along with me. Thanks for the idea!

Maybe you should consider importing one from Europe that has a RGB-SCART connector. Doesn't still do much in terms of compatibility, but RGB is the best possible connector you could get.

My brother's 32" Samsung looks awesome with 240p content via RGB-SCART!

[tomaitheous]

Guys, I've spent close to $500 in Famicom and NES games, if I wanted to stick with emulation, I would have.

Yeah. And Nester emulation isn't accurate either. Sound isn't accurate, some glitches, other minor stuff.

If you want to go the emulation route, then Nestopia + PC + video out (or just run it on the monitor at hand). Nester on DC is just novelty.

[Christuserloeser]

v6.0 is pretty accurate. Which version did you test ?

[17daysolderthannes]

ugh, HD TVs are the devil, I swear. The technology changes every 5 minutes and I can't even get a straight answer on which is best (LCD, LED, Plasma). Some work great and look great with composite cables, some are a blurry/pixelated/fuzzy mess. DVDs look like shit on most of them. HD cables usually cost a fortune (gotten a little better recently). With CRT TVs, literally almost every TV was the same thing with just a few minor features, most of which were useless anyway. You plug an NES into any reasonably sized CRT TV and the shit just worked. Computers have gotten 1000X more uniform and easy to use, why are TVs going the opposite direction? I'm trying to avoid an HD TV for as long as humanly possible until we can decide on a standard display type and HD cables and Blu Ray go down in price.

I know this isn't fully on topic, but I share this dude's pain as to what to do with the switch from SD to HD.

[17daysolderthannes]

v6.0 is pretty accurate. Which version did you test ?

I second this. While it's not as wonderful as PC emulators, it certainly wins in the convenience and accessibility department (all games on one disc, plug into a TV, done, Dreamcasts can be bought for $20 with a controller, has a bilinear filter option). If you shell out $25 for the Total Control Plus PS2->DC adapter, you can use the Retro Con which is basically an NES controller for PS2, making the experience very close to the real thing. Then again, you could get a USB adapter for a real NES controller if you were on the PC. I guess it really comes down to what you're willing to spend.

[kool kitty89]

That and Nestopia seems to run like crap on vista. (32-bit) Rather like ZSNES, except maybe a bit worse, fine ones it's playing, but taking for ever to do anything else. (ie launching it, changing settings, chaning window size or moving the window, etc) Maybe I should try running it in compatibility mode for XP or maybe older.

[Christuserloeser]

ugh, HD TVs are the devil, I swear. The technology changes every 5 minutes and I can't even get a straight answer on which is best (LCD, LED, Plasma). Some work great and look great with composite cables, some are a blurry/pixelated/fuzzy mess. DVDs look like shit on most of them.

It's not that HDTVs are bad per se, they just happen to be totally incompatible to properly handle 480i/240p content and each TV handles this incompatibility different which is exactly the problem.

DVDs look great in HD, provided that your DVD player supports the DVD standard's Progressive Scan (480p, which is the lowest HD resolution and twice that of 480i = 240 interlaced lines per frame). This requires component, VGA, DVI or HDMI cables (whatver your DVD player offers) as composite and S-Video are limited to 480i/240p.

Of the available HDTVs, LCD is the currently best variant offering the best picture at the lowest price.


All in all I'd say that if you have the space and money, I'd recommend to have both an LCD for movies and modern gaming (Dreamcast, Wii, PS3, etc.), and a nice 4:3 CRT SDTV for retro gaming (Genesis, SNES, Saturn, NES, etc.).

The PS3 is an excellent way to play PS1 and PS2 games on HDTVs as it automatically outputs to HD compatible resolutions, and the Wii is a great solution to play GameCube and Nintendo 64 games (which are rendered in 480p high res).

I'd recommend the Mayflash VGA cable: http://shop.ebay.com/?_nkw=mayflash+vga+wii
which takes the Wii's native digital Y'CbCr output and converts it into analog RGBHV (VGA) - that's much better than the analog Y'PbPr component signal you get via your average component cable.

