Sega Saturn HDTV cable?

[Zilog Jones]

Here's a picture of the Mega CD running on it. Not pixelated at all.

Yeah, that's because the MD/Mega CD can only render 224 lines (usually 320x224), and IIRC 16 blank lines are added to the top and bottom (they're generally not visible on CRTs due to overscan) to form 240 lines, which are doubled to 480i. LCD displays do not have the capabilities to show interlaced video like a CRT can, so they internally de-interlace the video - this is usually a simple "bobbing" process, where each 240-line field is interpolated to 480-lines, and shown individually each 60th of a second - whereas an interlaced CRT system would refresh every other line only every 60th of a second (i.e. not the full screen) and because of the decay rates and stuff of the CRT it is quite seemless and only causes shimmering on thin horizontal lines. Depending on how good the LCD display is, it may use some sort of adaptive bobbing (so it only applies bobbing when needed, and not on 30p material, still pictures or video with very little motion) or even funky motion prediction/compensation.

*But*, because in this case the video resolution is only really 240 lines doubled, it's piss easy to de-interlace and doesn't cause any artefacts. If it was true 480 line resolution, there would be a lot of horizontal flickering/shimmering with high motion as the vertical resolution is technically halved. Crappy de-interlacers also only really show their crappyness with full 50/60Hz framerate stuff too - the majority of 3D games don't run that fast (especially Saturn/PS/N64 stuff) anyway. I tried playing Burnout 3 on the PS2 (which generally runs at 60fps) on an LCD projector (with a particularly crappy deinterlacer), and it just made the jaggies twice as bad! Newer LCD stuff (like Yakumo's) probably does a much better job at deinterlacing, but IMO it's still never as good as a proper CRT TV...

Do they have any CRT HDTV's in the UK that handle 15khz non-interlaced and 31khz progressive signals with SCART?

SCART can only take 15kHz SDTV resolutions, i.e. 480i or 576i. However, there's a lot of big PAL TVs/monitors that have RGB SCART inputs and VGA inputs - usually limited to 640x480 and/or 800x600. There's not really any CRT HDTVs though - there's that Samsung model I know about, and that's about it - I *assume* it can do interlaced video properly, but I've never seen it in real life.

[GaijinPunch]

While this may seem a disappointment on paper, the fact is that Model 3 didn't exactly have a massive advantage in its resolution over the Saturn (wasn't it 496x384?),

Aren't model 2 and 3 both 24khz (medium resolution) machines? That would put playing them on the arcade out of the Saturn's 15khz range. Also makes a "direct port" impossible (unless the Saturn could handle medium and high resolution signal). If anyone wants to see how a medium resolution game plays on a high or low res monitor, play Crack Down, Gain Ground, or any other System24 game through Mame. Unfortunately, it's the best that's going to happen through emulation I'm afraid. :(

The spec sheet at System16 has the following for the ST-V

Resolution : 320x224, 640x224, and 720x576 horizontal and 240, 448, and 480 vertical

I'm going to assume that the Saturn's is the same. But again, we fall into that "how many can be displayed" problem. Any image using 480 lines would be interlaced. Either way, it's technically not "high res".

Here's a little blurb on Ultimarc's page (they make the Arcade VGA card, which is a dream) about displaying medium res on other displays. Whether it would be replicated properly or not on the Saturn is one thing - it would most certainly not look nearly as good me thinks.

So what about games with resolutions of 301-480 lines? Well we do have a problem here with a 15Khz monitor as we cannot display them with either non-interlaced (not enough lines) or interlaced (top/bottom borders too wide). So for these few games (which originally used 25Khz medium-res monitors), we have to resort to hardware stretching, which re-samples the screen and adjusts the size. Fortunately H/W stretch and interlace degrade a high-res picture less than a low-res one.

[APE]

Not to turn everyone away from the new fun topic of resolutions, but is there an easy way to get component out of the Saturn? I know it requires a transcoder of some sort but I've not been able to find a good schematic for building one or one that wasnt $100 and intended for JAMMA use.

[the_steadster]

Not to turn everyone away from the new fun topic of resolutions, but is there an easy way to get component out of the Saturn? I know it requires a transcoder of some sort but I've not been able to find a good schematic for building one or one that wasnt $100 and intended for JAMMA use.

No. The best picture quality you can get from the saturn is RGB. Anything else will be converted from that, and every conversion=quality loss.

this is the sort of thing that would do the job, but bear in mind what i said above. Also note that i believe the price is in aussie dollars
http://www.hometheatre.net.au/cyu2100.htm
found that site through a simple google for "scart RGB to component converter"

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

Assuming a converter like that one you linked to is made with quality parts, RGB converted to component would still look better than s-video, so if you don't have RGB inputs on your TV it's the best option you have for your Saturn.

