Old consoles (av and sv) on HDTV, can be fixed?

[Arthur-Otaku]

As we know, all consoles without component signal (and some with this signal like ps2) looks bad on hdtvs with 720p native resolution. My question is, there's any acessory in this world that can solve this problem? My hdtv have vga output, it can help with any acessory ? (I know that cheap vga boxes sucks too)

I already seen some plasma EDTVs (480p native) that handles well old consoles, image looks very similar to crt tvs, but these plasmas are old and suffers with ghost and burn in problems, so they sucks too

I'am really tired of crt tvs, I'm searching for an way to eliminate it from my game room and have only one installed tv here, that's all

Thank you

[Leo_A]

There are devices that will upscale the image for you, I can't think of what they're called, but you'll find lots of useful information by browsing the forums at www.avsforums.com

And some tv's already have good scalers in them, they're not all created equal when it comes to displaying 480i and under content. Some can do a decent job out of the box on everything, while others will do a poor job of upscaling anything and will always look bad with anything beyond the native res of the tv.

As for what you want to do, I don't get it. I haven't played on a LCD yet that doesn't blur, even if its ever so slightly, on slow moving games like Super Mario Brothers (Let alone something that is moving around quickly and switching directions with something like Ecco the Dolphin), though blurring isn't very noticeable with 3d stuff. And you'll introduce the likelyhood of input lag with the scalers where what your seeing is a split second behind what's actually happening in the game, throwing off your timing.

Your just going to hurt your experience for everything before the Sega Dreamcast (Which will look good on a hdtv if it has a VGA input and you buy a Dreamcast VGA cable, with most of the good Dreamcast games supporting progressive scan). Most Playstation 2 titles will look bad since most couldn't even do 480p(Some are also known not to play on some hdtv models through component, such as Ico, because the tv isn't prepared to accept the low, below 480i resolution through the component input).

And you'll have black bars unless you really could care less how your games look and stretch it to fill a 16:9 television, something that some people don't mind and prefer over having the black bars, but something I don't understand since you will be distorting the entire image.

And it will never look as good as playing on a 480i CRT television. Unless its a Xbox, GameCube (If it has the component port and you have the rare component cable), Sega Dreamcast, or a current generation console, you'll be negatively affecting your experience in your quest to rid yourself of a superior type of television. Its too bad CRT technology is so heavy and bulky, because it gives the superior image easily. But it loses a lot of practicality when it comes to larger screen sizes and widescreen support, even though hd CRT's are superior to other HD sets when it comes to visuals.

[Arthur-Otaku]

There are devices that will upscale the image for you, I can't think of what they're called, but you'll find lots of useful information by browsing the forums at www.avsforums.com

And some tv's already have good scalers in them, they're not all created equal when it comes to displaying 480i and under content. Some can do a decent job out of the box on everything, while others will do a poor job of upscaling anything and will always look bad with anything beyond the native res of the tv.

As for what you want to do, I don't get it. I haven't played on a LCD yet that doesn't blur, even if its ever so slightly, on slow moving games like Super Mario Brothers (Let alone something that is moving around quickly and switching directions with something like Ecco the Dolphin), though blurring isn't very noticeable with 3d stuff. And you'll introduce the likelyhood of input lag with the scalers where what your seeing is a split second behind what's actually happening in the game, throwing off your timing.

Your just going to hurt your experience for everything before the Sega Dreamcast (Which will look good on a hdtv if it has a VGA input and you buy a Dreamcast VGA cable, with most of the good Dreamcast games supporting progressive scan). Most Playstation 2 titles will look bad since most couldn't even do 480p(Some are also known not to play on some hdtv models through component, such as Ico, because the tv isn't prepared to accept the low, below 480i resolution through the component input).

And you'll have black bars unless you really could care less how your games look and stretch it to fill a 16:9 television, something that some people don't mind and prefer over having the black bars, but something I don't understand since you will be distorting the entire image.

And it will never look as good as playing on a 480i CRT television. Unless its a Xbox, GameCube (If it has the component port and you have the rare component cable), Sega Dreamcast, or a current generation console, you'll be negatively affecting your experience in your quest to rid yourself of a superior type of television. Its too bad CRT technology is so heavy and bulky, because it gives the superior image easily. But it loses a lot of practicality when it comes to larger screen sizes and widescreen support, even though hd CRT's are superior to other HD sets when it comes to visuals.

I don't know why but dreamcast with vga box looks bad in my 32'' hdtv lcd, also looks bad in my 19'' lcd pc monitor and some games doesn't runs with vga signal. Remembering that DC have many good 2d titles and they will look bad in any lcd screen so I stay with my crt tv that will runs all dc games well

Excluding blur effects, can I have the same image of my crt tv on my lcd tv using any of these scalers or image will never look with same quality of crt tvs?