...here's the same cable (http://cgi.ebay.com/VGA-CABLE-Adapter-for-Nintendo-Wii-Playstation-3_W0QQitemZ260466064196QQ#ht_2800wt_1069) for $5 less.


For hooking up the SNES, N64 or GameCube to your HDTV, this might be a good solution: http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=snes+vga+box
It isn't comparable to a real VGA signal like what Dreamcast and your PC output as it converts the S-Video signal to RGBHV but it's still better than connecting these consoles via S-Video directly (as a VGA port provides by far the best picture of all analog inputs on your HDTV).

There's no way to properly hook up your Genesis without spending hundreds of Dollars for an XRGB upscanner but I'd try to go via RGB-SCART to YUV component transcoder and see if the TV accepts the 240p signal via component. - If you can play 16-bit stuff via Wii Virtual Console on your HDTV, it does!

[runback22]

EDIT: I have no room for anything else including a small CRT!!!!

I feel your pain. I've been trying to find a solution for this as well. I dont have room for a CRT and I'd rather play on the real system than emulators, but they looked so horrible on new tv's........

[17daysolderthannes]

how can you people not have space for a 20" or even a 13" CRT TV? What kind of refrigerator boxes are you living in? You'll spend 20X as much trying to get HD cables/upconverters/rebuying your collection/getting a dedicated emulation computer/etc. as you would spend on a simple CRT TV to do it right. This is why I really want to build my arcade shaped entertainment center, that way, I'll always have a CRT TV hanging around to play pre-Dreamcast games properly.

As another solution, and this might not be everyone's cup of tea, you could get a portable DVD player. Surprisingly, retro games look fucking NICE on those screens. N64 almost looks like it isn't made of vaseline.

And here's an idea, how about Nintendo make cartridge converters that plug into the Wii that let you play the old games right on the Wii and upconvert it that way? Oh wait, stupid me, they are money grubbing douchebags that could give a fuck about what their customers would appreciate. My bad. Thanks for all of that support for those of us that bought all of those systems over the years and can't play them properly on modern TVs and could be fixed with some Wii backwards compatibility, thanks alot Nintendo, glad you appreciate all that money I've thrown your way, most of which you didn't deserve. [/bitter hate speech toward Nintendo for being greedy assholes]

[kool kitty89]

EDIT: I have no room for anything else including a small CRT!!!!

What about a small LCD? One specifically meant for SD stuff (480i), or would even a 15" LCD take up too much space? (our phillips looks fine for old game systems, as I mentioned)

You may also want to try making changes to the settings on your HD set, turn off filters and lower the sharpness maybe play around with contrast and color intensity as well.



And here's an idea, how about Nintendo make cartridge converters that plug into the Wii that let you play the old games right on the Wii and upconvert it that way? Oh wait, stupid me, they are money grubbing douchebags that could give a fuck about what their customers would appreciate. My bad. Thanks for all of that support for those of us that bought all of those systems over the years and can't play them properly on modern TVs and could be fixed with some Wii backwards compatibility, thanks alot Nintendo, glad you appreciate all that money I've thrown your way, most of which you didn't deserve. [/bitter hate speech toward Nintendo for being greedy assholes]

If they ever did I'd bet it would be Japan only. I seem to remember such a thing being released for the GBA, but maybe that was 3rd party. I thik it was called the time machine.

[17daysolderthannes]

If they ever did I'd bet it would be Japan only. I seem to remember such a thing being released for the GBA, but maybe that was 3rd party. I thik it was called the time machine.

VERY 3rd party, possibly illegal. IIRC it was a chinese product. I didn't really see the point though, I'm pretty sure modded PSPs were out and about by the time that thing came out, and I'd take 1000 ROMs over 1 cartridge or 1 ridiculous multi-cart with hacked to death pirated games, and it's just an NOAC working with the GBA screen anyway. And because I'm realizing just how much more I hate Nintendo, I feel the need to mention it took Nintendo about 10 years to FINALLY catch up with the Game Gear with the GBA SP. Took ya that long to get color, backlight, and decent graphics Nintendo? awesome.

