My new baby!...but what AN RF SWITCH GTFO!

I need to go easier on you We disagree politically but it's not about that here. It's all about the games.

anyways thanks for finding that I need to search around a bit more too.

Turns out my Dreamcast S-Video cables are shit too the Innovations cables are SHIT! 2nd set of cables where the white audio cable has to be in just a paticular way.

So I guess I need a VGA box and use the S-Video out on that then?

 

Ha! I'm glad to hear that.

Does Racketboy still sell VGA boxes for the Dreamcast? I got mine there, and it's quite acceptable. It looks awesome on my old CRT monitor.

http://www.racketboy.com/store/

I see both the VGA box for Dreamcast and the Saturn S-Video cable available here.

My stuff from here works good still, so maybe this could be useful for you.

 

Way ahead of you man

 

Well bringing them from Europe must have been expensive. I wish I had a 27" or 32" RGB monitor. The ones that are relatively easy to get here are 19"/20". All I was saying is its often stated that it's impossible to get RGB in the US. That's not true. It's not as easy as it should be but if you want it you can get it.

 

I HATE whoever came up with component and S-Video right now. what should take me a few minutes to switch a few wires around is now taking me a few hours to switch everything around becuase of the bulk of component cables.

If I lived in a country with RGB/SCART/Terminal inputs I'd be done by now.

 

Well, if we're talking about PVM's, you need to keep in mind that $200 (which is probably a bit high) includes shipping, and the shipping is the majority of what you pay for if you buy a PVM. The things weigh a friggin ton. You can save ~$100 if you can find one locally, which isn't too hard to do. You can save even more money if you don't mind the screen being a bit small. I got a 13" PVM for $30 with no shipping because the seller was a mere 30 minute drive from my college.

You also get what you pay for. PVM's are of much higher quality than most CRT TV's you'll find in the US, or anywhere really. Of course you'll need to buy or make a SCART to BNC adapter, but that's not too hard if you can solder. It takes some work and effort, but it's fucking worth the effort. To people who really care about this shit, the relatively small amount of effort is worth it for the endless enjoyment it brings.

I'm counting on the fact that most people don't give a shit about audio or video quality, so only people who are really interested/obsessed with this kind of stuff will bother.

As I've said before, the newer (late 90's, early 00's) models are far better than the older ones.

 

I'd love one of those large ass boradcast monitors. But alas I live in the buttfuck middle of nowhere.

Still, My TV for what it is, is amazing, I just wish everything was D terminal, it would make my life so much easier.

 

Would you get very close results with S-Video and VGA, or are they completely noticeable in difference? Thinking of getting an S-Video for my Dreamcast and Saturn.

 

Dreamcast looks great in S-Video. S-Video is a type of Component, results vary by TV though.

The Reason for all my complaining is I rearranged my set up today and I was Fighting wires for a good 2 hours all component cables (for non Sega hardware)

Hence why I just want 1 connection cables like D Terminal and SCART.

 

Do you have a TV with D-terminal inputs?

S-Video is better than composite but still nowhere near as good as RGB. If S-video is the best option available to you, then go for it. There's definitely a noticeable difference between S-video and RGB, though.

VGA is theoretically better than RGB (VGA is actually a type of RGB called RGBHV, whereas the type used in SCART is called RGBS), but it's highly dependent on the screen on which it's displayed. Most modern TV's use crap scalers that make SD VGA images look awful. However, if you plug a Dreamcast into a good CRT PC monitor, it'll look amazing. In any case, you'll still get much better results on an LCD with VGA than with composite or even S-Video.

 

Thanks for the advice, just that VGA Boxes are expensive for the Dreamcast, and if S-Video shows great enough or near to quality then might as well get S-Video.

 

S-Video looks like shit but when it is the best you can do you have to stick with it. IMO just man up and play with RF - yeah it's not perfect but atleast you can start playing now rather than later. RF got me through the 8 and 16 bit eras with no problem - many saturn games look like shit anyway so you should be fine, at least for the time being.

Also given that a cable upgrade is a pretty obvious thing to go for on any new system purchase, is the saturn purchase worthy of a whole new thread when it could have joined other posts in the post every time you buy or trade something thread? I doubt it.

 

Racket Boy has them for $25 (VGA boxes) and you can run S-Video from them.

Yeah see...the problem is...it's an HDTV....

 

HDTV should have RF input...?

Also, why buy a VGA box, then run Svideo from it? just buy a svideo cable

 

Dreamcast Stock S-Video cables are complete shit. I've bought two both have the same issue the white sound input shits out if it's in the wrong way.

The other Dreamcast S-Video cable is not wired properly and doesn't give a proper S-Video signal.

So If I get a VGA Box I can run regular cables from plus if I wanted to upgrade to a VGA-Component upscaler or VGA-HDMI in the future I can do so.

 

I doubt the VGA box does anything to the svideo signal...

Why would the box process anything when the signals are already directly available on the AV connector?

Its likely just broken out, nothing more.

Also, VGA isnt even "processed" its directly out of the console and just routed to the VGA port. The boxes are not complex and dont really do much.

edit:

Here you go:
http://www.gamesx.com/grafx/dricas.gif

Directly connected to the AV port.

 

I think you missed my point. the 2 S-Video Cables for Dreamcast are shit. So the only way to get decent S-Video is to run regular S-Video cables through the VGA box.

The sound problems through the S-Video cables are across the board for both my dreamcasts.

 

Its a cable with some wire in it, there isnt much that can be wrong with them.

I dont think you are going to see much improvement.

Why cant you just use VGA? do TV's over there not come with a VGA port? all the HDTV's I have had VGA on them.

 

Defective manufacturing.

My CRT doesn't have a VGA in

 

Believe me that alot of us wish North American TVs had gone with the Euro SCART RGB connector. It's retarded to use Composite Video as a standard when all these machines are capable of RGB. And its dumb when you have a TV that is converting to RGB in the end, to not have a direct RGB input.

Ofcourse I still think a professional grade CRT is going to be better than any consumer grade. Even if consumer TVs had RGB input, it'd still be worth it to get a CRT that uses Trinitron technology or some other high quality tube.