video quality question

[goat]

I'm curious why my duo and core grafx have such nice video output (composite) and the colors look so solid/nice compared to my sega genesis (gen 2) composite. I don't think this is related to artwork quality or the fact the PC Engine can have more simultaneous colors...everything is just brighter/cleaner. Is there a hardware reason for this?

[Tatsujin]

i have no idea. may be your TV likes the PCE more than the Geni2

no seriously now. when you talking about the composite, you mean the AV-signal from the system and not a RGB mod? since the geni provides RGB innately.

almost every grafic cpu is providing a RGB signal which afterwards is converted to the corresponding video output signal (RF, AV, S-VHS etc.). so the difference may be lies in the way how the signal is converted into AV. different parts or circuits may be the result of different picture quality!

[Odonadon]

I'm curious why my duo and core grafx have such nice video output (composite) and the colors look so solid/nice compared to my sega genesis (gen 2) composite. I don't think this is related to artwork quality or the fact the PC Engine can have more simultaneous colors...everything is just brighter/cleaner. Is there a hardware reason for this?

I guess it depends what game you're playing, but PCE games on the whole are generally brighter and more colorful than it's Genesis counterparts - even thru emulation.

OD

[goat]

no seriously now. when you talking about the composite, you mean the AV-signal from the system and not a RGB mod? since the geni provides RGB innately.

I'm talking about the yellow composite video output of each system (no mod on either system), and I'm judging purely by looking at the TV. Colors look "duller" with the genesis and seem to bleed more.

I guess it depends what game you're playing, but PCE games on the whole are generally brighter and more colorful than it's Genesis counterparts - even thru emulation.

I just noticed in the Fusion genesis emulator whites are coming out at 232,228,232 and in magic engine 255,255,255....but lo and behold the Gens emulator has whites at 255,255,255. Something must be wrong with the Fusion emulator (I don't have any filtering enabled), or does genesis not have true white and Fusion's more accurate (that seems silly)

That would be funny if the available genesis colors are relatively muted and the issue isn't related to the video output of the console.

[Joe Redifer]

I have both systems (Genesis and TurboGrafx) displayed in RGB and the quality of the signal seems almost the same.  Actually the Genesis is a little better because the TG-16 video seems to have some faint vertical lines on some games, and is a little softer requiring a boost in sharpness on the display when compared to the Genesis/Neo Geo/Saturn/SNES/etc displayed in RGB.

However I know what you mean on the composite signal.  I imagine it is just the composite encoder.  The TG-16 uses a different chip to encode the composite and it has sharper results.  But notice that the TG-16 has fuzzy scrolling that shimmers in most games.  Hell many still (non-scrolling) TG-16 graphics shimmer when viewed in composite.  The video output over composite is almost exactly the same as the NES over composite, and I am betting that both systems use similar if not the exact same composite encoders.  The Genesis composite does not have fuzzy scrolling and does not shimmer, but it seems muted in comparison and has funky vertical rainbow bars.  So it's all a trade off.  You're gonna get crappy video when using composite, it's just a matter of which crap you prefer.  When in RGB, the shimmering goes away and the Genesis seems less muted (and gets rid of the vertical rainbow bars as well).

[FM-77]

it's just a matter of which crap you prefer.

He he he, very well put!  

By the way - what's this topic for? It says video quality question, but it isn't much of a question, considering you already said the video quality is different.  

[SignOfZeta]

His question is, "Is it just me, or is composite video variable in quality between systems (ie: the Genesis and the PC Engine) irrespective of the innate video capabilites of each system. The only confusing things, IMO, are the replies to his post.

The answer is, yes, the quality of composite output will vary between systems regardless of the system's innate video generation abilities like color, and resolution. The PCE has a pretty good composite, as does the SNES, and the Saturn. The Genesis not so much, but it varies from one version of that system to the next.  The same is true of the Neo Geo. The AES has the worst composite I've ever seen (the RF actually looks better), but the 2nd model Neo CD actually has really good composite.

I agree with Joe that probably many of these machines have the exact same encoders, but really there is more to it than that. Many things can effect the quality of the video other than what encoder chip they used. Things like, how isolated is the ground for this branch of the circuit, proximity of other possibly interference causing componets (audio amp, power supply, drives, fans, etc) quality of components like capacitors, and potentiometers, etc etc. I've seen some Laser Disc players (ie: Pioneer Elite series) with composite that is just *amazingly* clean. In the case of an LD player it might be aided by the fact that Laser Disk is a natively composite format so total format conversion took place as the disk was being made.