[kool kitty89]

And because I'm realizing just how much more I hate Nintendo, I feel the need to mention it took Nintendo about 10 years to FINALLY catch up with the Game Gear with the GBA SP. Took ya that long to get color, backlight, and decent graphics Nintendo? awesome.

I'm kind of surprised that Sega never released a cost reduced unlit version of the GG actually. (more compact, cheaper, much less of a battery hog) I mean, even with its life cut short by SoJ's focusing on the Saturn, I think by 1994 they could have done that at least... (hell even Atari had the lynx II, granted they needed that even more and it was still bulkier than the GG)

The battery life would probably the major point, except that that shouldn't hold true for a sidelit mechanism, LED or not. (even back in the early 90s that should have been feasible, like older digital watches, rather limited yes, but better than noting, and maintaing low cost plus the reflective screen that works great in direct sunlight) A togglable true backlit screen looks very poor with the light off (no reflective surface), the Gameboy light was lame (not the kind of watch light I'm taliking about), and even with the light on they look like crap in direct sunlight.

[the.importer]

I'm kind of surprised that Sega never released a cost reduced unlit version of the GG actually. (more compact, cheaper, much less of a battery hog) I mean, even with its life cut short by SoJ's focusing on the Saturn, I think by 1994 they could have done that at least... (hell even Atari had the lynx II, granted they needed that even more and it was still bulkier than the GG)

The battery life would probably the major point, except that that shouldn't hold true for a sidelit mechanism, LED or not. (even back in the early 90s that should have been feasible, like older digital watches, rather limited yes, but better than noting, and maintaing low cost plus the reflective screen that works great in direct sunlight) A togglable true backlit screen looks very poor with the light off (no reflective surface), the Gameboy light was lame (not the kind of watch light I'm taliking about), and even with the light on they look like crap in direct sunlight.


The GameGear got ass-raped so much by the GameBoy that it wasn't worth it anymore. Also, from what I recall, SEGA wanted to release the Nomad much sooner than 1995 in order to replace the GameGear but that system came out too late for most people to care.

[kool kitty89]

The Nomad was a bad move, at least from a buisness standpoint. It was just an expensive addition for current Genesis users, more or less, not increasing Genesis software popularity or such, and not offering its own games. That and it was an even less practical handheld than the GG, bulkier, more power hungry, and with bulky genesis cartridges. Game sales is where the money is, sell the hardware cheap, possibly at a loss, and profit from software sales. That's where the 3DO missed it.

Perhaps the Game Gear did need a successor, or maybe just compete more directly with the GB in cost, size/convienence, and battery life.

A good successor would need to correct the size, cost, and battery life issues with the original GG, and preferably be Backwards compatible. Perhaps a modest upgrade, closer to the Genesis in some aspects, but still simple enough to be cost/size/power efficient. (like upgrade the VDP to capabilities closer to the Genesis, but maybe just using a faster Z80 rather than adding a 68000, plus a sound upgrade, maybe the YM2413 of the JP SMS, or the YM2612 of the Genesis, and add more buttons)

This is off topic though, and deserves its own thread if continued.

[the.importer]

Found a solution to my problems BTW, or more likely my friend has.

Before buying all of this stuff, I was using emulation on a Media PC that I've built. I still use this media PC for watching movies, Anime, listening to music, etc... but no longer for emulation.

My friend told me that in theory, I should be able to get a filtered pictured by passing my consoles via my Media PC with an input card.

I didn't have one on my Media PC, but my desktop PC does have an old Nvida card with Composite and S-Video In and Out. I plugged my Desktop PC on my LCD TV, plugged his NES Front Loader (for composite out) on the video card, opened Media Player Classic and voilà !!!!

NES games with no shit on the screen and bonus filtering, reminds me of emulation. Best part is that my input card is garbage and Media Player Classic is not the best thing to run inputs, so whatever I'll buy in a store for input will be better.

I just need to see if I can find a card with multiple input such as a couple of S-Video/Composite-in and Cable-in for all of my systems minus Wii and PS3.

