• he/him-ish

Stupid thoughts and hopefully less stupid articles occasionally. Gaming and tech thoughts mostly, but I have a smattering of completely off-the-wall interests as well.

~~

hey! future me! I'm looking at you. You're gonna find some way to be nostalgic about literally anything I write here, aren't you? Knock it off and do something useful. thx bb

~~

enelphant here


website under construction
modulusshift.com/

So I've got a Trinitron TV, and I want to play older consoles like Famicom, Super Famicom, PS1 and PS2 on it. I've gotten a solution for all of those, the Famicoms work over coax using their built in RF modulators (it's a little funny that they work on channel 95 or so due to the different frequencies between JP and US, has been working fine though), PS1 my best solution so far is S-Video, and PS2 I've got a component cable.

Problem is: the TV circuitry seems messed up. Everything but component input looks like shit in the blue channel specifically, there's ghosting like a quarter screen to the left, there's a ton of blue noise all over the image. To be fair, it's playable, but distracting, I'd rather be playing on an LCD if I have to deal with that. I could open up the TV and recap and check for damage and maybe even stick an RGB input on the OSD circuit, and maybe I eventually will, but that's terrifying and also a huge project just due to the mass of this freaking 37" CRT.

Short term, I kinda just want to figure out ways to feed everything in the component input. Considering an RGB2COMP from RetroTink for the PS1, at least. (should also work for Super Famicom, IIRC.) Kinda at a loss for what to do for the Famicom, maybe I can do something to at least get the composite signal from the PPU and immediately decompose it into component? is there a well regarded device to do so?

note: I have a GBS-Control and have had zero luck getting that thing to display on the TV over component, or else that would have been really nice, I already have a DB-15 RGB cable for my PS1. I was using it to display on a CRT computer monitor before but prefer the look and size of a TV.


You must log in to comment.

in reply to @modulusshift's post:

RGB Blaster is a just-released product from Krikzz that may be of interest. This + RGB2COMP would be a pretty expensive solution for a "TV is busted" issue.

But I do agree with Zesty Time there that repair or replacement would be ideal if it were possible. (In the small chance that the SF Bay Area is not far afield for you, I know an expert here who could assess and repair.)

Regarding composite, each console (and console revision, often) puts out a different quality signal. Original NES/Famicom has rather poor/ugly composite, Neo Geo AES consoles vary by serial number, N64 / Saturn / DC surprisingly good, etc. I have never known distance to be a factor but I am not an expert on that.

Anyway, I hope you find a good solution to get back to happily retrogaming. :)

haha this would be a lot easier in general near SF, but unfortunately I'm not.

I do like the look of that, though considering right now I'm already using a NES to Famicom adapter it'd be making a Nintendo tower of power lol, I'm gonna end up 3D printing supports at this rate. I should clearly just get an N8 Pro while I'm at it :eggbug:

Though really the RGB Blaster seems to pair well with the HD Retrovision Genesis 2 cable, which they also sell a PS1 adapter for. I could just get cables with that connector farther down the line if I want to go back to RGB in the future...