This little beauty came through the post today so I thought I'd give you guys a close up look at it. As you can see, the main unit looks pretty much the same as a standard original shaped Saturn with a few extra lables on it. A closer look however shows that the Hi-Saturn is based on the very first Saturn models. Take a look at the LEDs. The Power and Access both have two LEDs each. These were changed to one LED in later Saturns then completely removed from the newer round button model. The Karaoke box sits under the Hi-Saturn and provides the system with basic karaoke functions such as voice or for some odd reason, music cut. There are independant volume controls for both mics as well as a echo control. The unit connects to the Saturn via a 2-way mini din plug that goes from the Saturn AV out in to the karaoke box. The power is fed from the Saturn. The picture reaches the TV via the AV out on the karaoke box. The pad is a sleek black one in the design of the Japanese controller of course The boot screen is different than the normal saturn and V-Saturn (which is the same as a normal Saturn bar the logo says V-Saturn). It starts with two polygon generated Hi-Saturn logos zooming towards you. One then spins back until it's straight then followed by a flash which presents the Hi-Saturn splash screen. The actual bios looks just like a normal Japanese Saturn. I'll be adding much better and more shots of the boot sequence to my site this week. The Video CD section is very good indeed. The quality is very nice. I was surprised at how clean it looks. There are also many cool features such as slow motion (4 stages), Strobe (4 stages), Flash (pretty crap) and Inteval which lets you capture different screens and displaythem at once. The image shown in the bottom right of the screen plays the original video while all the others are captured images. You can set it to auto (4 stages) or manual which I feel is far better. The Zoom feature works in real time allowing you to zoom and pan anywhere you'd like. I'm not too sure if all the Saturn Video CD cards can preform the same tricks. I read that the Hitachi version has the best picture quality as well as features. Not too sure how true this is though. Yakumo
Yep, that's right. The classic Monkey. One of the only Video CD series I have but what a classic it it :smt045 Yakumo
Unless I'm mistaken the Hitachi VCD card is the same as the first-gen JVC card, making it the least capable card of the bunch. Both V1 and V2 suffer sync issues with some VCDs. All the cards have the same features. The pad is the same as the Navi, as is the intro.
The first generation cards suffered from lack of PhotoCD support, and only supporting NTSC movies IIRC. Still, you can easily just switch it out for a later JVC TwinOperator RG-VC2 or 3, the finest Saturn Mpeg cards IMO. Anyway, killer Saturn man. I saw a site near me selling the Karaoke unit for 100 GBP... I assume the controls are really no use unless you have karaoke software?
yeah, I think you need some sort of karaoke disc. The controlls did nothing really apart from alter the trebble :-( Didn't bother getting my mic out though since it's in the Dreamkara box. Yakumo
The Karaoke device works with any music CD. All Saturns have voice reduction in the CD player menu, so you can sing to your faves. Obviously since this karaoke box has only an AV input and output - no other communication with the system takes place - it can't require special software to function. It's just a mixer.
Yakumo, damn you and your good fortune!!! :-D Ah well. I'm still waiting on my chance to get a navi+screen
The Master System sure didnt. Though a friend of a nephew's grandma's neighbour has the Sega AI karaoke addon, really. </extremely crap post>
