HiSaturn with better transparency effects??

I saw this auction on ebay.de a few days ago:

http://cgi.ebay.de/Hi-Saturn-Konsol...11QQihZ006QQcategoryZ3665QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Well the surprising thing about it is that the seller tells a lot about the technical differences between ordinary Saturns and the HiSaturn.

I roughly translated the three so called "special abilities of the HiSaturn" in comparison to SEGAs Saturns:

1. REAL transparency effects, works with ANY saturn-game! See pictures below.
2. Slightly higher resolution when connected to a TV with 16:9 Mode (anamorph)! See pictures below.
3. The Hitachi HiSaturn is the only Saturn I know which has a DIP40 Bios-EProm. Thats actually the reason why theres the possibility to change it with a EURO/US Bios-EProm

Moreover, he writes that the HiSaturn shows a stretched image when using it in 4:3 mode. He marked some areas which show the higher resolution on 16:9, "pressed", mode.

The pictures seem very impressive to me (who never owned a HiSaturn or V-Saturn). Is it true?

 

hmm yes this has me interested too

 

mmh i guess it's just a sale strategy

 

I'm no expert, but it seems highly unlikely that the HiSaturn could just "turn on" better transparency effects. Wouldn't the games have to be coded to take advantage of the newer hardware...

*edit*

I seem to remember that the HiSaturn has a VCD playback card preinstalled in it. This may be what is helping out in the trans department. If that's the case then you could just install the VCD playback card in any Saturn to achieve the same results.

 

Those pictures do look convincing.. I doubt a MPEG decoder has anything to do with transparency though... I would doubt this is possible, but they are good pictures =/

 

actually, can this saturn output S-video? If you plug in the yellow composite cable and the S video cable at the sametime you get what looks like the "normal" saturn pictures...i don't have a saturn to test this,b ut this is my experience from gamecube/dreamcast

 

as if.

The HiSaturn is a standard saturn besides the Hitachi box and/or the GPS modeule, get a grip guys.

 

Hard to tell. The technical docs for the Hi-Saturn and the Sega Saturn are identical in the areas that matter but the pictures tell a different story. A real mystery - Yakumo must come to our aid!

EDIT - I reckon he might have photoshop'ed the Hi-Saturn with the blur tool.

 

c'mon Jim, I know you're wiser in console technical info than to think that a hiSaturn would differ, you're an avatar to technicals everywhere! think for urself if SEGA would license different components to them

 

The is definately something different about those pictures, but I'll bet its more to do with what the image source is (display) than anything. The saturn used flickering sprites for transparency, some of those shots look like they were taken in a fraction of a second showing a frame of flicker rather than faux transparency. I also don't recall the bubbles in NiGHTS looking like lattice work.

 

Actually what you are saying is Hi-Nav or something like.
Hi-Saturn is just standard Saturn with Hitach logo like V-Saturn from Victor...

And if I'm not mistaken I believe Yakumo has Hi-Saturn.

 

Hi guys. I own a Hi Saturn as well as a standard Saturn. I'm calling Bull Shit here. You can make the Saturn's mesh effect look transparent by connecting the Saturn to a TV with composite cables. Connect with RGB or S-Video and you will see the mesh due to the sharper image. However, when using composite cables you also get a rainbow effect over the transparencies which his pictures don't show. I'm going to try this out tonight to see if the Hi-Saturn really does look better.

Oh, the Hi-Saturn's video playback is better quality than the JVC or Sega made cards however the JVC card also supports JPG photo CDs that the other two don't. I own two video CD cards, a JVC one in my Sega Saturn and a Hitachi one that came with the Hi-Saturn.

Yakumo

 

Like I said it's bull shit. It is true that on some Saturn games you can make the mesh look transparent via composite cables but it has a rainbow effect over it however this effect will only work when running a NTSC system on a PAL TV.

Both of these shots were taken on a Hitachi Hi-Saturn just like the German guys. NTSC system on a NTSC screen.

The S-Video (RGB) image is nice and sharp with vibrant colours plus you can clearly see that the ball is made of mesh.


Now the composite image is lower quality in sharpness as well as the colours looking more washed out but the ball does look a little more transparent however you can still tell it looks like mesh. You can tell this is a composite shot by all the fuzzy crap around the score in the top left hand corner.


So the Hi-Saturn can't do transparencies better than a normal Saturn. His images are well photoshopped.

Yakumo

 

as i stated "its a sale strategy"

 

Mark, S-video=RGB?

Also, do you own Hi-Navi Saturn? or the simple HiSaturn?

 

Well, it's RGB for us in Japan since they stopped using scart in about 1995 for some odd reason. All we have is shitty composite or S-Video although I have seen once a Japanese Saturn scart cable in Hard Off. I see SFC ones all the time. I always wondered why the Japanese did away with their ONLY RGB input years before anything better came along (D-1) It's not as if they found a better substitute for it.

Yakumo

 

S-video isn't RGB. S-video has two lines, luminance and chrominance, RGB has three (Red, Green and Blue, duh).

 

yeah, I know. I was being funny in saying it's the closest we have to RGB. That's the problem with the internet, no voice.

Yakumo

 

Ah, apologies. I should've given you the benefit of the doubt, to be honest.

 

Japan never used SCART. They used 21-pin RGB. Looks the same, different pin assign. Even that was in very, very narrow use. Anyways, do yourself a favor. Buy a CRT Sony Wega (w/ AV Multi), order some cables from Tokyo RGB Hospice, bask in RGB Goodness, punch yourself in the balls for not doing it earlier, thank me later. As a Brit, you should be well aware of what you're missing!!!

It's apparently a "noisy" cable. I bought one from RGB Hospice. Beautiful. He also makes a homemade Dreamast VGA-Adaptor/AV Multi connector. You can use it for either. Very, very handy.