I am a newbie on this forum, I hope this is the correct place to post. I am slowly building a retro gaming cabinet in my office, all centred around a relatively old wall-mounted Sony Bravia KDL-40S5500. Compared to the setups from users on here, it is technically quite modest, just my beloved old PAL consoles, using RGB SCART where possible and hooked up to a couple of SCART switchers, a Wii on component leads (for virtualconsole games) and a laptop connected via HDMI running MAME and C64/Amiga emulators. The point is that this is my gaming TV, I can't add more displays or move some consoles elsewhere. I recently bought a Hanzo from Yossi (Beharbros.com) and was most excited to get my Dreamcast running at top quality with scanlines. Unfortunately my TV can't understand the signal. This is the relevant part of the manual: I have tried the Hanzo on a higher-specced Bravia and it works great, so I don't have a faulty unit. So, I'm in the position where I have a Hanzo but on its own, it is unfortunately of no practical use to me. [I'd like to make it clear I'm not blaming Yossi for this though!] So, I'm looking for some advice on some cost-effective options on how I can get the Hanzo to work well with my TV. Yossi has suggested I need an upscaler, or swap the Hanzo for a Toro and use an XRGB mini. The XRGB mini looks like a fantastic bit of kit but I sadly can't justify that kind of expense. I'm a bit out of my depth with upscalers, hence me asking for advice on here. I've read numerous posts that warn against using cheap VGA to HDMI converters but everything else I've seen recommended on here seems to be expensive. specialist kit? I'd even consider changing the TV for a larger model at some point (I've probably got room for a 50" screen) as that would benefit everybody that uses the room. But it would still need to be a 1080p wall-mounted screen with two SCARTs, multiple HDMIs, low lag and, I guess, a VGA socket that will play nicely with the Hanzo. It's this last part that is difficult to research... Is there any little gizmo that you can recommend that will convert the Hanzo VGA to upscaled HDMI that will look good on an HDTV and won't break the bank? For games that don't support VGA on the Dreamcast I could probably live with swapping the Hanzo out with my SCART - I've read enough to understand that the 15kHz RGB signal from the Hanzo isn't likely to be usable with any HDTVs. Any advice appreciated, thanks.
You can use this, it's what I use since my TV doesn't do VGA anymore :-( most modern tvs have stopped supporting vga. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221462605982 the above device works great with the hanzo, it powers the device also so the USB cable is not needed. & the be honest it looks great.
Your best bet (if you can find one) is a VGA to component transcoder. The Dreamcast outputs a rather odd 720x480 signal over VGA, and most TVs expect 640x480. By transcoding to component you keep the correct picture dimensions. Most VGA to HDMI converters do not. Of course, component supports 240p too, though you have probably seen 240p on a TV like that leaves a little to be desired. The one caveat of this plan is that component inputs on older TVs aren't always that great quality, but if you're already running things into the component input and find the quality to be acceptable then there shouldn't be a problem.
Many thanks for the advice, it is most appreciated. I am still a bit confused about converters / upscalers though. Is the device that Rocky5 links to a converter or an upscaler, as it's not clear to me from reading the description? If it's just a converter, does that mean I'd need to rely on my TV to handle the upscaling? I'm finding it difficult to work out which would be best for me. What about something like this? http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0085OWMMM?psc=1 - this appears to be an upscaler and allows the output to be either 720p or 1080p. Do you think that would be better? More confusion from me . Would I lose any quality by converting Dreamcast Hanzo VGA output to component as opposed to HDMI? I'm less keen on using component as I think this would mean I'd need to add a component input switch as well (my Wii uses the sole component inputs on my TV) - HDMI would seem to me to be more future-proof? However, your comment about the aspect-ratio being distorted is worrying. Rocky5, have you noticed this with your device? Cheers!
Why are you concerned about your TV doing the upscaling? If you let some converter box do it you'll just introduce more lag and at those kind of budget prices it won't do any better than your TV anyway. Component is very close to RGB, any quality loss will be super minimal, even a videophile snob like me can't see the difference, plus you are guaranteed to keep the Dreamcast's correct aspect ratio and don't squish the picture up. It's getting quite hard to find a VGA to Component transcoder at a reasonable price though
The device I linked you to doesnt upscale, it only converts the input to digital. Also to note, upscaling is done via your TV, so if your TV is 1080p native then the only time the TV wont scale an image to 1080p, is if the input video source is 1080p native. To be honest TVs now a days, upscale images extremely well & you will be hard pushed to notice any difference at a normal view distance (3 or 4 meters away) So your best bet is to let your TV do the scaling & also set your TV to PC mode (most tvs have this even if they dont have a VGA port) so the Dreamcast is displayed at 640x480 (if not using PC mode you will get 720x480, yet your TV will display the input as 640x480, but you will have the image cut off at the top & bottom) That device I linked you to works great with the Hanzo, the Hanzo powers the device & it look brilliant on my Samsung Smart TV (set to PC mode for that HDMI input)
Curious, that's what your TV does? I'd say that depends on the TV in question, I've never actually seen that happen though I've only tried 3 or 4 TVs. Pretty much all the TVs I've seen just squash the 720x480 image up into 640x480. 720 is the width after all, why would that result in the height being cut? Dreamcast is a difficult one to do absolutely perfectly it seems, unless you have a CRT or something like a DVDO Edge anyway.
Yeah, I was miffed to when it was happening I thought it was just VGA, but changed the input to PC Mode & it now fits perfectly. (could be the HDMI converter doing it, can't test because my TV has no VGA socket)
I've not tried personally but from what I've been told typically by going Dreamcast->VGA to HDMI converter->Display the TV interprets the resulting resolution as 640x480 again since VGA 720x480 is so rare. You can go Dreamcast->VGA to Component->Component to HDMI but that's a lot of cables and fuss.
Thanks for the replies everyone, apologies for the delayed response but as a new user my posts take around a day to be approved. The only reason I'm concerned is because of the "out of signal" errors I was getting via VGA. I don't understand the problem enough to know if I could get the same problem by converting to HDMI. Maybe it's a non-issue, but it seems to me that if the TV can't cope with the Hanzo VGA output, then it might not be able to cope with the same signal converted to HDMI? That's why I thought if the signal was upscaled by something separate to my TV, that would solve the problem. I'm a bit dismayed to learn that the picture could be displayed at the wrong aspect ratio due to the 720 x 480 DC output instead of the more normal VGA 640 x 480. I never realised hooking up a DC to an HDTV via VGA was so complicated! Yossi from beharbros has told me he is going to do some tests with the adapter Rocky5 linked to, once he can get one, which will hopefully help him advise other customers with the same problem as me. I guess the only sure-fire way of knowing if it will work satisfactorily on my TV is to order one though - my TV does not have a "PC Mode" for the HDMI inputs by the way .
Hi sheik, I had the exact same issue you have here with my TV - also a Sony... (and the Hanzo). 'PC Mode' only refers to the VGA input which seems to be incredibly strict. It is only looking for VGA 640 x 480 @ 60Hz. That seems to be the reason behind the 'out of signal range'. As mentioned above, the Dreamcast outputs 720 x 480 @58-9Hz. I would not expect to the same issue over component or HDMI. It just appears to be a fussy VGA port. That doesn't cover the aspect ratio issue, but at least that would be an issue with the transcoder, not the TV set. Best of luck - my Dreamcast is wired up over scart until I treat myself to a Framemeister... Neil
I had a similar issue with my AVR and capture device (Elgato). I go over two good solutions on my Hanzo review:
