Pc engine on par technically with snes / genesis ?

[SignOfZeta]

One thing that always chapped my ass (until the Duo came along, anyway) was the  fact that it was necessary to buy extra equipment if you wanted stereo sound and simple composite video.  That was just plain stupid of NEC or Hudson or whoever decided that would be a fantastic idea.  Also stupid was the fact that they limited themselves to composite unless you hack open the console.  The Sega Master System even had RGB which can easily be converted into S-video or component.  I wish they would have at least had a real RGB jack.  I was so happy when I modded mine for RGB.  Finally that flickering hair at the end of the Ys opening scene no longer flickers at all!  The scrolling is no longer fuzzy in Legendary Axe and every other game.  Fantasy Zone no longer causes epileptic fits due to the flickering sky.  You know you've got some bad composite when it's flickering and it looks like it's supposed to be flickering.

Somebody should go back in time and fix these issues.  C'mon, the Genesis and SNES had composite and RGB out of the box.

Again? This isn't the first time I've seen people fault console output choices from ages ago. The PCE is from 1987. What kind of inputs did you have on your TV in 1987? In 1987 my TV still had a 13 channel rotory changer on it!

In 1987 S-Video was just starting to come into use, but it was exclusive to VCRs that cost $1000+. I have a top of the line Pioneer professional LD player from 1988, and it doesn't have s-video on it. Why should it be on a kid's toy?

Composite was more common, but still nowhere near as common as RF, which was the only input for %99.999 of the TVs on the planet at that time.

RGB was exclusive to TVs in Japan, and parts of Europe (where the PCE wasn't really availible), and still it was missing from most of the budget sets. RGB is nice because it can be converted to component, but component wasn't invented for another *decade*.

Either way NEC obviously thought that RF out only was a bad idea, and so they changed it to composite rather early on. Only the TG-16, and white PCE are RF only, both were upgradable, and all the other variants that came after had composite.

Additionally, I don't get flickering hair in the Y's intro while using composite. You need to buy a TV with a better comb filter.

[FM-77]

You can only see the flickering if you have a TV with a really sharp and nice picture.

[SignOfZeta]

You can only see the flickering if you have a TV with a really sharp and nice picture.

So...a 36" Wega isn't good enough? I've seen the flicker before, but only on my older, crapier sets.

[FM-77]

So...a 36" Wega isn't good enough? I've seen the flicker before, but only on my older, crapier sets.

I have no idea. I have only seen the flicker once (in Ys IV). I RGB modded my system right after that.

[Keranu]

SignofZeta's post about TVs in 1987 was something I was meaning to post ab out as well. Back when I was a kid, I used to always use RF for my video games since it was the most common output I had to use. Eventually I would normally use AVs, but that wasn't until later. So I think if you asked someone back in 1987-1990 about TG16/PCE not having composite out built in, they wouldn't really care, unless they were some super technical nerd .

[FM-77]

Same thing as people complaining about the Wii not having HDTV-support.

Really, composite was definitely NOT hi-tech in 1987. It is over fifty years old just as coaxial (rf) is.

Also, children/old folks tend to use rf and stuff because they don't know about other options. Just saying.

[Keranu]

Exactly, so the PCE and TG16 being RF only back in 1987 and 1989 wasn't a big deal at all .

[Joe Redifer]

At least with an A/V or Turbo Booster you had Stereo ready to go, instead of having to line it through an earphone jack.

I know, what's up with that?  If you use the AV cable, you only get the right channel, not even a mono mixdown of both channels!  Furthermore the headphone jack on the MD1/Genesis1 is the ONLY way to get stereo out of the system.  Hook up a Sega CD and you get some nice RCA jacks BUT you still need to run a wire from the headphone jack into the Sega CD (which is really stupid being as how they could have routed sound through the connection.  Power, too.  No need for 15 different AC Adaptors).  Or you can get all of the Sega CD and Genesis audio straight out of the headphone jack as long as you don't hook anything into the mixing jack of the Sega CD, but no matter what, the headphone jack must be used.

What kind of inputs did you have on your TV in 1987?

RF and composite.  That's how I hooked my Sega Master System up (composite).  I didn't have an NES at the time, but when friends would bring theirs over, we'd hook it up with composite.  Also whenever I'd take my SMS over to my dad's house or wherever, I'd hook it up in composite as well.  Everyone had composite.  Composite rocked our world.  I wasn't saying the Turbo/PCE should have had S-video built right in to the console, but composite would have been nice.  A booster that provided s-video would have kicked so much ass I probably would have done several back handsprings when buying it.

As for the flickering, I have had a bunch of really nice Sony TVs myself and currently own one of the best Sony CRTs ever made.  The flickering is there.  It's in the signal output by the graphics chip.  If the TV is "combing" it out, then it is altering the signal.  The TV cannot add detail that is not there.  My animated GIF of the flickering is not TV dependent.  And it went through a very high end ($500) Sony capture device.  Anyway you may notice that the PCE's composite signal looks a tad sharper than the Genesis/MD's composite signal.  I think the flickering is a trade off.  The Genesis didn't have fuzzy scrolling or video flickering caused by the composite cable, but it looked noticeably softer despite the usually-higher resolution used on their games.  Genesis composite did have thse awful vertical bars of color, though.  Those are present in the PCE/Turbo signal as well, though to a much lesser extent.

Moral of the story:  Composite sucks.  

[FM-77]

Slightly heated discussion. I like.  

[Joe Redifer]

This really isn't that heated.  It's "spirited".  It is fun.    I really do like this thread because lots of smart people bring up great points on all sides.

[esteban]

As folks have said, RF input / output was exceedingly common for televsion sets in the U.S. I don't know how the consumer electronics market was for Seldane in Esteria, but here in the States the main selling point for televisions was the screen size (25" was friggin' awesome) and features (picture in picture, baby!).

Joe was lucky to have composite readily available on his own (and all his friends') television sets in 1987. Growing up in a working class area, it would be at least five more years until RCA jacks (A/V) was in widespread use by my relatives and friends (and these are folks who bought newer televsions, lots of folks just kept their old TV's until they died, like my family did).

[Keranu]

Steve, tell them about the old black and white TV you used to have to use for years .

[FM-77]

I played my games on an ancient (well, 70's) TV with no SCART/AV or anything. I connected all the video game systems via the VCR. That is, until the TV died and I got a new one with SCART (but without RGB support, cheap stuff).

My current (third, actually) TV has AV, S-video, SCART, RGB and all that stuff. No HD support, of course. I don't want to mess up my precious games with that kinda stuff.

[nodtveidt]

I have no idea what would cause such weird flicker in that part of Ys. I've played that game on five different televisions and never noticed anything like that, and rarely do such details escape me (as a lifelong game programmer, I have an unnatural eye for detail that will notice things even a pixel off...such a problem would not go unnoticed by me).

[Joe Redifer]

The flicker is actually much faster than the GIF I posted shows.  It is as fast as interlace flicker, or 1/60th of a second per "flick".

I would like to see some of your TVs with that screen and no flicker, but I can't think of any way for anyone to reliably prove that it does or doesn't flicker in that spot other that to see it with our own eyes.  Maybe it doesn't flicker there in PAL lands.