I need to buy a flat tv and of course the ones I'm interested in have no SCART input. I totally need SCART for my French NES, and my SNES, MS, MD, Saturn, PS1 etc.. So I was checking le Google and there are boxes which convert the RGB SCART signal to either HDMI or component. The problems are 1. those things need a power adaptor - no way! 2. thos things cost over 100usd - no way again! Does anyone have a suggestion or a better idea? I know I should find a tv with scart but those are getting rarer every new day. Cheers
Go for a TV with scart. Even if its used. I can't agree with scart getting rarer as its very much so standard now.
That's right. In Europe most LCD tvs still come with 1 SCART (2 is rare, 0 is starting to get common - scary), but in Asia they don't. Hence the topic, like "what to do if your tv has no scart".
You can't convert a SCART signal to a digital/HD signal without power. That's just the reality of the situation. The boxes that do the conversion should cost at least $100, because the hardware inside them is complicated and costly - anything less and it'll have terrible image quality. Again, these are just the hard facts of the matter. Even if you do find a digital TV that has a SCART socket, chances are it'll do a shit job of upscaling it to HD resolution as it'll be set up to make DVD players look good rather than an old videogame consoles. Whether this bothers you is another matter.
Sounds like next time I will decide where to stay based on SCART-availability... haha. Thanks for the explanation. I guess it's either the box thingie or a proper tv with scart. Hmpf... silly.
I'll give the same advice I always do: stick with a CRT for older games if you've got the space. It's the cheapest way of using older consoles, and it's unquestionably the best choice in terms of image fidelity. Even if you're in a non-SCART area of the world you should be able to find an old RGB-enabled broadcast monitor for less than the price of a decent upscaler.
Totally possible here in the US at least if you live within driving distance of a metropolitan area that has major TV broadcasting capabilities. You can even find SCART on a few if you're really patient and look for a while.
90% of flat lcd and plasmas sold here have 2 scarts... check well on the boxes and look behind the screens if you can. i actually have yet to see a LCD without scarts here in sale ... and i'm talking about modern 1080p tvs
http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220698773448&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT These are available for around $80 posted and do give a good picture, on some HDTVs it seems to give a better picture from plugging the RGB scart output into it then you get from RGB scart directly. The quality from older machines is also very good. Re : French NES, although it does have an RGB output it is encoded from the Composite video output, so converting the signal to Component will probably make the picture look no better then if you plugged the Composite video directly into the TV...
Does the TV you're interested in have a VGA input? If so, you could consider a SCART to VGA Scaler such as this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/RGB-CGA-EGA-YUV...356?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c17e9e74c combined with this mod: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOeC5PdbkBM (There are precise details somewhere, but essentially it's wiring up that header to some pins on a SCART plug).
Yes, the tvs I'm after are just missing s-video and scart (how funny, the most useful for old consoles). No space for a CRT unfortunately, so I'll go for a box someday soon, I really can't play with composite, looks really crappy. It's funny how they push consumers to get hdmi hardware, you don't really have the choice if they get rid of the older sockets. Any other comment or info will be greatly appreciated, thanks to all!