[kgenthe]

Weird solution, glad you got it figured out.

I'm with everyone else, buy a small cheap CRT :) I use a 19" for all my composite systems and a 26" for my s-video systems. Xbox 360 gets the 55" ;)

[tomaitheous]

Found a solution to my problems BTW, or more likely my friend has.

Before buying all of this stuff, I was using emulation on a Media PC that I've built. I still use this media PC for watching movies, Anime, listening to music, etc... but no longer for emulation.

My friend told me that in theory, I should be able to get a filtered pictured by passing my consoles via my Media PC with an input card.

I didn't have one on my Media PC, but my desktop PC does have an old Nvida card with Composite and S-Video In and Out. I plugged my Desktop PC on my LCD TV, plugged his NES Front Loader (for composite out) on the video card, opened Media Player Classic and voilà !!!!

NES games with no shit on the screen and bonus filtering, reminds me of emulation. Best part is that my input card is garbage and Media Player Classic is not the best thing to run inputs, so whatever I'll buy in a store for input will be better.

I just need to see if I can find a card with multiple input such as a couple of S-Video/Composite-in and Cable-in for all of my systems minus Wii and PS3.

Nice fix - haha :D Take a look at Dscaler software too. From what I've heard, it does 240p60 to XXXp60 output in realtime from the capture card.

[the.importer]

Nice fix - haha :D Take a look at Dscaler software too. From what I've heard, it does 240p60 to XXXp60 output in realtime from the capture card.

I'll check it out with the new ATI TV Wonder I just bought, thanks :D

[kool kitty89]

There's no lag from running it through the video card? I suppose it uses a different mechanism than video capture cards then... (which convert stuff to MPEG 2 iirc for display)

[the.importer]

There's no lag from running it through the video card? I suppose it uses a different mechanism than video capture cards then... (which convert stuff to MPEG 2 iirc for display)

Don't see why there would be any more lags than running these consoles with Composite or S-Video on a TV, it's not like I'm recording anything.

Anyway, I'm returning this TV Tuner mainly because I'll get a new Video Card which includes one (turns out that my onboard card of my Media PC sucks for inputs).

[17daysolderthannes]

The GameGear got ass-raped so much by the GameBoy that it wasn't worth it anymore. Also, from what I recall, SEGA wanted to release the Nomad much sooner than 1995 in order to replace the GameGear but that system came out too late for most people to care.

I can only imagine that was because of lack of proper advertising. Barely anyone knows what a Game Gear is if they aren't somewhat on the retro scene. So the battery life is short, buy a battery pack, I don't know why it was so hard for people to figure out. I was FIVE and I figured it out. I simply charged my battery pack overnight, then played all I wanted to whenever I went somewhere, rinse, repeat. The PSP battery only lasts about 3 hours if you run it at 333 Mhz (the proper speed), so it's virtually the same thing. A smaller Game Gear would've definitely sold much like the Gameboy pocket somehow got people to rebuy essentially the same damn thing again for a smaller form factor. I think they should've really kept the Nomad alive as well and simply turned the Genesis into the new hot handheld format. Had that happened, we might have had consistent new Genesis releases into the turn of the century. Like I've said many times, that was always Sega's problem: they cut their losses and ran before they even got their product in motion. The Genesis somewhat flopped initially, but they stuck with it and had great success. The pulled the plug on Sega CD and 32X before people even knew they existed. Basically the same thing with Saturn and Dreamcast. I think that's why Sony blew everyone away with the PSX and PS2 sales (and soon PS3, just wait, the $300 price point is going to rocket this thing to the forefront), when you keep a system around long enough, people respect the dedication and realize they will have plenty of software to go with their hardware investment.

[kool kitty89]

Don't see why there would be any more lags than running these consoles with Composite or S-Video on a TV, it's not like I'm recording anything.

Anyway, I'm returning this TV Tuner mainly because I'll get a new Video Card which includes one (turns out that my onboard card of my Media PC sucks for inputs).

