Saturn RGB Scart cable

[Spordan]

A while ago (before I realised you could buy saturn scart cables off ebay cheaply), I tried to make my own RGB/Scart cable for my PAL model 2 Saturn.
I followed the pinouts on gameSX and wired up a cable, which worked fine (and gave a MUCH better image than RF) EXCEPT it had a black border at the top and bottom, and a smaller one at the right hand side.

Now, my question is this:
Did I wire the cable up incorrectly, or is it a problem with my (slightly old) TV?

I need to know as I want to buy one of the aforementioned cheap saturn scart cables from ebay  

Any help much appreciated!

   -Spordan

[NFG]

Most TVs have factory settings for different TV modes.  It's likely that your TV has launched into "RGB mode" which has the settings either wrong or simply undesirable from your point of view.  If it's so old you can't adjust it there's likely nothing you can do.

[viletim!]

Spordan,
Dunno about the top and bottom borders (are you sure it's not the game?) but the border to the right is to be expected on cheaper TVs. The reason is that the TV is set up to display a picture coming from the antenna or composite inputs. Anything fed to either of these inputs has to be processed before it's turned into RGB (or R-Y/G-Y/B-Y/Y) and fed to the picture tube drivers. This processing takes time, a few microseconds, and if the RGB input isn't compinsated for each video line will be drawn onto the screen a few microseconds ahead of the same composite video signal. The only fix is to play with the horiz sync - delay it by 1 line minus a few �S. That, or buy a better TV.

Somehow I think that the TV mfgs. (esp. at the low end) don't put much effort into their RGB inputs. I've got a Teac TV that has a brightness level in RGB mode that's twice as high as in any other. So in order to use the RGB input you need to go through a series of dodgy osd menus and turn the brightness down and back up when finished. Really convenient.

[Guest]

just my 2p worth.

All consoles displayed on a PAL tv have borders on top and bottom, certainly from nes upto n64, last pal picture I saw. These were made to play on a NTSC (525 line/60hz) display not PAL (625 lines/50hz) display (you lose 50 at top and 50 at bottom) and basically the manufacturers saw no reason to implement (costly?) full screen PAL for european/uk gamers who were mostly ignored by them and as a consequence the games also played sloooowwerrrrr. We are on the lowest rung of the ladder when it comes to hardware/software releases.
Some PAL software was optimised for full screen display on saturn and dreamcast had 60hz selectable mode on most titles, at least sega made the effort.
Similarly the right-hand border exists on my PAL/NTSC compatable SONY WEGA using the RGB/scart in (except for xbox and iirc the gamecube picture can be repositioned as an option on boot up ?), so I don't think splashing out on another scart lead for your saturn will make any difference.
Save your money and do the 50/60 hz & jap/eng text conversion 1st if possible, 99% of uk tvs will display 60hz through scart. You will lose the t/b borders.    

 

[Spordan]

Thanks for the advice guys, I fished out the homemade cable and tried it on the new TV downstairs and it worked fine, so it looks like i'll just have to get a new TV and maybe mod the region of the saturn to NTSC, cheers!
   -Spordan

[Guest_Midori]

You know I suffer from this problem with all of my consoles, BUT my DVD player displays a correct picture without the border to the right, can anyone explain why? I use RGB on all consoles and the DVD player if that matters.

[Hojo_Norem]

The reason your DVD player seems ok could be because DVD usually employ some amount of overscan, in otherwords theres more picture than what your are actually seeing.  Try watching a DVD and see if you can tell if something that is suppost to be dead centre of the screen is just a little off to the left.  Also your DVD player could be compensating for the shift left.

Secondly some TVs exhibit this shift more than others.  In my job at a TV shop goings around to customers homes we have had to on occasion leave their SkyBoxes in composite because the shift left was so bad (I think the set might have been a old JVC of a Ferguson)

Thirdly not all consoles and/or games employ overscan in the picture, so you would notice the shift left on a RGB picture.

[Batunas]

Hello, i just recently joined but i have a problem with the scart cable of my segas saturn, so i decided to make a knew one, i�ve tried searching but didn�t managed to find any specs of the correct conections at the scart plug.

where can i find them?


Thanks.

[viletim!]

Batunas,
Here's what you're after

[Batunas]

Thank you very much!!