PC Engine RGB on an HDTV (North American - NTSC set) - How to?

[ProfessorProfessorson]

How does a PC Engine look on an HDTV anyway in S-Video or Composite? Does it look as crappy as everyone says it does? Or is that just because people forget how it looks like on a normal TV? I assume people don't like the picture because it gets upscaled and usually looks jagged? Personally I like that, as it appears sharp looking (Though I dunno how TVs upscale the image).

Granted, not every LCD employs a gamemode or supports s-video, but this is basically the picture quality on my Toshiba 26inch LCD when using Svideo on Snes (PCE on my LCD enjoys the same quality):









Results are basically going to vary from LCD to LCD, and you will need to calibrate your Tv's settings.

[Frank_fjs]

I find that Samsung TV's are generally the worst when it comes to retro gaming, LG's aren't the best either. Toshiba and Panasonic are great, I imagine Sony probably is too but don't know first hand.

I took these photos (with a crappy camera and the images have been scaled down, so keep that in mind) to illustrate the difference that a SCART to Component encoder can make. It's of a Master System console connected to a Panasonic plasma TV via component.

Below is the image via component:



For reference, here's the exact same setup via composite:



As you can see, the picture quality is drastically improved via component, with a nice sharp image plus brighter colours with no bleeding.

Still, nothing beats RGB on a CRT:

[thesteve]

id love to RE one of these transcoders

[Digi.k]

if you have an older tv system and you are playing older game systems..  TV's here in europe with the 21 pin scart is for win..it IS sharper than S-video and there is no tv option to alter the sharpness for scart.   Composite cables that plug into a scart plug or s-video connection into scart etc will not give you the same image results like the real thing.

Here in the UK we rarely used composite and instead used RF to play our games back on the atari 2600, intellivision, colecovision, NES, sega master system days and early sega genesis, SNES days..

If you only have composite I can only advise that you reduce the sharpness to reduce some of the mesh effects..

I think there is still a retro store in london that still does scart conversions but you will also need to purchase a scart booster from them to brighten the colours of the pce..  



some old pictures of my sega saturn hooked up to my old LCD tv via RGB scart

[thesteve]

no one in the states gets to see the mesh, as our TV's wont go that sharp in composite.
S-Vid eliminates the mesh, allowing for solid sharpness, and eliminating most inherent color bleed.
component eliminated all color bleed (about 10% better than S-Vid, if that)

[RegalSin]

My television set, using composite. Even the RF is extremly clear.
Composite is the standard, and depending on your television, you can have good and bad composite, along with RF display. When I look at the pixel on screen I do not see a shadow, or glow. You have to look really close to notice the difference. This is part of the bleed of televisions, and was one of the features that allowed small images, to display clearly. My television does have scalelines.
You don't notice them unless you get really close.


I have two other televisions, around the place, and one jerks in composite mode, and another has a sorta blurr ( that set also feature RGB ), the other one is also kinda blurry.
I am guessing the composite is sorta blurry because of the RGB built inside of it.

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