[Greg2600]

I think you're kind of stuck, because upconverters or upscalers or whatever they are called, are very expensive on their own. They are several hundred dollars, which is so weird because DVD's with HD Upconvert are only $70. Many of the reviews on these expensive HD Scalers are fairly negative as well. Moving images, and cable box signals don't do so well.

There is also something like this http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...rter_Scan.html, which converts Analog video to VGA, and is not too expensive, but not many HDTV's do not have VGA input, only HDMI. So then you have to convert the VGA to HDMI or DVI or something.

Unfortunately, I think the only perfect upconverters are professional video processors, selling for several thousand dollars.

[mailman187666]

I also have a crt HD and my old games look bad also, I have all my old stuff set up to an old tv and use everything PS2 and up on the HD. I know you want to just use one tv but it almost seems it would be more expensive to do than it is really worth. At least for the PS2, you could get a 60gig PS3 that upscales older PS1+2 games. Thats basically what I do for PS2 and it looks great on the crt.

[Leo_A]

I don't know why but dreamcast with vga box looks bad in my 32'' hdtv lcd, also looks bad in my 19'' lcd pc monitor and some games doesn't runs with vga signal. Remembering that DC have many good 2d titles and they will look bad in any lcd screen so I stay with my crt tv that will runs all dc games well

Excluding blur effects, can I have the same image of my crt tv on my lcd tv using any of these scalers or image will never look with same quality of crt tvs?

Its your screens, they apparantly don't like 480p signals and/or signals through the VGA input. LCD monitors are basically designed to support one resolution well, since most content on a PC can be ran in a specific resolution, so the manufacturer didn't worry about how 480p content would look on it. Your HDTV has a higher native resolution than 480p and isn't scaling the content very well, or just doesn't handle the VGA input very well (Possible, especially if you don't notice issues with 480p content though the component ports).

If the screen isn't natively 480p, its going to have to do some upscaling and can suffer from problems just like 480i and under material can have on HD sets, though its usually not as bad since the scaler doesn't have to deinterlace the signal, saving the scaling chip one less task to do and one less area it can mess up your image if its a cheap chip.

I also have a crt HD and my old games look bad also, I have all my old stuff set up to an old tv and use everything PS2 and up on the HD. I know you want to just use one tv but it almost seems it would be more expensive to do than it is really worth. At least for the PS2, you could get a 60gig PS3 that upscales older PS1+2 games. Thats basically what I do for PS2 and it looks great on the crt.

HD CRT's still have a native resolution just like any other hd screen, but they're usually better at handling differing resolutions than its native resolution when compared to other screen types. It still comes down to the scaler the manufacturer put in, if they wanted to save a dollar or two, a CRT can look just as bad with low resolution content as the cheapest LCD monitor on the market.

[Trebuken]

It used to be the answer in threads like this was simple. Get an XRGB2, which is a converter that will do the job; but they are too difficult to find and expensive.

Some swear by their CRT HDTV's but they aren't created equal. I have a good one that works well with everything except the N64 which just never looks good to me.

Personally I enjoy my newest set a 50" Sony DLP. I haven't tried the oldest consoles on it yet but the 16-bit generation and later looks fantastic. I have an older SLP from Toshiba that does not handle older game consoles well but is amazing with the the current gen consoles.

I do not think there is a way to get everything great. There will always be a couple consoles that don't cut it that you will have to live with...

[MeTmKnice]

Most DLP and rear-proj TV's I have seen play most classic gaming equipent well. Of course you are not going to get anywhere near high-def graphics from a NES, or a SNES for that matter. But will playing something liek that on a larger TV you are gonna have to weigh whether you can deal with that or not. Hell, even playing the original SMB on a non-HD rear projection was horrible graphic-wise in the fact that you could see the pixels. So, either get used to it or figure something out.

[icbrkr]

I think it depends also on the brand of LCD/DLP you get - the scaler in both of my Sony's are excellent and I haven't had any ugliness when playing older consoles. I had a picture online at one point with me playing a 2600 and a Coleco Pong until on my 52" and it looked beautiful.

[Soviet Conscript]

i have a samsung HD CRT and it handles everything pretty well. though for ny snes and nes things can look somewhat pixelated and certain backgrounds (like anything checkered) blur and do odd things then your moving

strangly enough all my oldest systems look really good on it, from atari to coleco and intellivision (thats with an a/v mod. the tv has the worst time getting anything through RF).

[GaijinPunch]

As we know, all consoles without component signal (and some with this signal like ps2) looks bad on hdtvs with 720p native resolution. My question is, there's any acessory in this world that can solve this problem?

