Sega Genesis Model 2: RGB or S-Video?

You'll be seriously lucky if you can find any Commodore monitors for that price anymore. The prices of these monitors are just going to keep getting higher and higher since they are great for old video games/computers and upscalers to modern HDTV's looks like crap when you try to play games on them. Maybe if you have a 720p HDTV they won't be as bad, but 1080p is horrible.

Anyways, if you can pick up one of those various monitors for $50, jump on it. I got 3 and probably will have them buried with me when I die. =)

 

RGB does take a lot of effort, but it's really worth it - if you care at all about image quality. Keep in mind that the Genesis already natively outputs RGB; you won't need to do any mods for that. However, you probably will need either a scaler for your TV, or a TV/monitor that takes RGB like a Sony PVM or - like people have already mentioned - an old computer monitor. High quality scalers like the Framemeister are pretty expensive, but there are also very cheap ones like the GBS 8220. The GBS 8220 doesn't have all of the nicer features of a scaler like the Framemeister, but it'll do the job, and it'll definitely look better than S-video.

 

All of my consoles play on my TV, none of them have any issues with showing on screen. The reason why I want to upgrade is because as you can figure out, Composite just doesn't look great in general with those rainbow vibrant mess. And I know it's not my TV, I know it's like this with most TV's, regardless if you're using a CRT SDTV or an HDTV. and I should know, I played some of these consoles on my friend's TVs when I visit their place and I think one looked even worse than on my TV.

The only system that failed to load up was an NES that my sister gave me, but considering that it's not in a great condition and none of the games boot up, it's the system.

 

I had no plans to get any of these monitors anyway, I don't think I have the room to put one in, I mean maybe I can make room for a small CRT SDTV, but that's it really. And since I'm not working at the moment, I don't have the budget to be spending so much money to get RGB considering what I need to get, and considering how these things are usually PAL-Exclusives, I might as well not bother then.

 

Nothing to do with composite or s-video. As I was saying, various HDTVs don't support 240p from component.

Precisely why RGB feels more expensive than it should. Otherwise we'd all just buy non-upscaling converters.

 

Right I got what you mean, I hear about some HDTV's not accepting 240p in general, I'm just lucky to have one that does judging by how every system I tested out with appeared just fine.

That's probably a good point..Exactly what would I need for RGB anyway? there seems to be alot of different types of methods for it.

 

No, tests on composite or s-video won't help. Those working is normal.
The most common way to encounter 240p component is a PS1 game on the PS2. Or try Wii by downloading a Neo Geo Virtual Console game.

Well low end SCART to HDMI boxes start around $50. I'm not too familiar with them.

 

Oh Yeah Neo Geo Games Definitely do not work with Component Cables, My friend brought his wii over and we tried playing Metal Slug via the Virtual Console Version (Not the Collection that was released on the Wii and PS2) and the TV was having issues showing the game, either it just appeared black, or the screen kept flickering and glitching up the display image for the game.

Though I hear that's due to a compatibility issue that they did not look around for the Neo Geo Games on the Virtual Console.

Ooh I see, do you have anything RGB-related?

 

Yeah it's that Nintendo didn't have Neo Geo games upscale to 480p.
The issue happening on 50hz games was more understandable. Wii doesn't officially allow 576p.

I've got an XRGB Mini. But can't use my SCART cables with its Japanese adapter.

 

I wasn't being pedantic. Literally every YPbPr ("component") input will accept 480i video, and "240p" video is 480i video with its timing altered to prevent interlacing. Even if the display has no concept of "240p" video, only 480i, it will still display "240p" in 99.99999% of all cases. There will just be an annoying shimmering because the display will attempt to deinterlace consecutive video frames as if they are interlaced fields.

 

You're talking to a non-technical user. After all if I draw a 240 vertical pixel image in lets say MS Paint, I'm seeing a 240p section of my LCD monitor approximately 60 times per second.

Besides what "99.99999%"? For CRT SDTVs perhaps, which by now are a minority of YPbPr input displays produced.
To be fair I've never witnessed direct 240p component on an HDTV. Neither my current or previous LCDs support it (and the previous one wasn't a real "HDTV" anyway due to no tuner for TV broadcasts). They just give an error message.

 

I don't understand the MS Paint analogy, a 240 line rectangle of screen space has nothing to do with the physical 240p signal. Assuming your resolution is 1080p the display is receiving pixels at a rate of 2200*1125*60 per second regardless of the video's content. A true digital 240p signal (which isn't standardized/doesn't exist) on the other hand would be 390*262*60 pixels per second assuming square pixels (real digital SD video has rectangular pixels instead of square like HD video, and real 240p video is analog so there are no pixels).

Analog 240p is almost identical to 480i in terms of the electrical signal, the only difference is that instead of sending out even lines, then odd lines, then even lines etc etc as one does for an interlaced signal it sends out only even lines, forever. For this reason all displays that understand 480i must at least in part understand 240p, because 240p is more or less one half of 480i's regular operation. I have never heard of a display giving an error message on 240p video. It's possible that your displays get confused when they never receive the odd lines and they decide to display an error message, but this seems really bizarre to me because 1) it's trivial to implement 2) 240p video games are really common 3) I've heard countless people saying retro games look horrible on their TVs but never that they flat-out don't work on them. Perhaps some TVs are particular and only reject 240p when it comes to the component inputs, but it just doesn't make any sense since there's no reason to impose that limitation.