[malducci]

I just noticed in the Fusion genesis emulator whites are coming out at 232,228,232 and in magic engine 255,255,255....but lo and behold the Gens emulator has whites at 255,255,255. Something must be wrong with the Fusion emulator (I don't have any filtering enabled), or does genesis not have true white and Fusion's more accurate (that seems silly)

I know what you mean. It's actually the way the emulator handles the 9bit palette gamma shift to 24/32 RGB values. Take a snapshot using the emu's internal function and look at the color values - they should be in non shifted format. Uncorrected linear shift format will have whites in 224,224,224 range or 252,252,252 depending on based increment of 32 or 36 for RGB values.

 The Genesis composite and RF output is much fuzzier than the Duo or SNES. It also has some sort of color frequency anomaly - colored pixels appear slightly longer horizontally than less/non saturation pixles ( white/black/grey). It's looks like 4:1:1 color artifacting but on a lower res. Some games take advantage of this and use it as a poor mans transparency effect. Shinobi 3 the pipe level with the transparent water at the bottom and sonic 2 in the second level with the tubes. Ofcourse this effect is lost with RGB output of the system and on most emulators. Fusion's RF and CBVS settings come close.

[goat]

His question is, "Is it just me, or is composite video variable in quality between systems (ie: the Genesis and the PC Engine) irrespective of the innate video capabilites of each system.

Yes. Thanks for the nice paraphrase (and informative response).

The Genesis composite and RF output is much fuzzier than the Duo or SNES. It also has some sort of color frequency anomaly - colored pixels appear slightly longer horizontally than less/non saturation pixles ( white/black/grey). It's looks like 4:1:1 color artifacting but on a lower res. Some games take advantage of this and use it as a poor mans transparency effect.

I noticed this (the act of the genesis developer relying on the bad composite output to achieve effects) just the other day. Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion (?) has nice looking translucent jello pools on the toy soldier level. The same scene on an emulator (and I assume with the RGB mod) reveals a checkerboard pattern of missing pixels.

It makes sense that game developers target the most likely video configuration of the consumer. In the case of the genesis (wherein the composite is especially bad and affects all games), I'd expect an RGB mod to expose cases in which the developer could get away with blocky edges and/or tasteless color combinations because the composite would just smooth it for them. Such things would look worse in RGB. Most things would look better (if it makes things brighter and gets rid of the vertical bars, the RGB mod would be worth it, drawbacks be damned).

Edit: Joe Redifer, while searching around for solutions I found your sega 16 article on video output. It's really informative. Sounds like s-video might be the best bet for my situation.

[Joe Redifer]

I noticed this (the act of the genesis developer relying on the bad composite output to achieve effects) just the other day. Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion (?) has nice looking translucent jello pools on the toy soldier level. The same scene on an emulator (and I assume with the RGB mod) reveals a checkerboard pattern of missing pixels.

I actually notice this effect very well even in composite and RF.  If the screen is perfectly still then it can look like transparency.  But the second the screen scrolls or something moves behind the dithered mesh the "effect" is revealed.

[Black Tiger]

I remeber noticing back in the day that the Genesis II and CDX had a net/mesh pattern across the screen with composite(and maybe RF), but the original Genesis didn't.

I also remember the original Genesis being blurrier than the model II's in both RF and composite and that it blended the graphics of a lot of games better.

Back then, all the kids I knew thought that blurry pictures were good and any noticible sharp edges/images was "bad graffics!" and the Genesis guy bragged about how his games were the blurriest.

The SNES guy bragged about how SFII SNES wasn't as clear as the colorful Turbo version(as a put down), so I turned down the sharpness on my TV a few notches and he shut up.

It's ironic that most retro gamers now want to see their games as clear as possible. But we still get so many classic ports with blurry filters and no video options.

[Joe Redifer]

You sure lived in a strange, strange world!  

[Black Tiger]

You sure lived in a strange, strange world!  

The same guys liked to go on and on about how all Turbo games were crappy, but were hooked on Bomberman, Bomberman'93, Moto Roder, Final Lap Twin & Street Fighter II CE matches.

I remember in the early Genesis/Turbo days, the original Genesis lover guy used to brag about how the Genesis had the few extra khz of cpu speed and how it alone meant that the Genesis was so much more powerful than the TG... but then he later became the SNES-crazy guy. After which, there were no more cpu speed specs thrown around for some reason.

[Tatsujin]

hilarious stories but had the very same experience back then!

[Keranu]

Man I must have a very peaceful life or something because growing up, we never debated video game consoles. We had a Genesis, our friend had a SNES, we loved them both.   We'd still play the classic systems before 16-bit and enjoyed them equally as much.