Doesn't have to do with the signal. True, there is far more signal loss on AV and S-Video compared to component, but even with no signal loss, these games will look like ass on an HDTV.

The problem is the games are almost always output at 240p @ 15khz. Your TV does not support this natively, so it upscales (line doubles) and make it looke like a blocky turd. DC and PS2 games are often displayed at 480i @ 15khz. These look somewhat better (still awful) on an HDTV, and unforgivably fuzzy on a 15khz RGB monitor. Basically, everyone loses with these games, and the only way around it is to buy the PCB in the case that it's an arcade port. Remember though, if you're playing games that run at 480i through the XRGB2, the fake scanlines option not only won't work, but might give you a seizure.

Your best option, is an XRGB2 (Japanese product, will run $200-$250 boxed and shipped) for your old games. It will upscale image (better than your TV, mind you) and has an option for fake scanlines, which will give it that 15khz feel.

[RadiantSvgun]

I really haven't had any problems with my LCD HDTV with my older consoles. Sure, the NES stuff looks strange, and when they move, I can see a trail following them, but as far as like lag, I haven't noticed any. The only lag I noticed is when I try playing the original Guitar hero.

[Arthur-Otaku]

I have some conclusive questions about xrgb2:

1 - It will give me the same image quality of crt tv on old games?

2 - I will need to use scart cables in all of my consoles? NCSX says that if you use av or s-video cables on xrgb2 will not give any image difference

3 - Now, the question from hell, n64 will look good?

[Soviet Conscript]

I have some conclusive questions about xrgb2:

2 - I will need to use scart cables in all of my consoles? NCSX says that if you use av or s-video cables on xrgb2 will not give any image difference

no, japanese 21 pin rgb cables which happen to look exactlly like SCART cables and are harder to find.

[acem77]

I have some conclusive questions about xrgb2:

1 - It will give me the same image quality of crt tv on old games?

2 - I will need to use scart cables in all of my consoles? NCSX says that if you use av or s-video cables on xrgb2 will not give any image difference

3 - Now, the question from hell, n64 will look good?

search for some of my rgb mod post, you find a few pics of classic systems on a hd tv with a xrgb2 plus.
i love the look. nice and sharp, just like playing it on a emulator.
n64 it kind of ugly cus of it being so low rez.
i think the wii with vc n64 title is a good option since its emulator renders it at a higher rez.

cool did the update and all works great still.
downloaded waverace 64 it looks nice and sharp.
much better than on the orignal hardware now it in 480p



N64 rgb 320 x 240p(xrgb2 plus used)


Wii upscaled component 640 x 480p

[exit]

There is also something like this http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...rter_Scan.html, which converts Analog video to VGA, and is not too expensive, but not many HDTV's do not have VGA input, only HDMI. So then you have to convert the VGA to HDMI or DVI or something.

The AVT3300 looks like it could be pretty decent, but I'm unable to find any reviews for it, so I may have to blindly pick it up and hope for the best.

[Arthur-Otaku]

search for some of my rgb mod post, you find a few pics of classic systems on a hd tv with a xrgb2 plus.
i love the look. nice and sharp, just like playing it on a emulator.
n64 it kind of ugly cus of it being so low rez.
i think the wii with vc n64 title is a good option since its emulator renders it at a higher rez.

cool did the update and all works great still.
downloaded waverace 64 it looks nice and sharp.
much better than on the orignal hardware now it in 480p



N64 rgb 320 x 240p(xrgb2 plus used)


Wii upscaled component 640 x 480p

Can I use all old consoles with rgb cable directly on xrgb2 or I will need to mod some consoles?

Can I use these rgb cables (md, sms, sfc...) sold on ebay?

I didn't found rgb cable for famicom 2, it exist?

[Trebuken]

I think the XRGB requires the use of Japanese SCART(RGB) cables. They have to be Japanese.... Something like that...

There is another option that could work that I have not played with in a long time. You could use a PC with a video capture/tuner card and then output it from the PC to the TV. You can use a program like powerstrip to adjust many of the settings.

[acem77]

Can I use all old consoles with rgb cable directly on xrgb2 or I will need to mod some consoles?

Can I use these rgb cables (md, sms, sfc...) sold on ebay?

I didn't found rgb cable for famicom 2, it exist?

short answer no.
you have to be willing to solder or pay someone willing to do it.

[Iron Draggon]

SHEESH, I think I'll just keep playing all my games on my 35" Toshiba CRTV, and just say to hell with HDTV... who the hell needs it, if it's gonna cause all those issues with all my games? I never cared for watching TV anyway!