I have an older SNES with the S-ENC video chip (board says 1990 on it). It looks easy enough, so I'm going to do a component video mod to it. I've ordered the parts from console5.com. I'm going to go ahead and do the L/R audio as well so I won't have to use the original cable at all.

From what I've seen, using a SCART cable with an XRGB3 might be better than component, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice since this is costing significantly less ($350+ less).

http://www.hdretrovision.com/

This is for us in the US that don't have SCART. Looks like these cables are designed with an RGB converter in them.

you might be able to get a SCART to component adapter,
or you could wire scart pins to one of the Gonbes 8202 upscalers (chinese one easily found on ebay) to upscale at a cheaper price than the XRGB-Mini.

Alternatively, you could try an S-Video cable, might be good enough if you output to CRT.

Edit: one thing I can tell you is that modern TVs will try to upscale an SD signal (whether composite or S-Video) internally to their native resolution, and in my experience the built-in upscaler is horrible. My XRGB-Mini gave me much better image and refresh rate just with composite!
Using component will probably not have this problem, not sure about S-Video. S-Video on the Super Famicom is pretty good with my XRGB using scanlines (my RGB SCART cable has sync issues), except for some occasional color bleeding (I need to try to reduce contrast).



[download a life]

Looks like we'll find out Saturday when their Kickstarter begins. FWIW I saw a post of theirs on Youtube that said it was going to be between 25-50 I think.

> you might be able to get a SCART to component adapter,
> or you could wire scart pins to one of the Gonbes 8202 upscalers (chinese one
> easily found on ebay) to upscale at a cheaper price than the XRGB-Mini.
>
> Alternatively, you could try an S-Video cable, might be good enough if you
> output to CRT.
>
> Edit: one thing I can tell you is that modern TVs will try to upscale an SD
> signal (whether composite or S-Video) internally to their native resolution, and
> in my experience the built-in upscaler is horrible. My XRGB-Mini gave me much
> better image and refresh rate just with composite!
> Using component will probably not have this problem, not sure about S-Video.
> S-Video on the Super Famicom is pretty good with my XRGB using scanlines (my RGB
> SCART cable has sync issues), except for some occasional color bleeding (I need
> to try to reduce contrast).
>
>
>
> [download a life]
>

I do have the SNES/N64 S-Video cable and it looked very good on my Sony Trinitron CRTs (sold long ago) but on the LCDs you can see the imperfections. I've played PS1 games on my PS2 through component on my LCD, they run at 240p and look very clean so I expect it to not be too bad with the SNES. The TV is a Sharp Aquos so maybe it has a decent ability to work with lower-resolution input since it's a higher-end model. Disabling any built-in image 'enhancement' features of flat panel TVs also seems to help keep the image clean.

I was thinking that $20 wouldn't be bad but since they likely won't be selling millions of these then they definitely have to set a realistic price point so that they can afford to manufacture them.

I wonder which ones will be more expensive. Since the SNES will only have one model, I'd expect that to be cheaper.

The quest for a good and fast picture on LCD is long and not cheap :-)
And of course a lot depends on personal taste.

To give you a comparison, a Gonbes pcb will run for 30-40 bucks without a case, and a new SNES SCART RGB cable is 16 more. Personally I'd also add a scanline generator to hide some imperfections of the cheap upscaler, but that's like 50 bucks more.

So at 20 bucks the cable is a steal, and at 50 it's still worth it if you get a clear picture (which depends on both your TV and the circuit inside the cable).
If you get some blurinness a scanline generator like the SLG HD (for component) would probably help.

The XRGB are expensive not just because of the machine but extra stuff you need, such as adapters or switches to leave multiple sources plugged. They do give an excellent picture, "emulator quality" as some reviews called it. I'd say these should be compared to AV receivers rather than cables/adapters.