With video capture cards at least, they have to encode the video into a digital format before it can be displayed (which causes a delay, but not really a problem for watching TV and such, but bad for games), but since you mention feeding it into you video card, it's probably a bit different than the way a TV tuner/capture card works.

[tomaitheous]

With video capture cards at least, they have to encode the video into a digital format before it can be displayed (which causes a delay, but not really a problem for watching TV and such, but bad for games), but since you mention feeding it into you video card, it's probably a bit different than the way a TV tuner/capture card works.

I would assume the faster the computer, the less of the delay. For any sort of processing effects. I mean, the frame digitization is done in hardware by the capture card. A 1 or 2 frame delay is probably the norm on the PC (depends wholly on the display app though). Which is good compared to a lot of LCD/Plasma TVs. That's what 'game' mode is for on these TVs. To bring down the lag of the filter processing.

[The Sports Guy]

Yeah, I noticed that most systems earlier than PS2/PSX look like absolute garbage, especially on my set up with an RF adapted Genesis on a 32" LCD HDTV.

But, the games are still fun.

[the.importer]

I got an even better solution now. After I returned the TV Tuner card, I stopped myself from buying something else. I said to my self that if something in between is all that is needed in order to fix the issues I've been having, then perhaps I got something at home that could help me and indeed, there was.

When I bought a PVR for my parents last Christmas, they gave me their old DVD Recorder that they were using to record shows. Now I haven't used it because I don't watch TV that much and if I ever miss something, I'll just torrent it, but anyway, this unit allows me to plug Composite, Coaxial and S-Video and output it to anything else including HDMI.

So I hooked everything up and guess what, it works. My NES 2 doesn't display any glitches now and my friends NES Front Loader looks even better with AV cables, so I'll have him modify my NES 2 to have AV cables next week or so. My other systems also look better and the trick is to output in 480p on the DVD Recorder and not 720p or 1080i (which is probably what my TV tries to do with these old systems).

[Christuserloeser]

Modern LCDs have their issues with 1080i anyway. I heard it's a format used for older CRT based HDTVs that could do 540p/1080i.

Anyway, sounds like you found the perfect solution for your problems ! - I'd love to have a screenshot of 1. Genesis directly hooked up via Composite AV, and 2. Genesis in 480p via DVR's HDMI.

[kool kitty89]

I just noticed our little 15" SD Phillips LCD filters out some RF noise, the lines and static are far less visible in the Genesis's RF output compared to our Sanyo SD CRT.
Also, I'm almost positive it specifically supports 240p as there is a distinct difference in the appearance of 480i vs 240p, specifically I compared the split screen mode in Sonic 2 and noticed a small amount of flicker along the lines (almost like real interlacing would have, not really bothersome, but noticable), with the main game not showing any such flicker and looking fine. (the main difference between a real CRT SDTV being the lack of gaps between scanlines)

[tomaitheous]

I just noticed our little 15" SD Phillips LCD filters out some RF noise, the lines and static are far less visible in the Genesis's RF output compared to our Sanyo SD CRT.
Also, I'm almost positive it specifically supports 240p as there is a distinct difference in the appearance of 480i vs 240p, specifically I compared the split screen mode in Sonic 2 and noticed a small amount of flicker along the lines (almost like real interlacing would have, not really bothersome, but noticable), with the main game not showing any such flicker and looking fine. (the main difference between a real CRT SDTV being the lack of gaps between scanlines)

A quick test to see if it supports 240p60 is to look for any 60hz cycling/blinking. Maybe a shadow of a character at its feet in a fighting game, etc.

[Kollision]

Why not just get a separate CRT unit for retro games instead? It can still be compact enough to fit in your gaming room, yet sly enough to pull-off a cool looking retro TV stand with all your retro game consoles on the side of your HDTV. ;)

Holy shit, you just described my game setting!!!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3245/3942128319_4283ec0e4f.jpg

[17daysolderthannes]

Holy shit, you just described my game setting!!!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3245/3942128319_4283ec0e4f.jpg

vents...blocked...


...suffocating hardware...

...disc drive...failing...fast....aarrrgggghhhh!

[Christuserloeser]

moved to http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8627