SCART TO COMPONENT CONVERTER

[Darrin]

Several weeks back there was a thread discussing how to get the standard Amiga video port to connect to a modern LCD display with component input (as most TVs sold in the USA do not have a SCART input).  One suggestion was to use a SCART to component converter box.

I ordered a box off eBay for $40 and finally had a chance to try it out on my Panasonic 42" plasma TV using teh old lead from my A1081.

Here's the box:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1262s.jpg

and here it is connected to the TV on a PAL A1200:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1253s.jpg

The Panasonic allows the 3 inputs on the back to be set as "component" or "RGB".  Set on "component" the colours were all wrong:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1257s.jpg

When switched to "RGB" then things got better:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1258s.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1256s.jpg

I tried out a couple of games and the display looked excellent:

Trodlers:
http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/?action=view¤t=100_1254s.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1255s.jpg

Rodland:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1259s.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1260s.jpg

I then dragged out my NTSC A1200 Tower which does have an internal flicker fixer, but I just used the standard video output:

Rodland again (note the clipped screen due to NTSC):
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1268s.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1269s.jpg

Then I tried Workbench:

High Res Interlaced:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1264s.jpg
No flicker!  Woot!   :-)

OK, let's test a Super High Res Interlaced:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1265s.jpg

OK, that worked, so let's see the Workbench:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1266s.jpg

So, if your monitor can do RGB then the box will work extremely well, but if it is component only then it is useless.  For some reason the grey colour of Workbench is tinted pink, but this might be the colour settings on the TV as the more vibrant colours of Rodland look perfect.

I didn't imbed the images directly into this post as they're quite big.  Better to just click on a few that you're interested in.   ;-)

[Darrin]

mongo wrote:

Darrin wrote:

So, if your monitor can do RGB then the box will work extremely well

If your monitor can do RGB, then you don't need the box.

The Amiga outputs RGB quite nicely all by itself.

Yep, but I wanted this box to output to a LCD TV that only does composite.  I tested it on the plasma just to see if the composite would work and luckily I could switch it to RGB to show that it wouldn't.  

I still want a good Amiga video out to Component solution (and this isn't it).  :-)

[Darrin]

Crom00 wrote:
Does that box do NTSC or is it your TV that can't scan to NTSC...

My TV does PAL, NTSC and SECAM and auto-detects.  The cropped display on Rodland is because the NTSC Amiga (even when flipped to PAL in the early startup, defaults back to an NTSC screenmode on this particular game this causing missing lines at teh bottom of the screen.

Other NTSC games work fine, or running a PAL workbench on an NTSC machine is fine.

Would this box work?
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-SCART-RGB-to-YUV-Component-Video-Converter-Adapter_W0QQitemZ320240085991QQihZ011QQcategoryZ14965QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Looks like the same one I have.

The PSU that came with the box was 240v only though and I had to use a different one.

[Darrin]

Crom00 wrote:
Wondering if it makes sense to use the following:

Amiga rgbto scart...

Connected to: a DVD recoder with a scart input and component output.

I remember trying something like that before with my A1081 RGB to Scart cable by plugging it into a multsystem VCR and then trying to get a picture on the TV - it didn't work.  I figued it was either a problem with the VCR or there was something about the Amiga cable that wasn't supplying the correct signal needed.

[Darrin]

@ Zac67

Cheers for that explaination.

[Darrin]

mongo wrote:

I'm working on one.

Excellent.  Please keep us all posted.  Good luck.