However, I don't think it would look *THAT* much better than s-video. Like I said before in this thread, the Saturn has a pretty good video encoder, so the s-video signal it produces really looks pretty good. I myself certainly wouldn't pay the $75 (or whatever $115AU is the these days) for that box if I could just as easily use s-video.


...word is bondage...

[karsten]

Assuming a converter like that one you linked to is made with quality parts, RGB converted to component would still look better than s-video, so if you don't have RGB inputs on your TV it's the best option you have for your Saturn.

However, I don't think it would look *THAT* much better than s-video. Like I said before in this thread, the Saturn has a pretty good video encoder, so the s-video signal it produces really looks pretty good. I myself certainly wouldn't pay the $75 (or whatever $115AU is the these days) for that box if I could just as easily use s-video.


...word is bondage...

Trust me... RGB really looks *THAT* better...

[Buffi]

Indeed, been using and RGB-scart cable for quiet some time and the difference between that and s-video is huge.

[Yakumo]

I don't have RGB optionm on my TV. Stupid Japanese TVs !! I use S-Video for all consoles. Either that or shitty component with its bleeding reds. Oh, the DC is through VGA sometimes though.

Yakumo

[wombat]

I don't have RGB optionm on my TV. Stupid Japanese TVs !! I use S-Video for all consoles. Either that or shitty component with its bleeding reds. Oh, the DC is through VGA sometimes though.

Yakumo

You probally mean Composite, since Component is one of the beste connections out there.

[Qjimbo]

Don't some Japanese TVs have that RGB-21 thing which is like SCART but with a totally different pinout?
I wish my TV tuner had RGB inputs :(

[Yakumo]

You probally mean Composite, since Component is one of the beste connections out there.

oh yes, that was it. Trust me to make a stupid mistake like that.

Older Japanese TVs had the 21 pin scart but since 2000 I don't think any TVs do. You can find official Japanese Saturn scart leads, official Nintendo scart leads for the SFC & N64 but anything after them systems didn't get one. Dreamcast. PS2, Game Cube, XBOX. None of them have official scart cables in Japan. Very sad they way they did away with the scart.

Yakumo

[Phinn]

oh yes, that was it. Trust me to make a stupid mistake like that.

Older Japanese TVs had the 21 pin scart but since 2000 I don't think any TVs do. You can find official Japanese Saturn scart leads, official Nintendo scart leads for the SFC & N64 but anything after them systems didn't get one. Dreamcast. PS2, Game Cube, XBOX. None of them have official scart cables in Japan. Very sad they way they did away with the scart.

Yakumo

Seems daft since RGB SCART are quite patently the superior connection. In that case, what do Japanese people use to hook up their VCR/DVD players and such? Just plain ol' composite leads?

[smf]

After it leaves the video encoder, it still drops to 480 i/p. Even if it were broadcasting in "Hi-Def" mode, tv's back then would only have displayed 480i.

The saturn just plain doesn't have enough ram to hold a true hi-def image.

Don't forget that the box is referring to HDTV standards from ten years ago. HDTV is one of those quasi standards like SVGA. AFAIK only Japan had HDTV back then, take a look at what standard they used. HDTV really just meant better than NTSC/PAL, of course as the technology has improved then people have tried to redefine what it means ( which is why we have WUXGA+ etc ). People refer to the XBOX as supporting HDTV, again using 480p.

Saturn, Dreamcast and PSX can all do 480p ( well some of the arcade PSX games can, I guess I need to hook my PSX up to a VGA monitor sometime ) but not all or even no games support it.

smf

[Yakumo]

Seems daft since RGB SCART are quite patently the superior connection. In that case, what do Japanese people use to hook up their VCR/DVD players and such? Just plain ol' composite leads?

yep ! You go to an electronics store and see high end HD recorders connected to high end flat screen TVs via composite cables ! I had to look everywhere for a switch box that had s-video on it. They mostly only use composite. Ever game system (bar 360) is connected to the TV via composite in game stores. Truly is sad.

Being from the UK I'm accustom to high quality TV broadcast images or at least I thought it was normal until I came to Japan. The TV broadcast image here is bloody awful !! Reds have that fuzzy crap around them just like when using composite cables on a games console. Is this just a problem with NTSC TV (so the US is like this) or is it just a shitty system that they use here? What ever the reason, compared to the UK the normal analogue broadcast quality here is poor.

Yakumo

[the_steadster]

yep ! You go to an electronics store and see high end HD recorders connected to high end flat screen TVs via composite cables ! I had to look everywhere for a switch box that had s-video on it. They mostly only use composite. Ever game system (bar 360) is connected to the TV via composite in game stores. Truly is sad.

