nesdev.org

As of last week, my home is no longer the last household on planet earth to have an SD CRT TV as its primary television set. Last Friday, my 21" CRT Samsung was replaced by a 32" Samsung Smart TV. I was patiently waiting for the old TV to break before spending money on a new one, but it's been years and the thing wouldn't go, so what the hell. Anyway, today I managed to test some of my consoles on the new TV, not expecting much. To my surprise, the picture was actually very steady, colorful and overall pretty, even through RF. There's much less interference than on the CRT. I also didn't perceive any significant input lag. The only real problem is that the signals are interpreted as 480i as opposed to 240p. This is easily noticeable when sprites are supposed to flicker, because instead of flickering they become translucent with scanline gaps.

I'm still contemplating keeping the CRT and moving it to the bedroom (even though my place isn't very big), so that would be where I'd do a lot of my retro gaming, but either way I'd still like my consoles to look decent in my living room. I know upscalers are the answer, but everyone on the internet is recommending devices that cost US$400 and up, and I certainly can't afford something like that, specially considering import taxes and such.

So, is there a cheaper upscaler that is known to solve the 480i/240p issue? I don't care that it's not perfect, that it doesn't take all sorts of different inputs (I've never seen a SCART cable in my life) and that the pixels don't show up like crispy blocks (hell, I really like the NTSC artifacts!), I just want my sprites to flicker properly. I don't want anything too cheap that will work inconsistently or break after a few uses, it has to be something reliable.

Does anyone know of something like this? Thanks.

This one for example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Etekcity-Compos ... 20e8083c69

The price is very reasonable and it looks simple enough. The question is: is it total crap? The worst outcome I can think of is if the product is very cheaply built and doesn't work consistently, or if it doesn't handle 240p signals properly.

I have found that some (not all!) HDTVs understand 240p when it is received through component. A simple chroma decoder to convert the signal directly to component would work very well in this situation, and be less of a gamble than an upscaler that may not support 240p at all.

Unfortunately, my TV shows a small on-screen display every time the component signal switches between 240p and 480i, which would be rather distracting during some N64 games. I need an upscaler that not only understands 240p, but is capable of seamlessly switching between 240p and 480i. I really don't want to buy one if I can't try it first.

Make sure you turn off all of the shit features the TV has first and foremost! Edge finding, "dynamic contrast", extra sharpness, etc...

Joe wrote:I have found that some (not all!) HDTVs understand 240p when it is received through component. A simple chroma decoder to convert the signal directly to component would work very well in this situation

Hum... and where would I find a "simple chroma decoder"? Searching online for "composite to component converter" doesn't bring devices any cheaper than composite to HDMI ones.

and be less of a gamble than an upscaler that may not support 240p at all.

But doesn't the "not all!" warning above means I'm also gambling if I go the chroma decoder route? I'd rather not depend on my television at all, because I know I'll eventually replace it, and when that happens it would be better to know that I'm able to generate a proper HDMI signal that any TV will take.

I need an upscaler that not only understands 240p, but is capable of seamlessly switching between 240p and 480i. I really don't want to buy one if I can't try it first.

I'm asking around precisely because I don't want to gamble. I can't possibly spend more than the TV itself on a solution for playing retro consoles. Maybe someone around here has experimented with cheaper upscalers that will do the job without any fancy features.

mikejmoffitt wrote:Make sure you turn off all of the shit features the TV has first and foremost! Edge finding, "dynamic contrast", extra sharpness, etc...

I just noticed that my TV has a "Game Mode", which is supposed to reduce input lag. I assume this will skip all the unnecessary processing so that the image can be delivered faster. I'll check later tonight if this setting affects the analog inputs and whether that helps at all.

I'm also very interested in this. I'd love to be able to play NES games at 60hz rather than 30hz interlaced.

tokumaru wrote:Hum... and where would I find a "simple chroma decoder"? Searching online for "composite to component converter" doesn't bring devices any cheaper than composite to HDMI ones.

No, but searching for "NTSC chroma decoder" returns some nice datasheets and schematics. There's probably someone here who would be willing to build one, if you'd be willing to buy it. (I'm interested, but I don't have money so I haven't bothered asking.)

tokumaru wrote:But doesn't the "not all!" warning above means I'm also gambling if I go the chroma decoder route?

It's not a gamble - you can test this by putting the yellow wire in the green socket. (If your TV has those combined component/composite inputs, you might have to plug another wire in the blue or red socket to activate the "component" mode.)

Joe wrote:No, but searching for "NTSC chroma decoder" returns some nice datasheets and schematics.

