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    Best way to play HDMI Or Composite?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General Discussion and Gaming
    retropiesetup
    25 Posts 16 Posters 8.7k Views
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    • EldrethorE
      Eldrethor @Capeman
      last edited by

      @capeman I second that; I bought a generic camcorder AV cable, thinking that I'd be fine with that, but the ground was positioned in the wrong place in the plug, so I got a crappy distorted images. I eventually picked up a Zune cable, and it worked flawlessly.

      CapemanC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • CapemanC
        Capeman @Eldrethor
        last edited by

        @eldrethor And not only that, the zune specific cable is dead sexy! its probably the nicest looking AV cable i've ever used and the cable is very flexible, i was very impressed.

        Vector Artist, Designer and Maker of Stuff: Laser Cut Atari / Pixel Theme Bartop

        InsecureSpikeI 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • InsecureSpikeI
          InsecureSpike @Capeman
          last edited by

          @capeman said in Best way to play HDMI Or Composite?:

          @eldrethor And not only that, the zune specific cable is dead sexy! its probably the nicest looking AV cable i've ever used and the cable is very flexible, i was very impressed.

          hey, do you have any links for the zune cable?
          thanks

          RPi 3 - RetroPie + 500gb HDD [consoles] + Razer Onza Tournament
          RPi 3 - RetroPie + 32gb USB [computers] + Keyboard
          both with AttractMode + FuzzBoxx Layout

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • CapemanC
            Capeman
            last edited by

            Everything can be had on ebay
            https://www.ebay.com/i/182653454444?chn=ps&dispItem=1

            Vector Artist, Designer and Maker of Stuff: Laser Cut Atari / Pixel Theme Bartop

            InsecureSpikeI 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • InsecureSpikeI
              InsecureSpike @Capeman
              last edited by

              @capeman said in Best way to play HDMI Or Composite?:

              Everything can be had on ebay
              https://www.ebay.com/i/182653454444?chn=ps&dispItem=1

              that's awesome, thanks lots

              RPi 3 - RetroPie + 500gb HDD [consoles] + Razer Onza Tournament
              RPi 3 - RetroPie + 32gb USB [computers] + Keyboard
              both with AttractMode + FuzzBoxx Layout

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • D
                drake999 @RetroFreak89
                last edited by

                @retrofreak89 If you want the authentic experience for console generations 2 through 5, you will want a CRT TV with composite video. This will reproduce the look and feel of the games pretty much as they were back in the 80's and 90's. If you favor a crisp picture over nostalgia, then HDMI is the best way to go. It really comes down to preference. I've always used HDMI, but I'm starting to see the appeal of the authentic experience.

                RionR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • RionR
                  Rion @drake999
                  last edited by

                  @drake999 I would recommend

                  RetroTINK-S, RetroTINK-C and RetroTINK-RGB

                  Or

                  Pi2Scart

                  over composite any day.

                  FBNeo rom filtering
                  Mame2003 Arcade Bezels
                  Fba Arcade Bezels
                  Fba NeoGeo Bezels

                  D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • D
                    drake999 @Rion
                    last edited by

                    @rion I wasn't aware of that things existence but yes the S-Video option would be a better choice than composite for sure. Probably a good choice to use this board if you are building an arcade cabinet to.

                    sirhenrythe5thS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • sirhenrythe5thS
                      sirhenrythe5th @drake999
                      last edited by

                      Just for interest as far as original Arcade cabinets are concerned:
                      Were those Crts in the cabinets also connected to the pcbs/system boards with RGB or S-Video?

                      Its a long time ago that i saw the original cabinets as a kid, but i have got the Impression that this picture, that i have with my Pi simply connected to the CRT with composite, seems to be close to the original.
                      I remember that the shadows of sprites were flickering and the picture was kind of blurry.
                      I liked it! 😊

                      So has there been a high-quality-technoligy in the cabinets, or are we going further away from the genuine experience by boosting up the picture with S- Video or RGB?

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                      DorkVonWaterfallD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • DorkVonWaterfallD
                        DorkVonWaterfall @sirhenrythe5th
                        last edited by

                        @sirhenrythe5th

                        RGB, 15 kHz, 320x240

                        01001110 01101111 01100010 01101111 01100100 01111001 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01110011 00100000 01101001 01100000 01101101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101100 01100101 01110011 01100010 01101001 01100001 01101110 00100001

                        sirhenrythe5thS ohmycommodoreO 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • sirhenrythe5thS
                          sirhenrythe5th @DorkVonWaterfall
                          last edited by

                          @dorkvonwaterfall thx for Info!

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                          • R
                            RetroRay
                            last edited by RetroRay

                            I use my retropie build on my sony BVM CRT with a vga hat connected with a vga to bnc cable. You could also use an old VGA CRT PC monitor (you could find one pretty cheap on ebay). it looks awesome! scanlines an all. I don't think I could ever play 16 bit or 8 bit emulated games on an HD tv. It just looks gross in comparison i think. I was thinking about picking one of these up. although alittle pricey it would make it super easy to get the best picture quality on any U.S. manufactured CRT TV, Since most consumer grade CRT's in the U.S. never adopted SCART. Although I haven't tested myself the pi2scart or RGB-Pi seem like nice solutions if you have a scart connection on your crt.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • ohmycommodoreO
                              ohmycommodore @DorkVonWaterfall
                              last edited by

                              @dorkvonwaterfall I assume by RGB you mean what we used to call in the TV biz "component"? The three separate cables for R and B and G? If the original cabinets were indeed hooked up that way, then additional hardware that enables RGB certainly becomes more interesting.

                              sirhenrythe5thS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • sirhenrythe5thS
                                sirhenrythe5th @ohmycommodore
                                last edited by

                                And furthermore: did really ALL cabinets use RGB?
                                I read a documentary about Atari recently and they wrote that Nolan Bushnell hired Marihuana smoking Hippies at the start to dissamble cheap Radio-Shack Televisions which were used for their Arcade games.
                                Also RGB? 🤔

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                                davejD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • davejD
                                  davej @sirhenrythe5th
                                  last edited by

                                  @sirhenrythe5th Keep in mind that all colour CRT picture tubes are driven by separate RGB signals going to the electron guns. TVs decode a composite signal into separate RGB signals before amplifying them and passing them onto the electron guns. Given the technology of 1970's TVs, it would be relatively easy to modify a TV to accept your own RGB signal rather than use the one it generates from a composite one.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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