Being from the UK I'm accustom to high quality TV broadcast images or at least I thought it was normal until I came to Japan. The TV broadcast image here is bloody awful !! Reds have that fuzzy crap around them just like when using composite cables on a games console. Is this just a problem with NTSC TV (so the US is like this) or is it just a shitty system that they use here? What ever the reason, compared to the UK the normal analogue broadcast quality here is poor.

Yakumo

Its a problem with NTSC - PAL is 10 years newer so they had more time to develop a better colour carrying system.
NTSC=Never twice the same colour

[GaijinPunch]

I don't have RGB optionm on my TV. Stupid Japanese TVs !!

You're in a better situation there than America. Buy a used Trinitron with an AV-Multi input. It is RGB. There's a site, RGB Hospice, that makes and sells converters from AV-Multi to Japanese 21-pin RGB (slightly different from Scart).

Dreamcast. PS2, Game Cube, XBOX. None of them have official scart cables in Japan. Very sad they way they did away with the scart.

PS2 has an AV-Multi cable which is RGB, and apparently SCPH-1050. They probably figured it was stupid to make a new video cable that would work the same on either the PS or PS2, a la Nintendo w/ the Gamecube cables. I'm sure Xbox and Nintendo figured since they have component and D-Video, the only people interested in RGB (outside of Europe) would be people that're playing older 2D games, on non-HDTV TVs. Neither of these machines has a video signal to accomodate those old games perfectly, so why bother w/ the cable? Just a theory.

The TV broadcast image here is bloody awful !!

AFAIK, NTSC-J has more vibrant colors than North American NTSC. Never read a comparison, but have heard a few things. I never really had a great CRT TV in America though, but did in Japan.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

Trust me... RGB really looks *THAT* better...

I've used RGB since the days of Commodore so I don't need to trust you, I know what RGB looks like for every console I've had that puts it out. In my opinion, to get RGB out of a Saturn would not be worth going to any great trouble over for people who don't already have a setup for RGB, certainly not worth spending $75 for (and remember we were talking about RGB converted to component anyway, not direct RGB, that converted signal would be of unkown quality since he'd be using an external converter...I think that would be a big waste of money).

On the Genesis, I would say it would be worth it because its non-RGB video output is low quality, but not on the Saturn. Maybe you disagree, maybe you're more hardcore than me, maybe you have more money to burn on crap like this.

Older Japanese TVs had the 21 pin scart but since 2000 I don't think any TVs do. You can find official Japanese Saturn scart leads, official Nintendo scart leads for the SFC & N64 but anything after them systems didn't get one. Dreamcast. PS2, Game Cube, XBOX. None of them have official scart cables in Japan. Very sad they way they did away with the scart.

You know, I bought some of those Japanese RGB cables for my Saturn and Genesis (Mega Drive 2) thinking that they would be able to plug directly into my XRGB-2 upscan converter, which has the same style of plug as European SCART, but with a different pin configuration that everyone calls "Japanese 21-pin RGB," but when I got the cables and tried them, they didn't work. I took them apart and they were wired for standard European SCART (luckily it's very easy to re-wire those 21-pin connectors, that's about the only thing that's good about them, otherwise it's a really shitty plug-type). These were very definitely Japanese cables as the boxes they came in were all in Japanese. Do you know if the 21-pin RGB cables formerly used in Japan were wired the same as SCART or if they were different ("Japanese 21-pin RGB")?

Saturn, Dreamcast and PSX can all do 480p ( well some of the arcade PSX games can, I guess I need to hook my PSX up to a VGA monitor sometime ) but not all or even no games support it.

Do you have a reliable and authoritative source saying that the Saturn and/or Playstation can output 480 line progressive images? Because I sorta doubt it.


...word is bondage...

[GaijinPunch]

Do you know if the 21-pin RGB cables formerly used in Japan were wired the same as SCART or if they were different ("Japanese 21-pin RGB")?

Japan does not use SCART. They use, as you stated, 21-pin RGB. AFAIK, it's only a couple of wires that have to be switched for it to work.

[Yakumo]

Do you know if the 21-pin RGB cables formerly used in Japan were wired the same as SCART or if they were different ("Japanese 21-pin RGB")?

As GaijinPunch said, they are slightly different than SCART but some UK TVs will work with them. About 9 or 10 years ago I had a Toshiba Surround Sound TV (Latest thing back then) which had two SCART connectors. My Japanese Official Saturn 21pin RGB cable would only work in one of the sockets while the other would only give sound.

Yakumo

[Phinn]

As GaijinPunch said, they are slightly different than SCART but some UK TVs will work with them. About 9 or 10 years ago I had a Toshiba Surround Sound TV (Latest thing back then) which had two SCART connectors. My Japanese Official Saturn 21pin RGB cable would only work in one of the sockets while the other would only give sound.

Yakumo

Interesting. Something to do with RGB vs. non-RGB SCART sockets you think? Or something else?