Ah, I see... this is something we have to build. I can do some basic socket and mapper work, as well as simple video/audio mods, but I wouldn't trust myself with anything more complex. And there's also the fact that many of my consoles output PAL-M video, and I doubt these schematics we can find online will account for that. Composite to HDMI converters can apparently take anything.

There's probably someone here who would be willing to build one, if you'd be willing to buy it.

Not so interested in that either.

It's not a gamble - you can test this by putting the yellow wire in the green socket.

Ah, cool. I didn't know you could test it like this.

(If your TV has those combined component/composite inputs, you might have to plug another wire in the blue or red socket to activate the "component" mode.)

My TV does indeed use the same jack for composite and Y. What should I plug in the other inputs to trigger the component mode?

Try plugging in a blank patch cable not attached to anything.

tokumaru wrote:And there's also the fact that many of my consoles output PAL-M video, and I doubt these schematics we can find online will account for that.

Many of the suggested decoder ICs are multistandard, although the schematics don't always include the parts necessary for PAL-M. Try searching for "PAL chroma decoder" or "multistandard chroma decoder" to get more results.

tokumaru wrote:What should I plug in the other inputs to trigger the component mode?

As Tepples suggests, a cable with nothing connected on the other end will work.

Finally tested some things:

GAME MODE - It didn't help much. The interlacing is slightly less noticeable on flickering sprites, but it's definitely still there. There's something really weird about this mode... everything that moves is very blurry and shaky, but after a few frames in the same spot, the pixels become really crisp, almost as if this wasn't a composite signal. The constant changing between blurry and crispy is very distracting though, so game mode is mostly crap when it comes to retro consoles.

COMPONENT - connecting a cable to one of the chroma inputs worked, and the video finally appears to be 60Hz. No noticeable interlacing anywhere, although it's a bit hard to see with all those patterns messing up the image.

Joe wrote:Many of the suggested decoder ICs are multistandard, although the schematics don't always include the parts necessary for PAL-M. Try searching for "PAL chroma decoder" or "multistandard chroma decoder" to get more results.

I'll take a look into this, but it still sounds a bit too advanced for me. I can follow simple schematics, but whenever they assume you'll have to do some "tweaking" to achieve better results I get completely lost.

tokumaru wrote:GAME MODE - It didn't help much. The interlacing is slightly less noticeable on flickering sprites, but it's definitely still there. There's something really weird about this mode... everything that moves is very blurry and shaky, but after a few frames in the same spot, the pixels become really crisp, almost as if this wasn't a composite signal. The constant changing between blurry and crispy is very distracting though, so game mode is mostly crap when it comes to retro consoles.

Welcome to LCD TVs. The screen is extremely horrible, so TVs have lots of weird filters to attempt to hide those issues. The problem is that those filters introduce lag (which as you can imagine is a problem with games), so TVs have a "game mode" that disables those filters in favor of reducing the lag to the minimum possible. As you can imagine it's expected to look much worse than usual.

PC monitors usually feature better quality LCD screens so you don't see those issues on computers.

But then PC monitors tend to lack SD inputs at all. Some of those filters are needed to hide the limits of SD inputs. I've noticed that when I run a PC's VGA out to my Vizio LCD TV's VGA in, I don't get near as much lag or filter artifacting.

In addition, PC monitors are sized for one person on a desk, not two to four people in a living room, so they're a bit harder to use with offline multiplayer games. Good luck with your Four Score. On the other hand, 1080p monitors for desktop PCs are already as tall as the 48 cm (19 inch)-diagonal 4:3 CRT SDTVs that used to be common as secondary bedroom TVs.

I do in fact use a computer monitor, connected to a VCR/DVD combo, Nintendo Wii U, and Video Game Jockey. The VCR has lag, although Video Game Jockey allows connecting composite video and S-video to a VGA port.

This computer monitor does have a 4:3 and 16:9 selection mode, although it seems that "4:3" is really the "set by program" option found on some TV sets; the picture will still be 16:9 if the input is.

I don't know whether or not Video Game Jockey works with NES/Famicom.

I also don't know how easy it would be to wire a Famicom Titler to VGA, and how well that would work.

zzo38 wrote:I also don't know how easy it would be to wire a Famicom Titler to VGA, and how well that would work.

Depends entirely on the monitor. Mine (acer g215h) does correctly parse 720x240@60 and 720x288@50 RGBHV inputs, but doesn't deal with composite sync (as the 2C03 generates), so I'd have to build something for that.