23rd August 2020, 7:20 PM
(20th August 2020, 8:05 PM)A Black Falcon Wrote: I'm sure you are right; I am not knowledgeable about video technology and such like I am about videogames. I probably should change that to say "RGB (240p)" instead of just RGB, since that is what I meant that category for. I have not heard of any console using a VGA cable for that type of output, though I guess it is possible with conversion. The difference would be that a 9-pin RGB cable, SCART cable, or such isn't capable of resolutions as high as 15-pin VGA, yes? They are different, even if VGA can also do 240p RGB, sort of like how component cables are very much like HDMI cables at the resolutions they support, but HDMI now supports resolutions higher than component can.I have no clue how to "break out" of a quote box to split it into multiple quotes like you did, so I just ended up bolding my responses.
Yeah, my (19") Philips CRT is very much like that, it's a SD, not progressive scan, CRT with a component input on the back. I had never used that component input before very recently, but it's cool that it is there because the picture looks amazing.
RGB is exactly the signal sent over VGA. RGB just means "red green blue" (with additional considerations for the sync signal), and that's exactly what VGA is. It's MOSTLY compatible except for the interlace issue. There are some differences like PAL or NTSC which really are pretty distinct signals, but the separation of RGB and sync is built into both. Oh, and there's actually nothing keeping high def signals from working over SCART except that the receiver at the end won't know what to do with it in most cases because it's not part of the spec. They kind of ditched SCART right around the time HD signals became commonplace.
For now though that is as much as I want; I am not tempted by PVMs and BVMs, their screens are miniscule and the absolute perfection of their pixels is DEFINITELY not what those games were intended to look like. Component on a SDTV like mine is sharp, but it's not BVM sharp and from what I've seen of comparisons online I'd lean towards saying that that is a good thing; the PVM/BVM look is pretty cool, but no way would it be worth the expense, given their tiny size, lack of internal speakers, and that that extreme sharpness sometimes actually makes things look worse, I think. The pixels are SUPPOSED to blend together somewhat on older systems!
This is a bit of a misunderstanding of those high quality displays. They aren't fixed pixel, which is what I think you're thinking of. The pixels still "blend" right at the edges because of the unavoidable nature of phosphors and how the electron beam activates them. Here's the issue with perfect pixel displays vs a CRT of any kind including the super sharp PVMs. A CRT doesn't actually have a built in resolution of any kind. What you're seeing isn't actually pixels at all. There is a line count, which amounts to a vertical resolution, but there is NO horizontal resolution at all on a CRT. It's analog and originally it received an analog signal. There is fidelity, which is how accurately it scales down to small details, but not pixels. What this means is that a CRT can display any horizontal resolution you want without issue. It just need to activate the right color beam at just the right time.
Why does this matter? Well, consoles DO have internal resolutions which are then converted to a signal sent to the TV. What it receives is just a modulating wave of intensities in three colors, but the console doesn't send any concept of pixels or resolution to the TV and the TV has no clue where one "pixel" ends and another begins. It simply obeys the insruction to shift colors here or there and the end result is that we- if we look close- can see those pixels. However, they are an artifact of the console not of the video signal or the display. Vertical line count however IS fixed and unchangeable. The result is that while a retro console can't change the vertical height of a pixel, locked at that faked 240p with gaps that it uses by simply never flipping the display to "field 2" for the interlacing effect, it CAN change the horizontal length of a pixel. So, you end up with things like the Genesis and the SNES having different horizontal resolutions. Again, this is all internal on the console hardware and not something the TV can detect or cares about. It isn't "real" in that sense.