 

I guess so. Might get used to it eventually. If I follow you right, it's on the surface one heck of a difference from 480p or above to take in.

Tell that to TV manufacturers. Quite common issue. Especially when you count 288p on PAL.
Let Google results speak for themselves: wii component "virtual console" "black screen"

 

Wow, gone to a technical talk are we? The OP appears to want to make a decision about S-Video and RGB but doesn't want to spend that much money or effort in getting either.

If you're in America or Japan, getting an S-Video mod kit is the best choice.
If you're in Europe, get an SCART cable.

If you have to play on a HDTV, in perfect video without breaking the bank, might as well get the S-Video kit and combine with a $50 upscaler.

The circuit isn't even that hard to make. On a circuit board solder the three pots in a ROW with the screw side facing out, so you can adjust the circuit after install. Install the two capacitors to Chroma and Composite by soldering them onto the board, the negative legs touching the middle pin of the pot.
For the last pot, you'll have to be careful with the transistor, because it's kinda fragile. With the label facing out, solder all three legs to the board. From the first leg from the left, bridge a piece of wire to the middle leg of the last pot.
For the grounds, take some wire and daisy chain the first leg from the left of each potentiometer.

The circuit should look something like this or much better than the sloppy thing I just drew in paint:


Now it's time to wire up your Sega Genesis for S-Video!
Find the CXA1145 video encoder on your Genesis 2, which is on the upper left side of your motherboard. You will need to solder to five points.


Please take out five pieces of wire, about the same length. Make sure it's long enough. Pre-tin one end of each wire so you can connect it to the board easier.

For the ground, pick the end of where you stopped daisy chaining the pots. Solder a wire to pin 1 or 24, and connect it to the daisy chained wire.

For the +5V, solder a wire to pin 12, and connect that to the third leg of the transistor.

Now it's time for the slightly tougher part, since you were dealing with the outer pins of the encoder chip. Solder to pin 15 for Chroma, pin 15 for Luma, and pin 20 for composite. Make sure you tape down these wires just in case to stop them from separating from the pins. Connect the chroma wire to the positive leg of a capacitor, do the same for composite. For Luma, you must connect the wire to the middle leg of the transistor.

Check your connections with a multimeter. You're almost done.

Some people can go buy an S-Video cable cut it up and solder some points directly to the circuit or you can go buy an S-video jack. Drill a hole big enough to fit your cable or jack. Wire up your points according to this on the solder side:

It's time to test the S-Video and composite (if you bothered to add it to this system) rather than using the regular video cables. Hook up to your tv, and with a screwdriver that fits the pots, turn each pot until you get a nice picture. On an LCD it's pretty hard and results will vary. On a CRT, there's very little room for error.

Somebody else can explain it better than me. Cheers.

 

RE how to test your display, I wrote something a few years back on some options if it helps. Otherwise s-video may be your best bet. RGB looks nicer, but s-video may be a compromise if your budget won't extend (RGB cables plus a good quality upscaler).

 

It isn't a real S-video driver, just a hack-job that will NEVER deliver the correct signal level to the TV, no matter how much you adjust. The only way it will work acceptably is if the TV is capable of compensating with an automatic gain control circuit, and in doing so you degrade the signal quality.

A real video amplifier like everyone's favorite THS7314 will do the job correctly and possibly cost less without the pots, and never need adjustment.

Y to 100 nF cap to THS in .... THS out to 75 ohms

C to 100 nF cap followed by 5.1M pull-up R to THS in .... THS out to 75 ohms

 

Really? I would like to see a pictoral guide for that, since everyone else touts the usual method with transistor and resistors (and those values vary wildly from 75 to 82 to 220 ohms). This THS7314 mod looks very interesting nonetheless.

 

It's not that I'm not willing to spend the money on RGB, I Just do not have the budget to be able to get all of the things necessary for me to have RGB, and considering that my TV may not be compatible with RGB due to the SCART thing being mostly for the PAL Regions, I might as well just use S-Video. I'm reading the rest of your post right now though about the S-Video thing. I might check out that little device from ebay you just posted, Thanks though!

 

Thanks for the link! The information you wrote helps pretty well! This is what I was worried about because I wouldn't want to waste so much money on these stuff for RGB, only to then find out that my TV isn't compatible with RGB.

Though I guess I could say that the Virtual Console games that I have played on my Wii, All of them seem to work with the Component Cables, including some of the SNES Titles and NES games I have downloaded on there...well okay I don't remember about the NES games, I need to check on those.

I know that the Neo Geo Games wouldn't work with Component Cables though I hear that that's just due to Nintendo not giving the Neo Geo Games Component Support.

 

Neo Geo games work with component cables. They merely do not upscale to 480p.