Help getting best picture from Multiple consoles to CRT

[Ziggy]

*bangs head on desk*

Stop. Just stop. Any component to RGB converter is always going to be better than S-video, and this is also coming with someone with extensive personal experience with them. I only stopped using it because I moved up to a pure RGB setup with a PVM. Once you go RGB, you'll never want to go back to S-video or anything else.

I like how your saying definitively that I'm wrong, but you're also basing this off of nothing more than your own experiences. What A/B test have you done to draw your conclusion that YPbPr is always gonna be better than S-Video? I ask because it's impossible to tell if you have to switch back and forth with one TV. The time it takes to switch, it's just impossible to fairly compare back and forth. So unless you have two identical TVs, calibrated exactly the same, with two identical consoles, and comparable cables between the two, you can't do a proper A/B test. You just can't.

Results will vary, of course, and this is why I was careful NOT to state anything as 100% fact like you did. I know that there might be TVs out there that, for whatever reason, will display it's YPbPr inputs noticeably better than S-Video. But let's assume that your TV doesn't suck, and that you're not using poor quality S-Video cables but decent RGB cables (which many people do), and that the S-Video output from the console is decent (especially if you had to modify the console for S-Video) you're likely to find very little difference between S-Video and YPbPr, if any at all. If you see a HUGE difference, you'd have to rule some things out before you made the assumption that YPbPr always looks better than S-Video. Quality of the video output from the console, quality of the cables, checked on multiple displays, and proper A/B test.

Also, you have to do it with no bias. You're clearly biased. I was too, believe me. I didn't come to suggest such a thing all willy nilly. I did a lot of testing, with a lot of different hardware, on different TVs. I don't know why you assume you have more "extensive personal experience with them" than I do. Although I never did a proper A/B test as I described above.

There's also technical data, that I don't even pretend to fully understand, which backs me up: http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=124838#p124838

Unfortunately, that thread got derailed and locked before the conversation could carry on, but...

I agree that YPbPr isn't a noticeable improvement over S-Video at 240p or 480i. Other than support on certain TVs that lack S-Video inputs, all YPbPr buys you are 480p, 720p, and 1080i video (which the Super NES doesn't support anyway) and more chroma bandwidth. S-Video's 3.58 MHz QAM chroma carrier has enough theoretical bandwidth for about 370 chroma samples per scanline. Normally, the Super NES outputs 280 chroma samples per scanline (256 picture and 24 border), and S-Video is just as good as component. Even DVD uses only 352 chroma samples per scanline. In hi-res background mode, there are 560 samples, which exceeds S-Video's theoretical chroma bandwidth, but developers of games that use hi-res mode expect chroma to smear anyway.

Look, I'm NOT saying that YPbPr isn't better than S-Video. I'm just saying it's not worth it for retro consoles on a CRT. If there is a difference, it's gonna be so minimal that it's not worth the money. If the difference is huge, then I question if something else wasn't the problem, or if the person making the claim actually bothered to properly A/B test it.

Let's face it, we're all biased toward YPbPr. Look anywhere on the internet or ask anyone, they'll tell you that YPbPr is better than S-Video. And while it is actually superior to S-Video, that doesn't automatically mean better video quality in every situation, and that's what most people don't know.

I'm not looking to debate this any further, I've said all I can. The OP is free to do whatever he wants. I just wanted to offer up my suggestion because I WISH someone told me all this before I wasted a lot of time and money.

[theclaw]

Let's not forget component doesn't use NTSC or PAL color.
More likely to work on foreign TVs, for users who travel.

Anyway, since I brought up their existence earlier...
What pre-made commercial RGB to s-video boxes are readily available?

[chuckster]

Let's not forget component doesn't use NTSC or PAL color.
More likely to work on foreign TVs, for users who travel.

Anyway, since I brought up their existence earlier...
What pre-made commercial RGB to s-video boxes are readily available?

I would also be very interested in this. I don't feel comfortable soldering on my old Model 2, but I would like to hear abou any option to output S-Vid for under $50 or so.

[Anapan]

Google search has 2 that are kinda expensive (over $50), and plans for a few cheap D-I-Y breadboard type solutions.

J-Rock is fairly well-known for having researched and reported a lot of modding solutions and I trust his good advice on the many forums he frequents. This board has been revised a few times and I'm pretty sure it's the best solution:
http://www.jrok.com/hardware/RGB.html
It doesn't have SCART-in, but even a SCART cable cut with scisors, and the correct wires bared and twisted into Marette's would make it work well. It seems to be designed to deal with some non-standard signals as could be expected from old arcade boards. Very interesting!

I've heard good things about JS-Technology, and their product comes in a box, so there's no need to make an adapter.
http://www.js-technology.com/store/prod ... product=17

The DIY boards might be hard to find chips for (as reported by one schematic author), and are guaranteed to be more complicated that opening your console IMO. tho they'd cost a fraction if you searched out the parts.

I'd like to have that J-rock one in the cupboard as it'd easily come in handy on some projects. I've put it on my shopping list.

[alienjesus]

Modding the Genesis for S-Video seems like a really dumb idea when it outputs RGB natively. Even if you don't bother with chasing RGB on all your consoles, you might aswell for the ones that can do it without any modifications.

[Anapan]

http://www.videogameperfection.com/
http://retrorgb.com/

Having owned some Trinitron Wega TVs (Still have one), I can say that they're more forgiving than the two X-RGB scalers I owned (Now it's a mini). no mater which display tho, I've *always* had problems with getting sync to maintain a picture through SCART RGB without replacing cables and hours of testing. It's a real headache. No matter which SCART cables I buy with which capacitors and resistors in them, on a full screen near-white picture from certain consoles, stuff screws up. I still can't get my PS1 to send a stable bright picture through SCART without running it through a "SCART to component" transcoder into my XRGB scaler (that's Seven(!) PS1/2 SCART cables I've bought - the latest was "Sync on Lumina" and it still glitches).
I can easily say that RGB is better than S-video. On a huge flat-screen it's very noticeable. The thing is there's a crazy amount of money I've spent in hardware to hook everything up trying to make it all work and it still doesn't work perfectly.
My old setup was under $200, and with a 36" screen, the difference between transcoded RGB and S-video wasn't all that noticeable (I'm OCD on this kinda stuff and having tried everything it's not a bad 240P picture using S-video with WEGA's 3D comb filtering and all).
On my WEGA setup, I had a Cypress CSY-2100 modded with audio breakout, a HAMA SCART selector and a "Philips PH61150.
The Philips switch and the CSY-2100 were key in getting everything as good as possible, but the one cable that was always important and what I startd with before any of that stuff - a cheap Intec G5295 multi-consle cable. I does RCA audio video, and S-Video for 3 consoles at once (Nintendo(s), Playstation(s), and X-box).
All that stuff except the SCART transcoder was bought for really cheap at liquidation stores. It can all still be purchased for the same prices online if you search.

S-video is not best, but on less than 40" CRT, especially a WEGA, the picture is pretty damn good.

That being said, I'd never downgrade RGB. The SCART to Component transcoder that was listed on Amazon may work (?) but any cheap chinese knockoff of that Cypress one I linked earlier will not work nearly as well as the original.