[download a life]

> The quest for a good and fast picture on LCD is long and not cheap :-)
> And of course a lot depends on personal taste.
>

No doubt. I really like the look of that SNES cable and the cool thing is, it doubles for the N64 and triples for the Gamecube as well. Fuck that $100 Nintendo made video cable the predators overcharge for. If this works as advertised it would be slick to buy up a few if you have the systems. I gave in and have the Retron5 and the clarity on the stuff is crazy but to get it more or less from a stock system with a non-crappy cable is nice.


Billy Connolly - Statement of the Century
"If women are so bloody perfect at multitasking, how come they can't have a headache and sex at the same time ?"

There's no way it can work with the N64 without a hardmod. N64 does not output RGB natively.

> > The quest for a good and fast picture on LCD is long and not cheap :-)
> > And of course a lot depends on personal taste.
> >
>
> No doubt. I really like the look of that SNES cable and the cool thing is, it
> doubles for the N64 and triples for the Gamecube as well. Fuck that $100
> Nintendo made video cable the predators overcharge for. If this works as
> advertised it would be slick to buy up a few if you have the systems. I gave in
> and have the Retron5 and the clarity on the stuff is crazy but to get it more or
> less from a stock system with a non-crappy cable is nice.
>
>
> Billy Connolly - Statement of the Century
> "If women are so bloody perfect at multitasking, how come they can't have a
> headache and sex at the same time ?"
>

I've had a GameCube component video cable just sitting around in a drawer all these years. I should just dump it on eBay. That's hilarious.

I think I finished this a couple weekends ago. Finally uploading a screenshot; other pictures I took were over-exposed so I need to just take pictures with manual exposure.

I've found that my Onkyo AV receiver seems to have a much better upscaler than my TV. On my TV, the PS2 looks similar with component video (too smoothed, not sharp) but everything is much sharper when run through the receiver's component input (which is then run through HDMI to the TV).

I'll have to get some other pictures later, but so far everything looks fairly good. Some games look better than others. I have a first-run SNES model (1990) and apparently the SNES Jr. has a better picture processing unit. I also have an SNES Jr. that I put back in the box when I found it didn't support S-Video. If the HD Retro video cable makes it out, I might have to mod my SNES Jr. for RGB.

I went ahead and put L/R RCA audio output on the SNES as well, just to completely eliminate the need for the proprietary Nintendo cable.

More to come later.

> everything is much sharper when run through the receiver's component
> input (which is then run through HDMI to the TV).
>

This was my experience as well; the difference in quality for composite (!) video from a Super Famicom is huge when going from direct TV connection to
routing through an XRGB-Mini. The image is sharper and you can tell its running at a solid 60fps (really noticeable in flickering effects).

It was quite a surprise as I didn't expect much from conposite; shows TV manufacturers are being cheap in supporting legacy inputs in favor of HDMI.


[download a life]

I contributed enough (I think it was $35) to the HD Retro video cable Kickstarter to get one of the video cables so I requested the SNES cable. I don't currently have a Genesis since emulating a Genesis seems to be pretty damn simple and I don't care much for its games anyway.

I think they're projected to produce this cable in spring or early summer of 2015, but I'm sure that when it arrives I'll have forgotten about it and be surprised. Maybe by then I won't be such a lazy ass and I'll take some pictures. I'll update with the comparison when I receive the cable. I'm actually betting that the HD Retro cable will provide better output. While my mod appears to look fairly decent, I'm thinking that if I applied the appropriate 220uF capacitors, it could look even better since it still seems kinda bright without the capacitors. I think that these capacitors are part of the design of the HD Retro cable, so the image may be more subdued, leading to less bleed.

I really wanted to order one of those cables, but the timing doesn't really work out for me and I'm not sure if I'd have an address I could have them delivered at in the window that they're looking to ship (I'll be moving during that timeframe and it's entirely possible that the package would get delivered to an old address). :(

Looking forward to scoring a set at some point in the future, though I semi-agree on the Genesis. Not only is emulation good enough for me on it, I actually prefer composite and RF for some of the games since it helps the dithering fill in better and give a nicer illusion of transparency.