CRT TV Discussion

[tjsynkral]

As a confirmation, have you ordered PAL or NTSC SCART cables? As you're in Australia and are using a European set, you'll want to confirm you ordered PAL ones. This is more of an issue for folks in North America with NTSC, though, as we don't have SCART connectors on consumer television sets, so SCART cables are considerably rarer.

The cables are the same, but the signal being carried over the cable is different.
Regardless, I highly recommend a custom cable with coax wire from eBay retro_console_accessories, and I think there's a UK custom SCART cable shop out there as well. The official cables and knockoffs have severe problems with noise in the picture and audio.

If you can get your hands on an RGB monitor, I highly recommend getting one for retro gaming (240p and possibly 480i) along with the appropriate BNC and SCART adapters. The sharp picture, beautiful colors, and excellent contrast will make you wonder why most consumer CRTs were abysmal in quality.

I beg to differ. Composite video is abysmal in quality, but when you modify any SD CRT for RGB, the picture is fantastic. Here's some pictures of my modified Sony Trinitron, but the pictures don't do it justice compared to seeing it in person.
http://gadgetscope.com/rgb/img1621a.jpg
http://gadgetscope.com/rgb/img1654a.jpg

I've even modified a junk Zenith (rebadged Daewoo) set that only supported RF to have RGB SCART, and even that dinky little thing has a crisp, vibrant picture with RGB. This TV wasn't even just free, but I had to take it to get that Sony because the guy wanted to get rid of them both. Turns out it's a fantastic set when modified. Again, the pictures don't do justice to how it looks in real life, photographing a CRT is difficult.
http://gadgetscope.com/rgb/zenith1.jpg
http://gadgetscope.com/rgb/zenith2.jpg

Of course, anybody in Europe or somewhere else in the world that native RGB SCART is common can enjoy the same thing without modification. But beware - I have heard that there are TVs with a SCART port which do not support RGB. Those can probably be modified too

[Cat]

Ah, I thought the cables were different because I had heard that certain ones don't work (well).

I wouldn't trust myself anywhere near the insides of a CRT to mod them. Good to know that any set can be modded to accept RGB. I have a feeling that's going to be a service that some folks offer in the future.

[JakeHC]

Ah, I thought the cables were different because I had heard that certain ones don't work (well).

I wouldn't trust myself anywhere near the insides of a CRT to mod them. Good to know that any set can be modded to accept RGB. I have a feeling that's going to be a service that some folks offer in the future.

Just to further from your previous post. I just ordered a whole bunch from eBay. Most if not all from memory said for PAL systems. If they don't work I think I only spend around 5 bucks each. Hopefully I'll have the time over the next few days to clean up and take some photos

[JakeHC]

Heads up!

So some decent cables arrived. Got an SCART cable for PS1, S-Video for SNES/N64.

Here's an SCART shot for the PS1 on the new CRT!



And I've softmodded my Wii to emulate some SNES games. Here's a shot of the S-Video on CRT vs the Emulation on the LCD Tv using Composite cables.

S-Video



Composite on HDTV

[Cat]

The dull, muddy shot looks better. 

[tjsynkral]

And I've softmodded my Wii to emulate some SNES games. Here's a shot of the S-Video on CRT vs the Emulation on the LCD Tv using Composite cables.

If your CRT supports component, you should hook the Wii up that way (and set to 480i). Then set video to 240p mode in the emulator/VC. That will give you the best picture.
If your CRT doesn't have component, s-video is good too, still do the 240p mode on the Wii.

Depending on the model of SNES you have, you may find that the Wii SNES emulation produces a better image than RGB-out on the SNES. The older S-ENC models produce video in component internally* and convert to RGB with a chip which introduces some filtering and makes the picture blurry. The S-RGB models produce excellent RGB, although the SNES Jr requires a modification for that.

* (these SNES models produce an excellent image if you mod them to output component, though.)