Now we can get right to it. Modern fixed pixel displays DO care about horizontal resolution. It's "real", the screen really is cut up into individual pixels and it has to fit the detail of old analog signals into those shapes. In modern displays it's been agreed on that all pixels should be perfect squares. I agree, that makes the most sense for a number of reasons. However, it is inherently incompatible with countless internal display modes used across numerous retro consoles. A CRT including PVMs can perfectly display the pixel "width" of any of these consoles without any ugly artifacts simply because it doesn't care or even "see" in pixels. A modern display has to take an average of that analog signal and decide which color each square should be, and that results in ugly misfits of rectangular pixels sliced and diced with bits "left over" to shove into square spots. Worse, again the LCD screen doesn't actually "see" the intended pixel shape of those retro consoles, it's just interpreting a constant analog signal and doing it's best with it's post processing to figure out how to cut it up into fixed pixels. Other than that, it also "expects" a 480i signal, period. It assumes that and goes ahead and "fills in" the gaps in lines each frame rather than leave them blank. Empty scanlines are after all far more noticable on fixed pixel displays because there's no "bloom" to color in neighboring dark space. Even PVMs have this bloom, so the blank scanlines don't look all that blank due to naerby ambient light from the filled scanlines above and below it. In other words, there really is no issue with PVMs, they are simply superior displays that show the signal in the best possible conditions exactly as intended. That is in fact exactly what they are designed to do. They are reference sets built for TV studios so they can properly calibrate their signals and know with certainty that regardless of the quality or settings on home sets, the signal itself is perfectly calibrated. They were also used during game development but this was usually limited to the richest game studios that could afford it like Nintendo and Sega. Poorer fly by night places likely just used whatever common sets they could afford.
There is one other issue that has nothing to do with the sets themselves. Composite blurs pixels which on certain consoles was manipulated using dithering patterns to add the illusion of more color detail or transparencies. These effects still show up on not just PVMs but even modern LCD screens. These instantly vanish using higher quality signals such as S-Video and higher. Well, transparencies vanish for sure. Dithering just becomes more noticable, but the effect still "works" more or less (which is why many old PC games used dithering even though all PCs used RGB and not composite).
That said, you're right. PVMs and BVMs, as reference sets, weren't designed for a living room. They're small and you have to buy your own external speaker solution (I'd recommend purchasing an older sound system as those have no signal delay for post processing).
At that point why not just get an AV Famicom? I know they are expensive, but modding the original one sounds like a lot of work...
I've stuck with my US NES because really the only reason to want a Famicom are for the Famicom Disk System, the couple of games with expansion audio chips, and games which need the FC's fronnt accessory port. Those are very real issues which make some kind of FC system slightly interesting to be sure, but for a vast majority of titles a US NES is equal or better. And plus, I love the look of it... I did get a cart port replacement a few years ago, though, since the original "ZIF" connectors are of course horrible. The replacement works great but holds carts very tightly. I got this: https://www.arcadeworks.net/blw (I got the first run of these. I hear later ones improve on its overdone death-grip, which would be nice.)
It was a fair amount of work, but frankly I wanted to do it because I'm interested in expanding my skill set. I liked doing it. However, let me tell you exactly why I did it in terms of what I get and what I lose. The A/V Famicom has no controller 2 microphone support at all. Even if you mod up one of the Famicom's controllers to plug into the slot (whch I've done), it won't work. There IS a mod that can make it work but it involves setting up basically a microcontroller inside it to handle a signal the hardware is otherwise missing, plus finding a way to route the microphone input to join the audio line in the console. That's quite a bit more work than an A/V mod of an original Famicom. There's also the fact that, well, I have a weird nostalgia for the Famicom design. I managed to find one that wasn't yellowed to bejesus and back, so mine looks very nice.
