News:

Forum Updated! 

Main Menu

N64 s-video?

Started by albino_vulpix, December 03, 2007, 04:56:30 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

albino_vulpix

I've heard that the s-video in some 64s isn't the best (terms such as "masking" or "netting" come to mind.) I have a black PAL 64. Should I expect any problems if I buy an s-video cable for it?

NFG

Does the PAL N64 even offer Svideo?  Nintendo tends to remove Svideo in favour of RGB...

albino_vulpix

The earlier models do, but was phased out by the time the clear blue and red ones came out.
http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=av:nintendomultiav

radorn

My PAL n64 has S-video, but like with composite video, it needs a resistor (75ohm, I believe) between luma and ground to give a good picture.
The only S-video cables I have found so far don't have it, even when I bought them on local retail, some were even marketed for gamecube, when PAL cube doesn't have s-video...

Well, what I did, as a cheap kludge, was grabbing an RCA male connector, and a resistor and bridge the pins with it. Whenever I need to use S-video with my pal n64 (or my snes), I plug the S-video connector AND the resistor plug in the same RCA-to-SCART(euro) adapter. Since euro-scart uses the same pin for luma and composite (and requires manual selection between video and s-video if the TV-set doesn't have the capability to autodetect what's on the wire), it makes the same effect as if the resistor was on the luma line

Someday I'll get arsed and put the resistors inside the consoles and out of any "PAL-style" cables I have and  gain some simplicity

albino_vulpix

Would I need to do anything to the chroma signal or is that usable as-is?

radorn

Well, I'm not very knowledgeable about electronics, but I'd say you can leave the chroma line as is.
When I use my ghetto method, wich involves only luma, other than the overall quality improvement, the picture looks the same. I mean, it's not brighter or darker, or paler nor I need to tweak the color control in my tv to correct for an overloaded color signal. It looks the same, only better.
Yeah, its a crappy explanation, but you get the idea... ;)

Cyber Axe

My Black PAL N64 doenst support S-Video

i had gotten a US N64 to RGB mod but i burned off the green pin meaning only purple picture :-\ though managed to get a cheap replacment NTSC one and so just use s-video on it i did think the s-video was a little bright and now i know why and how to hopefully fix!

i have some resisters laying around i removed from an RGB scart cable for my SNES so hopefully those will do to fix it however the s-video cable i have is not SCART but S-Video with RCA for audio so might be a bit of an annoyance figuring out the wire for the luma

Cyber Axe

just wondering if i were to solder a resister between the 2 points directly onto the video port within the n64 if that would work isntead of having to open up my cable