So here's what I've done to get the perfect "it does absolutely everything" Famicom console. I did the A/V mod, replacing the flawed RF output with something clearer that will actually show up on US TV sets. I researched this one for months before I even started. I basically combined info from numerous guides into the best version of the mod I could manage removing as much interference from the signal as possible. The result runs the audio through the cartridge circuit and then through a resistor out to the back along with the composite video signal. It works flawlessly and on a CRT I can't even see any jailbars. (Part of my mod involved using insulated wires and grounding the insulation along with using shielding tape and grounding that as well.) This was a later revision Famicom, which alters the ratio of sound volume between on-cartridge sound chips and the system generated sound, but swapping out a single resistor restored the original audio balance. I also modded the controller wires. First I added in 7-wire NES style connectors from an old shredded powerpad on both sides. The connectors came from an old NES missing half it's components anyway. No, doing this my way isn't cheap so I don't recommend it unless you're doing it for your own entertainment besides. I then swapped the Famicom's power cords with two from some busted NES controllers. (EBay searches for "parts only" hardware are a godsend for stuff like this by the way.) I made things like Zapper accessories work easily enough by wiring a few connectors internally between the controller port and the expansion port. Both Japanese and US accessories work flawlessly this way, unless you plug in both at the same time. Then they'll fight with each other. So- don't do that I guess? It won't hurt the console anyway. The big trick was getting the microphone signal working. I had to run an 8th wire outside the cable running to controller two, and that was basically just an audio jack. On the controller side, I added an additional audio plug coming out of a dongle from the controller plug which was wired directly to the cable handling the microphone. I had to do it this way to prevent the audio for the mic from taking up a wire needed for NES accessories (the controllers themselves only use 5 of the 7 total pins). It actually ended up looking very nice and professional with the added bonus that I can now use any microphone I want with the Famicom and am not limited to the controller, if I should so choose. Just so you know, the microphone audio on controller 2 also goes directly to speaker output on the system. Oh, and the Famicom Disk System has additional sound capabilities built into the adapter component, so using FDS games requires that additional sound output. I also modded my FDS to defeat it's copyright protection. That one was very simple as it turned out. No chips or anything, I had an older revision that just needed a few traces cut. Now I can safely rip all my FDS games to my PC and then stick them on an FDStick to skip using the disks entirely (the device plugs directly into the cartridge adapter and lets me load all my FDS games through it). I also got a Famicom style Everdrive and a Retrofreak cartridge converted which adapts all NES games so their pins connect to the right pins in the Famicom to make them run just perfectly. There's one thing I'm missing though. I need to get a 3D printer and print a plastic sleeve for the "NES ports" I have running on cables just outside my Famicom. They work fine, but they're very fragile just hanging outside by thin soldered wires. I need a plastic housing to shield both sides in to finish the job so to speak.
I have a blinking light win too, and yes the angle on those things makes it very hard to grip the cartridges. That hurts, especially with longer nails and odd unlicensed carts. If they changed the angle of attack to match the original design, it'd work a lot better I think.
The size restrictions on the X360 are kind of annoying, but its support for two 2TB external drives very much more than makes up for that its internal is limited to only 500GB. The PS3 doesn't support external drives AT ALL, after all! And internals are limited to 1TB, if I recall. The 360 wins storage in a landslide! Yeah, the speed limitations on both systems are unfortunate, keeping them from being able ot easily upgrade to faster drive alternatives, but it makes sense; as you say, consoles are designed with a specific environment in mind, so I would think that things might mess up in games if suddenly the game was accessing data twice as fast...
I prefer SATA to USB 2.0 because there's that inherent delay in a USB connection. I can get around that on the PS3, and that's why I much prefer their solution. It doesn't even require a mod to do it. I can use the USB workaround- but ultimately my internal drive is going to die and there's certain data that you can't store on devices plugged into other slots, such as the Original Xbox BC emulator data.
I have not yet had to worry about an HDMI cable seeming to be plugged in, but not working; to an HDMI cable falling out of the connector I had plugged it into, repeatedly; to having to wiggle an HDMI cable in order to try to get it to read; to wondering whether the audio portion of the cable is broken or not pluggin in right; etc, etc. These are all problems I have a lot of experience with with composite and component.
So yeah, I'm sure HDMI has some complexities and it does have revisions, but as far as I have seen it's a dramatic improvement over the mess of wires, and potential failing connections, that is component. FIVE plugs on each end is just asking for trouble!
I see we're talking about two very different aspects of "complexity". Noted.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)